Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis) (17 page)

“This way,” Nol said, steering me to the left.

The glass ceiling ended at a tunnel of opaque white that curved overhead. Columns as thick around as my body touched the ceiling, lining the edges of the tunnel like trees. Rooms opened up between them, some filled with ropes, ladders, and mats. As I watched, a man scaled a web of ropes while a cluster of people looked on, some cheering. In another room, a man and woman sparred in hand-to-hand combat.

“Where are we?”

“The gymnasium yards, they call it,” Nol said. “People come here to practice fighting, climbing, or other physical skills.”

We stopped at the end of the tunnel, and I saw a room filled with targets of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Spears lined the walls, some as tall as me, some small enough for a child to wield. Some had wicked-looking points; others were rounded and blunt. I scanned the array, looking them over. At the end of the wall were the smallest spears, barely the length of my arm. At the other end were the tallest. I made note of a particular kind—a spear with a three-pronged point.

I looked at Nol, and he raised one eyebrow.

“Well?”

I strode to the wall and took down one of the spears. It was heavy, the shaft made of polished wood.

“Not that one,” Nol said. “Those are replicas of ancient weapons. They use these for practice.” He indicated a row of metal-shafted spears that had blunted tips.

I selected one and hefted it in my hand. It was lighter than I was used to. I took aim at the target and drew my arm back.

My first throw bounced off the wall.

“You’re not compensating for the weight of the spear,” Nol said. “And there’s no wind here. You’re used to wind.”

I gave him a sharp look and selected another spear.

“Let me show you,” he said, reaching for my hand.

I planted my hand on his chest and pushed him away. “I can teach myself.”

He smirked, and I whirled and threw the spear.

It sank into the edge of the target.

“Better,” Nol said.

I wanted to smack him, but still I smiled. “Perhaps I’ll do better with a wager to motivate me,” I said.

“Oh?” Nol asked, cautious.

The taste of risk danced on my tongue, and for some reason, I found it delightful. “Yes. Are you willing to bet you can win?”

“What are the stakes?”

“The loser must refer to the winner in the most gracious and deferential terms until we leave for Primus,” I said. “
My lady
, for instance, which is what you’ll call me when I win.”

He crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow. “You are confident, aren’t you? But you’re going to lose. It will be embarrassing for you to refer to me as sir for an entire week.”

“If I’m going to lose, then why do you hesitate?”

“Fine,” he said. “I accept your wager. Three throws for each of us.”

“And we each get to choose any spear on the wall.”

“Yes, yes,” he said.

I swept a hand at the target. “Then by all means, show me how it’s done.”

He studied me a moment, as if trying to discover my motives, but I only smiled sweetly at him. Then he crossed to the wall and selected a practice spear.

“Watch and learn,” he said.

His first throw landed in the second ring of the target, a respectable accomplishment. He crowed with victory and turned to see my expression. I nodded, trying to look as though my confidence had been suitably undermined.

“I’m only getting started,” he said.

His second throw was even better, just grazing the edge of the first circle that ringed the middle.

The third hit dead center.

“You have improved,” I said, when he turned to catch my expression.

“Let’s see your best,” he said, and stepped aside.

I selected a spear on the far end of the row of weapons, a short one with a slender shaft. Nol made a face at my choice, but said nothing. He still wore his expression of triumph, but it was softening into something akin to pity.

I readied the spear and threw.

It embedded itself in the middle of the target. Dead center.

“One,” I said lightly.

Nol’s mouth dropped open.

“How—?”

I held up my hand for silence and took down another spear. This one also landed in the middle of the target.

Nol’s eyes widened.

My third and final throw landed squarely between the other two, the shaft quivering.

I went to collect the spears. When I turned, Nol was shaking his head.

“You tricked me,” he said. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps I’m just good at spear throwing.”

“Or you know something I don’t. What is the secret?”

I chuckled. “The pryor contains much knowledge, you know.”

“And what knowledge is that?”

I pulled one of the short spears from the wall. “These are made to always hit the center. They are training spears, designed to help the thrower get used to the motions.”

“Cheater!” he shouted, but he was laughing.

I smiled.

“The wager does not stand,” he sputtered, jabbing a finger at my face, although a smile was threatening around the edges of his mouth.

“You underestimated me,” I countered. “There was no provision for spears engineered to hit the mark. The wager stands.”

I sauntered away smugly with his growl of frustration following me.

~ ~ ~

Nol did keep our wager, much to my surprise—and amusement.

“After you, my lady,” he drawled, sweeping a bow and flashing a gentlemanly smile as I passed him in the hall. “Please pass the crescent tarts, my lady,” he asked me at the dinner table, earning us both puzzled looks from Merelus and Lyssia. “You are correct, my lady,” he said while administering one of Merelus’s impromptu quizzes as we studied together. I suspected he was trying to embarrass me, as he picked all kinds of inopportune times to bestow the title upon me, like when I was trying to converse with Mella and Tob in the servants’ hall after supper.

“My lady,” he said with exaggerated flair, “we need to speak. It is urgent.”

Tob and Mella both raised their eyebrows. Tob was so surprised that his hand froze halfway to his mouth, the pastry in his fingers quivering.

“In a minute,” I said. I was telling them a story about something the cook had said.

“My lady,” Nol repeated, “it is urgent.”

Despite his playfulness, the edge to his tone made me pause.

“All right,” I whispered, turning to speak to him. “I’ll meet you in the observatory in a quarter of an hour.”

This seemed amenable to him, and he vanished down the hall and up the lift.

“What exactly was that about?” Tob asked, with a suspicious glance at the hall. “Is he ill?”

“He must be ill,” Mella agreed.

“He lost a wager and is suffering the consequences,” I said with a bit of a smile.

Mella studied my face. “You two are friendly lately.”

“Friendly? Me and Nol?”

“Yes,” Tob said. “Think about how that sounds, and tell us if you think it is madness.”

“It is madness,” I said firmly, but it was not. It was true. The impossible seemed to have happened.

Nol and I were friendly.

I pondered this unexpected and perplexing development as I made my way to the observatory. Located at the top of the house, above the lift and accessible only by spiral staircase, it was an excellent place to read, rest, or nap. Few people ever visited it besides me, and I’d learned it was the best place to escape to if I wanted to be undisturbed for a few hours. The room was round, filled with plush furniture and plants. The domed ceiling was glass, affording an unrestricted view of the sea above. At present, the water was black with night, and the observatory was in shadow, illuminated only by the recessed lights set in the floor around the edges of the room.

Nol appeared from a shadow as soon as I’d entered.

“What’s so urgent that it must be discussed now?” I asked.

“I found this,” he said, and thrust a piece of paper at me. I took it from his hands and turned it over. Four words were scribbled across it.

Village of the Rocks

When I raised my eyes to Nol again, his face creased with anger.

“Why would you write that down? It’s careless, Aemi. If they find out where we’re from...”

He’d called me Aemi instead of my lady, but I didn’t correct him. This was too serious.

“I didn’t write it down,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Then who did?”

I remembered my slip of the tongue, and how Lyssia had asked about it. Chills crept across my skin.

“I think I know.”

LYSSIA WASN’T IN her room. I shut the door and leaned against it. Might she have gone into the city for some reason? To meet Cal, perhaps? Nol waited anxiously at my elbow as I tried to think.

“Maybe she’s with her father,” he suggested.

If she knew anything, we needed to talk to her before she told anyone else. Myo’s warnings rang in my mind. Sweat broke out across my palms and between my shoulder blades. I headed straight for the study, Nol at my heels.

We reached the study, breathless. I opened the door and saw Lyssia standing by her father’s desk.

Merelus was nowhere in sight.

“Lyssia,” I gasped, relief making my knees weak. “I need to speak with you.”

“Come in, Aemi,” Merelus’s voice came from the other side of the room. “We were just talking about you. Nol? You too.”

My stomach plummeted. My pulse stuttered. Exchanging a glance with Nol, I stepped inside.

Merelus stood before the map carving on his wall, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes serious. He studied us a long moment as we stood there, winded and sweating, and then he said, “Sit down, please.”

My legs were wooden. They folded beneath me, and I dropped into the chair. Beside me, Nol sank slowly, his eyes fixed on Merelus.

Lyssia stared at us, and I couldn’t decipher the look on her face. Sadness? Regret?

My heartbeat slammed in my throat and roared in my ears. My fingers were clumsy as I smoothed my clothing. I looked toward the door.

There was nowhere to run.

Merelus cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’re wondering why—”

“We know,” Lyssia interrupted. “We know your secret.”

My stomach twisted into a small, cold knot. Myo’s fierce whisper rang in my memory.

If it is discovered that you were not executed on that ship as ordered, you will be hunted down and killed. You saw things that you were not supposed to see. You know things you are not supposed to know
.

“I remembered what you said, Aemi, about your village,” she continued. “I did a little research about a place called the Village of the Rocks. I found out a few things. I shared them with my father.”

“A village is the name of a surface-dweller city,” Merelus said. “It is a little-known word here, very obscure. The pryor does not contain its definition. I checked.”

Say nothing
.

My legs trembled. Every muscle in my body was stiff, frozen.

“Why didn’t you tell us you’re surfacers?” Lyssia whispered. “Why did you lie?”

Trust no one
.

I raised my gaze to hers, and shock fizzled through me as tears filled her eyes. She was...sad?

Trust no one
.

“Why?” Lyssia said again, louder.

Words gathered on my tongue. Thorny words, angry words. But Nol beat me to it.

“Why didn’t we tell you that you were kidnapped?” he snapped. “Taken from our homes, sold like animals?” His voice was like ice.

Merelus and Lyssia stared at us, shocked.

“We were told not to say anything,” I said. “We were told they’d kill us.”

“Told by whom?” Merelus demanded.

“I only know his name as Myo,” I said, and even speaking it felt like a betrayal. Myo had helped us. “We were supposed to be killed, but he helped us escape the ship.”

“Tell us what happened,” Merelus commanded.

We sat there.

Lyssia leaned forward and put her hand over mine.

“Please. Please trust us.”

I sucked in a breath.

Slowly, haltingly, I recounted my memories of the night we were taken. Myo. The lights shining in my face. The screaming and burning.

Lyssia listened, tears gathering in her eyes and occasionally trailing down the sides of her face to be lost in the folds of her clothing.

When I’d finished, Merelus looked to Nol to tell his side.

Nol’s fingers were clenched, his lips white. He looked at the door. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

The room was silent.

“I was returning from meeting someone when they came,” he muttered.

Tagatha
. I blinked as something like jealousy wriggled in my gut.

“The ocean was black as the inside of a cave, and then it began to froth and glow. I stopped and stared like an idiot. I could have sounded the alarm, told everyone to run, to hide. But I didn’t.” He stopped speaking and stared at nothing, his mouth twisting.

“You cannot blame yourself,” Merelus said. “You did not understand.”

Nol shook his head as if trying to free himself. “The ship surfaced while I watched. It was like a giant rock that had grown from the water. It was black, shiny like ink. The sea poured off the sides and...I couldn’t move. I just kept standing there like a fool.”

I reached for him, and he grabbed my fingers and squeezed.

“They weren’t afraid of being seen,” Nol continued. “They didn’t shut off their lights. They didn’t use stealth. They knew we could do nothing to stop them. They came ashore carrying lights and weapons. They burned the village and captured every young male they found. Two of them grabbed me and tied my hands.”

“And after that?” Merelus asked quietly.

“They hit me on the back of the head, and I don’t remember anything else until I woke up on the ship.”

“They must have been taking men to impress into service as slaves on the military ships,” Merelus said angrily. “I’ve heard rumors of surfacers being kidnapped for such purposes, enslaved to meet the need for cheap labor, but of course no one gives any credence to such tales, because no one except conspiracists like the New Dawn followers believes there are people living on the surface.”