Drowned (20 page)

Nineteen

This Hollow Valley

I
t’s precisely one heartbeat after I wiggle myself back into the chute that I remember. This is anything but easy. I vaguely recall telling myself the last time that I would rather drown or be devoured by scribblers than do this again. And yet here I am. Part of me thinks I am being too much of a pushover with Tiam; that I should have forced him to go instead of me. But then I remember the way his mouth felt on mine and there is no choice but to keep scaling the slick walls.

I climb until I’m weak, until my shoulders are buzzing with pain and my legs are numb. Sweat leaks into my eyes. I make it to the top and pry open the grate while the castle is still weeping, the water still swirling through the drains on the floors. I slide myself onto the stone floor with a great splash and, after massaging my sore limbs and taking in the cool, fresh air, crawl into the corridor. As expected, it’s empty.

I hurry through the hallway and up the steps, taking them two at a time. If I can persuade the princess quickly enough, we may be able to make it down the chute before the last of the water drains from my quarters. Simple.

At the top of the tower steps, I pause to rap on the wooden door, softly but firmly.

No answer.

“Princess. It’s Coe. Let me in.”

Nothing.

I reach down to twist the doorknob, but I don’t need to. The door is open a crack and creaks when I push. My eyes begin to water as some sickly sweet odor twists my stomach. Everything is a mess. Her bed is ripped apart, sheets strewn everywhere. The armoire of beautiful dresses is overturned, its contents spread over the stone floor in a sad rainbow. All of the desk drawers have been spilled. Her jars of perfumes have been smashed. And the princess is nowhere in sight.

I creep across the wreckage, wincing as the small bits of glass prick the soles of my feet, to the doorway to the king’s room. I don’t know why, but I shiver as I peek inside. Maybe it’s because the king died there. Maybe it’s because no one is allowed here. Or maybe it’s because I’ve come to hate the king so much, after what he’s done to us. The room is enclosed, stuffy and warm. There is a bit of a stench there, the sweet decay of death I’ve come to know so well. No windows at all, as if he wanted to keep us invisible to him. I gasp. Every wall is covered with pink seashells. They bulge from the walls unevenly, making the chamber look like the guts of some dead animal. But that’s not what holds my gaze.

There is a bed that a dozen people could lie across comfortably in the center of the room, the enormous headboard of which is also adorned in seashells. The mattress looks so soft and luxurious. I imagine his frail frame sinking into the center of it as he took in his last breath.

It is the bed from my dreams.

How is that possible? No one has ever been into the king’s room, save for the guards, the medic and the princess. And yet everything is exactly the same, down to the last detail, although perhaps not as enormous as I’d once pictured. How can that be, if I’ve never been here before?

I know the answer: I
have
been here. A long, long time ago, I’d lain across that bed, happy, carefree. It wasn’t a dream.

It was a memory.

I’d been in the king’s private quarters. But why? Why would he have allowed me there? I may have once been Star’s playmate, but I was also a demon. That’s what Tiam said they thought I was. Why would I have been granted access to a place for only the most privileged people?

I tear my eyes away from the bed and peer around the room. “Princess?” I whisper, losing all the confidence I’d had when I told Tiam my plan.

I retrace my steps to the princess’s quarters and in that moment remember the map. I rush to the desk and rifle through the items that have been scattered around the floor, spilling her container of stick pins and picking through a pile of delicate silk and lace scarves. It’s not there.

Helpless, I look out her window, at the balcony. The red flag that has always flown there, tattered and faded, flaps in the wind loudly, as if to taunt me.
You’re too late.
Past it, the cement formation stands, the ocean around it slowly receding. From here, the sight is so pitiful and strange. No wonder his room had no windows. I don’t know how anyone could have gazed at it every day and been okay with knowing that
he’d
put us there. Bodies crush together at its surface so tightly I can’t make out a single one. Star could be among them. She could still be okay. But even as I think it, I know it’s unlikely. Silly girl that she is, she’d probably sooner drown than surround herself with commoners.

Now what do I do? Everything I came for is gone.

For a moment I think I’ll go back, explain to Tiam that she’s gone, and I’ve done all I can. But he’d never settle for that. Not for a mere theory that she’s dead. He’d need evidence. He’d try to find a way back up to the surface to ensure that there’s nothing more that could be done. As I’m thinking, I approach the balcony and see a flash of something in the very corner of my eye that makes me jump.

The pink that could only be the king’s robe. Finn.

He’s standing on the balcony, arms crossed, surveying the scene. My stomach drops. Sweat blooms on my forehead, immediately running down my temples and stinging my eyes. I slowly turn to leave, my movements unhurried and careful, so as not to alert him. But at that moment he throws a lock of his hair back behind his ear and catches sight of me. Rage engulfs his face. He’s inside before I can break into a run, and he latches on to my stump. No one has ever touched me there, and I howl, more from fear than the pain. “Coe!” he shouts, wrenching my arm as I fight to free myself, like a fish on a line.

“Let me go!”

“Tending to the princess, were you?” he breathes. He succeeds in catching my other arm and pulls me to him, then wraps his arms around my waist as I kick and flail. But it’s no use. He’s easily as big as two of me. His grip doesn’t loosen until I stop kicking, and when he speaks again, his voice is calmer. “You have to come with me.”

I know that I, like Tiam, have aroused suspicions one too many times, and people who act suspiciously cannot be allowed to live in Tides. It has always been that way.

He presses his hot, damp hand against the back of my neck and firmly guides me down the stone staircase. We splash down to the second floor. Out the window, the formation is beginning to disperse. I can’t feel my feet beneath my body. Each step feels closer to my last. The water is still knee-deep on the ground floor. I wade through it and push the heavy front doors open, squinting in the bright light. After all that time inside, the light stings my eyes worse than ever. The townspeople have begun scurrying down the long ladder and ropes attached to the formation edges. The first to see me gaze in disbelief, as if I’d just washed in with the tide. Then the shouts begin. “She’s here. Over here!”

Blinking furiously, I realize that Finn has taken a spear from his back. It’s a metal spear, the kind only the guards used to have. He jabs the point into my rib cage, as if I’m any match for him. “Coe,” he shouts, loudly enough for everyone to hear. He is putting on a show for them, as their king. “People are worried. You have to explain yourself, right now.”

“Where is the princess?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm, but my knees are shaking. All my life, I’ve been virtually ignored on the island. And now every one of the four hundred people on the island seems to be staring at me.

By now two guards have come to his aid, and now they’re jabbing their spears at me. I don’t know what has given them the sudden impression that I’m so dangerous, when I’ve always been the weakest person on the island. Finn crosses his arms. “Coe. I will ask the questions.”

A moment passes with us both standing, frozen in a staring match. Maybe he wants me to bow. He finally leans in beside me. “Coe, what do you think you are doing?” he says, almost gently.

“I want to ask you the same thing. Is it true you killed the twins?”

His lower lip trembles, flashing a bit of guilt that disappears as soon as he juts his chin forward. It’s very regal on him. “Coe, that is the way you survive in this world,” he tells me. “You dispose of the threats. And
you
are starting to look like a threat.”

“You
know
I am not one,” I seethe.

“I don’t know that. I don’t know what you are up to. You and I could have ruled this kingdom together,” he mumbles. “But now...”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t want to be queen. Not to a king who is a murderer.” I whisper, “Please, Finn.”

He narrows his eyes. “Coe, you know what I told you. It’s not my decision. The king needs to do what the people want in order to remain king,” he whispers, his eyes intense on mine. “You’ve disappeared now for three tides, only to come back from the castle each time, perfectly fine. So that leaves us all wondering, since the rest of the world is underwater,
where you have been spending your time.
We know you weren’t in the tower. Coe, nobody trusts you.
They think you are up to no good, and want you dead.
So what are my choices?”

The guards’ spears graze my side. I can feel the cold metal through my tunic. “I know. I don’t know what to say.”

“You can start by explaining yourself,” he says. “Where have you been?”

I don’t know how to answer, so I say nothing.

He motions to “his” men, whom I am sure were the king’s men only a few tides ago. They grind their metal spears into the sand as they grab for me. I try to jump back, but their arms come from everywhere, and they clamp their rough hands on my arms and legs and yank me in the direction of the sea.

The sea. I try to kick, but their grip is unforgiving.

No, he wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t throw me in the sea with the scribblers. He promised Buck he’d protect me.

“Wait,” I shout. “Wait.”

They don’t wait. If anything, they move more surely.

The waves crash in front of me. The sea sprays my face. The white of the sand and black of the ocean swirl together in my vision, and I know that me surviving all those seasons ago was just luck. It had to have been. I was just a small child. I’ve heard stories about people lasting quite a while in the water, being shoved back in by the guards’ spears. But most of them last moments, heartbeats even. How long will I last this time? Is it hissing I hear, or is it just my imagination?

“Drop her.”

Suddenly they toss me. I feel myself flying through the air, and I hold my breath, waiting for the inevitable splash and for the world around me to turn dark and murky. Instead, my body falls against sand, damp, soft sand. It’s only then I realize my face is wet with tears.

The sand clumps in my eyelashes. I wipe them and see Finn staring over me, chewing on a piece of seaweed. The men are, once again, pointing their spears at me, poking me with them, laughing. I scramble to my knees, feeling shameful already. I’ve spent every tide thinking about my death, and I always hoped I’d face it with dignity. But somehow I think I knew that when the time came, I’d turn into a weeping mess.

Finn crouches beside me. He’s still chewing noisily on that scraggle of black seaweed. It hangs out of his mouth like a long black serpent tongue. “If you don’t talk, next time, they
will
throw you into the sea. I cannot stop the people from doing what they see fit. And don’t think you will be so lucky as to survive, the way you did when you were a child.”

He plucks a lock of black hair that had fallen into my face, and I flinch. He trails his finger to my cheek, wiping the sand from it.

His eyes soften as he gazes at my face. “I never believed those stories about you being a demon. Just as I never believed Tiam was the savior. Those things were said to keep us living in fear, to stop us from questioning. But we
are
questioning now. And we think you have some answers.”

I can’t meet his stare. I think of how Tiam said I was unafraid of everything. What a lie. My whole body is shaking so hard I can barely get the words out. “I—I don’t.”

“Burbur gave us a little tour of the stores,” he says, to which I exhale deeply and squeeze my eyes shut. “We found some very interesting things down there. Besides the honey. But I get the feeling you know all about that.”

“I didn’t. Not until a few tides ago,” I say honestly.

One of the guards comes forth, holding the journal and fairy-tale book I’d carried. In all the commotion, I hadn’t realized they’d stripped me of my bag.

Finn picks the materials up, turning them over in his hands. “What the hell are they?” His eyebrows raise in question.

“Books,” I explain.

He opens the journal and turns the pages, landing on Cass’s map. He lets out a quick breath. “This map is of the stores.” I’m sure his hands are trembling as he runs his fingers along the smudged lines. “Aliah,” he whispers.

It’s a word that means nothing. And yet, I get this strange feeling that maybe it meant something to me, once before. “You got this from your father.”

It’s not a question. He knows. “What is Aliah?”

Somewhere, I hear seagull squawks, punctuating the word. He closes the book and dismisses the men. They lower their spears, and he puts the books in my bag and hands it to me. He grabs me by the arm and leads me toward the base of the platform, until we’re out of earshot from the rest of the commoners. “I thought you would tell me.”

“I’ve never heard that before,” I say.

“Your father told me something before he left on his Explore. He said he had to leave, that he had betrayed the king in the worse way possible and this was his penance. He said he’d always hoped that one day, Aliah would return and show us the way, but that never happened, and he needed to try something else.”

“Aliah? I don’t know who or what that is.”

“He talked in his sleep a lot. One thing he said, I’ll never forget, is ‘Aliah has the map.’” He motions to the bag. “Is that the map? That’s the only map I’ve ever seen.”

I think of the map in the princess’s room. I shake my head. “He gave this map to me. Not Aliah, whoever that is.”