Breakwater (21 page)

He flicked his hand and the water sloshed forward and around me. I held my breath, even though the earring would allow me to breathe. Vertigo engulfed me and at first I didn’t understand what was happening. I was high above the beach, but still looking through water. Requiem had sucked me into a waterspout. I stared down at those on the sand, their words slurred and distorted.

“Send her to the cells. Let her be with the other traitor,” Belladonna sobbed out. “I can’t look at her.” Well done, Bella, I thought. That was a perfect move. Putting me in with Ash, we could find a way out. At least, I hoped that was what she was thinking.

Dolph let out a scream as two of the Enders picked him up, dragging him out of the boat in total disregard for his wounds. That he was even still alive was a testament to his sheer stubbornness. Finley stepped out of the boat and held her hands out. “Chain me, then. You filthy sea worm.”

Requiem dropped to his knee in front of her, whispered something I couldn’t hear through the sloshing of water, but his lips looked to form the word ‘Mary and me.’ Who was Mary and why would her name make Finley cry? Requiem looked at me as Finley covered her face with her hands.

With a wave, the water pressed around me, forcing its way into my ears, nose, mouth, and under my closed eyelids until I thought they would pop. I was moving, but I couldn’t do anything. Something sucked me down, spun me as if I were in a tornado and then the pressure was gone and I was on my knees in water up to my chin.

Blinking, relief flowed through me as I stood, the water resting just below my hip. My eyes ached from the pressure, but I could at least see. Though, what I saw was hard for my brain to put together. I held a hand out and touched the surface in front of me. The four walls were thick glass, distorted and wavy. Movement inside them caught my eyes. Little tiny fish swam between two panes, oblivious to the fact they were a part of someone’s cell. For all intents and purposes, I’d been placed inside a reverse aquarium. The glass was smooth under my hand, cool and slightly slimy.

Slowly, I turned, the water sloshing, echoing in the tiny space. All around me, on the other side of the thick aquarium walls were shadowy movements. Maybe other cellmates? “Hello?”

A voice reverberated to me. “Oh, a new one! How wonderful. What’s going on up top, love? The cells are rather boring, I must say.” Someone, I assumed the speaker, pressed against the far right wall. I sloshed through the water and tapped on that wall, my mind racing. “Who are you?”

“Pardon me, my manners are slipping! I’m the ambassador from the Pit. Name is Loam. Peta, go over and say hello for us.” Loam gave a blurry wave over his head and a tiny shadow leapt above us.

The ceiling was slatted, for air most likely, and set six inches apart from one another, the fish still swimming within the tubular slats, oblivious to the world around them.

But the ceiling wasn’t what kept my attention.

A gray and white housecat glared down at me. “I hate Terralings. Let us be clear about that.” She let out a long low hiss after she spoke.

I glared up at her. “I’m not particularly fond of cats. They think they are so damn smart. When really they are just rude.”

She gave a sniff and she stalked along the edge of the ceiling. “As you can see— ” she hopped onto one of the glass tubes, the fish under her feet scattering—“I am the only one able to move around, so perhaps you are the stupid one, dirt girl.”

This conversation was getting me nowhere. I let out a deep breath and forced myself not to splash the bedraggled cat.

“Is there another Terraling here? Ash?”

Green eyes narrowed and her tail flicked with irritation. “I am not your messenger, dirt girl.”

I held up my hands. “I’m not asking you to take messages. Only asking whether he is here or not.”

Loam tapped on the wall. “The Terraling died last night, I think.”

His words hit me like a physical blow, and I stumbled back. “No. Not Ash.” Grief and shame, complete horror rocked me. How could this have happened so fast? He wasn’t injured when he was sent down, and it had only been a few short hours.

“She’s crying now. Why did you do that, Loam?” Peta growled. “I hate crying. It irritates my ears.”

Loam snorted. “How did I get stuck with you as a familiar? Ah yes, that’s right, no one else wanted a useless housecat. Remember that, Peta. No one wanted you.”

I latched onto the word “useless” and slammed my hands into the wall over and over. Anything to avoid the reality of Ash’s death. “I doubt she is as useless as you! Where were you when Requiem was taking over? Where were you when he was killing his father and threatening his sister? You piece of worm shit! Don’t you dare call her useless.”

From the other side, Loam was quiet for a moment. “We aren’t to interfere. There was nothing I could do.”

“That’s a stupid rule and we all know it. If you’d done something, ANYTHING, maybe you wouldn’t be in this watery hole!” I was screaming, but didn’t care. Who would hear me that mattered? A house cat and an ambassador obviously more afraid of breaking the rules than surviving.

Peta leapt from the ceiling and landed on my shoulder, startling me. Her claws dug into my shoulders, breaking through the madness that gripped me. “Quiet, dirt girl. Be quiet, there are those in here we do not want to come to us.”

Calm flowed from her into me and my breathing slowed along with my heart rate. Lifting a hand, I brushed it along her coat, the fur sticky with salt water. “You aren’t useless. Don’t you believe it for a second.”

She sneezed and wiped a paw over her face. “I know I’m not useless. I’m a cat. I’m purrrrfect.”

I laughed softly and then rubbed a hand over my face, as if I could clear away the last few minutes. First thing’s first, and that was getting out of the cells. Ash’s death would have to wait. I would grieve him later.

“We need to find a way out. Who else do we have to work with us?”

Loam laughed. “You think you can get us out of here? Child, for that is all you could be with a belief so foolish as that, there is no way out. This is an oubliette, we cannot reach our powers here.”

A shadow moved behind the wall on the opposite side of me and a hand splayed on the glass, palm pressing against it. His voice echoed as he spoke, making me think I heard a ghost, and I struggled to understand how it could possibly be him.

“How do you plan to do that, exactly? A half-breed bastard who throws her only ally into the cells isn’t someone I’d think of trusting again.”

“Ash?” I threw myself forward, the water slowing me down as I slammed into the wall between us. “How, they said you died!”

“Barkley died last night. He was the one they spoke of. He was too old and had been in here too long.”

I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall. A part of me wanted to apologize for putting him into the cells in the first place. But the other part . . .

“Why in the name of the mother goddess didn’t you tell me what was going on? Could you not have just shown me the note, you fool?”

“I was trying to protect you!” He slapped both hands on the wall between us, the force of it reverberating into the water, making ripples like a stone dropped into a pond.

“How’s that working out for you?” Peta snickered on my shoulder.

“Shut up, cat,” Ash snarled, the words hovering in the air. “You aren’t exactly winning familiar of the year sitting in a tank of salt water with your ambassador.”

She puffed up on my shoulder, her fur standing on end as a low growl trickled over her lips. “It’s a familiar’s job to protect and aid. But we can’t stop our masters from doing stupid things. Like spilling your queen’s secrets on your lover’s breast.”

Loam gave a strangled cry. “You are the worst familiar in this whole wretched world. I hope you are fed to the fishes!”

Peta leapt from my shoulders up to the slats and stalked back to her master. They argued in lower tones, so I only caught a word here and there. Fiametta. Conquest. Cat piss. I shook my head.

“Ash . . . I think my father sent us here to be killed. You know that, don’t you?”

A
thunk
reverberated as he dropped his head against the glass. “I feared it. Which is why I came.”

I spread my hands over the slick glass. Glass made up of sand. I’d pulled the sandstone door apart, why would the glass be any different? It shouldn’t. But that would mean connecting to the earth and I wasn’t angry in the least.

But maybe I could change that. “Loam, we’re likely to die here, aren’t we?”

“Well, that’s not very optimistic, is it?” Peta stared down at me from the ceiling once more, her green eyes flashing.

I ignored her. “Does your queen still have ties with Cassava? What are they plotting?”

Behind me, Ash made a choking noise. “You don’t think he’s actually going to tell you, do you?”

Shrugging, forgetting that no one could see the movement, I didn’t answer Ash. “Loam?”

“Terraling, why would I tell you? Hmm? My queen trusts me.”

“Obviously that didn’t go so well considering what Peta said,” I pointed out.

“I hate Terralings,” he snapped, and walked away from the wall connecting us.

This conversation wasn’t going the way I wanted. I spun around and knocked on Ash’s side. “I need you to make me angry.”

“What?” His shadow looked up like he was trying to see over the top to me. “Why?”

Sliding my hands over the slick glass, my frustration built, and that wouldn’t do me a stick of good. “Can you do that? Can you say things to make me angry?”

“Why would I help you? You had me thrown in here like a common cur.”

“Ash, just do it. Please.”

“Ridiculous. I was right not to trust you.” His words were like a slap, stinging me. “Your father has the right idea. Kill off the ones who cause him the most trouble before they breed like rabbits, spitting out their spawn like demons come to eat the world whole. You and Belladonna, you’re exactly the same. You both hide behind your mothers’ legacies so people won’t think you’re a matched pair of bitches in heat.”

For just a moment, I believed him, and anger, hot and sure shot through me. I grabbed hold of my connection to the earth. I spread my hand over the glass in front of me, sliding the power through it, breaking down the glass to its simplest form.

Sand.

It fell in a shimmering cascade of clear sand tinkling into the water, fish falling through the air like tiny wriggling stars dropping from the heavens.

Ash stared at me, no longer a barrier between us, golden eyes wide with shock. “How did you do that? How is that possible?”

The anger still burned hot and I turned, breaking down several more walls before the power slipped through my fingers, dissipating with the fury that had gripped me. Loam sloshed forward. “Well, I’ll be buggered rightly. This is a rather good turn of events, isn’t it?”

Peta sniffed from her perch on Loam’s shoulder. “Until the guards see that some of their cells have disintegrated and decide to kill us outright.”

Ash grabbed me and spun me around. “How can you even connect with the earth? There is a block put on the cells, Lark. A block that maybe even your father might not be able to break, but you just walked through it like it was nothing.”

I swallowed hard, and shook my head. “I don’t know, I just did it. Is that not enough?”

Peta let out a low growl. “No, because I cannot shift to my other form. We are at the mercy of the Undines and you just opened us up to them.”

I glared at her. “At least we have a chance now.”

“Except that you can’t touch your power without rage powering it, can you? My first master was like you: anger the only thing she had going for her.” She arched an eyebrow at me. Cats and their know-it-all attitudes.

“That’s why we’re being swarmed with Undines, right now?” I arched an eyebrow right back.

She rolled her eyes and dug into Loam’s shoulder. “Stupid dirt girl.”

“Pussy.”

“Lark,” Ash interrupted. “Ignore the cat. She’s just pissed because she isn’t saving her master, you are.”

I turned my back to Loam and Peta. Swallowing my pride, I took Ash’s hand, lifted it and kissed his wrist. Salt and a taste of something wholly unique to Ash danced along my tongue. Submission did not come easy to me. I’d never even managed with Coal, yet it was the right thing to do. “I am sorry for putting you in here. For believing you were here to kill me.”

He jerked hard, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of my words or the kiss. I lifted my eyes to his. With a shake of his head, he stepped back. “You believed I could kill you.”

“Why else would you be here when my father told you specifically to stay?”

Loam let out a low chuckle. “Ah, this is funny. You haven’t told her?”

I looked between them, a frown deepening as my irritation grew. “Told me what?”

A look of horror flashed over Ash’s face that was quickly doused. “Nothing.”

And there we were once more. Trudging through the waist-deep water, I put my face right into his. So much for submission. “Honesty, Ash, would have kept us from tossing you in here in the first place. Tell me. If you can tell Loam, you can tell me.”

His jaw tightened as if he were trying to crack a nut. “When we get back to the Rim. It isn’t anything that is important to what’s at stake right now. Which is your life, mine, and Belladonna’s.”

Shaking my head, I stepped back. “Fine.”

“What about me?” Loam stepped forward and I stared at him. The water was above his waist. I looked down. It was well above mine. That was not where the water had started.

“Water is rising. This is bad.” As if my words triggered the floodgates, water rushed in around us. Loam floundered. “I can’t swim!” Of
course
he couldn’t.

Peta leapt from his shoulders to the edge of the cells I hadn’t pulled apart. “I can do nothing, Loam.” She let out a mewling cry that told me all I needed to know. They might not like each other, but she would still try to save her master.

Like me and Bella.

I swam forward and grabbed Loam, dragging him toward the edge of the cells that I hadn’t pulled apart. Pushing him onto my shoulders, I boosted him to the top of the cells. He straddled two of them with ease. “Thank you.” He reached down for me and I wrapped my hands around his.