Mervidia (20 page)

Iago attempted to settle down, taking a deep breath by sucking water in through his gills and out through the sides of his chest.
“Speak,” he managed, from behind gritted teeth, a visible sign of the strain he was under to get a hold of himself.

Penn looked to Damaris questionably, but she nodded to him, urging him to be the one to do the talking.
He was obviously getting through to the young regent more than she.

“I would advise you to send the
Palace Guard to arrest Gene of House Stonegem,” Penn stated. “The house would be insane not to give him up.” Iago seemed to ponder the neondra’s words.

“Have him arrested,” Iago said, speaking the words aloud, seeing how they sounded on his tongue.
“Yes… that would do. If I wish to earn the Fangs though, I need to make an example of him….”

Penn and Damaris shared a victorious look, smiles on their lips, until the regent spoke those trailing last words.
Their mouths soured to frowns, not liking where Iago’s train of thought was leading him.

“Along with giving over Gene, I will demand of House Stonegem that his hiring house be
disclosed, so that it too can be held accountable,” Iago stated, the rest of the anger on his face cooling and hardening into grim determination.

“My Lord,” Penn said, getting the regent’s attention.
“House Stonegem will not give up the hiring house. When has a faera house ever done so? If you give such orders…,” the Yellowtail’s face darkened, as realization struck as to what would result from such a demand. “You would be ordering the murder of an
entire
house, either the hiring house or House Stonegem if it does not reveal its name.”

“Lord Regent,” Damaris said, drawing Iago’s frightful gaze that had taken on the appearance of a merwin touched with madness.
She tried to reach him regardless. “Please do not give such a command. The faera keep their secrets; confidentiality
is
their honor. House Stonegem will never give up the hiring house. A house contains other merwins’ wives… their children. You would be slaughtering countless innocents.” She feared they had lost him though; Iago’s eyes had glazed over, blinding him to their advice. His stiff visage made it obvious that his decision had been made.

She tried, once more, to reach him, “Bring Gene to justice, have him pay for his crime and earn the respect of the Merwin in the process.
Ordering a house purged will
certainly
lose
you favor with the Assembly, especially from Kiva. She might withdraw from the Coral Assembly all together.” Iago’s face contorted again, a roguish smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

“Dearest mother,” Iago said, his tone condescending and his eyes wide
; his attention shifted to the open water about the table, as if seeing some future they could not. “Mervidia has changed… and I must change with her.” As the regent spoke, Penn began to swim to Damaris’ side. The action seemed strange in combination with Iago’s dark words. Her heart began to beat loudly in her ears and time felt slow. She was suddenly afraid that Penn would take her life; his motion was nonchalant yet he was deliberately coming her way, like a predator before it strikes. “Our city allows Queens to be killed in their sleep,” Iago continued, not paying any attention to Penn’s movement, “with a slap on the wrist of whoever ordered it.” The Queen Mother’s eyes stared at Penn’s hands, waiting for him to draw his sword and plunge it into her chest. The image of a small blade stabbing her in the heart flashed across her vision, as Damaris’ machi talent surged into a full blown waking dream. Iago rambled on, “Beryl did not lead with a hard enough hand, I see that now. I will show the Merwin that it is
not
acceptable for a Queen to be savagely murdered in her own bedchamber, so that they think twice
about ever doing it again
.”

Penn could not
possibly know what Damaris saw, he had only recognized the fear on her face. The vision was gone as quickly as it had come, and Damaris jerked when Penn laid a calming hand over hers. He was attempting to comfort her. Still stunned from the vision, all Damaris could do was stare dumbly up into Penn’s white eyes. She blinked, trying to separate vision from reality.

Both their attentions shifted dramatically though, as Iago swam from the commander’s pavi
lion, about to issue orders that would end any chance he ever had to wear the Fangs.
Mervidia will bleed again this night
, Damaris thought bitterly, as she and Penn watched the curtain close behind Iago and heard him call for the Palace Guard’s captain.

“We have failed him,” Penn said quietly, his words colored with
the shock of not getting through to the young regent.

Damaris felt equally defeated.
She leaned into the neondra’s strong torso, and he held her as she cried into his chest. “We have failed Mervidia,” she sobbed, all the while terrified that she had just foreseen her own death.

Chapter Twenty-T
wo

Domo Breete was irritated. Irritated that she had to go through with this charade. Irritated that she had to give up one of her most skilled assassins. Irritated that her house’s part in Queen Beryl’s assassination had been discovered. Irritated that she would owe Domo Kiva yet
another
favor for getting word to her that the regent had uncovered the name of the queen’s killer and that the Palace Guard was on its way to House Stonegem. Irritated that the Yellowtails had apparently decided to get involved in this sad little piece of theater, so Penn could further cement his friend Iago’s place under the Fangs.

Domo Penn and his army of brutes had left their compound, hot on the tails of the
Palace Guard, supposedly to help keep the peace, but Breete knew better.
Any little spark of glory you can glom onto, eh Penn?
she thought angrily. The Domo of House Yellowtail had been a remora attached to Iago’s glittering tail since the ethyrie had been a fry. Breete considered several of the plans she had devised over the cycles to eliminate Penn. She had many such strategies laid out in her mind to remove the head of every High House in Mervidia, as well as several of the other smaller houses.
No self-respecting faera assassin swims into a room without two things in place: an escape route and a way to kill every single merwin there.
The Coral Assembly chamber is just another room,
she thought smugly. Not that she had any intention of taking Gene to the Coral Assembly.
Let the Palace Guard run that errand for their regent,
she thought. The faster she distanced herself from the queen’s assassination, the better. It wasn’t her fault that Gene had been caught.

No,
she corrected herself.
He hadn’t been caught, he had been found out.
That fact irritated her the most.
It means I have a leak somewhere in my house
, she thought.
After this spectacle with the Palace Guard is over with, I’ll have to make plugging that leak my first priority.
Her small lavender tail moved back and forth angrily, propelling her more quickly through the water than was proper, but she was furious with the recent turn of events. If her outward show of anger made her subordinates nervous then she was fine with that.
Maybe they’ll do a better job next time,
she thought. As soon as the domo came into view, her family darted out of her way. Most of them instinctively swam down the smaller passages meant for the diminutive race of merwin, but a few went down the bigger hallways built for when the other larger races of Mervidia came to visit. These fleeing faera wisely chose the closest tunnel for expediency rather than a smaller one for protection. They knew she would not pursue them, but getting quickly out of sight of her baleful glare might keep them safe, for now.

I can turn this around
, she thought defiantly. She knew she could. Culling the weak, or the stupid, was the Mervidian way after all. House Stonegem would cut Gene loose, feed him to the sharks, and then use this debacle as a way to trim the fat from the whole operation. After she got rid of those merwin who were too slow, physically or mentally, to keep up, Stonegem would come out leaner and stronger for it.
Maybe even move us up the food chain a couple links and get a little closer to Kiva, that smug little bitch
, Breete thought.

A pounding at the door to House Stonegem’s compound brought Breete out of her rumin
ations, as she neared the entryway.
First things first,
she thought. She needed to get this unpleasant business with Gene and the Palace Guard out of the way. Breete gestured at the dozen faera guard that floated around the doorway. “Open it, you idiots,” she barked at the wide-eyed merwin. The other faera looked at her and then back at the door, hesitating. “I said, open it!” she all but screamed. “Or you can join
him
.” Breete gestured with a tiny delicate thumb at the merwin being held captive between two other faera behind her. Gene’s arms were bound behind his back, though he showed no signs of resisting his fate.

At least he has the decency to be ashamed,
Breete thought. The Domo of House Stonegem still hadn’t been able to find out how her underling had been discovered. She brushed a lock of her white hair behind her long slender ear, trying to calm herself and look presentable. She and Gene had discussed the job with no one. Even when they had talked about it between themselves, Breete had been certain that they had done so with utmost secrecy.
Mervidia hears all
, she reminded herself. She, of all merwin, knew this to be true. Her own spies had brought her more than enough information, which was thought to be secret, to bring down several members of the High Houses. She considered how to use these morsels of information to her best advantage in the coming days but set the matter aside. She held herself upright, as was fitting of the Domo of House Stonegem, and gestured impatiently again at the door.

Finally, one of the house guards found the courage, or fear, to obey his
domo and opened the door. As expected, the head of the Palace Guard, a red-hued ethyrie, floated stiffly beyond the threshold. A large contingent of his soldiers swam behind him, their spears as upright and rigid as they were.

Breete had seen the captain before at the Royal Palace.
She knew his name, though in her present irritation, it escaped her. She made a mental note to have her spies find out more about this particular merwin. Having leverage over the Captain of the Palace Guard could prove useful in the future. Even though she knew why the Regent’s lackey was there, Breete did her best to be polite. There was no point in making a horrible situation even worse by acting petulant.

“Good Captain,” she said tersely.
It would be expected for her to be upset about the turn of events, so a little irritation in her voice would be anticipated. She did not have to search very hard to find it. The ethyrie opened his mouth to speak, but Breete continued talking. “I know why you have come, and I don’t wish to draw this out any longer than is absolutely necessary. There is no need to prolong this unpleasantness, don’t you agree?”

The
ethyrie soldier nodded sadly as Breete cursed herself for not remembering the merwin’s name. The Domo of House Stonegem had expected ire from the captain. After all, one of her merwin had murdered the ethyrie’s
beloved
queen. The fact that her death had also effectively sentenced the Divine Family to extinction could not be sitting well with him either. Breete had expected anger, or righteous indignation at the very least, but not sorrow.

Something is wrong
, she thought.
He is sad, not angry.
Some instinct in the faera warned her, screamed at her to dart away, to find some place to hide.
What is wrong with you?
she asked herself.
You’re a merwin and the Domo of House Stonegem, by the Deeps. You’re not some mindless lantern fish who swims in terror at the first whiff of a shark.
She looked at the much larger merwin, an ethyrie several times her own size and mass, and the phalanx of his warriors behind him. She did her best to pull herself to her full height, swimming slightly higher to look the merwin in the eye. She knew she was tiny next to him, but she refused to be cowed, even by the Captain of the Palace Guard.

“Here is the merwin you seek.”
She gestured for Gene to be brought forth. Her house guards obediently brought the faera assassin forward, turning him over to a pair of ethyrie, who had advanced in order to take custody of the queen’s murderer. “I expect you to tell Regent Iago that when you arrived I already had Gene in custody and turned him over without delay or protest.”

The
captain quietly gave an order to his merwin. “Take the assassin back to the Royal Palace immediately and place him in the dungeons beneath.”

Breete’s eyes widened involuntarily for a moment before she got herself back under control.
Did the captain of the Palace Guard just admit, in public, that dungeons existed beneath the home of the Divine Family?
It was a well-known secret that all the High Houses had subterranean rooms beneath their compounds, warrens of tunnels and caverns left behind by the stone that had been harvested from the ocean floor for their walls. It was not common knowledge, however, that the Royal Palace had similar rooms, specifically designed and used to incarcerate prisoners.

Breete’s feelings of panic in
tensified. The captain could just be tired from the events of the past few days, finally relieved that the matter of the queen’s death was soon to be put to rest. Perhaps in his fatigue or relief, he let information slip that he normally would have kept under tighter restraint.
Or, he could think that no one would be able to share such information….
The domo’s heart started beating rapidly in her chest, and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach caused her tail to stop swishing gently back and forth. She slowly descended; her physical disposition mirroring her emotional one.

As she looked up at the
ethyrie, the merwin’s name finally came to her tongue. “Captain Raygo,” she said, all trace of indignation gone from her voice. “Is there another matter that we need to resolve? I have given you, willingly and without any resistance, the merwin for whom you came. Surely, the matter is settled and we can all move on.”

Several of the
faera around Breete caught on to her unease, their eyes darting back and forth between their domo and the Palace Guard. Some of the small merwin by the door began surreptitiously sculling backwards, instinctively moving away from the much larger ethyrie who loomed in their open doorway.

“Unfortunately, Domo,” Raygo said, his voice and manner clearly revealing that what he had to say next was a great source of
anguish, “there is another matter, on which the regent was clear and quite adamant.” He paused, swallowed uncomfortably, and then continued. “I am afraid that I am under the strictest orders not to return without the identity of the house that hired your assassin.”

Breete saw the look of shock that must be on her face mirrored in the other
faera around her. No longer were the other members of House Stonegem bouncing their attention back and forth between their domo and Captain Raygo. Every single faera present stared wide-eyed at the head of the Palace Guard.

“Surely, you cannot be serious,” Breete finally blurted out.
“Such a thing is…,” her voice trailed off, as indignation began to well within her breast. “That is not the way things are done, Captain,” she said, her brow knitting together and her jaw tightening. Breete flicked her tail once, elevating herself so that she floated above the armed merwin at her door, glaring down at him. “Even asking such a thing is an insult, and I will not dignify your request with a response. Good day to you, Captain!” She motioned for the Stonegem house guards to close the door.

Raygo jammed the butt of his spear
into a crack in the flagstone on the inside of the door, preventing it from being closed. “I am afraid, Domo Breete, that I must insist. I am under the orders of the regent.” As he spoke, the other members of the Palace Guard moved forward as one, until the lead solider was within arm’s length of their captain. “Regent Iago was quite clear on the matter. I am under explicit instructions not to leave until I have the name of the house that hired the queen’s assassin.” Despite the hardness of the merwin’s voice, there was also a current of remorse running beneath Raygo’s words. He was not pleased about what he was doing, but he had been given orders by the acting ruler of Mervidia and was duty-bound to carry them out.

Breete, on the other hand, was rapidly progressing towards a full blown rage.
“How dare you!” she yelled. “This is House Stonegem, not the Palace! You do not come into
my
house demanding anything of me, much less that I violate every single scrap of trust that has been placed in my family! You will remove your spear and your pretty ethyrie tail from my doorway, or I swear, by the Deeps, that you, your family, and every single miserable merwin that you dare to call friend will regret ever hearing your name! Do I make myself clear, Raygo?”

The
captain of the Palace Guard did not blink under the tirade of the smaller merwin who floated before him. He didn’t even mention that in her anger she had failed to address him by his proper rank. He simply looked at her, and for a brief moment, his eyelids drooped with resignation and a clear expression of sadness. Finally, he said, “I will ask one more time, Domo Breete. What is the name…?”

“You can choke on fish crap!” Breete
yelled. “Now, get out of my house!”

“Very well,” Raygo calmly replied and thrust his spear through the body of the closest
faera. The tiny merwin looked shocked, shuddered once and then went still, impaled on the tip of the captain’s weapon.

Before she knew what she was doing, Breete darted backwards, away from the
ethyrie, as he pushed his way through the doorway and skewered another faera with his spear. He reached out with his empty hand and crushed another tiny merwin’s skull against the wall beneath his webbed palm. She floated, stunned, in the water while Raygo moved farther into the house.