Shattered by the Sea Lord - Starla Night Page 0,96
an echo. Coming from…” He looked down. “The trench?”
Ong…ong…ong…ng…g…
No, not the trench.
The king slowly looked up and stared right in Ciran’s eyes.
He knew.
They both knew.
Lieutenant Figuara announced it. “It is the bell. The bell of the sacred brides.”
Now.
“It is not the sacred brides,” the king argued. “It is another trick of the Undine.”
Ciran signaled Itime and Konomelu. While their guards were distracted also looking for the source of the bell, Itime hugged his stone and rolled off the dais. No one even noticed he’d fallen. Konomelu shifted his toes to human, dug in, and pushed off Nuno’s rock.
Nuno exclaimed. “Dad? Agh!” The stone dragged him ankles-first for the bottom.
The guards turned. “Stop!”
Konomelu rolled off and descended too quickly for them to arrest him.
The king watched them fall with annoyance. “What do they think they are doing? There is no escape. The kraken will pick them off the ledge as easily as from the middle of the trench.” He pulled the lever.
The mirror stones rotated.
Prince Lukiyo swam to his brother and turned, brandishing his trident at the rising kraken and preparing to defend the young fry from whatever might be coming.
Itime had dropped to the coral beside one of the mirror stones. He hauled the stone in his arms toward the Life Tree stalk. Nuno landed in roughly the same place, disoriented, and sat there. But Konomelu hit one of the rotating mirror stones with a sharp crack. The mirror stone remained undamaged.
Hmm.
He rolled off, urged Nuno up, and together they struggled toward the base of the Life Tree.
Tentacles rose from the trench like a twitching nightmare.
“See?” The king’s lips stretched into a satisfied smile. “There is no escape.”
Itime stopped at the bell and dropped his stone. The dead coral crumbled. Konomelu and Nuno put their shoulders to the planks of wood and levered them off. Itime tore at the mud.
The king stopped smiling. “You. Guards who failed me. Go collect them.”
The guards who’d lost the prisoners looked at each other, then the king. The leader spoke. “I thought there was no escape from the kraken.”
“They are not trying to escape the kraken. They are trying to free her.”
“Free her? But you control her.”
“I control the mirror stones, which they are trying to break. Stop them.”
The guards kicked back and forth. “But they did not break the stone. Not even when they landed on—”
“I need not explain myself to you.” The king aimed his trident. “Descend and stop them, now, or I will tie a stone to your fins and drop you in.”
The guards descended very unwillingly.
Midway down the stalk, the kraken’s tentacles jerked in their direction.
They fell over each scrambling away and zoomed away from the city.
The king swore and pushed the lever to force the kraken to descend. While the mirror stones turned, he pointed to the next closest guards, which happened to be Ciran’s. “There, cowards. I have turned the stones. In a few moments, it will force the beast back into its hole. Now, you do what the others could not.”
They hovered, watching the prisoners energetically uncover the bell while the tentacles slowly, far too slowly, receded.
“What are you waiting for?” the king demanded. “The beast will not attack.”
“We could wait for the kraken to fully disappear,” one of Ciran’s guards said. “Why not?”
“Because if the prisoners break the mirror stones, the monster will never recede again.”
The guards lingered.
The king chased them away, slashing his trident. They moved more aggressively toward the prisoners.
And now Ciran floated without guards—unarmed, as usual—before the Lusca king.
Everything was going according to plan.
Finally.
The king’s panicked gaze caught on his smirk and stopped. His eyes narrowed. He lifted his trident to Ciran’s chin. “You are enjoying this too much. Should I gut you now?”
The king was deadly serious.
But Ciran did not flinch. Meg was a very skilled healer.
And all he needed was a little more time.
So he engaged the king. “Your city crumbles around you. This is your last chance to let the young fry go. Will you waste it instead on a foreigner?”
The king lowered his vibration so only Ciran would hear. “Even if what you say is true, and those heretical mainlanders have transformed, they will find nothing here but death. Theirs.”
“Were you that certain the last time you faced them in battle? And they defeated you?”
“They did not defeat me. I let them go.”
Ciran stopped himself from vibrating the quick retort. How merciful. Because as much as he trusted Meg’s skill, he did not want to distract from what was