I’m Aquarathi...even if I don’t want to be.
I shove my arms upward, the strength of my will creating an invisible ceiling until all the water pools on top of it in midair, and then I release it. The force of it knocks me to my knees but it’s still not enough. Speio is right. I am a coward who does nothing but care about herself.
I must be punished. Harder.
Lightning staggers down around me through the rain into the ground beside me, blistering the skin of my body through the earth. Speio once called electricity our Kryptonite—the one substance that can stop us in our tracks. Even though the bolts are barely touching me, they are near enough that my human skin is scorched, and I’m almost senseless from the pain of it dispersing into my cells.
I barely feel the body crashing into me, slamming us both to the ground and breaking my terrible connection with the sky and the earth.
“What are you doing, my lady?” Echlios’s face is horrified. But I can’t even speak. All I can do is cry against his chest and choke on the bitterness that’s killing me. Echlios embraces me tightly, funneling the water that’s around us through his body and into mine and healing the singed areas. After a while, when everything inside of me calms, the storm ebbs until the rain is but a light shower. “What were you thinking?” he says, rocking me back and forth.
“I’m a fake—” I begin.
“No, you are not. Come, let’s get you home.”
I let Echlios take me back to my Jeep and he drives us home, leaving his own car in the parking lot. On the way, I stare out the window, watching the ocean glint in the distance as if it, too, is reproaching me. A critical part of our human acclimatization means taking steps to ensure that the humans are focused on taking care of the oceans and marine life. I have done none of that. I’d turned my back on it—all of it, not just my family and my people, but my home. I’d pretended to be human because it’d been so much simpler to be nobody than to fight to be somebody. I’d even refused to continue my combat training with Echlios and Speio, to do anything Aquarathi-related. Instead, all I’d done was run away from who I was. And my people had paid the price—Speio, Echlios and Soren most of all—when Ehmora had stolen the throne. Because the worst possible thing that could happen had happened, and I’d chosen to let it.
“There has always been dissent between the courts,” Echlios had told me. “Your father said it wasn’t our place to interfere in the affairs of humans. But Ehmora had other ideas, and she has the support of the Emerald and Sapphire courts. She believes that Earth is our shared home and we must step in to prevent the death of the oceans. That as a species, it is our duty to alter the course of the future if necessary.”
“You mean, reveal ourselves to the humans?” I said, shocked. For millennia, we’ve lived in secret and in symbiotic harmony with the human race, either blending into human life like Echlios, Soren, Speio and I have during a human initiation cycle, or lying hidden in the depths of the oceans.
“No, but nudge where needed to prevent future disaster,” Echlios said. “It is the reason the alliance between all the courts was formed. We intervene where we have to in order to preserve our own future. Ehmora believes this is our world, too, regardless of what the humans do. So the royal heirs are sent here for the human cycle to learn...and to act in our interests.”
“But Father always said that Ehmora wanted to control the humans.”
A sad smile. “She does. Your father knew that Ehmora wouldn’t stop at a nudge or two. She wants more. She wants all of it. Your father only sought to protect us, to avoid war with the humans. Don’t you think if they knew about us, they would hunt us down? We’re so few compared to them.”
My father was right. Everything we knew about humans suggested they would stop at nothing to analyze, conquer or kill us. It’s in their nature. But a part of me also agreed with Ehmora. After all, I’d known no home other than Earth. It stands to reason that we should protect our planet, even if the humans don’t know about our existence. But my father’s belief that Aquarathi should remain in the shadows was rooted in the cautious thinking of our ancestors, as they had done for centuries. He wanted to keep us unidentified and alive, and as king of the High Court, his word was law. He’d gone against Ehmora.
And he had been murdered for it.
Echlios carries me up to the house from the car, bringing me back to the present. One of our neighbors waves with a concerned look, and Echlios explains that I took a tumble during a run. Technically he is my Handler, but he is also my legal guardian, the closest person I have to a parent in the human world. Although the house is mine, we have to keep up the appropriate human pretenses. I manage a feeble wave on the way inside.
“My lady,” Speio’s mother and my guardian “mom” says, her voice full of concern as Echlios helps me hobble through the door.
“It’s okay, Soren, I’m fine, just a minor disagreement with a thunderstorm. I need to be alone right now. Please?” I ask weakly. She exchanges a worried look with her husband, but steps back to let me pass.
My room is as I left it—untidy, vibrant and colorful. Unlike the somber hues of the rest of the house, mine is more like my true home. The one I’d sworn never to return to. I stare at the brilliant pieces of sea glass coating the shimmery indigo ceiling, all the bits that I’d found on the beach over the years, and the stained-glass windows I’d made Echlios install above the French doors. I’d painted the walls myself in all the shifting blue hues of the ocean—cerulean, azure, cobalt, navy, sapphire and aqua. When the sun hits the stained glass just right, it’s an explosion of magical color that can only be rivaled in one other secret place, a place I haven’t seen in nearly three years.
Waterfell.
I can almost hear Speio’s voice in my head asking if I hate Waterfell so much, why the minishrine in my room? But I don’t hate Waterfell. I just hate who I’m supposed to be when I’m there. A child princess they all look at with a mixture of contempt and pity; contempt because I’d always done what I wanted when I wanted with no care for my father’s wishes, and pity because it was a grave I’d dug for myself. In the end, my father’s advisers had been elated when my initiation began and I was out of sight.
Out of mind.
With a painful gulp, I open the sliding-glass doors to the patio and step outside. In the backyard, shielded by the house on three sides and the beach on the other, I shed my clothes and dive into our deep saltwater pool, swimming down until I’m at the bottom. The skies have gone from an angry gray to a dark blue tinged with pink and gold. The Aquarathi, particularly the royals, have always had a tumultuous relationship with weather. Storms at sea are often caused by our emotions, even as deep down as we live. At least the myths of old have gotten that right—sea monsters are synonymous with storms.
The dark blue color of the sky reminds me of Lo’s eyes, and for a second, I realize that I haven’t thought about him since I left school. A twinge of guilt seeps through and I know that Lo is the least of my worries for all the people I’ve hurt or disappointed. The water ripples above me and I see a shadow standing at the edge of the pool. I nod, and there’s a splash as someone swims down toward me.
I’m sorry, Speio mouths, sinking down to the bottom. “I was out of line,” he says in our language, little more than a series of clicks and sharp pulses underwater. His blond hair fans around his face and I grasp his hand in mine.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say, gripping hard. He grips back just as tightly. “We’ll figure this out, Speio, I promise. I can’t just hide here and I know that now. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You were right. I was afraid of what you’d say.”
Together we lie back on the bottom of the pool with the water undulating above us, and watch the last afterglow of day give in to the darker demands of the night. There’s barely any moon, but we don’t need the light in the growing darkness. The shimmer of green and gold dancing beneath my skin is just as mesmerizing as the one of turquoise and silvery white