Mervidia (19 page)

Iago saluted his sparring partner and
, with a casual wave of his hand, dismissed her. She hesitated, worry clear on her brow. The regent glanced at the other merwin around them and mentally cursed. Penn’s sense of urgency had alerted all those within hearing, eliciting concern. For as long as Iago had known Penn, the Yellowtail had always been passionate and eager to please his superiors. That behavior sometimes caused him to forget that certain matters required a delicate touch. He had too much of a military mind, ready to report his findings no matter who was listening.

“All is well, fear not,” Iago stated aloud, raising his hands in a calming gesture.
“Mervidia is in good hands, I assure you.” The female Yellowtail’s brow unfurrowed, looking less troubled. She bowed to Iago and then saluted her domo before swimming out of the circle of Serfin and Yellowtails. She and her contingent, who fell in behind her, disappeared back into the throng of fins and weapons.

“Penn, my friend,” Iago said, as he patted the
neondra on the shoulder. “Please, come with me, and I will hear what you have to say. A matter of such obvious importance must be discussed in more private confines.” Pulling him out of his bow, Iago took Penn’s forearm in his, clasping it in a firm, familiar greeting.

“Kind and wise as he is strong,” Penn acclaimed his regent with perhaps a little too much e
nthusiasm, falling into their usual more private jesting. With a broad grin on his face he straightened up from his bow. Iago smiled, knowing he had put his friend at least partially at ease. Behind the warm smirk though, the domo’s eyes held great concern. Iago chuckled at the quip and kept his webbed hand on his friend’s shoulder, as they swam towards to the commander’s pavilion at a relaxed pace. There was no need to cause alarm amongst the soldiers. That was one thing Iago understood much better than fervent Penn, who had caused unease amongst the troops by calling out across the courtyard. What Mervidia needed currently was calm and routine. They retired from the palace’s training yard with Iago’s Serfin in tow.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Damaris swam along the edge of the Palace’s training yard. The distinctive ethyrie tendrils, protruding from her hair, back, hips, and tail ridge, trailed behind her like a long, wisping scarlet cloak. She wore an eel skin net bejeweled with pearls to contain her waist-length bright-red hair.

More than a few drill pairs paused in their exercises to bow to the Queen Mother; Damaris still had quite a following with the Merwin.
She was highly respected as the wife to the former king, as a powerful machi seer and healer, and for her seat on the Assembly. All that added to her radiant beauty, which was intoxicating to look upon just as her daughter’s had been. Mervidia loved the amiable figurehead. The former queen had taken off her thin circlet of pearls when King Reth had passed peacefully in his sleep, yet the Merwin had not forgotten her compassionate reign by the side of its longest ruling king. On top of her Coral Assembly seat as the ethyrie representative, she continued to work countless hours together with Nayan to help the sick throughout the city and feed the less fortunate merwin living in the Ghet. Despite the growing hardness of Mervidia’s heart and the increased scheming of the houses, the people would always love her.

In any dark recess of the ocean, fish will always flock towards light
, the Queen Mother thought. Damaris and the ethyrie were that light, although that radiance had faded in recent cycles, their bloodlines now combined with other races. These mixed pairings had unfortunately caused a diminishing in the number of ethyrie premonitions. House Lumen was the only house to have remained truly pure of blood, and sadly the Divine Family was near extinction. Ghita was its sole member, pure white in color, as her ancestors had been.
Even if Ghita’s daughter, Cassondra, was married to Iago, their offspring would only be one quarter Divine Family. Cassondra’s father was from House Mauve
, Damaris thought, grinding her teeth in frustration. Their situation was not a predicament that could be fixed. The former queen had believed in her husband. In her lifetime, she had seen the good the Divine Family had done and the catastrophes that had been avoided by their timely premonitions. It saddened her to see Mervidia suffer, and her talent, not as strong as her husband’s had been, was unable to prevent every disaster since he had passed away. King Reth had even foretold his own death and so was not afraid the evening he went to bed, knowing he would die in his sleep. Old age was old age, an incurable malady, which few merwin were fortunate enough to suffer. He had said his goodbyes and snuggled close to his wife in their bed one last time.

The end of an age had arrived, and darkness seemed inevitable, especially if the kalku had their way.
Kalku magic was growing disturbingly stronger as machi healing and the ethyrie visions were waning. These facts greatly troubled Damaris, and there seemed to be no viable solution. The Queen Mother sighed heavily, still heart-sick at the loss of her daughter in addition to her shoulders carrying the heavy burden of trying to preserve the high principles of the Divine Family.

As she passed by the yard, Damaris eyed the array of weapons and bodies practicing there, too close together for her comfort.
She nodded gracefully to those who had stopped to bow to her. She had never wielded a weapon, nor did she ever care to do so. Being from House Scarlet Crest, an old, honored yet extinct house, she had always relied on her house for protection. Damaris had been taken in by House Lumen early in her life. Her parents and remaining extended family had died as a result of a vicious illness that had caused a fatal infection in almost every case. Nayan,
her personal jellod physician, had often voiced that, while Damaris had luckily survived the illness that had claimed her family, the ailment had still caused permanent damage to the ethyrie, leading to her infertility in adulthood.

There had been no traces of the illness’ harsh effects until after Damaris had been married to the king and they had tried to produce a child.
Having lived together in the Palace for cycles, she and Reth had been childhood friends and sweethearts. Their matching for marriage could have not been more perfect, both being pure-blooded ethyrie. Reth had refused to cast her aside for a more fertile wife after their troubles bubbled into sight. Despite his affection for his wife, it did not keep the former king from straying from his marriage bed and producing offspring elsewhere. Reth’s bastard son Ebon with the octolaide Odette was proof of his infidelity. Damaris ground her teeth harder, the betrayal of her husband with the merwin she had thought her friend still stung even after all these cycles.

As she swam, Damaris thought more on the part of her life that did not involve King Reth.
She was entirely devoted to her machi studies, and she was one of Mervidia’s most skilled dreamers and interpreters of visions. When she delved into the healing side of her machi education, her studies had led her to Nayan, and a close friendship with the jellod had resulted. The two merwin constantly talked and researched together, trying to combine machi divinations and magical healing to better serve Mervidia and its inhabitants. Damaris had passed her knowledge on to her daughter, with assistance from her late husband, having been a potent seer in his own right.

Not that it mattered now
, Damaris grumbled to herself. All of her teachings to her daughter had been swallowed by death’s darkness at the hands of a faera. She straightened her iridescent spell-crafted shell bodice and flushed water out of her sides, causing bubbles to dance and swirl behind her as she continued forward. The name of her daughter’s killer was a foul taste on the tip of her tongue. Though she hated to utter it, she had to tell Mervidia’s regent right away. She hoped that with the transference of the name she would also spit out the filthy taste. Damaris tucked away her distracting troubled thoughts and focused on the task at hand, her reason for searching out Iago.

Word will spread quickly, and Iago needs to be the one to act first
, the matron thought. She had been told by the Palace Guard that the regent was in the training yard. She had sought Iago out immediately after Zane had relayed the critical information and departed. The sharkskin privacy curtains were drawn on the terraces’ commander pavilion, indicating that Iago was inside, so she headed towards the large, stone structure.

The revelation of the identity of Beryl’s assassin had caused a war of emotions within Dam
aris. It reopened the wound of sorrow that her daughter’s death had sliced into her heart and caused her to fear for the Fangs and the future of Mervidia. She hoped that Iago would not give in to revenge and would handle the matter as a king would. By knowing the murder’s name, the Queen Mother felt relief and now had some closure on Beryl’s abrupt passing. However, she was still trying to force down her anger and thirst for a heavy-handed judgment to passed down on Gene of House Stonegem.

“Gene of House Stonegem,” Damaris whispered the name under her breath.
She still wondered why she had not foreseen her daughters’ death. There had been no warning, no premonition. Damaris, for the first time in her life, had started to doubt her gift of foresight. Her mind veered off again.
Perhaps the Coral Assembly is right to want to put another merwin race on the throne. The Divine Family’s reign clearly has come to an end
. Since Luzige had declared himself the first of Mervidia’s kings and placed the Fangs upon his brow, machi gifts did seem to be weakening with each passing generation,.
Maybe we are being punished for our pride,
Damaris thought, …
for King Luzige taking the Merwin out of their simple natural lives in the caves below the city and rising up as a nation.

Beryl’s murder had happened so abruptly that Damaris still
sometimes expected to see her daughter, the Fangs rising from her red hair, swimming through the palace on some official errand. Once again, the question she had asked herself over and over again popped into her head.
Did Beryl see her own death as her father had? Surely, had she known she would have taken action to stop it. Unless… she
had
to die for a certain future for Mervidia to happen,
Damaris thought. Her daughter had been brave enough that the matron could see her daughter freely offering herself, if it meant a better life for the Merwin. Damaris shook her head though, doubting the notion. The instinct for survival ran deep in Merwin blood. It was not a disposition easily ignored.

The Queen Mother arrived at the pavilion and would have to continue her
speculation at a later time. Four Serfins flanked the entrance to the pavilion, two on each side. She knew six more would be swimming behind it. A total of ten guards tended to the regent’s safety, while still granting him the luxury of a private conversation.

The two innermost of the door guards crossed their long white tridents, barring her entry.
Another guard poked his head in between two of the sharkskin curtains and into the pavilion, informing Iago of her presence.

“One moment,
Queen Mother,” the fourth guard said, swimming forward with a hand raised. “We will announce you, but the Lord Regent is currently with a guest.” Damaris nodded, knowing her place and inwardly praising the Serfin for not disclosing with whom Iago was meeting. She waited patiently, yet her fingers clenched and unclenched, as she clasped her hands together before her stomach. Her news was direly important, but she knew better than to barge in on a royal meeting. She had done so once while married to King Reth. Despite his love for her, he had had her punished, confined to their room for three days. It had been by no means been a harsh punishment, but it had served its purpose as a demonstration to all of Mervidia that even the Queen would pay for the consequences of her actions; she never interrupted one of Reth’s private discussions again.

The Queen Mother did not wait long.
Her patience was rewarded, when the guard who had inquired within signaled to the two merwin barring the entrance with their tridents to stand down. They did so and opened the curtain flaps to allow her entry to the pavilion.

As usual, Damaris was impressed as the curtains dropped behind her and with them the noise of the training yard.
The thick skin of the draperies did well to block out the sounds outside, which would also keep conversations held within private. However, the sentiment hastily shrunk away, when she saw the fury on Iago’s face. Domo Penn stood beside him, his medium-length orange and yellow hair looking a bit stagnant and limp due to the pavilion lacking decent water circulation with the curtains drawn. Penn swam in place next to Iago with a comforting grasp on the regent’s shoulder, his large hand making Iago look even smaller in comparison. Damaris often wondered, given his great size, if the neondra had a little grogstack in his blood, but now was not the time to dwell on such things. Iago was hunched over the stone planning table in the center of the pavilion. His skin was as pink as his scales, flushed with anger. She guessed that his irascibility could only be because he had just heard the news.

“You know already,” Damaris said plainly, her heart going out to Iago.
She knew how much the regent had loved her daughter and feared it would be his undoing; love and wrath were not a good mix in one so young, especially one trying to earn the Fangs. She hoped he would act wisely. He was doing well thus far as Lord Regent, quickly gaining the favor of his people by tending to their needs and showing honor, strength, and leadership in all his efforts.

“Gene of House Stonegem murdered our
queen, my
wife
!” Iago said, his voice cracking as he said the last word. For a brief moment, it appeared as if the regent was going to break down and give into his grief. Iago choked down his sorrow though and used it to fuel his anger further. Damaris did not like the murderous look in Iago’s eyes, and she saw that Penn recognized the enraged stare as well.

“Ia… Lord Regent,” Domo Penn corrected himself.
“I would advise you to act rationally in this matter.”

“He…
MURDERED MY WIFE
!” Iago yelled, his words rapidly heating with each utterance like a sulfur vent bursting from the ocean’s floor. She had to get through to him to calm him down and fast before he did something rash. Damaris did what any mother would do. She crossed the room and put her hands to the cold stone slab, lowering her body so that her eyes drew Iago’s wild stare from the map of Mervidia before him. She saw that his fingernails were digging into the skin of the map that lay before him, marring the word “Stonegem.”

“Iago,” Damaris said, dropping formality, “Do not let your anger consume you.
Think of the city. Think of what Beryl would do if your roles were reversed. If you want to wear the Fangs you cannot act rashly.”

“Do you not wish revenge for your daughter’s death?” Iago
hissed, meeting Damaris’s gaze evenly. His face was contorted in an ugly fashion, a mask of hate and anguish.

“I wish for justice to be dealt,” Damaris replied
coolly. Of course, she was lying; she wanted the faera fed to the frilled sharks, but reason prevailed, quieting her desire for revenge. Iago also must act with a level head, as a
king
should.

“Lord Regent,” Penn added, fixing Damaris with a
silent admonition that she should remember to properly address Iago. “I can only offer advice and hope that you heed it. Two members of the Assembly swim before you, asking you to remain calm, so you can act with the honor and reason of the king we know you can be.”