The Lost Heir (11 page)

Queen Coral dropped her head and slowly dragged herself back to her pool. “Dead,” she said. “My Gill is dead.”

“No more eggs,” Moray whispered. She was still crouched in the center of the floor, scrubbing at the blood. Her eyes had a weird glow to them. “No more dragonets, no more challenges.”

“Not necessarily. She
could
marry again,” Whirlpool murmured. Moray shot him a glare.

Coral didn’t seem to hear either of them. She pulled Anemone into her wings and clutched her tightly. The little dragonet wriggled a bit, then gave up and rested her head on Coral’s shoulder. She blinked in a resigned way at Tsunami over their mother’s back.

Tsunami felt like oceans were pressing against the back of her eyes. Her scales were heavy, as if they were clogged with seaweed.

But I didn’t have a choice.

Did I?

He was my
father
. And I had no idea.

But he wasn’t a real dragon anymore. He wasn’t anyone, inside his parched scales. He was gone, and I had to survive. I had to survive to protect my friends and fulfill my destiny.

Nothing helped. She hadn’t really thought about other options when she’d killed the SeaWing in the arena. It was impulse and wanting to prove something to Queen Scarlet.

Shark was still staring at her, unblinking. Tsunami bared her teeth at him.

“I must grieve,” said the queen. “Council dismissed.” She stepped to the edge of the pavilion and flew off to her cave, still holding Anemone.

The Council dragons peeled off to various caves and other levels of the pavilion. Tsunami buried her head in the pool and clutched her horns. Now what was she supposed to do?

She definitely was
not
in the mood for seeing her friends. It would not make her feel any better to face their remarks about what a terrible dragon she was. The kind of dragon who attacked other dragons for no reason. The kind of dragon who did what she thought was right, but was always wrong.

The kind of dragon who could kill her own father.

Something tapped her on the top of her head.

She emerged from the water and found Whirlpool rubbing his claws together. “Time for your first lesson,” he said in his oily voice.

“Now?” Tsunami said.

“Why not?” He spread his talons. “It is never too soon to begin filling our minds with knowledge.”

Tsunami hissed softly under her breath. This was not going to be fun. But perhaps it would be distracting.

“Come,” he said, strutting to the edge and diving over. Tsunami reluctantly followed him into the cavern lake. He was hovering several lengths below the surface, flashing his stripes at her.

Tsunami sank to his level and watched him. She kept her own scales dark. She most definitely did not want to say something to him like what she’d said to Riptide. If Anemone was right about Coral’s plans for him, Whirlpool did not need any encouraging.

After a few moments, Whirlpool swam up to the surface again. His pale green eyes seemed far too big for his eye sockets.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Don’t your stripes light up?”

“Of course they do!” Tsunami snapped. “But you haven’t told me what we’re saying or anything.”

“Just imitate me,” he said officiously, and dove again before she could argue.

“Rrrrgh,” Tsunami growled.

This time she imitated each flashing path of light — along her wings, her tail, her sides, alternating and sometimes flashing faster or slower. It seemed to go on for an eternity. Finally Whirlpool nodded with satisfaction and rose to the air again.

“Excellent,” he proclaimed.

“What’s excellent?” Tsunami demanded, spreading her wings to float. “What did we just say?”

“We recited the first chapter of the queen’s very first work,
The Tragedy of Orca
. It’s extremely moving, glorious writing. You nearly repeated it perfectly.”

Tsunami wanted to splash seawater up his annoying snout. “But I didn’t learn anything.”

“Oh, you will,” he said. “With repetition comes perfection. Shall we go on to the second chapter?”

“No!” Tsunami said. “Teach me something I can use. How do you greet strangers? How do you warn other SeaWings of danger?”
How do you say “I’m sorry I killed my father?”
She shook herself. “For moon’s sake, at least show me how to say ‘I don’t speak Aquatic.’ ”

“All knowledge can be found in the queen’s writing,” Whirlpool insisted. “If we recite three chapters a day, we should get through her entire body of work in about five years.”

“I have to get out of here,” Tsunami said.
Before I tie your stupid tail around your stupid snout and leave you in a bundle at the bottom of the lake.
She turned and swam toward the exit tunnel. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as storming out of a cave, which she hoped would be the first and last time she missed anything about life under the mountain.

“I am not impressed with your work ethic,” Whirlpool called. “This may take us closer to seven or eight years if you —”

Tsunami plunged her head under the water so she wouldn’t have to listen to him anymore. The exit tunnel yawned ahead of her, and she shot into it as fast as her wings could beat.

Outside the Summer Palace, the sky was gray and overcast, which suited Tsunami’s mood perfectly. Wind whipped the sea into white-tipped peaks, knocking Tsunami around even more than usual. She tried paddling away from the palace underwater, but currents kept flinging her into the jagged boulders.

She was sick of fighting with the ocean. Why wouldn’t it welcome her, like it was supposed to?

Why couldn’t she start over as a normal SeaWing with normal problems, instead of having her past mistakes suckered onto her tail like overgrown leeches?

Frustrated, she swam to the surface and flew into the sky. It didn’t make sense that flying should be easier for her than swimming. What kind of SeaWing didn’t love the sea?
The kind that shouldn’t be queen, maybe
, Tsunami thought.

Looming out of the water ahead of her was the island of rocks shaped like a giant dragon skeleton. Tsunami banked toward it, studying the holes and gaps. She chose the cave where the eye should be and landed in cool semidarkness. The stone was smooth like pearls under her claws.

She flapped her wings to dry them and turned to look out the entrance.

A dragon head popped into her view, then vanished again.

“Wow,” Tsunami said. “You are the
worst
at staying hidden. Has anyone ever told you that you should definitely never be a spy?”

Riptide slowly poked his head around the mouth of the cave. “I think I’d make a splendid spy,” he said with dignity.

“Aren’t you supposed to be patrolling the outer islands, where we met?” Tsunami asked.

“Perhaps, but as you can imagine, I don’t have a very important job.” Riptide made a wry expression. “Her Majesty can’t trust me with anything vital.”

“You do seem like a shady character,” Tsunami said, remembering that she was supposed to be mad at him, too. She could yell at him. Her first instinct was to yell at him.

Maybe I should stop listening to all my first instincts.

She scooted back farther into the cave. “Come on in. I’m just recovering from an Aquatic lesson with Whirlpool.”

“Oh, Whirlpool. Queen Coral’s favorite instrument of torture,” Riptide said. He climbed into the cave beside her, shaking water droplets from his scales. The cave was only big enough for three or four dragons, so they were closer together in the dark than Tsunami had expected.

When she was much younger, Tsunami had had fleeting crushes on Clay and Starflight — before she realized that Starflight could be massively annoying, and that sweet loyal Clay saw the other dragonets as brother and sisters. But they were the only dragonets her own age that she’d ever met. Even though they weren’t SeaWings, who else was she supposed to like?

Now here she was, alone with a SeaWing . . . a SeaWing who looked at her as if he didn’t see a future queen, or a father killer, or anything but a dragon whom he liked very much.

“Coral told me Webs is your father,” she said quickly, awkwardly. “Why didn’t you say something when we met?”

“It’s not how I usually introduce myself,” he said. He coiled his tail around his talons. “It makes dragons see me a certain way. I’m sorry, I should have told you. I was hoping you might, um — I’d like to know more about him.”

Tsunami shook her head, tempted to say,
No, you wouldn’t.
“Is that why you’ve been hanging around watching me?” she asked instead.

His dark blue eyes caught the faint light from outside. “That and other reasons,” he said. “I was worried about you. There aren’t a lot of . . . outspoken dragons in the Kingdom of the Sea.”

“I can say whatever I want,” Tsunami said boldly. “I’m the missing princess. Mother loves me so much, she’ll have a harness on me by the end of the day if I’m not careful.”

Riptide snorted. “I’d like to see any dragon try to put a harness on you.”

“Then they’d really find out how ‘outspoken’ I am,” Tsunami said. She opened and closed her wings, accidentally brushing against his.
Oops. Say something, quick.
“Webs wasn’t so bad,” she blurted. “Not as bad as the other two.”

He tilted his head.

“We had three guardians. The other two, Dune and Kestrel, hated every thing,” Tsunami said. “Except maybe Sunny. Nobody hates Sunny — she’s too sweet and simple and lovable.”

“She sounds frightful,” Riptide said, and Tsunami laughed.

“But Webs — he wasn’t just trying to keep us alive. He taught us every thing he could, except Aquatic, I guess. He taught us history and geography and all about the prophecy, and he wasn’t even that boring about it. When it was his turn to hunt, he tried to bring back prey he knew we liked. It would have been worse without him.” She fell silent, thinking. She’d never tried listing good things about Webs before. It was a lot harder than complaining about him, like she’d done her whole life.

“It’s all right,” Riptide said. “You can tell me the truth.” The end of his tail flicked up and down. “I want to hear the bad stuff, too. It’s good for me.”

Tsunami took a deep breath. “He should have protected us better,” she said. “If he was the only one who cared, he should have stopped Dune and Kestrel from hurting us and telling us we were worthless. He should have fought for us, and he never did, except right at the end when Scarlet and the SkyWings attacked.”

That’s one thing I do,
she thought to herself.
I fight for my friends, even if I’m doing it all wrong.

Riptide nodded, looking down at the stone under his talons. “Weak and cowardly,” he said. “That’s how he’s always been described to me.”

Tsunami reached out and touched his wing with one claw. “That doesn’t mean you’re anything like him,” she said. “It’s not fair to punish you for what he did.”

Something tingled in the air between them, like the sky outside, waiting for the storm.
This is MOST improper for the future SeaWing queen,
Tsunami thought.
But maybe I’d rather have this than a throne anyway.

“Would you like a real Aquatic lesson?” Riptide asked with a smile.

“I
demand
one,” she answered.

“It’s dark enough in here,” he said. “All right, here’s what you say to Whirlpool next time you see him.” The stripe on his tail lit up three times.

“Uh-oh,” Tsunami said, copying him. “What did I just call him?”

“A squid-brain,” Riptide said. “My new favorite insult, thanks to you.”

“I’m not sure this lesson is teaching me much more than his did,” Tsunami pointed out.

“Hey, now I’m offended,” he said. “All right, you asked for it.” He sat down and pointed to his snout. “These stripes usually indicate a question. Like this for
why
, and like this for
how
, and like this for
when
.”

Tsunami mimicked him, memorizing the patterns of flashes. It was easier than she’d expected. Maybe there was one part of being a SeaWing that she wouldn’t be a total failure at.

After she had the question patterns down, Riptide said, “Try this one: I. Will. Protect. You.” Stripes flashed along his side, and he gestured at the same time.

“I don’t need protecting,” Tsunami said.

“I know,” he answered, “but knowing you, you’ll probably need to say it to someone one day.”

Tsunami liked that.
I will protect you,
she echoed, flashing it back at him.

He smiled a little sadly. “I wish you could,” he said.

“Why not?” she said. “I am a princess. I can do whatever I want.”

“Not while someone else is queen,” he pointed out. “All right, here’s how you indicate different kinds of danger.”

Riptide showed her other stripe patterns and some of the talon gestures as well. It was all fascinating, and Tsunami wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she finally glanced out at the wind-whipped sea and realized she should be getting back.

“Mother might be looking for me,” she explained. “But thank you. You have no idea how helpful this was.”
All of this,
she thought, realizing she’d managed to forget about Gill for a little while.