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“Class, please open your textbooks to page one hundred and eleven, and read the rest of the chapter,” Mr. Moss says. “Then pair up and work on the quiz questions at the end. There will be a real quiz next class.”
Amid the groans in the classroom, mechanically I do as requested, but I can’t even focus to get the right answers. Jenna glowers at me.
“What’s with you?” she whispers.
“Nothing. Just not feeling that great.”
A wicked grin. “Anything to do with loverboy? Did you make out on your tour?”
“Gross. I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m not into him, so forget whatever it is you’re plotting about in your head, okay?” I say. “I don’t want to talk about Lo.”
We both jump at Mr. Moss’s voice. “Ms. Marin and Ms. Pearce, I expect that you two are discussing the quiz and not something unrelated to history.”
“Um, yes, sir,” we both say. Jenna leans in again once Mr. Moss’s piercing stare has moved elsewhere. “So is he single?”
“For the love of...” I grumble, irritated. “I don’t know, Jenna.”
“I wonder where he is,” she stage-whispers. “Bet he’s with Cano for new-kid stuff. Look, if this guy’s our year he has to be in Bio next period. You can make your next move then!”
“Will you stop with the plotting?” I stare at the practice quiz, ignoring her attempts to get my attention and silently hoping that she’s right—that he’ll be in class next period.
But Jenna is wrong. Lo isn’t in Bio. I know I shouldn’t care but I feel responsible, as if I’m the cause of him not being there. It seems as if I have an unerring, magic ability to ruin the lives of everyone around me. Even people I don’t know.
Some queen I’d be.
Beating myself up for the rest of the day and feeling more and more guilty with each passing second, I’m literally out the door before the last bell has stopped ringing. Ignoring Jenna’s reminder that we have hockey practice, I mumble something about having an appointment and race to the south parking lot.
There’s someone leaning against my Jeep. My stomach sours.
“What do you want, Speio?”
“So who was that guy you were talking to at lunch?”
I stare at him. “A new kid. A transfer.”
“From where?”
Speio’s twenty questions undermine my rapidly failing composure. “What, are you my keeper now?” I snap, moving to unlock my door. Speio blocks my way.
“No, Nerissa, I’m your Handler, right?”
I freeze at the sarcastic accusation in his voice, recalling my command for him to speak with Echlios. “No, Speio, you’re not,” I say gently. “Your parents are. What did Echlios say?”
“That we were stuck here forever. When did you decide?”
“A year ago,” I say tiredly, not wanting to bring up my father, how everything had changed since then. “Speio, can we talk about this later? I can’t do this right now.”
“It’s never a good time, is it?” he shoots back. “No, Nerissa, let’s talk about this now. I knew something was wrong when you started devoting all your time to hockey practice. We were supposed to go back, and my father just kept telling me to be patient, that we would return in due time, when you were ready. That was all a lie, wasn’t it?”
I swallow and lean against the car door. “I’m sorry, Speio. What do you want me to say? That it’s true? That I can’t face Ehmora? I can’t be who everyone wants me to be. My father was king, not me.”
“So what?” Speio spits, eyes flashing. “You’re the heir. It’s your duty to protect your people. The whole kingdom is falling to pieces without you.”
“You don’t get it. She makes a better queen than I ever could.”
His expression at my clipped words goes from frustrated to furious. “So you give up, just like that? Let the person who killed your father take your place? What about our families, Nerissa? They’re still there.”
I think about saying that he has family there, that mine—at least my immediate family—is gone. But I can’t get the words out of my mouth.
“You know what Ehmora is capable of, and yet you turn your head the other way. She cares about power, not the people. Anyone loyal to your father has gone into hiding, hoping that you will come back to help them,” Speio seethes, digging his fingers into the metal bars of the Jeep so deeply that it buckles beneath them. “But we’ve stayed here and done nothing while so many died, and all you want to do is forget about who you are, to become like these insipid humans. You’re stupid and blind. And selfish.”
“Don’t you speak to me like that!” I hiss. “I am your—”
“My nothing,” Speio says dully, his eyes wet with tears, gesturing to the landscape around us. “You are a princess of nothing. A princess of rocks and mud and death.”
My hand cracks across his face, and not even the angry red mark tempers my rage. I shove at his chest, my speech becoming more formal and clipped in my native language. “Shut up! You don’t know anything, you stupid boy.”
Speio’s fingers slide along the imprint of my fingers on his face. “Better a stupid boy than a coward.”
“You are out of line,” I whisper, sliding down against the side of my car. But Speio’s right. I can hear my own voice breaking, as his words strike more deeply than my hand did against his face. I am a coward, because I’ve done nothing to avenge my father, to protect my people or, for that matter, the ocean I love. I’ve hidden here with my head stuck in the ground like one of those ridiculous giant birds, refusing to accept the legacy I was born into. “You don’t know anything!”
He stares at me. “You’re right, I don’t. I’m bound to you here on land by your command and your cowardice. No one bothered to tell me that we would never be going home. Or that we didn’t have a home. I can’t do this anymore.” Speio turns and walks away. He stops at his car at the edge of the parking lot, his fists clenched, before turning around. “You think you’re safe here? That she isn’t coming after you? She will. She wants you dead, just like she wanted your father dead. And she’ll kill us all when she’s done with you. I’m not sticking around here for that.”
“Who told you that? Your parents—”
“—are trusting fools,” Speio finishes. “Isn’t that why you didn’t tell me in the first place? Because you knew I’d call you out on it?”
“No. I did it to protect you.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Speio seethes. “You and I both know why you wanted to keep this from me, because you knew I’d never let you. You’re a coward, plain and simple, and that’s the truth. Well, I’m not going to die here. Unlike you, I’d rather take my chances where I belong. Down there. And if I get that chance, I’m taking it. With or without you.”
I don’t even notice when it starts raining or how long I’ve sat against the side of my car. But when I open my eyes, mine is the only car in the lot. I can feel pain tearing its way through me like lightning bolts. I’ve known Speio pretty much my whole life. He’s been my confidant, my best friend, the one who’d never desert me in a million years, and now he’s going to do exactly that.
The rain mixes in with the salt of my tears, running like a salve on my molten emotions. The cool water soaks into my skin and I turn my face upward, watching the darkened clouds move across the sky, fading in and out and being ripped into jagged edges by streaks of lightning. The storm is an echo of the one inside of me...because of what I am.
A monster.
I glance upward as a jagged streak of lightning rips the sky to pieces. The storm will only get worse if I don’t do something to banish the tornado brewing inside of me. Brushing my wet hair from my face, I stand. My mind races from the keys in my hand to the thick brush of woods beyond. I need to move, to run, to scream. It’s the only way the storm will subside.
Without a second thought, I throw my bag into the car and race into a nearby thicket, following a running path strewn with leaves. I don’t stop until I come to an open spot, my chest pounding and my breath catching in my throat. The storm is still raging above, but I stand in the middle of the glade with my arms lifted toward it, embracing the bulletlike drops of rain pelting down on me. I spin, my arms out wide, sending the rain in the reverse direction back up toward the skies until the air around me shimmers with suspended droplets. Slowly, I pull the drops into me, like the arc of a fountain, feeling them pass over and inside my flesh, and out to the ground below.
Water is cleansing.
But not as forgiving or forgetful.
The storm inside of me spills over, black thunderclouds forming almost instantly in the sky. I’ve betrayed them all—and everything that I am, I have betrayed by pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not human.
I’m Aquarathi...even if I don’t want to be.
I shove my arms upward, the strength of my will creating an invisible ceiling until all the water pools on top of it in midair, and then I release it. The force of it knocks me to my knees but it’s still not enough. Speio is right. I am a coward who does nothing but care about herself.
I must be punished. Harder.
Lightning staggers down around me through the rain into the ground beside me, blistering the skin of my body through the earth. Speio once called electricity our Kryptonite—the one substance that can stop us in our tracks. Even though the bolts are barely touching me, they are near enough that my human skin is scorched, and I’m almost senseless from the pain of it dispersing into my cells.
I barely feel the body crashing into me, slamming us both to the ground and breaking my terrible connection with the sky and the earth.
“What are you doing, my lady?” Echlios’s face is horrified. But I can’t even speak. All I can do is cry against his chest and choke on the bitterness that’s killing me. Echlios embraces me tightly, funneling the water that’s around us through his body and into mine and healing the singed areas. After a while, when everything inside of me calms, the storm ebbs until the rain is but a light shower. “What were you thinking?” he says, rocking me back and forth.
“I’m a fake—” I begin.
“No, you are not. Come, let’s get you home.”
I let Echlios take me back to my Jeep and he drives us home, leaving his own car in the parking lot. On the way, I stare out the window, watching the ocean glint in the distance as if it, too, is reproaching me. A critical part of our human acclimatization means taking steps to ensure that the humans are focused on taking care of the oceans and marine life. I have done none of that. I’d turned my back on it—all of it, not just my family and my people, but my home. I’d pretended to be human because it’d been so much simpler to be nobody than to fight to be somebody. I’d even refused to continue my combat training with Echlios and Speio, to do anything Aquarathi-related. Instead, all I’d done was run away from who I was. And my people had paid the price—Speio, Echlios and Soren most of all—when Ehmora had stolen the throne. Because the worst possible thing that could happen had happened, and I’d chosen to let it.
“There has always been dissent between the courts,” Echlios had told me. “Your father said it wasn’t our place to interfere in the affairs of humans. But Ehmora had other ideas, and she has the support of the Emerald and Sapphire courts. She believes that Earth is our shared home and we must step in to prevent the death of the oceans. That as a species, it is our duty to alter the course of the future if necessary.”
“You mean, reveal ourselves to the humans?” I said, shocked. For millennia, we’ve lived in secret and in symbiotic harmony with the human race, either blending into human life like Echlios, Soren, Speio and I have during a human initiation cycle, or lying hidden in the depths of the oceans.
“No, but nudge where needed to prevent future disaster,” Echlios said. “It is the reason the alliance between all the courts was formed. We intervene where we have to in order to preserve our own future. Ehmora believes this is our world, too, regardless of what the humans do. So the royal heirs are sent here for the human cycle to learn...and to act in our interests.”
“But Father always said that Ehmora wanted to control the humans.”
A sad smile. “She does. Your father knew that Ehmora wouldn’t stop at a nudge or two. She wants more. She wants all of it. Your father only sought to protect us, to avoid war with the humans. Don’t you think if they knew about us, they would hunt us down? We’re so few compared to them.”
My father was right. Everything we knew about humans suggested they would stop at nothing to analyze, conquer or kill us. It’s in their nature. But a part of me also agreed with Ehmora. After all, I’d known no home other than Earth. It stands to reason that we should protect our planet, even if the humans don’t know about our existence. But my father’s belief that Aquarathi should remain in the shadows was rooted in the cautious thinking of our ancestors, as they had done for centuries. He wanted to keep us unidentified and alive, and as king of the High Court, his word was law. He’d gone against Ehmora.
And he had been murdered for it.
Echlios carries me up to the house from the car, bringing me back to the present. One of our neighbors waves with a concerned look, and Echlios explains that I took a tumble during a run. Technically he is my Handler, but he is also my legal guardian, the closest person I have to a parent in the human world. Although the house is mine, we have to keep up the appropriate human pretenses. I manage a feeble wave on the way inside.
“My lady,” Speio’s mother and my guardian “mom” says, her voice full of concern as Echlios helps me hobble through the door.
“It’s okay, Soren, I’m fine, just a minor disagreement with a thunderstorm. I need to be alone right now. Please?” I ask weakly. She exchanges a worried look with her husband, but steps back to let me pass.
My room is as I left it—untidy, vibrant and colorful. Unlike the somber hues of the rest of the house, mine is more like my true home. The one I’d sworn never to return to. I stare at the brilliant pieces of sea glass coating the shimmery indigo ceiling, all the bits that I’d found on the beach over the years, and the stained-glass windows I’d made Echlios install above the French doors. I’d painted the walls myself in all the shifting blue hues of the ocean—cerulean, azure, cobalt, navy, sapphire and aqua. When the sun hits the stained glass just right, it’s an explosion of magical color that can only be rivaled in one other secret place, a place I haven’t seen in nearly three years.
Waterfell.
I can almost hear Speio’s voice in my head asking if I hate Waterfell so much, why the minishrine in my room? But I don’t hate Waterfell. I just hate who I’m supposed to be when I’m there. A child princess they all look at with a mixture of contempt and pity; contempt because I’d always done what I wanted when I wanted with no care for my father’s wishes, and pity because it was a grave I’d dug for myself. In the end, my father’s advisers had been elated when my initiation began and I was out of sight.
Out of mind.
With a painful gulp, I open the sliding-glass doors to the patio and step outside. In the backyard, shielded by the house on three sides and the beach on the other, I shed my clothes and dive into our deep saltwater pool, swimming down until I’m at the bottom. The skies have gone from an angry gray to a dark blue tinged with pink and gold. The Aquarathi, particularly the royals, have always had a tumultuous relationship with weather. Storms at sea are often caused by our emotions, even as deep down as we live. At least the myths of old have gotten that right—sea monsters are synonymous with storms.
The dark blue color of the sky reminds me of Lo’s eyes, and for a second, I realize that I haven’t thought about him since I left school. A twinge of guilt seeps through and I know that Lo is the least of my worries for all the people I’ve hurt or disappointed. The water ripples above me and I see a shadow standing at the edge of the pool. I nod, and there’s a splash as someone swims down toward me.
I’m sorry, Speio mouths, sinking down to the bottom. “I was out of line,” he says in our language, little more than a series of clicks and sharp pulses underwater. His blond hair fans around his face and I grasp his hand in mine.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say, gripping hard. He grips back just as tightly. “We’ll figure this out, Speio, I promise. I can’t just hide here and I know that now. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You were right. I was afraid of what you’d say.”
Together we lie back on the bottom of the pool with the water undulating above us, and watch the last afterglow of day give in to the darker demands of the night. There’s barely any moon, but we don’t need the light in the growing darkness. The shimmer of green and gold dancing beneath my skin is just as mesmerizing as the one of turquoise and silvery white beneath his. I close my eyes.
We could almost be back home.
4
BONDING
“You’re asking me out?”
I stare at Lo incredulously in the cafeteria. He hasn’t spoken to me in days, and apart from seeing each other in class over the past week and a half—and awkwardly ignoring each other—we’ve been like a couple of ships passing in the night. In fact, with the exception of Sawyer, he seems to have gravitated away from my group and toward Cara’s—which has me experiencing polar-opposite feelings that I have no intention of analyzing. For all I care, he could be any other boy floating along the school hallways.
Only Lo doesn’t carry himself like every other high school boy. He walks with a curious nonchalance, an easy arrogance in his step and exuding confidence. Sawyer told Jenna that it probably stemmed from him living abroad for so many years. For some reason, the two of them—Sawyer and Lo—took an immediate liking to each other, probably via their mutual love of surfing. Once, during lunch, Sawyer mentioned that Lo was widely traveled and had lived practically everywhere. I snorted and replied snarkily that life as a pampered prince must be tough for some, but shut up immediately when Jenna stared at me like I’d grown two horns on my head.
So right now, with Lo standing in front of me, I refuse to even look in her direction because I’m positive that she’ll have some ridiculously giddy I-told-you-so expression on her face, especially because said boy is asking me out.
“Like on a date?” I say.
“Yes. Is that so hard to believe?” Lo says.
“A little,” I say, frowning. “I mean, you don’t like me, and that’s fine because I don’t like you, either. Plus, you’ve been marked as Cara’s property, so yes, it is hard to believe.”
Lo smiles evenly at me. “First, I’m not anyone’s property. Plus, I didn’t think we had a chance to get to know each other, so I’m trying to fix that.”
Despite my secret thrill at his words about Cara, going on a date with Lo is not something I’m interested in doing. At all.
“Why?”
“Why not?” he counters.
“I don’t think it’s such a good—”
But Jenna cuts me off, her face a ferocious glower that fuses the rest of my sentence to the roof of my mouth. She’s made it pretty clear that I owe her for covering for me earlier in the week when I ditched practice because of a complete emotional breakdown that I could never tell her about. Obviously, she’s calling in the favor.
Smiling sweetly, she says, “Why don’t we make it a double date?”
“Jenna,” I whisper in warning, but as usual she ignores me, plowing through.
“It’ll be fun. Tomorrow night after the surf meet. We can go to the Crab Shack—they have a great Saturday two-for-one special.” She stands, tucking her bag under one arm and kissing Sawyer on his head. “Look, I have to run, guys. Have to talk to Leland before class. But tomorrow, perfect!”
And just like that it’s over. I watch in stunned silence as Jenna makes her way out of the cafeteria. Lo has a similar dazed look on his face, and Sawyer can’t stop laughing at both of our identical expressions.
“Is she like that a lot?” Lo asks in a bemused voice, as if he isn’t quite sure what’s happened.
Sawyer grins. “You’ve just been Jenna-rolled. You know, she’s like a human steamroller. I find it easier to just let her go when she gets an idea in her head.” Sawyer laughs again. “Comes from a good place, though, and hey, at least she helped your game.” He nods at Lo and winks as if I’m not sitting right there next to them. “So how were the waves this morning, bro? I missed out, had to work an early shift before school.”
They start talking about surfing, and I zone out. As I finish my sandwich, I surreptitiously start studying Lo...the guy I’ll be going on a date with thanks to Jenna, which I still think is a bad idea. He leans back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, listening to Sawyer ramble on about low tide, agreeing with a nod. He seems so guarded, except when he’s with Sawyer or surfing. He doesn’t trust easily, that’s for sure. Even though I can’t get a good read on him, he and Sawyer seem to click, and Sawyer isn’t the kind of guy to make friends easily, as Jenna pointed out to me. But even Sawyer’s obvious approval of Lo as a person doesn’t help my weird paranoia where Lo is concerned. Not that I am paranoid about him, I just don’t know him.
