Page 1 of Surfaces
Prologue
Raj
I thinkI’ve had a heart palpitation,I decided as I rubbed dolefully at my chest, trying to soothe the uncomfortable ache inside. I’d heard of such things, seen older men at my court in Cheryn struck down by a sudden illness of the heart, sometimes even dropping dead.
Unease slithered through my ears and down the back of my neck.
Illness wouldn’t do.
I was the unending king, the sultan of Cheryn. Temporarily deposed but I’d regain my crown—once I’d finished here, that was. Once I’d destroyed the Queen of Okeanos and her pathetic little sister.
I tapped at the offending organ in warning.
It had better heed that warning. Or I’d find a replacement.
Could a heart be replaced? It had never been done that I was aware of. But I’d performed wish magic that no djinni before me had ever seen. And I didn’t mind sacrificing a few hundred men to experiment and see if it was possible.
I tapped my fingers against my thumb one by one as I pondered where that odd palpitation had come from. Was it turning myself into an underwater being? Perhaps. I was used to djinni shape, the loose twist of smoke instead of limbs on my lower half. Was having a fully corporeal body all the time making my heart work too hard? It seemed unlikely. I’d given myself human legs on land before … but never for quite this long.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps it’s the excitement of destruction. It’s been a bit since my fight with Bloss.I was used to a regular routine of bloodshed. Maybe my heart was out of shape, not as desensitized as normal.
Or maybe it’s water pressure. The sea pressing down on me.
I’d have to deduce the source of this irritation and get rid of it.
After all, I had plans. I’d lived over a thousand years and planned to live at least another millennium. I had revenge to complete and a kingdom to regain, then a world to conquer—that left no time for petty mortal matters.
I chewed my lip and wondered where the chink in my magical weave of wishes was. What had I forgotten to wish for that had allowed disease to slither in? Was disease even possible?
Deftly, I sought out the black ring on my finger and twisted it as I lay on my sea sponge bedroll in the dark, not bothering to relight my lantern. This heart issue was far more pressing and besides, I wasn’t a fool scared of darkness.
Iwasdarkness.
I let my mind roll through the various wishes I’d forced Cheryn’s citizens to make for me through the years; wishes to strengthen my body, to renew it, wishes to magically reinforce it. There had to be at least five hundred wishes made for my skin alone … trying to recall ones made for my heart would be impossible.
A wish couldn’t restore a prior state, it was one of the limitations of wish magic, so I couldn’t erase whatever damage had been done by this palpitation.
Drat and dust.
However … I might be able to get around that. Wishes were all in the wording. If I couldn’t wish for something thatwas, I could wish for something that had never been in the history of the world.
Most djinn didn’t understand that, weren’t creative enough to conceive of it.
That was why I’d risen above them to rule the most magical country in all the kingdoms of Sedara.
I carefully composed my wishes inside my mind. Then I twisted my ring and whispered, “I wish this shuddering heart inside my chest was strong and bright, powerful, and long-lasting as the sun.”
I felt the organ heat and swell a bit inside my ribcage as the magic took hold. A little sliver of satisfied excitement ran through me before suddenly, for no sarding reason, I burst into tears.
What the sard?
1
Avia Hale
A shaftof moonlight pierced the ocean and drifted down through the coral reef, gently caressing my face as though soothing me. It wasn’t. All the moonlight in the sky couldn’t ease the raw torment inside me. Still, I stared up at the moon through a skylight in my borrowed bedroom in Reef City as tears filled my eyes, and my hands clenched into fists so that I wouldn’t touch my chest, that empty cavern, and realize the magnitude of what I’d just done. I’d given up my heart. Literally.
