Horizon (17 page)

“This is the first time we’ve swum together since you got your tail,” Daphine said. “I used to dream about this day when you were young. Raising our three brothers . . . well, let’s just say that I was thrilled when you came along. My own dear little sister.”

Aluna was shocked into silence. As stupid as it was, she’d never thought about how hard Daphine’s life had been, or wondered what her sister dreamed of. Aluna’s life had centered entirely on her own problems with their father, her own feelings of inadequacy, her own far-flung wishes.

Daphine seemed happy to continue. “We never got to talk about regular things. I always imagined you’d tell me about the boys or girls you were interested in. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to meet anyone in the Above World? That boy with the dark hair . . . Dash. He’s handsome. Of course, he’s good with a sword, too, and that’s probably more important to you.”

Aluna felt her heart stop beating and then, far too slowly, start up again. “Dash . . . is a good friend. It’s . . . good to have such a good friend.”

“Direct hit!” Daphine said, laughing. “Maybe I’ll make a decent big sister after all.”

“Well, what about you?” Aluna grumbled. “Still fending off pods of slobbering Kampii? I remember when old Iokepa asked you to marry him and bear his children. Tides’ teeth, he was older than our father!”

Daphine’s smile quirked down at the corners. “My options have dwindled a bit. You might be surprised to learn that some Kampii aren’t interested in women with a scope instead of an eye.”

Aluna stopped swimming and stared at her sister.

Who was still, objectively, the most beautiful, smart, funny, and accomplished woman in the entire City of Shifting Tides.

“Then those Kampii are idiots, and you’re better off without them,” Aluna said coldly. “All the Upgraders have tech, and they don’t seem to have any trouble finding one another attractive.”

Daphine sighed. “Maybe I’ll lure one of the Upgraders down here, then, just like in the old stories.”

“Make sure he’s waterproof,” Aluna said. “Rust isn’t good for relationships.”

Daphine laughed again, a sound that always made Aluna’s heart soar. She had successfully made her sister laugh
and
avoided answering any questions about Dash. She was turning out to be a pretty good little sister, too.

“What does your scope
do
, anyway?” Aluna asked. “It can’t just be for looks.”

Daphine’s scope whirred. “That’s what I tell people,” she said. Her mouth twisted mischievously. “But, oh, Aluna, the things I see now!” Daphine swept her gaze up, down, and around. “The temperature of the water, of the fish, of you. There are twenty-six bluefins in that school over there, and I didn’t have to count. I can see all the different colors of sunlight. I can see how fast your heart is beating and when it speeds up and slows down. I can tell when people are lying.”

Aluna sputtered. “When they’re lying? You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not,” Daphine said smugly. “I didn’t know how to do most of this at first. I kept the scope to teach the Elders a lesson, and as a reminder to our father that we can’t stay hidden. But now I’m keeping it because I love it.”

“That skill must make the Elders very nervous,” Aluna said.

“And that’s why they don’t know —”

Daphine stopped suddenly, but her scope continued to twist and focus. She whispered, “Over there, in the kelp. A Deepfell.”

Aluna followed Daphine’s gaze and saw a slick gray form shadowed in the dark fronds. It was definitely one of Eekikee’s shark people.

“Deepfell!” she called. “Your people are in grave danger. I am Aluna, an ally of Prince Eekikee’s. We need to speak with him at once.”

Nothing happened for several long moments. Aluna’s tail twitched. Was the Deepfell still out there? Did it even understand what she was asking?

“His heart is beating fast,” Daphine said. “He’s not sure what to do.”

Then, slick as an eel, the Deepfell emerged from the kelp. Its smooth, hairless head and wide black eyes no longer seemed strange to Aluna, not after everything she’d seen in the Above World.

The Deepfell spoke carefully around its mouth full of sharp teeth.

“Ffffoooollow.”

A
LUNA FELT A BOND
with Prince Eekikee. When she’d first gone to the Above World, she’d found him on the beach, the lone survivor of an Upgrader attack on his people. He’d been suffocating, but her own breathing shell had saved his life. He’d saved hers not long after that by bringing her, Hoku, and Dash down to the cave when the Upgraders were chasing them.

Later, Aluna, Eekikee, and Daphine had all witnessed Fathom’s cruelty. They each knew, on a large scale and on a very personal one, how horrible living in a world ruled by Karl Strand would be. Despite the history of fighting between their people, Fathom had forged them into allies.

They trusted each other, and now that trust was the only chance they had of saving both their people.

The scout Aluna and Daphine had met in the ocean had taken them directly to Eekikee. The prince had accepted Aluna’s warning about the Kampii attack without question and ordered his Deepfell to bring the Kampii waiting at the water’s surface down to the safety of the cave.

Now Aluna sat on the sand and waited for a Deepfell scout to lead her brothers’ hunting party into their trap. Daphine fidgeted on her right, and Eekikee sat motionless on her left. The Deepfell prince wore a thin circlet of gold around his bald gray head, the only thing besides the scar on his throat that marked him as any different from the rest of his people.

Anadar had arranged his small band of surface-colony warriors in a semicircle behind their group. The warriors would be ready to act, but wouldn’t be seen as an immediate threat. Aluna had wanted them in the water where they could move and fight more freely, but Anadar overruled her. Without breathing necklaces, Kampii from the surface colony could be drowned too easily. Behind the row of hunters, the remaining Kampii from the surface colony spoke quietly with their new Deepfell hosts.

“It’s been too long,” Aluna said. “Maybe they caught the scout.”

“Akkaia is best,” Prince Eekikee said. “We waaait.”

Daphine’s scope whirred as she focused on the water. Aluna wondered what hidden mysteries her sister could see that were invisible to the rest of them.

Eventually, Deepfell brought large shells filled with dead fish, and they ate. Aluna did her best to answer Prince Eekikee’s questions about Scorch and Strand’s army, and she was pleased to see her brother Anadar starting to relax slightly in the Deepfell’s presence. She didn’t need Anadar to like Eekikee, but it helped. After seeing what the Equians and the Serpenti had done to each other in the desert, she was even more determined to build this alliance. Beginning to see one’s enemies as people, not demons, was the first step toward peace.

Aluna was about to regale everyone with a highly dramatized retelling of her humiliating defeat by Scorch during the Thunder Trials when distant words buzzed in her ears, then fell silent. Every Kampii in the cave looked up at once.

“They’re close,” Daphine said. “Everyone back to your positions!”

Aluna dropped the fish head she’d been about to crunch and dragged herself back to the water’s edge. She checked her wrist sheaths and found her talon weapons, Spirit and Spite, ready for action. She hadn’t been wearing them since she returned to the ocean — trying to spin them underwater would be futile — and she hoped she had no cause to unleash them now. Without Vachir to grant her height, she’d probably hook one of them around her own neck instead of her opponent’s.

“Daphine will do the talking,” Aluna said. “They’ll listen to her. Everyone does.”

Daphine rolled her one eye and rewarded Aluna with a grim smile. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Quit bickering,” Anadar called from his place by the warriors. “Don’t make me get our father.”

There it was again, the warmth that started in Aluna’s gut and radiated outward, like the sun. She was about to toss a retort back at her brother when her ears erupted with chatter. “There, behind that rock!” “No, the kelp — I saw it hide in the kelp!” “It’s headed for that tunnel!”

The Kampii in the cave fell silent. The Deepfell picked up on the change and followed their example.

This waiting was even harder than before. Seconds felt like hours. Aluna studied the waves. Her breathing shell pulsed at her neck, its glow reflected in the rippling cave pool.

And then the Deepfell scout shot out of the water with a gasp and landed hard on the sand, her gills puffing frantically. Aluna and Eekikee grabbed her arms and pulled her up the shore until she was safely behind them.

A moment later, Aluna’s brother Ehu’s familiar face broke the surface. His eyes widened and he brought his spear forward in a flash. “Stop,” he called to his hunting party. “It’s a trap!”

“You’re safe. No one will attack,” Daphine said quickly. “You know me. I’m your sister, but I’m also the Voice of the Coral Kampii. Please come here so we can talk.”

Pilipo’s head popped out of the water, but neither he nor Ehu came any closer to the shore.

“You’re working with them, Daphine? And Anadar and Aluna?” Pilipo said. “What treachery is this?”

“We’re allies,” Daphine said. “Prince Eekikee and his people have granted Kampii without breathing necklaces sanctuary in this cave. In return, the Kampii will not hunt his people.”

Pilipo and Ehu bobbed in the water. Aluna saw at least two dozen more hunters waiting just beneath the waves. She tried to still her body, despite how badly it wanted to prepare itself for battle. A clenched fist, a subtle shifting into an aggressive stance . . . Her brothers would notice these tiny changes and make changes of their own. Before long, the whole encounter might escalate to heated words and the first ill-advised throw of a spear.

Pilipo and Ehu murmured to each other, so low that their voices didn’t carry to Aluna’s special Kampii ears.

Daphine, who was no stranger to tense negotiations and who was no doubt using her scope to read their moods, kept talking. “We, the people of the surface colony, do not want breathing devices at this cost, brothers. The Deepfell are people, not animals, and deserve to be treated as such. To slaughter them for parts . . . would make us no better than the Humans who originally brought destruction to our world.”

“Come into the water and we’ll talk,” Pilipo said. “Just you, Daphine, and the gray demon.”

Daphine looked at Aluna. Aluna felt her heart break just a little to know that she still wasn’t important in her brothers’ eyes. But she nodded anyway. This meeting was too important to let her pride interfere.

“Fine,” Daphine said to Pilipo, Ehu, and the rest of the Kampii hunters. “We agree to —”

“Nooo,” Prince Eekikee said.

Aluna looked at him, aghast. He hadn’t changed his stance, and his smooth gray face and bulbous black eyes remained calm. What was he doing?

Eekikee pointed a webbed hand at Aluna. “Aluuuuna, too,” he said. “Or no taaalk.”

Aluna felt her mouth drop open. “It’s okay,” she said to Eekikee. “They’re my brothers. They still think of me as a youngling.”

“It’s not okay,” Daphine said. She nodded to Eekikee. “Thank you for showing me that. You heard Prince Eekikee,” she called to Pilipo and Ehu. “Aluna comes, too, or you can turn around and leave now, before anyone gets hurt.”

Aluna shook her head. Even after all these years, Daphine still managed to surprise her.

Pilipo waved his hand. “If you feel some strange need to bring Aluna, then fine. It makes no difference to us.”

“We’ll meet you halfway,” Daphine said. “Your hunters will stay back, and so will ours.”

“This is ridiculous,” Ehu said. “All the hunters are Kampii! If we fought together we could make easy work of these beasts and Peleke would have all the breathing — Oof!”

Pilipo had punched him in the stomach. Aluna just wished he’d done it sooner. How the same parents had spawned both Ehu and Daphine would forever be a mystery to her.

Daphine, Aluna, and Prince Eekikee dragged themselves to the water and eased back into its embrace. They swam slowly to the center of the watery portion of the cave to meet Pilipo and Ehu.

If Aluna couldn’t convince her brothers to join their alliance, then the day might end in blood. Which side would Daphine and Anadar choose? No matter how strong their alliance with Eekikee was, they might choose family. Aluna wouldn’t blame them if they did. This was a situation with no easy answers, no clear-cut right and wrong sides. Everyone was doing what they thought they needed to do in order to survive.

But if Aluna had learned anything during those long months in the desert with the Equians, it was that her word actually meant something. She could never harm her brothers or sister, but if she had to, she’d die defending the Deepfell.