Mervidia (28 page)

“It is agreed then,” Vaschel concluded.
“With Ghita in her current distressed state and her head unclear, I believe the honor of acting as the ritual’s conduit should be given to Damaris. Besides, she is a stronger machi seer than the late King Reth’s fragile sister.”

Kiva thought Vaschel’s phrasing amusing and very diplomatic; there really was no one else from whom to choose.
House Lumen was very near extinction what with Flinn eaten by frilled sharks, Cassondra exiled and soon to be a casualty of the Deeps, Iago imprisoned, and Queen Beryl assassinated. The only true-blooded member of House Lumen left was Ghita, and, as Vaschel had stated, her mind was possibly broken. It had always been weak, which had been a contributing factor to Beryl being selected as Queen after King Reth’s death instead of his sister. While Damaris had married into House Lumen and was not of
divine
blood, she still was a member.

“All in favor of Damaris serving as conduit please raise your hand,” Vaschel voiced, bringing Kiva’s focus back to the merwin around the table.
The faera domo slowly raised her hand, joining the other members of the Coral Assembly in agreement.

“The matter is decided then.
Prepare yourselves for the machi ritual on the morrow. Relax, eat, and sleep well. I think it best we all be fresh for such an arduous task and momentous occasion,” Vaschel said. He placed one of his hands on his stomach and the other on his back, bending his torso and head forward in a bow. He straightened with a flick of his pink tail and opened his hands to his peers. “It has been an honor to serve as moderator today. It is a rare day that we have two unanimous votes. Thank you for your time, intelligence, and patience. With all pressing issues resolved, this meeting is at its end. Good day.”

As the Coral Assembly exited its meeting chamber, Odette still sat in the same position on her bench in which Kiva had last seen her. The octolaide’s mouth was tight-lipped and her flat nose ridge scrunched in disgust, as she regarded the merwin who waited across from her on the opposite bench. Ghita reposed there, lying on her side with her white, gold-tipped hair loose. The pale-scaled ethyrie was sobbing into the stone bench. Clearly, Odette thought the display pathetic and was taking no action to console the overly emotional merwin.

Bitch
, Kiva first thought, but then admitted to herself that she would not have consoled the bawling ethyrie either.
I would not sneer at her like that though, in public at least.

Nayan quickly pumped her clear, bowl-like lower body, rushing to Ghita’s side.
Making sure her stinging tendrils were tucked safely within her bulbous extremity, Nayan pulled Ghita up and held the ethyrie’s face to her chest. Kiva wasn’t even sure that Ghita knew who it was that was holding her, as blinded by tears as she was.

Seeing her remaining child hauled away to be exiled must have set Ghita off again
, Kiva thought.
Someone really ought to just put that poor fish out of her misery. Not me though, not today at least and especially with no one paying me to do it.

The Coral Assembly was milling about the
antechamber as usual, conversing in groups of two of three and generally relaxing after the meeting. Kiva was floating off by herself, taking it all in. Her attention was drawn by Damaris approaching Odette, who still looked disgusted by Ghita’s excessive emotional display.

Kiva, as nonchalantly as she could, slowly swam behind the column nearest to Odette’s bench.
She wanted to hear what Damaris had to say to the merwin who had shared her husband’s bed. Usually, Damaris ignored the kalku, refusing to even acknowledge her existence when she accompanied Uchenna to assembly meetings. Damaris leaned in close to Odette, looming over her. To Odette’s credit, the octolaide did not move or react, choosing instead to be poised, ready to retaliate if the ethyrie laid a hand on her.

“You sneer at a mourning mother,” Damaris hissed lowly.
“Well, soon, you will know the grief that my sister-in-law and I have experienced.” Odette cocked her head inquisitively, but otherwise stared forward with a false smile on her lips, trying to appear as though she was having a pleasant conversation to any merwin looking their way.

“Oh?” Odette asked nonchalantly.

“I had a vision in my sleep. Your daughter will die tomorrow evening,” Damaris said dryly, before swimming away as abruptly as she had approached and headed down a side hallway in the direction of her personal chambers.

Odette did not move, seemingly paralyzed by such a devastating revelation and the discourt
eous way in which it had been delivered. She continued to merely sit and gaze casually at her husband, who was talking to Quag. She would play the role of the dutiful and patient wife.

“Kiva,” Odette spoke.
The faera flicked her fin with a startled jerk. Being small and easily lost in Mervidia’s many shadows, she was rarely discovered eavesdropping. The Domo of House Perna stayed hidden but whispered back.

“Yes?” she said lowly.

“I have a job for you,” Odette stated quietly, as she shifted her eyes to the withdrawing Queen Mother. “I will pay any price you name.”

Kiva grinne
d greedily.

Chapter Twenty-E
ight

For the first time in her life, Marin’s father looked genuinely happy, a broad smile on his thin lips as he floated near the closed door of his office. Uchenna and Odette had just returned to House Chimaera from the palace, and Marin and her brother had immediately received summons to attend the domo in his chambers.

Uchenna was clapping Ebon on the back, excited after he had relayed to his children the Coral Assembly’s decision to elect a new monarch, one
who might not be a member of the Divine Family at all. Her parents’ plans for House Chimaera were unfolding beautifully, like a newly matured, soft coral fanning its purple fronds for the first time, revealing its stunning, green star center. With the regent and heir of the First House imprisoned
and
Cassondra exiled, Ebon being of royal blood meant that House Chimaera was next in line to rise to Mervidia’s throne.

Marin floated off to the side of the two male merwin, taking in her father’s oddly jubilant b
ehavior. She found herself pleased by the turn of events as well, enough so that she easily displaced the office’s magical current that usually made her feel ill
. Maybe, I am just getting used to it
, she thought, knowing that her kalku talent was finally coming into its own.
Now, if I can just control it better, I’d be as powerful as my parents,
if not more so.

Ebon put a hand on his stepfather’s bare shoulder, a bold move for the younger merwin that jolted Marin back to the present, setting aside her self-indulging thoughts.
Initiating physical contact with Uchenna was something her brother had never done before.
Had never dared to do
, Marin clarified to herself. On any other day, she would have expected Uchenna to punish Ebon for having dared lay a finger on him without his consent. To her surprise though, Uchenna received his stepson’s congratulatory gesture in kind. Uchenna had never been a jovial merwin, but, in that moment, he seemed delighted. House Chimaera’s plans were coming to fruition. Years of plotting had finally paid off. Marin did not know the full scope of the endeavor, but it seemed to her that only a single piece remained to complete the puzzle of their family’s elaborate scheme. All that was left was for the Fangs to be placed on Ebon’s brow.

Sadly, Marin could not say her mother shared the same delighted mood as the rest of them.
Odette sat looking withdrawn on the bioherm of black coral that was Uchenna’s desk. Marin took her mother’s sour countenance as a sign of her displeasure that Marin was not being showered with the same affection as her brother. She knew that her father’s ultimate objective was to place Ebon on Mervidia’s throne, a malleable puppet that he could control, rather than his increasingly willful daughter. Marin also knew that if Odette had her way, she would have her daughter rule instead of Ebon.

Noticing a look of concern wrinkling Odette’s forehead,
Marin gyrated her tentacles, propelling herself to her mother’s side and laid a hand on top of the older octolaide’s. Odette’s wan face smoothed, releasing the tension in her rumpled brow. The matron surprised Marin by putting her arm around her daughter and pulling her close.
Maybe, I am wrong about why she is upset,
Marin thought, her concern deepening.
It is like the parents I knew disappeared overnight, replaced with entirely different merwin.
Whatever the reason, she did not refuse the comforting embrace. The younger octolaide fell into an old custom from her childhood, her head bending inwards to rest on her mother’s ample bosom. They hadn’t embraced like that in a long time, Odette having told Marin cycles ago that she was too old for hugs, and such displays of affection would be seen as a weakness in an older merwin, a fry clinging to its mother.

Odette
did not let go of her either.

I’d trade all the books in my father’s library to preserve this moment,
Marin thought, gazing up from Odette’s chest at the numerous volumes that lined the office’s stone shelves. She closed her eyes, and for a single moment her mind was at peace. She felt loved and whole.

The sound of Uchenna’s voice
jarred the females, breaking their tender moment.

“We are so close!” he said loudly and with much enthusiasm.

Marin’s eyes fluttered open, and Odette’s body, soft a moment before, went rigid. The domo was usually demonstrating his irascible side when he shouted. Although that was not currently the case, it reminded the two of them that octolaides were supposed to act poised and vigilant, like eels lying in wait for approaching prey. Marin’s mother released her daughter and pushed her upright, separating them to a more proper distance.

Uchenna brought his arms in tight and then twisted his torso around, as he extended his a
ppendages once again. The movement spun him around as his tentacles twirled along with him in a black spiral. When he came to a stop he tensed up, closing his fists and clenching them as if victory were within his grasp. His grin grew wicked, changing into a greedy smile. Marin and Odette’s embrace had been overlooked, or House Chimaera’s domo was just too excited to care about their breach in the unsympathetic rules of merwin etiquette.

Along with countless other residents of Mervidia, Marin recognized that the Merwin were r
eturning to their more vicious roots, when they lived in caves and cared only about base survival and their next meal. The First King had united them in the overall construction of Mervidia. However, with the lackluster leadership during the last cycle, the city was crumbling, dismantling itself with house wars and needless bloodshed. Marin knew that she could be the strong monarch needed to preserve the city. She could keep the seven races in check, ruling fairly but firmly.
With me as queen, the faera would need to focus more on pearl farming than being hired assassins. Or, perhaps they could serve as my spies, keeping an eye out for possible confrontations that could be resolved before they resulted in a massacre
, Marin thought, a small wry grin subtly turning up the corners of her mouth. The octolaide liked her idea, thought it quite cunning in fact. After she was crowned, she would have to share it with Domo Kiva.

“Father,” Ebon said, breaking the gratified silence that Uchenna’s exultant disposition had se
ttled on the room. “I am King Reth’s bastard. Why is there to be a seeing ritual? Clearly, with the Divine Family dwindling and me as its sole remaining heir, I’m the clear choice for king.” Moments ago, Ebon had seemed glad that Uchenna was so high spirited, yet now he appeared mildly confused by the Assembly’s chosen course of action. Marin knew her brother was not truly dim, but politics were not his strongpoint. Instead, he favored weaponry like his uncle Ring. Ebon had a love for rare weapons, such as his uncle’s cherished bone chakram. He had recently been training with what Ring called a goleyo, a knife with a curved back section and rearward spike.

Thanks for spelling that out for us, genius,
Marin thought, finding herself irritated at her brother’s words. She knew he really just wanted clarification, but sometimes it seemed like he overly-detailed situations for the express purpose of placing himself in a favorable light.

Marin was still close to her mother’s side, yet she dared not sit on her father’s desk as Odette did.
Uchenna would not condone that kind of behavior from her, but from his wife… well, Marin had in passing heard her parent’s lovemaking from outside the office door. Odette sitting there no doubt awakened pleasurable memories in Uchenna, whereas his daughter doing so would simply be seen as a child being insolent and disrespectful of one of her father’s more prized possessions. Along those thoughts, Marin’s attention was drawn to her father’s purple kelp coat, draped over his desk chair. The desk was a match to its seat, its reddish-black coral gracefully branching out from underneath the coat like an immense sweeping cowl. She glanced across the entirety of the domo’s office. Every item in the room was priceless, from the furniture grown for centuries by previous generations of House Chimaera’s domos to the numerous volumes made from merwin skin. Each book was made from real flesh and carefully tattooed with spell-preserved ink.

Odette’s sigh at her side brought Marin back to the present.
Apparently, she was growing impatient with Ebon as well. Uchenna rarely let his patience falter regarding his stepson though, always pampering him with compliments.
Preening his little puppet
, Marin smirked.
Ebon, you idiot, you mistake persistence for love. He seeks to use you, just as any merwin would.

Her brother was not a complete lack-wit
, as Flinn had been. Ebon, for the life of him, had never been able to see the big picture. His mind was not built for strategy, and that was one of his biggest weaknesses, his first being narcissism.
Good thing that the delicate weave of politics is father’s specialty,
Marin thought.
Father would rule well through Ebon,
she considered,
but I could do the same with one less merwin crowding the throne. Ebon,
Marin silently said to her brother
, you alone would fail to rule your people. You’d serve your people better joining Flinn in a frilled shark’s gullet than by ruling Mervidia.
The young octolaide had little love for Ebon, nor patience for his narrow way of thinking; especially when Marin knew that she was ten times more worthy of the Fangs than her brother.

“Ebon,” Uchenna purred, speaking in a soothing coddling tone, “your claim is the strongest, but the Assembly members need to feel that the old ways are blending well with the new.
They need an even transition, and a seeing ritual will satisfy that requisite. Yes, your being of royal blood and an octolaide too, make you the perfect choice for king, an appropriate blend of tradition and a fresh new start. However, the Coral Assembly seeks endorsement of your claim, a divine sign that they are making the right decision. If the Deeps will it, then you shall be chosen, seen in the vision as our next ruler.”

“The vision may show another as king though,” Ebon
lowered his head, disappointed. “I just wish it could have been a vote instead.”

How disgusting,
Marin thought.
He’s pouting because he isn’t getting his instant gratification.

House Chimaera’s
domo placed a hand on the lower side of his stepson’s neck, where it met with his shoulder, and squeezed firmly, lending him strength with the gesture and bolstering the young merwin’s confidence. “A vote would not guarantee you would wear the Fangs either. There are still too many traditionalists on the Coral Assembly. I have some influence, but not enough to sway the majority vote.” Uchenna squeezed the crook of Ebon’s neck a little firmer, which drew Ebon’s downwards gaze. He raised his head and regarded his stepfather, his eyes pleading for comforting words.
“
Do not worry, my son. I feel confident that you will be the focus of the vision.”

“And what about me, father?
Surely, I could rule,” Marin blurted out, unable to stand being treated like chum any longer. Odette shot her a glance, warning her not to cross her father in the matter.
Too late, mother, the words have already left my mouth
, Marin thought, her head tentacles snaking about as they did when she was nervous. Apparently, her father’s good mood, for once, garnered her some of his limited patience.

“Marin, you have no direct tie to the Divine Family.
Sharing a mother with King Reth’s bastard is not enough. House Chimaera will have a firmer hold on the throne with Ebon wearing the Fangs,” Uchenna said. Marin’s look of disappointment must have elicited a small amount of sympathy from him. The creases around his eyes softened, smoothing as his face relaxed. “If the Nayan’s ritual shows a merwin other than your brother as king… well, do not fear,” Uchenna said calmly, “I would put forth a vote for you to be the royal consort.”

Married off like some fattened fish fed to a shark,
Marin wanted to scream at him.
No thank you! I want to be Queen! Even if I did settle for consort, I’d want to be wed to a merwin I actually cared for, like Zane.
The young female was unable to finish her train of thought; her father was already speaking again, and as mad as Marin was she’d missed his first words.

“…carries the blood of the Divine Family in his veins,” Uchenna finished saying.
Marin knew to say anything more would just provoke her father’s wrath.

I don’t care to be
pushed down on the cold floor this day,
Marin thought
, not like the last time I was in this office.
She kept her mouth shut, nodding submissively to her father.

The Domo of House Chimaera returned his daughter’s nod, acknowledging that the matter was settled.
His course of action was set. “Alright, leave the details to your mother and me. Ebon, go don that coat I had made for you and practice the speech we rehearsed earlier. Marin… go do whatever it is that you do. Your mother and I must talk alone.”

Thanks, Dad
, Marin thought bitterly, using the less respectful title for her father, one that if she spoke aloud would have earned her several days confined to her room.
You don’t even know who I am or what I actually do in my spare time, as caught up as you are kissing Ebon’s tail.