The Lost Heir (18 page)

Tsunami’s stomach flipped inside out like a jellyfish.

It was Riptide.

Webs’s green scales paled nearly to gray as Riptide was tossed onto the floor between him and Queen Coral.

“No!” he cried. “He had nothing to do with this! He’s never had any contact with me.”

Moray tossed another clamshell of water over Riptide, and he groaned, shielding his eyes.

“It’s true,” Tsunami said desperately. “Riptide wasn’t here with Webs. He’s — he’s been helping me. Um, with my Aquatic.” It was true, but it sounded like a lie, even to her own ears.

“Whirlpool is supposed to teach you that, not this miserable creature,” Queen Coral said with narrowed eyes.

“
Whirlpool
is a
horrible
teacher,” Tsunami flared. “I’d be better off taking lessons from a barnacle.”

Riptide pushed himself slowly up to sitting. He glanced around at all the faces staring at him. His gaze stopped on Webs, and the two dragons looked at each other for a long moment.

“Admit your treachery,” said the queen. “Betrayal runs in your family, after all.” She swiped at Riptide’s snout, but he stepped out of reach. Piranha hissed and poked him in the side with a narwhal spear.

“Don’t hurt him,” Tsunami said. “Please. He’s not working for the Talons of Peace, I promise.” She was surprised to see Riptide wince. He looked down at his claws, avoiding her eyes.

Was there something he hadn’t told her?

“Throw them both in the new prison,” Coral said with deep disgust. “We’ll find out what we need to know about the Talons later, when I’m feeling a little more violent.”

“Don’t you have one more question for them?” Blister interjected. She’d been quiet for so long, it made Tsunami jump to hear her voice.

Coral swung her head to look at the SandWing.

“Why they killed all of your heirs,” Blister purred. “I mean,
obviously
it was them, right?”

“Obviously!” Coral burst out. She glared at Webs and Riptide.

“Working together,” Blister murmured. “It’s the perfect climax to the story.”

“It
is
,” Coral agreed.

“No!” Tsunami said. “That makes no sense!”

“Just like one of your brilliant mysteries,” Blister went on, ignoring Tsunami. “
The Claws of Murder
, for instance. Or
A Tail of Blood
. That one was genius.”

“It
was
,” Coral agreed even more fervently. “They’re the perfect murderers! It all fits!”

“No, it doesn’t!” Tsunami shouted. “Why would they do that? There’s no motive!”

“Of course there is,” Coral snarled. “Blister, explain it to her.”

“So that Tsunami could return as the only living heir, of course,” Blister said smoothly. “If they killed off all the other possible heirs, she would become more and more valuable. A bargaining chip if they ever needed it. A powerful tool when they wanted to use her.”

“Nobody uses me,” Tsunami spat.

“Wait, Webs can’t be the murderer,” Clay said. His large brown head tilted to the side. “He hates kill ing other dragons. That’s why he ran away from you in the first place.”

“Nonsense,” Queen Coral said, waving a talon. “He ran away to protect his own scales.”

“Even so, I’m not sure that theory works,” Starflight said, gazing vaguely into the air as if he was trying to solve a math equation. “The princess murders started two years before they stole Tsunami’s egg, so the Talons, and especially Webs, wouldn’t have known they were going to steal a royal egg at that point — Webs didn’t even know he was going to
be
a Talon at that point. And Webs has been underground with us for the last six years. He couldn’t have flown here and back every time he wanted to murder a dragonet.”

Starflight shook his head. “No, I’m afraid it doesn’t —” His eyes met Blister’s, and he abruptly slammed his mouth shut.

“What he said,” Tsunami said desperately. “Exactly.”

“So his allies in the Talons of Peace did his dirty work,” Blister said, unperturbed. “You know it makes sense, Coral. The Talons have been your enemies for so long. Of course it would turn out that they’re the ones behind the murders. It’s the ending that wraps every thing together.”

Coral nodded. Her talons twitched toward the nearest scroll, as if she couldn’t wait to write all this down.

“Why are you doing this?” Tsunami demanded, stepping closer to Blister. “Why pin the murders on Webs and Riptide, unless you’re covering your own tracks?”

Blister gave a hoot of laughter. “It doesn’t matter to me what happens to SeaWing princesses,” she said. “Except that I feel my poor ally’s pain, of course. I’m merely pointing out the obvious to her. These two should be executed for their crimes as soon as possible.”

You want Webs dead,
Tsunami thought.
And you killed Kestrel, I’m sure of it. But why?

“Brilliant, just brilliant,” Coral said, clapping her talons together. “Take them away, and we’ll plan their execution later.” Piranha and her guards closed around Webs and Riptide. Tsunami didn’t have a chance to say anything more to them before they were dragged off, and Riptide still wouldn’t meet her eyes. She clenched her talons in frustration.

“You know what this means?” Coral went on, delighted. “We can return the egg to the Royal Hatchery. It’s safe now.”

“It isn’t!” Sunny cried. She wrapped her talons around the egg.

“It certainly is,” said the queen. “With Webs locked up, the egg can hatch in the Royal Hatchery, just like it’s supposed to.”

“You’re wrong,” Tsunami said. “I’m not risking a dragonet’s life because you’ve fallen for this crazy story Blister has invented.”

Blister’s obsidian-black eyes glittered malevolently at Tsunami.

“It will be perfectly safe,” Coral said, waving her claws. “Besides, every queen in SeaWing history has hatched in the Royal Hatchery.”

Silence prickled between them. Tsunami was thinking,
I didn’t,
and surely Coral was, too.
You’ll eat those words when I’m queen,
Tsunami thought, but she wasn’t sure she meant it anymore. Did she even
want
to be queen here? Especially if it meant allying herself with Blister — or breaking away from her and then dealing with the consequences?

Only one dragon could change Coral’s mind about the egg. Tsunami glanced at Blister and realized at least one thing was true: Blister couldn’t care less what happened to the SeaWing heirs. She was studying her claws, looking slightly bored.

“Fine,” Tsunami said, squaring her shoulders. “But I’m staying with it until it hatches.”

Queen Coral tilted her head. “In the Royal Hatchery?” she said. “All night?”

“I’ll make sure she hatches safely,” Tsunami said. She glanced at the egg, glowing blue and green below the white shell. The dragonet was close to hatching, pressed against the thinning walls. Every once in a while the egg rocked in Sunny’s arms.

“But when I catch the real murderer,” Tsunami went on, “I want you to promise that you’ll let Riptide and Webs go free.”

“Ha,” Coral snorted. “Webs will never be free again.”

“Even if I save your last heir?” Tsunami demanded.

Coral scraped her claws across the rock. “You won’t have to,” she said. “We have the assassins now.”

“So it should be an easy bargain to make,” Tsunami said. Blister stared at her coldly.

“All right,” Coral said, waving one talon. “I’ll promise you Riptide. But Webs has too much to answer for.” Tsunami noticed Blister settling back. So it was definitely Webs she wanted dead, not Riptide.

That was the best she could do for now. She’d have to think of another way to save Webs.

“But Tsunami, we said we should stay together,” Clay protested. “We can’t protect you down there.”

“And whoever’s coming after the eggs will be just as happy to kill you, too,” Glory pointed out.

Tsunami shook her head and flexed her claws. “Not if I catch him first.”

It was pitch-dark in the Royal Hatchery. Dark and horribly quiet.

Tsunami could see in the dark, of course, but every thing was gray and a little blurry. The only flashes of color came from the eggs when the dragonets inside moved. Across the cave, she could see the three male eggs peacefully leaning against one another.
They
had nothing to worry about.

Guards were stationed outside the door, but Tsunami was the only one in the hatchery. As soon as the door closed behind her, she prowled around all the walls, poking every thing that stuck out and hoping a hole would suddenly yawn open in the floor. She circled the statue of Orca several times, shoving at its talons and tail and pedestal. But nothing happened. There was no sign of a secret entrance anywhere.

Finally she curled up beside the egg and stared fiercely around the room.

All right, assassin,
she thought.
I’m ready for you.
She had a narwhal spear lying on the floor beside her, although she had no idea how to use it. But she wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.

The warm jets of water billowed silently up through tiny holes in the coral, surrounding the eggs in a bath of heat and small bubbles. It was a little
too
hot for Tsunami, but she didn’t want to move away from the egg. She poked her nose underneath it, checking again for a secret trapdoor, but the floor was smooth and polished like the egg itself.

A flutter moved in the eggshell, like a heartbeat, as the dragonet inside tried to stretch her wings. Tsunami rested her front talons on it for a moment. She wondered if Sunny was right that the dragonet could hear them. She pressed her snout up to the egg and whispered through the water.

“Don’t worry. I’m here to protect you.”

The tiny wings fluttered again. Tsunami leaned closer, wishing for some noise, some light, in the hot, silent, dark room.

Scrrrrrrraaaaaaaaape.

Tsunami’s head shot up.

Stillness. Darkness.

And yet . . . she had a creeping feeling that
someone
was suddenly in the room with her.

Scrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaape.

Her scales tingled between her wings, as if squirrels were scuttling down her back.

She stood up and flexed her claws. The one door to the hatchery was closed. The eggs were still. The only movement in the room was the blip of small bubbles rising from the floor.

But wait . . .

The statue.

Hadn’t it been facing the door before?

She stared at it until her eyes hurt.

Had it turned its head? Was it
looking at her
?

Tsunami’s whole body was shaking. She blinked through the darkness at the statue of Orca.

The statue stared back. Its eyes were sapphires, she remembered, but in the shades of gray here they gleamed as obsidian-dark and vicious as Blister’s. She was sure the statue had been facing the door when she came in. But now its head was turned toward her and the egg, watching them darkly.

Impossible,
she started to think, and then —

Scrrape. Scrrape. Scrrrrape.

Stone claws curled around the top of the pedestal.

A stone tongue flicked between jagged sharklike teeth.

Nobody’s sneaking in,
Tsunami had a moment to think.
The assassin’s already here. She’s been here all along.

And then the statue hurtled off the pedestal, talons reaching to snatch the egg.

Tsunami flung herself between the statue and her unhatched sister. Green marble claws raked Tsunami’s neck, heavier and thicker than a real dragon’s, like shards of rock stabbing between her scales. One caught in her gills and ripped a wider hole. Blood bubbled out as Tsunami shoved the statue away.

Sorry, broke the rules, blood in the hatchery,
Tsunami thought dizzily. She staggered back, pressing one talon to her neck.

How could she fight a statue? How could anyone beat a dragon of solid stone?

It attacked again, relentless as the tide. The statue plowed into Tsunami and knocked her backward. Its weight bore down on her, crushing her against the floor. She struggled, clawing at its snout, but her claws scraped uselessly against marble and sang with pain.

The statue was trying to walk over her, willing to trample her on its way to the egg. One foot came down heavily on Tsunami’s chest, and she felt tiny
crack crack crack
s stabbing through her ribs.

You are
not
getting to that egg.

Tsunami reached up and wrapped her front talons around the dragon’s snout. She yanked it down toward her, dug her claws into the eye sockets, and popped the two sapphires free. They tumbled into her palms, gleaming and heavy.

The stone dragon didn’t roar in pain or collapse or any of the things Tsunami had been hoping for. It stopped, swung its head from side to side for a moment, and sat back on its haunches, lifting its weight just long enough for her to wriggle free.

She took a deep breath, thick with gurgling blood, and yelled, “HELP!” as loud as she could. Even muffled by the water, surely a scream would be heard by the guards outside. “HELP! HELP!”

If there were still guards outside.

Queen Coral, convinced of her own theory, might have promised them to Tsunami and then sent them away, certain they wouldn’t be needed.

Whether they couldn’t hear her or weren’t there at all, nobody came.

The statue felt its empty eye sockets curiously, then patted the floor around it as if it thought its eyes might have accidentally slipped out. Tsunami took a step back and dropped the sapphires through two of the water jet holes. She needed all the advantages she could get.

Carefully she reached over the egg and picked up the narwhal spear. Would this do anything against stone?

The statue flicked its tongue in and out, tasting the water. Slowly it turned its sightless face toward Tsunami. She knew an animus dragon must have cursed the statue, but she didn’t know how these enchantments worked. Would blinding it stop it, or was it set to keep trying, to kill no matter what, until all the royal heirs in the hatchery were dead?

She guessed it was enchanted to kill only when it was sure no guards were around — no queen, no one to witness its crimes and stop it from striking again.

But Tsunami was an heir. She wasn’t a witness. She was a target.

It stepped toward her. The floor trembled a little at the weight of each talon coming down.

Tsunami wanted to lead it away from the egg. If she could open the door, would that be enough to turn it into a frozen statue again? Or if there was no one there, would it chase her into the palace?

But she was afraid to leave the egg, even for a moment. The statue was fast. It could crush the egg with one foot and keep chasing her without missing a beat.

And if she tried to carry the egg with her, the statue could crash down on both of them, shattering it easily. It was safest in the nest, as long as Tsunami stood in front of it.

She hefted the spear and pointed it at the dragon. Normal fight rules didn’t apply here. She could try piercing the eye socket, but there was no brain in there to skewer. No heart to find through the scales, not even the vulnerable spot on the tail all dragons had.

The statue’s snout lifted, its empty eyeholes as dark as deep sea canyons.

Was it smelling her? Tasting her in the water? Or could it hear her?

Whatever it was doing, it seemed to know exactly where she was, eyes or no eyes.

The statue leaped straight at her. She braced the spear against the floor, and the statue’s chest slammed into it. Jarring shock thrummed through Tsunami’s talons, as if she’d been stabbed in both palms. The statue ricocheted back, and Tsunami saw bits of dark green stone crumble away into the water.
So maybe it can be smashed into little pieces.

The statue came on again, fast, but this time reaching out in front of it. Tsunami tried to move the spear out of its reach, but it caught the narwhal horn in its front talons and yanked it sharply out of her grasp. It swung the spear around in an arc, and Tsunami had to duck and roll away to avoid being skewered.

The only sound the statue made was the scraping of stone against stone. It didn’t roar, or growl, or grunt like a regular dragon in battle. It was as horribly silent as the rest of the hatchery.

Tsunami wondered if it
could
talk, or hear, or communicate in any way.

“Can you hear me?” she shouted at it, throwing caution to the currents. “Who enchanted you?”

Instead of answering, it tossed the spear aside and leaped at her once more. Tsunami dove underneath it, grabbed the spear, and whirled to put herself in front of the egg again.

She couldn’t smash the statue while it was moving. It was too fast and too strong. But if she could trap it somehow . . .

The statue spun and crashed its tail into her side. Tsunami was knocked off her feet, flying through the water into the wall.
Crack
went something in her chest and
stab
went another bolt of pain through her whole body. Breathless, she forced herself back to the egg, jabbing at the statue with the spear to push it away.

It reached for the spear again. This time she tilted the spear up and stabbed it violently into the statue’s open mouth.

The spear lodged in the stone and stuck. The statue’s claws scrabbled along the shaft of the horn and tried to yank it out, but it was wedged in tightly. Tsunami shook the spear from side to side, and the statue’s head wobbled along with it.

She leaped to an empty nest and jammed the blunt end of the spear into one of the crevices. Now the statue was pinned like a sheep in a dragon’s claws. It whipped its tail and beat the floor with its talons, trying to push itself free. Its wings thrashed the water into wild currents so Tsunami could barely stay upright.

Tsunami fought her way back to the egg and picked it up. Just as she did —

Tap tap tap.

The egg cracked down the middle and a small green head poked out. Dark green eyes blinked at Tsunami.

Tsunami smiled and flashed a few tiny stripes along her snout to say hello.

The statue was writhing and smashing the floor now. Tsunami was afraid it would knock itself free in a minute. She clutched the dragonet and swam for the door as fast as she could. When she kicked it open she found that, indeed, there were no guards outside.

But as the door opened, the statue went still.

Tsunami turned in the open doorway to look at it.

The enchantment only worked in secret. It dropped away when the door was open. Whoever had set the curse didn’t want anyone to look in and catch the statue at its deadly work. Tsunami guessed that the spell also alerted the statue when someone was coming down the passageway, so it normally had time to return to its pedestal. And the statue would remain still as long as anyone else was around — like the queen or her guards. This statue was meant to keep murdering dragonets for as long as it could.

Well, not anymore,
Tsunami thought fiercely.

Even Queen Coral would have to believe the truth once she saw the statue as it was now. Marble Orca, once serene and regal on her pedestal, was trapped by the spear in battle position. Her claws reached out hungrily and a snarl transfigured her face. Coral would know for certain that this was the killer who had been hiding in her hatchery all these years.

Now the question was . . . who had enchanted it? An animus dragon, of course. But it couldn’t be Anemone, who hadn’t hatched yet when the princess murders began.

Tsunami had a new theory.
Animus power runs in the royal family.

But if Shark or Moray had this kind of power, they would be using it for so much more. They would use it to fight battles, to win the queen’s favor, to be the secret weapon she wanted so badly. If Shark’s goal was the throne for his daughter, he’d have used his magic to get rid of Coral herself instead of knocking off her dragonets.

And if the animus was Moray, she’d have offered her power to the queen long ago, for Coral to use however she wanted.

No, it was another royal dragon. Tsunami was sure of it.

She stepped back into the room, leaving the door open. She remembered Coral’s words.
My first daughter was a very talented sculptor.

Tsunami settled the newly hatched dragonet around her neck, wincing at the pain from her gills.

Orca may have died years ago, but she left a deadly gift behind.

Carefully she stepped over the nests and stared into the statue’s face.

Empty. Lifeless. Just a statue now.

A statue that she and Coral would be happy to smash and smash and smash until it became a million of the smallest pieces of rock in the ocean.

Orca’s weapon would never assassinate another dragonet or crush another egg. Its killing days were over.