you are wrong.”
He whirled on Ciran with wide, dangerous eyes. “You dare to disagree with me? Second lieutenant?”
“Yes. Because Angie can contribute to rescuing the prince.”
“As a warrior! That is my point.”
“No, because Angie is not a warrior,” Ciran repeated patiently. “And look. Her soul light brightens every time I repeat that phrase. ‘Angie is not a warrior.’ Do you see it?”
Konomelu whirled and glared at Angie.
She glared right back. “You heard him. I’m not a warrior.”
“You must be.”
“No,” Ciran emphasized, “Angie is not a warrior because she is a queen.”
Konomelu blinked. “You…are right. Her soul brightens. But she is fierce like any warrior.”
“No, she is fierce like any queen.” Ciran nodded at Angie. “Some queens protect their city through battle. But some protect it in other ways. Honor your bride’s desires so she can strengthen her powers, and then she will accomplish all that you wish without ever touching a blade.”
“But I…” Konomelu shook his head, his hands empty at his sides, lost. “I do not know how to help you in this way.”
Her shoulders lowered. “You’re trying to help me?”
“Of course. You are a fierce protector. If Second Lieutenant Ciran is correct and the other brides must rescue him, you will not be satisfied by staying behind.”
She lifted one hand and brushed a bit of sparkling plankton off his hair. “I might be. For a short time.”
“While worrying for the entire time.” He clasped her hand. “Passion must flood your soul. You are now, and always have been, a fierce mother and a bold protector of our community.”
She floated closer to him, her shorter legs dangling between his long legs extended even longer by the fins. “So are you.”
“Of course.” He jutted his chin. “That is why we are soul mates.”
She kissed him, and he oriented on her with the power of twenty good years of support, kindly meant, no matter how misguided. Her soul light burned bright.
And then she pulled back and patted her husband’s broad chest. “Go train with your warriors. You’re good at it, and it’s something you understand.”
He glanced at Ciran and the other women, and then took his leave, kicking his fins and surging out of the water onto the ledge.
Angie turned to Ciran, hands back on her hips, focused again. “I now understand that we are not training as warriors, so how do we train?”
“As queens.”
She squinted at him as though trying to test if he were joking. “And that means?”
“You must do whatever you need to strengthen your inner core.”
Meg lifted one hand. “I’ve got to agree with Mom here. So, are you saying we need to pick up yoga? Or do sit-ups?”
“If that increases your core power, then yes.”
The two women looked at each other.
“How do we go from this,” Meg pointed at her partially extended fins, and then jabbed her finger at the other two. “To that?”
Bex floated on the end, flipping around on her fins, in her own world. Dannika listened, but she also practiced quietly, the white light of the shield glowing around her in ghostly outline.
“If Konomelu’s training style was wrong, how do we do it right?”
“The base of a warrior’s power is his muscles. His tendons. The quickness of his blade.” Ciran flicked his wrist as if it held a dagger. “But the base of a queen’s power is the Life Tree. So she must open a channel to her Life Tree and let the energy flow through her until it becomes an unstoppable force. And that,” he tapped his chest, “happens here. In your soul. Your resonance.”
Angie vibrated an underwater sigh. “I suppose it isn’t easy or else we would have done it before now.”
“Perhaps. But you can accomplish anything if you try.”
Angie rubbed her temples. “Yoga…This seems so impractical.”
“Question.” Meg drummed her fingers on her chest. “If I’m summoning the Life Tree, why don’t I have be, like, touching the Life Tree? How is it channeling without, you know, a channel?”
“The queens usually practiced while communing with their Life Tree,” he acknowledged. “But that is just to start. The connection is within your soul, and distance does not affect resonance. Once you have felt it, you will know how to channel it again. Without a Life Tree, this is the best we can do.”
Meg and Angie both looked at Bex.
Bex shrugged.
Angie traded looks with Meg, then pressed her lips together, shook her head, and released another underwater vibration like a sigh. “Does it really make a difference? Practicing while touching a Life Tree?”
“Since