“We need you to continue to be a strong queen,” Verren continues with a knowing glance, and then adds quickly, “As you have been. And you can be that only with the regent at your side. Alive and well.”
I glance at Miral, queen of the Gold Court, who until now has been silent. She, too, has been one of my stronger supporters over the last few weeks. “Miral? What is your say on this?”
“I agree that this Cano is a threat. My reports have been unreliable, but he still poses a risk to us. If our existence is to remain a secret, then we must find and deal with the threat. While I agree that your prince is loyal and he has more than proven himself, he is still exposed, especially to this man. As are you.” She exchanges a look with the Sapphire Court royals. “And Aylis is right. We cannot know how his illness will affect you.”
“Keil?” I turn to the Ruby Court king.
“I think you should stay. Let Echlios handle the boy. If you leave now, the Aquarathi will view your absence once more as a conscious decision to choose this hybrid over them.” He flicks his tail indolently. “It is, after all, reminiscent of your past behavior.” As much as his blunt words sting, I know he’s right. My duty as queen is to the Aquarathi people. I open my mouth to say as much, but Keil isn’t finished. “That said, Cano is a threat, the prince is dying, you will be weakened and we will be defenseless if we don’t do anything, so I propose four months.”
“Four months for what?” I say, surprised.
“Four months to finish what you started landside,” he says coolly. “Lure Cano out of hiding, remove the threat, save your prince, return to Waterfell. Uphold your oaths to defend our people.”
The suggestive note in his tone makes me bristle, but I ignore it. “Just like that? And what if four months isn’t enough?”
Keil’s answer is as diplomatic as the conciliatory smile he sends my way. “Let’s cross that bridge should we come to it, shall we? For now, you may choose a proxy to act in your stead.”
“And the Aquarathi?”
“We will make sure our courts understand what is at stake,” he says, his gaze sweeping the chamber. “Are we in agreement?”
* * *
The High Council had argued for hours after Keil’s bombshell suggestion. While the Gold and Sapphire Courts were in agreement to protect the prince regent, Castia was of the mind that the laws of the wild should apply—meaning Lo would live out his days and die like any other sick Aquarathi, regardless of the effect it had on me or my ability to lead. In the end, after impassioned debate on all sides, they had all reluctantly agreed to Keil’s proposal. To his dismay, I left Miral in charge, and we had four months to join Echlios and “fix” the problem. If we didn’t return to Waterfell in that time frame, I’d likely be forced to abdicate despite Keil’s generous—and calculated—words about crossing that bridge if we came to it.
After I got over the initial shock of the High Council’s decision, it was a foregone conclusion that we would return to La Jolla in short order. Hybrid or not, Lo was one of us and we couldn’t abandon him. Especially not if an attack on him made me—and Waterfell—vulnerable to exposure.
And so, in much the same way as we left La Jolla, we arrive in the dead of night to join Echlios in our old house on the beach with a plan to get ourselves back into the routine of being human...not an easy task given the new weight sitting on our shoulders. We aren’t here to learn or to acclimatize to humans. We’re here to save one of us.
San Diego is the same as when we left it a few months ago...warm, sunny and clear blue skies stretching for miles. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss the sky—the unending canvas of it, stretching out from the arms of the horizon, or the white tendrils of clouds drifting past and tinged in sunlight. Waterfell is beautiful in a different way, but nothing there can mimic the simple beauty of daylight.
Soren extends a glimmer outward and confirms that the beach is deserted. Shifting into human form feels strange, as if my body has forgotten how to do it, but of course it’s just muscle memory. My bones crack and dissolve inside me, condensing and reshaping into the form of delicate human bones. Oddly, it hurts a little this time and I’m enveloped by a suffocating sensation as if I’m being stretched infinitely and then reformed into something far too tight. I try to relax into it and not force the shift—forcing means broken or excruciatingly misshaped bones. Breathing deeply, I focus on the ridged planes of my face softening and reshaping into smooth contours of cheek and brow. Human skin stretches over the shimmering gold-green tissue as I wave a slender forearm in front of me. My eyes are the last things to change, the protective coating slipping over the large, brilliant irises of my species. The hazel-hued shield mimics the appearance of human eyes.
Soren is already halfway up the beach, her nude form camouflaged by a glimmer. Even though the beach is deserted, anyone watching would see only sand. I glance at Speio, who is just completing his transformation. I catch him right at the moment when his face is halfway between beast and human. I’m shocked by how grotesque he appears as the fangs in his gaping mouth shift into human teeth and the puckered scaly hide of his face burns a mottled green. For a second he reminds me of the hybrid we killed, and a sour feeling fills my stomach. Lo is a hybrid, too.
“What’s wrong?” Speio asks, shift complete, looking every inch like a tall, boyish seventeen-year-old with a shock of white-blond messy hair falling over one eye. His chest is lean and muscled, much the same as his Aquarathi one, but that’s where my scrutiny stops. As much as I love Speio and have seen him naked countless times, I have to draw the line somewhere.
“Nothing,” I say averting my eyes. “You just looked...weird.”
He shoots me a confused look. “You’ve seen me change a gazillion times.”
I shrug and wrap my arms around myself, the slick fuzzy feeling of my new skin slightly off-putting. “Seriously, it was nothing. I’m worked up about Lo and whether he’s getting ill because of his, you know, hybrid genes.”
“Could be,” Speio says with a forced grin. “Or could be anything. Maybe it’s a royal bonding thing we don’t know about. It’s going to be fine, Riss. Echlios will figure it out.”
But I can see in Speio’s eyes that he, too, thinks it’s because Lo is a hybrid. It’s the only explanation. Aquarathi don’t get sick—it’s the reason we were able to come to another planet and survive, thrive even—our immune systems are incredibly strong. So it stands to reason that Lo is sick because of his integrated human DNA...which means we have no idea in hell of how to help him.
Fighting my defeatist attitude, I enter my old room from the patio entrance off the pool deck and grab the robe hanging on the hook near the door. Echlios had the housekeepers come in to ready everything for our arrival, and the room looks exactly as I left it—my little mini pieces of Waterfell and home away from home. Glittering sea-glass ceiling, stained glass windows, walls painted in shimmering shades of blue...and one solemn auburn-haired best friend.
“Jenna,” I gasp, and throw myself into her arms. “What are you doing here? Did you talk to Echlios? Have you seen Lo? What happened?”
Jenna nods, hugging me even more tightly to her after my rapid-fire questions. She doesn’t answer immediately but pulls me over to the side of the bed and pats the spot next to her. I sit.
“Guess you didn’t think you’d be back to visit me so soon,” she says, her mouth twisting in a half smile. “Wish it was under better circumstances.”
“Soren says Echlios is with him at his house,” I blurt out. “She wants me to wait to talk to Echlios, but it feels like I’m going burst out of my skin.” I gesture at my human body. “Something doesn’t feel the same. Like I’m going to explode into nothing.”
“That’s