could descend for the elixir or they could return early to the island. Five surface days would have passed by now. If Dannika had been practicing, she might have overcome her doubts.
I can’t risk you.
If he was wrong, then they would have wasted more days. The patrol might return in full force and block their escape.
It felt like the wrong answer, but it also felt like the only answer he could give. “Agreed.”
The trio descended to the barren, rocky seafloor. Great spires thrust upward amid mountain ranges and vents. Schools of fish and flashes of coral showed that they were closing on a mer city.
A giant ray lifted off and ruffled its wings like a whooshing ghost. It followed the warriors for too long before flying off on its own deep, melodious flight.
Konomelu held up his hand.
They kicked to a stop.
Juvenile squids fled big-mouth predators and swarmed silver prey.
Ciran couldn’t hear anything.
Itime shook his head.
Konomelu frowned and continued cautiously over the rise.
Beneath, the tail of the wreck embedded in the seafloor.
Finally!
The tail had separated near the surface. The body must be close.
They fanned out, leaving sight distance between them. Itime winked in and out from the passing squids.
Konomelu pointed up.
Above them, on a tall spire, the main wreck teetered.
The tube was mangled. All windows had broken or fallen out. Something wedged the door closed, and debris filled the middle aisle.
Konomelu drifted above the wreck as a lookout.
Ciran wedged Lieutenant Orike’s trident in the gap and forced the door open.
Metal shrieked.
Konomelu’s eyes widened. Itime grimaced.
Ciran pushed and squeezed inside.
“Where is the elixir?” Itime vibrated quietly.
“It was in the lower compartment.” Ciran sifted through the wreckage. Dannika’s folders were strewn lifelessly across the mangled seats. Her pen balanced on the broken table as though she would lean over and take notes.
She had been so much brighter then. Bright and confident, and he had known she was ready to heal. Ready to embrace a new life. Ready to accept her second chance at true happiness.
That memory, like the plane, was now a hollow wreck.
“It has taken too long to find this.” Itime peered through the holes. “I do not see a lower compartment. Has it sheared off?”
Ciran gathered the folders. A massive crab side-stepped from a dark corner. Ciran jumped. The crab clacked its claws, then crawled out the window and disappeared.
Where was the elixir?
Ciran pushed over the broken seat. The pen drifted down and bounce off a cracked, empty plastic bottle.
Uh oh.
He waved off the dust. A case of cracked bottles greeted him with jagged, empty smiles.
Heaviness filled his limbs. “I found it.”
Itime flew beside him. “Where? Oh.”
“The elixir has leaked out.”
Itime studied the broken plastic, impassive.
They had risked so much, searched so long, pinned so many hopes on this moment.
For nothing.
“Every crab outgrows its shell,” Itime murmured.
“Hm?”
“Sanctuary. It has sheltered us, but now it is our trap.” Itime lifted the bottles one by one, seeking any shining droplets in the bottom. “I enjoyed seeing Meg in the ocean, joyful and fierce, as she was when we met. To think that she must retreat once more hurts my soul.”
“Meg does not have to retreat. She made her power. You know, I do not think she is weaker than the others. Her powers are different. She is not a warrior, but my injury is almost healed, and no weak queen would summon a bull shark to her side.”
“But she cannot shield herself or push enemies away. She is too vulnerable to battle at my side.”
There, he was right.
But Ciran was from Undine, wasn’t he? He kicked to the door. “This is a problem they trained me to overcome. How far are we from Lusca?”
“About a day.” Itime kicked after him. “Why?”
“We should go there first, review the security, and gather information.” Ciran squeezed out the plane door. “I will form a complete strategy for how to take over Lusca.”
“Take over Lusca?” Lieutenant Orike’s sharp voice repeated. “Not likely, Undine exile.”
Ciran’s veins froze to arctic ice.
The lieutenant floated overhead with a double patrol of brutally armed warriors. Konomelu thrashed in a net, his chest and limbs already bound.
Warriors descended around him and Itime, cutting them off from the plane or any other escape.
“I thought you would go to the echo point. But when you did not, I knew you would come here.” Lieutenant Orike smirked. “Your bride has a strange power.”
Ciran evaluated their attackers for weakness. “She is a queen.”
“Of course a warrior who claimed to come from the mythic city would say that.