Читать книгу Sea Witch Rising - Sarah Henning - Страница 12

A WAVE OF DREAD SWEEPS OVER ME AS I LEAVE THE SEA witch’s lair. Was I really so naive as to think this creature, this slithering monster, would give me any relief?

The whole thing almost felt rehearsed, like she had been expecting me and was prepared. She stuck to her script as the actors do in our monthly moon plays, asking for impossible things in the name of love. Alia never missed a chance to show off her dramatic skills on stage, but now, what will she do with no voice?

No voice. No more plays. I shake my head. These are the least of Alia’s problems.

Though I’m away from the witch’s murky waters and back in the cool blue of the open sea, I’m not any more confident that I’ll get my other half back alive. Loss already weighs heavy on my shoulders, and I fear I will carry this forever if I fail.

No, I will fix it. I will get the antidote. I will save Alia. I won’t lose her.

I swim on, yet I have a major problem. Father counts those flowers like he’d count gold if he were any other type of king. But to my father, gold isn’t power—magic is.

And my flowers are magic.

Yes, Witch, I’m the gardener. “Little Runa and her flowers”—the witch knows the common refrain. For all the beauty Alia can produce, I’m the one who can make the tough things grow. The important things. But I was telling the truth when I said that even I’m not allowed to go into the ríkifjor garden without supervision. The ríkifjor can’t be touched, not by me or anyone else, unless Father’s security—both physical and magical—deems it so on a very specific schedule.

Though I hate losing time, if I’m to get them, I won’t be successful in the middle of the day—I need to wait for nightfall for any chance to sneak in. In fact, I won’t be successful at all if Father realizes I’ve been gone too long.

I swim straight from the sea witch’s lair to the castle grounds. The sea kingdom can be seen from miles around, shining a brilliant cerulean blue. I sweep through the front gate and into the winding hallways as if nothing is amiss. I smile at all the right people and make proper small talk. I go about my day pretending it’s completely normal that Alia is not at my side.

The afternoon brings my lessons—singing, dancing, the human arts—with my sisters. Alia’s absence hangs in the water between us, each drop swelling with our growing anxiety. And yet we stay silent. If Father heard us talking, it would only make it worse.

After lessons and supper, where I looked everywhere but Alia’s empty seat, a plan begins to take shape in the shambles of my distracted mind. It’s perhaps the only way to get the witch her flowers, secure the antidote, and deliver it, though it won’t be easy. But what choice do I have? I can’t just let Alia stay there and die, even if she doesn’t want to come with me. Living with a broken heart is better than dissolving into sea foam. It has to be.

I go to bed early, feigning illness, but none of my sisters buy it. When the castle is dark and quiet, Eydis spells on the light, but I’m already wide awake, going over the scenarios in my mind, eyes glued to the vaulted ceiling of our chambers. My other sisters—Ola and Signy—converge upon my bed, taking space among the blankets.

Dark blue and near black—the color of the deepest part of the ocean on the cloudiest days—Eydis’s eyes fall to mine. She’s usually covered in diamond dust from brow bone to chin, but barefaced in the night, she looks more serious than she’s ever been in her life. “She went above, didn’t she? For that Øldenburg?”

I sit up, and that’s enough of a confirmation. The sob that sat deep in my throat this morning is welling up again, fat and misshapen.

Signy, the closest in age to Alia and me, already has it figured out, arms crossed tightly over her chest, the tips of her ink-dyed hair dusting the goose bumps on her arms. “And the sea witch did it, didn’t she?”

I nod. Ola’s eyes grow wider as she adds another question. I may be Alia’s twin, but Ola looks the most like her—blond and ethereal in the way most humans expect mermaids to be. “Is there anything we can do?” Both her hands snag one of mine and squeeze. “Tell me what we can do. There must be something.”

I swallow down that sob. I didn’t want to include them, because the more of us who are involved, the easier it will be for Father to know.

Yet now I can’t leave them out of it. “There is an antidote. But Father visited the witch and weakened her enough that she can’t make it. I have to bring her something first.” The way they watch me confirms they know exactly what I must bring.

“But Father—”

“How? It’s guarded—”

“He’ll be so angry—”

“I know!” The sob squeezes out, making my voice too loud. I close my eyes to reset. “I know,” I say again, quieter and more controlled this time. “But we all know what his wrath is like—it’s not difficult for any of us to imagine what he did to her. She needs the flower to be powerful enough to help Alia.”

“No, no, no,” Ola says, emphatic. “We need to tell Father. If we go behind his back, it will only be worse for us.” She rises from the bed and heads for the door that leads from our chambers into the family wing.

“No!” I snap, jumping from bed and physically cutting her off. “We can’t tell him. He’s already assaulted the witch. If he finds out that she’s willing to help us and not him, he won’t be pleased.”

“Are you kidding?” Ola says, crossing her arms over her chest, one brow cocked. Her voice is still too loud. “He’ll reward us.”

Eydis sweeps forward and places her hands on either side of our sister’s cheeks, forcing Ola to look her in the eye. “Ola, the last thing Father is interested in is positive reinforcement. He’s not going to start now.”

Ola doesn’t answer her, looking to me instead. “How do you know he assaulted her? How do you know she’s not lying? We all know the tales—she’s powerful enough to ruin the sea as soon as save it. Why would she rescue Alia after sending her to her death? Maybe she just wants ríkifjor to become more powerful. She nearly destroyed us once. What could she do with the power of those flowers?”

All of it could be true. But we have to try.

I believed the witch when she said that Father stormed in, angry that he couldn’t get Alia back himself. That seems exactly like something he would do—our whole lives he’s been paranoid, what with the disaster that almost befell us with Annemette. The ríkifjor augments his power, which makes him feel more in control, but it also makes him volatile. He’s not the king he was the first hundred years of his reign.

“Ola, you have to trust me,” I say. “I met the witch, and I believe her. I have to try.”

“I want to try with you,” Eydis says. “Signy?”

Behind us, she nods. Then all our eyes turn to Ola. She shoves a stray curl behind her ear. “Fine.”

Eydis looks to me. “What’s the plan, Ru?”

“To get the flowers, I need to go alone. The four of us can’t travel in a pack through the castle. Even in the dead of night—Father will sense it.”

The three of them nod as one. Then Eydis speaks. “Signy and Ola will come with me. The ríkifjor will buy us the witch’s strength, but it won’t get us the antidote. She’ll want more.” Eydis says this with certainty. At nineteen, she believes she knows more than all of us combined, and maybe she does. She touches their shoulders. “Together we will meet the sea witch’s price—there’s always a price for these things.”

Then she looks to me. “How did Alia pay?”

“With her voice and most likely her life.”

“Not if we can help it,” Eydis says, and checks the night clock’s swirling dial in our shared chambers. A quarter till midnight. “Let’s get going. Meet us by the canyon in an hour, Ru, and we’ll go with you to wake the witch. Alia can’t wait much longer.”

“The canyon?” I ask. It’s a strange place for a meeting, this crag that runs across the strait like an old wound, cool reams of water whispering from its depths. It’s also in the opposite direction from the sea witch’s murky lair.

My oldest sister nods, the ends of her diamond-dusted hair sparkling like the snow the winter brings above. “By the red coral. You know the one that looks like a hammerhead on a pike?”

“Yes, I know the one, but why—?”

“Because that’s where I keep what the witch will want. Where do you think I get my diamond dust from? I have a treasure trove, Ru.” I always figured Father gave her the dust she loves so much, eager to marry off the next in his brood, what with all the suitors Eydis sees on a regular basis. A shiny prize for the king’s second-wave eldest. “My diamonds and pearls can be replaced. If the witch demands a payment for Urda, she can have my treasures, but no one is taking my voice.”

The family gardens ring the grounds, a patch for each of the sisters from the king’s two wives—Queen Mette, gone in the tide long ago, and Queen Bodil, my mother, who’s young enough to be the same age as our older half sisters. My patch sweeps the long way around the royal chambers, where Father and Mother’s patio bleeds into the soft turquoise sand. It’s the largest garden, the final connection in the ring, swinging around for the ten sisters like a short-handed clock.

My garden is nearly all ríkifjor now, blanketing the sands in their ghostly way. The only other flowers are roses with exaggerated points edging the borders, sharp enough to scare away any curious fingers on sight alone. The guards are there, even in the dead of night, planted three around, spaced like slices of pie. The public believes the security is because of the garden’s proximity to the royal chambers, and that is a very good cover story indeed.

I stick to any shadow I can find, careful not to draw the guards’ attention, and careful to not to disturb the aura of magic surrounding the ríkifjor—an extra security measure. My heart thuds tightly in my chest, and my swim stroke falters for just a moment.

There are so many ways my plan could crumble. The guards. The magic. The possibility that I don’t know Alia as well as I think I do. Still, I push forward. Shadow to shadow, I wind my way through the serpentine layout of garden plots, thankful when I arrive at the edge of Alia’s garden.

Though I’ve seen it a million times, my heart drops at the life there. So much life, in every color: ruby red, yellow as bright as the spring sun above, velvet purple, cloud-white. All as shiny as a new day, they’re every bit as bright as she is. As romantic as she is. As full of hope and promise and sunshine as she is.

They’ll die without her. If not now, soon.

There, in the middle of it all is the massive statue she acquired after rescuing the boy this summer. Like his father, brothers, and the rest of the ship, it sank to the sea floor and lodged itself in the sand. Until a day later when she returned to the scene of it all and wedged it out, using the very limits of her magic to move the thing all the way from the wreck site to this garden.

The statue is as bold as the fact that she brought it here, thumbing her nose at what anyone thought—even Father, who likely only allowed it because it shows exactly how ridiculous the Øldenburgs are. The statue was meant to make a statement on land—Look at this would-be king! Standing tall on a ship’s prow, one foot hiked up as he looks out, eyes searching for new lands to pillage!—and it does so here as well. It’s a trumpet-blast declaration of what Alia did.

I slink into the shadow of the statue and look up at him.

“I hate you,” I whisper to his stupid, handsome face.

The statue stonily accepts my words, but there’s so much more I want to say to him. That he’s already broken my sister’s heart and he’s nearly broken mine, which is hanging on by the thread that I can save her with these seeds and the sea witch’s help. That he doesn’t know how lucky he is that Alia was already in love with him when she rescued him or he’d be bones like his father and brothers—one more Øldenburg fed to the sea.

That he never deserved her and never will.

Looking around just to confirm yet again that I’m indeed alone, I crouch below the statue and dig, the crux of my plan hinging on the next few moments.

Although Alia could cultivate the most gorgeous blooms, they weren’t what she really wanted to grow. Not once she realized Father’s penchant for ríkifjor. And so I gave her a chance to try, squirreling away seeds for her to plant. Yet, as I had suspected, nothing ever came of them. I only hope she’s left the remainder where she hid them for safekeeping.

It takes several handfuls of soil pushed to the side before I feel the heat of them like the dull burn of the sun’s rays at the surface, warm but distant. Suddenly, my fingers seem to know exactly where to go, and they should—they handle the magic of the ríkifjor every day. Before breakfast each morning, I tend the garden and pull the plants for Father’s daily use—a shot of nectar before he begins his day. It’s the only reason I was able to get above this morning—I’d prepared the ríkifjor before leaving.

Relief washes over me as the warmth of the seeds grows stronger, my fingers burning to reach them. They’re here.

My sister’s heart holds on to everything too long—love, dreams, hope, and things, lots of them. Her trunks are stuffed full of items, found, bought, or otherwise loved. I knew, as sure the sand in the soil, that she kept the seeds I gave her. Just like I knew where she’d be. What she’d done.

My fingernails scrape canvas. I tug at it and sand spills out, dribbling over the base of the statue, which, of course, has his whole ridiculous name and previous title on it: Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Øldenburg V. And there in my hand is more than what I need. I release the strings of the sack and peek inside. Another sigh of relief shakes my body. She kept almost fifty dormant ríkifjor seeds.

Thank Urda.

Although Alia always played an excellent damsel in the castle moon plays, for once this damsel may not need her king after all. “You very well may have just rescued yourself, Alia,” I whisper to the seeds.

“So Alia does need rescuing, then.”

I nearly drop the bag and whirl around at the sound of another voice. I’d been sure I was alone, but there, right in front of me, is Oma Ragn—Queen Mother Ragnhildr—my grandmother. The woman who taught me everything I know while singing sailor shanties about mermaids and their vengeance.

Her smile is quick and conspiratorial as she swims forward. These days, her eyes are a blue so crystal clear they’re nearly as white as her hair, but she never misses a thing. Not when it comes to her son, not when it comes to me, not when it comes to anything.

“Believe me, darling Runa, if your father can sense she’s left the water without even checking her bed, I know it too. When magic leaves the water, those of us who’ve been here long enough feel it.” She says it all like she’s seen what I’ve seen above—Alia, the boy, her hopeless chance. Then her eyes flicker to the bag. “Is this how you plan to get her back?”

She doesn’t have to open the bag to know what’s in my hand. Oma Ragn was the one who started me off planting ríkifjor. She can sense the seeds’ power just as well as I. The only one better is Father and that’s because he has so much of it running through his veins, he’d likely fall over dead without it.

I wouldn’t lie to Oma Ragn, and there’s no use in it anyway. Not with her. “To get Alia the antidote, I need to bring these to the sea witch.”

“I should’ve guessed that old squid would be behind this,” she says with a tart turn to her mouth. Oma Ragn is two hundred years old and counting, and that time has only served to make her more direct. “She was powerful enough to perform the changing spell but isn’t powerful enough to get her back without the ríkifjor?”

Her voice is too loud, and I glance around, looking to every corner and around the overdeveloped thighs of the massive statue.

Oma chuckles, her voice almost louder when she speaks again. “Ru, calm yourself. I’ve distracted the guards.”

She says this with such cool confidence. It reminds me of how she used to promise to spell away all the monsters in our dreams if they should appear in daylight. I can still see me and Alia standing at her bedside in the dead of night, nightmares fresh behind our eyes. She’d pull us close, and once our hearts had calmed, she’d sing three stanzas of “The Mermaid’s Revenge” to send us back to sleep.

But no song is going to ease my nerves now. “Not exactly,” I say, answering her question. Oma Ragn is critical of Father in ways no one else can be—especially in the years since Annemette’s change—but I’m not about to offer up what the witch said he did to her. “Oma, I have to go. Please don’t say anything to Father. I’ll get Alia back.”

“I won’t and you will.” Oma Ragn shoos me with a wave of her long fingers. “Go. Visit the witch. I’ll be in my bed, praying to Urda that she doesn’t turn you into a talking crab.”

Despite myself, I smile. Oma Ragn has a way of bringing humor to even the direst situation. “If she turns me into a talking crab, do me a favor and make sure she changes me back before Father tries to fillet her for it. We need her to get Alia home.”

Oma allows me a quick grin that reaches the tide-break white of her eyes. “It’s a deal, Ru.” She makes a move to return to her quarters, or maybe to the route of whatever midnight swim she was on when she found me, but then she stops and wraps my wrist in her knotted fingers. “Good luck, my dear. You and your sister will need it for all to turn out right.”

I press a quick kiss to her cheek and leave, seed bag in hand, for the witch’s lair.