Page 46 of Depths
Radford gave me an easy grin. “You haven’t been stuck with him on a whale for two days.”
“One and a half,” Keelan scoffed. “And it wasn’t that bad.”
“Not that bad? You asked me four times what color pants you should wear the first day of the tournament! That’s eye-gougingly bad in my book.”
“The people like a show! I just wanted to know if you thought magically reflective material was too much.”
I watched the two of them banter with a smile—Keelan’s arguments growing more and more ludicrous. Eventually, I noticed several other competitors drifting closer. I gave them all friendly smiles and settled into silence as they began to tease one another, goaded on by Keelan, of course. That made me feel a bit lighter. Perhaps, even those who came out of this with nothing would have a friendship or two after this tournament.
A few flasks of bubble were passed around, and when one made it to Radford, he held it aloft. “To Humberto the hero!” he shouted.
“Humberto!” the others chorused.
I didn’t see the cardinal fish shifter, but the others were quite excessive in their praise of him. I smiled and, when a flask reached me, I too raised it on his behalf. I drank, swallowing down a bubble that was far more potent than any I’d tried previously. It burned my throat and warmed it as it slid down. I grimaced as I handed it to the man beside me, stopping when his hand gently slid over mine.
I looked up into the liquid blue eyes of Stavros. The siren studied me intensely for a second before taking the flask and removing his hand. He glanced shyly down and back up again. “I … I have something for you,” he blurted almost clumsily.
“Oh?”
He held the flask in one hand as he slid his other into the pocket of his pants. He pulled out a small blue flower on a stem.
I stared at it, enchanted, as he handed the beautiful little thing to me.
“The saleswoman called it a Forget-Me-Not.” Stavros touched one of the tiny petals, which was smaller than his thumb. “It’s been enchanted so that it won’t die. Won’t wither under the water.”
I inhaled sharply. When I’d found out my heritage, I realized all of the huge things I was giving up. But the knowledge that I’d never see flowers again was traumatic. It hurt in a way I’d never realized something could hurt. A small but pointed ache pierced my stomach. While my seamstress wanted to showcase the monetary benefits of my heritage, most of the rest of it was swept under the rug. I was forced to adapt.
Yet here was one of the competitors, acknowledging who I was. What I was. Giving me something so thoughtful … My hand reached out and squeezed Stavros’. “Thank you.”
There was a happy gleam in his eye as he nodded. But the others started up an impromptu song for Humberto and jostled him. Someone’s arm came around my shoulders, and I was spun in another direction. I looked up to see Valdez staring down at me as his bicep flexed along the back of my neck and his hand traveled down my arm possessively.
Everything around me faded for a split second before I remembered myself, gave him a wink, and slinked carefully out of his hold to go chat with the other contestants. But I felt the pirate’s eyes caress me even as I spoke with other men. And I couldn’t lie to myself. I liked it.
13
Suspicion is a survival mechanism that must be honed, strengthened, cherished.
—Sultan Raj of Cheryn
* * *
After the bondingI saw between the men in the marketplace, I was determined to ensure that the rest of the Reef City event went just as swimmingly. But of course, the best laid plans always end in disaster.
Sahar led our procession through the city toward the mayor’s palace where we were to stay for the first competition’s duration: a grueling pair of twelve-hour days. Grueling for the competitors at least. I still wasn’t privy to the type of contest that would be held first, those preparations were Sahar’s most closely guarded secret. I stared at her hair, which she’d magically turned a burnished deep orange today, while we swam.
As we approached the palace from above, my earth walker eyes had trouble discerning where the palace ended and the rest of the reef began. The only distinction between the palace and the homes beside it was the fact that the rainbow-colored corals growing on the palace were so massive that I felt no larger than a tiny fish myself as we descended into the entrance of the mayor’s home, a gap between two rocks that looked as dark and inviting as the open maw of some great beast. I’d thought Mayi’s glass palace had an awe and intimidation factor, but this place felt eerily ominous. I tried to shove the thought away, but the tiniest part of me was reminded of Mayi’s caves and the torture I’d endured in them.
We swam into the gloom, and my mages lit the magical glass orbs that lined the grand entrance one by one, creating little circles of psychedelic color from the bits of reef that emerged from within the shadows. Even with the small lights, the darkness loomed overhead the further we descended into the tunnel. I bit down on a screech of shock and surprise when part of the wall near a light detached itself and swam forward.
I ducked behind Felipe, who just turned and raised, not his spear, but a skeptical brow in my direction. The burly merman scoffed at me.
Dammit.
I peered over Felipe’s large shoulder. The bit of floating coral in front of me blinked his eyes and—too late—I recalled that Mayor Deacon was a painted frogfish shifter. Sahar’s coaching had fled my head in my stupid flight of nerves. The mayor’s magic gave him the ability to mimic his surroundings. And even though he was in human form when he bowed his head to me, his skin was still as patterned and wild as the corals around us. If he had been a sky breather, his entire body, eyelids included, would have been covered in tattoos. But the wild blotches of color faded a bit as he hovered in front of me, and the blush that overtook my cheeks was as hot as the sun. I blamed the attack earlier for the fact that I was so jumpy.
“Mayor Deacon.” I nodded at his bow and let him kiss my hand. There was a strange little suction at the end of his kiss, and I didn’t know whether to attribute that to fish lips or not. I wrote it off. Because after my little display, the least I could do was cut the man a break. “My apologies. You startled me.”
“Oh no, Your Majesty, it’s I who must apologize. I should have met you at the entrance, but I was delayed. There’s been a bit of a timber shortage lately and it’s been causing—”
