Ripples (DROPLETS Trilogy Book 2) (20 page)

     “Tunder needs to know what’s going on, Shaylee hasn’t been feeling well and they’ll be in their room.”

     “I’ll get them; you help get everyone ready. And Kryssa, get your father.” I said, two pairs of eyes looked at me curiously, not fully trusting. “Come on, we have to hurry! Tunder will meet you in the throne room shortly, he’ll listen to me. The rest of the Lathmorians won’t.”

     That form of logic seemed to wipe away their doubts, and both Kryssa and Elik sprinted down the hall and out of sight. I paused, staring after them, and then remembered I had a job to do, a job I wanted to keep as secret as possible.

     My bare feet slapped against the cold floor as I thundered my way down the hall to Shaylee and Tunder’s bedroom. I didn’t care if anyone heard me running now, the time for secrecy was over. Lathmor was waking up and if all went according to plan, the Hyven would be caught in a deadly trap.

     The spiral staircase that led to my destination appeared up ahead and I put on a burst of speed. Taking the stairs two at a time, I reached the landing and pounded on the wooden door. I waited, listening for a sound, and it seemed like hours before the handle clicked and the door opened just a crack.

     “Lissie?” Tunder asked, his voice astonished and he blinked quickly.

     “Yes, it’s me. Let me in.” There was no time to be friendly.

     Tunder stepped aside quickly and I couldn’t help but notice his eyes scanned the hallway behind my head.
So you don’t fully trust me either, well, you’ll have to
.

     “Lissie!” My gaze found Shaylee’s and she smiled at me warmly. She was lying on the couch in their living quarters, her head propped up against a pillow. It wasn’t until now I remembered what Elik had said, but as I looked at her, I realized she didn’t look sick, just sleepy.

     I smiled back at her but turned to her husband, knowing time was slipping away. “The Hyven are here.”

     It was quiet for a fraction of a second before I spilled everything I had seen earlier and told them Elik was already in the process of getting the Lathmorians ready to fight back. Tunder nodded when I finished and turned on his heel to leave.

     “Wait!” my voice was high and fearful, somehow seeing Tunder’s distress had made me realize the seriousness of this night. “I didn’t tell the others what the real purpose of this attack is.” My hands were twisting over one another.

     “The Hyven mean to capture, and I think kill, Shaylee.”

     The color in Tunder’s face drained and his fists clenched. His eyes drifted from mine to his wife’s and then back again. I didn’t have the heart to look at Shaylee and see her reaction.

     “How do you know?” he asked, the words rough, scratchy.

     “I can’t tell you,” I admitted and his eyes narrowed. “But I can help. I can take Shaylee to the island. She will be out of harm’s way and you can focus on the battle that’s about to start.”

     “How can I trust you?”

     “Tunder!” Shaylee gasped disapprovingly, and rose to her feet. 

     “You’ll just have to, Tunder. You know my past and you know who I am, it’s up to you.” I didn’t have time to lay out all the facts before him. It was obvious Kryssa’s visit to Coveside had weakened their confidence in me, and if they knew what I had been doing with Zale, they would never trust me again. But that wasn’t what was important right now. This was about Shaylee, and it was for her and for her husband that I stood here.
And for Patrick
, my mind added, but I ignored it. 

     Again time moved slowly and I watched as Tunder weighed the odds. Finally, his face cleared and he snapped his gaze to mine. “Take her and keep her safe. I’ll come for her when this is over.”

     I nodded and watched as he strode over to Shaylee and planted a kiss on her mouth. She sighed and hugged him tightly and then let him go.

     Once he disappeared, I turned to her, “What’s the best way out of here?”

     But she wasn’t listening; instead she was rummaging through a wooden case that sat on a table. I couldn’t see what she was grabbing, because her back blocked my view but soon she turned and strapped a belt of knives around her waist. She took one out of its holster and tossed it to me, where I tucked it into the waist of my pants. 

     “Follow me,” she said, all signs of weariness gone from her face. She was serious and ready to fight her way out.

     I followed her quickly down the spiral staircase and through hall after hall. She was tense and her fingers kept twitching at every little sound. We avoided any corridor that had Lathmorians in it. The better to stay unknown. If no one knew where we were going, they couldn’t be questioned. As we made our way further into the castle and farther back, I could hear the pounding of feet readying above us. Kryssa had at least reached her father.

     “In here, hurry, hurry.” Shaylee moved to the side and pushed against a small hidden doorway. I followed her into what could only be a back entrance to the kitchens, because we now stood in a large pantry stuffed with food. There was a door directly across from us that stood open a crack. I could see the pots and pans hanging from racks on the other side.

     Shaylee slid both doors shut and we were enveloped in darkness. I could hear her rummaging around nearby.

     “Do you need any help?” I whispered even though the walls were thick enough to keep the loudest of screams silent.

     “I just, uhh, have to find—, the right—there it is!”  A loud clang resounded and echoed for a moment inside the storage walls. A trap door that blended in perfectly with the other stones had been opened. Shaylee was already down the five musty stone carved steps holding a worn lit lantern in her hand. She smiled up at me.

     “The palace has its secrets.”

     “I would say so,” I replied. Losing no time, I scrambled down the steps and we pulled the trap door shut making sure no one would follow. 

     It seemed mere seconds before we reached the end of the underground tunnel. Shaylee snuffed out the lamp with one big breath and darkness shrouded over our slinking forms.

     “We’ll have to go through the city,” I warned her making sure she realized what we would soon have to do. “We can try the forest, but the Hyven could be everywhere. I’m afraid more will be hidden in the forest while the others attack.” I remembered the way we had entered Hyvar. It stood to reason the Hyven would attack in a similar manner, making sure to cover all areas and avoid being discovered while also controlling who escaped.

     “I know,” there was a catch in her voice, a nervousness I had never heard before. “Have your daggers ready, I might be too busy to protect you if it comes to that.”

     I nodded, forgetting she could barely see my reply, but then followed her out of the underground passage. The hard point of the knife she had given me pushed against my hip, while Patrick’s dagger rested against my left forearm, ready to be used. The ground rose slowly and bushes covered the exit. Grasping in the darkness, I came up right beside Shaylee, who was still shrouded in shadows by the surrounding forestry.

     Through the night air that had been so quiet earlier, we heard the sounds of fighting. There were cries, yells, screeches, and threats all cast into the sky by merfolk facing enemies, and death. I shivered, but patted Shaylee’s hand so she would follow me, and took off in the direction I had entered. All the while, Tunder’s words pounded hard in my mind.

     We were on the outskirts of the city, and darted from shadow to shadow, hoping to never be discovered. The fighting was coming from the central path and we avoided it at all costs. I felt like a freight train storming through the city, with how much noise I was making. Meanwhile, Shaylee hardly made a sound behind me and every now and then she would grab my hand and beckon me down a different alleyway. They still led toward our destination but kept us as far away from the battle as possible. Everything was a blur of white plaster walls, dark shadows, and rustling branches.

     Reaching a corner, I barely had time to think before Shaylee’s blades shot out from her fingers, just as a Hyven warrior launched himself around a corner directly at us.  She didn’t pause for a second and ran straight at him, her blades slicing through the air with fantastic speed and deliberateness. I stood for a moment transfixed, my fingers trembling with the instinct and desire to fight with such blades.

     The sound of pounding feet reached my ears, heading in our direction from behind, my brain paused for a moment wondering what to do but my body moved ahead of me. I spun on my foot and waited for the unlucky trespasser to come by. A moment later she appeared and I glanced quickly to make sure she was a Hyven soldier. Her clothing gave her away too quickly, and I threw the knife Shaylee had given me. I watched the mermaid crumple in pain. The blade stuck out of the shoulder and blood seeped from the wound. My stomach lurched, as I realized what I had just done.

     I spun to see how Shaylee was doing and saw the merman was easily overpowering her. As I watched for a few more seconds I realized her speed was the only thing keeping her alive. I pulled Patrick’s dagger out of its sheath and waited with my hand cocked. I tried not to think of who had taught me to fight this way, to stand like this. But it was as if he was there, his presence hovering beside me, showing me how to hold it lightly and tightly at the same time.

     I waited patiently, trying to get the perfect angle on the Hyven soldier, but somehow he always kept Shaylee’s body in the way.

     It was all moving too quickly, the fighting fast and deadly. Somewhere in my head, I was reminded of the cutthroat battle I had seen on the beach when Zale had saved me from the Hyven mermen.

     A sharp intake of breath came from Shaylee and she stumbled backward, her arm bleeding. The merman moved in for the kill, but not before my dagger sunk into his neck. Blood dribbled from his chin and his eyes widened. I watched, slightly in horror, as he staggered and fell face first onto the cobblestone pathway.

     Thinking there was no time to lose and knowing these events would haunt my mind later, I ran over to the merman and pulled out the dagger with a sickening, sucking noise. The Hyven mermaid had passed out on the ground with the dagger attached to her shoulder. I couldn’t bring myself to flip her over and pull it out.

     Turning aside, my hands slipping on the smooth hilt, I found Shaylee leaning against a wall, her right arm braced by her left hand; a deep gash running down its side. Blood oozed over her fingers.

     “Come on,” I said, and placed my arm around her shoulders, she shuddered slightly in pain when I let go and we began to run again.

     We were moving faster than before, now that the reality of the massacre had come so close. I kept my dagger at the ready in my right hand, if anyone was going to come after us again; I was going for the kill.

     Our feet slowed instinctively as the sounds of fighting grew louder and louder around us. We moved from one shadowy building to another, our eyes and ears on alert. Screams of anger and pain rang through the night as we crept around one corner. The sight that I saw in that moment before my eyes made my skin prickle and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Merfolk, maids and men alike, were slicing and cutting at one another, blood splattering the white walls and stony streets.

     Instinctively, I pressed myself harder against the shadowy building we were creeping along. We slid slowly sideways hoping no one would see us, when my eyes zeroed in on one particular merman. His shirt was torn and tattered, his blades covered completely in blood, and yet his eyes were lit with a fire as though he was enjoying himself. I watched with awe and disgust, as he took down mermaids and mermen over and over again. He went through them with such precision and deadliness, it was unbelievable.

     A short gasp of breath beside me, brought me back to my senses. Shaylee was staring in complete fear at the figure before us. Her eyes watched in horror, as he cut down those she knew. I saw her eyes harden and she readied to take a step toward the battle, when I grabbed her wounded shoulder.

     She winced and glared at me. I shook my head and beckoned her toward the ocean. The waves were calling our names and it was our only means of escape. Reluctantly, she followed me and we rushed through the darkness and into the embrace of the surging foam.

     The swim to the island was all a blur. No one stopped us as we made our way through the shimmering darkness and the further we got from Lathmor the slower Shaylee moved. As the ocean floor began to rise, I had to help her as we were swept up in the churning waves and thrown upon the sandy shores. My legs reappeared and having put on the black soldier’s garb again, I helped Shaylee to her feet, trying to ignore the red stained sand.

     We walked together, my arm looped around her waist as she tried to follow my lead toward the cabin. The whole way through the cool grass, I tried to keep my mind off of what I had seen. Everything in me wanted to revel in seeing the island again, but the images kept flashing through my mind.

     The memory of the creature Morven had created. It was the warrior, covered in blood, his eyes gleaming, and his blades slicing through flesh, without regard for the screaming or the dead lying at his feet.

     It was the monster.