And once I came of age at seventeen, I’d be the rightful heir. No wonder my father had urged me never to return. Leaving Waterfell was a part of my grooming—a necessary part of my training to understand the world in which we lived, to share the lives of humans, before I assumed the position I was born into just like all the heirs before me. But my training turned into something more with the death of my father. Without a home to return to, I took refuge in the human world.
“How?” I asked.
“It looked like a hunting accident,” Echlios said, his face shadowed. But I knew better. My father was murdered.
“My father’s advisers? What of them?” I asked him.
“All missing, presumed dead. My lady, it’s not safe for you here. Ehmora’s spies will no doubt have told her where you are.”
I shook my head. If what Echlios said was true, this was the only safe haven I had left. Running meant I’d always be on the run, and I’d never give Ehmora that satisfaction. “No running. This is my home now. What does she want, Echlios?” I asked him, and then frowned. “What’s to stop her from just killing me, too?”
“She needs you.”
“Why?”
But I already knew why. Rule of the High Court in Waterfell was determined by succession of birth, unless there was no direct heir. Then each of the lower courts—Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire and Gold—could present a challenger. Whoever won would become the next king or queen, and their court the new High Court. Since I was the only living heir to my father’s throne, once I came of age, the High Court would rightfully be mine. But the truth was, I didn’t want it.
“Well, she can have the throne,” I said dully. “I don’t care.”
The thought of returning to Waterfell was a bitter one, with my father gone. All his people—my people—would be looking for someone to lead them, and I wasn’t that person. To them, I’d been a frivolous child who’d shirked every form of royal responsibility and been indulged by a doting father. They’d loved him but only tolerated me. They’d be better off with Ehmora as queen. I said as much to Echlios.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“I do. I belong here now. I’m never going back.”
As the memory fades, I’m hissing the word never through my teeth just as the smell of salt hits me like a rolling wave, and I pump my legs faster, stopping only to throw my backpack on the side of the pier and to kick off my shoes. Self-disgust pours through me in violent waves. I hate feeling so powerless. I hate the way that Speio looks at me as if I’m a loser...a coward who’s taking the easy way out. But it’s not like I have much of a choice, do I?
In seconds, I fling myself off the edge of the pier in a graceful swan dive, letting the icy water envelop every part of me, and suddenly I can breathe again. I ignore the startled glances of the surfers clad head-to-toe in wet suits and churn my arms in a strong front crawl that takes me effortlessly past the breakers. The water is cold for February, but it feels balmy against my bare skin as I duck underneath the last of the breaking waves to make my way underwater to where the ocean rocks with a gentle wide roll.
I’m careful to control my reaction to the water—it’s like life energy to me—and it takes work to stay focused and make sure I don’t transform when every part of me wants to give in to the magical pull of the sea. But I relax enough to let the cold salty water do what I came here for. I let it soothe me, fill me, pass over and through me until I am nearly faint with it.
Until I am calm once more.
It has been only moments but it feels like days. The arms of the water will always be my home, up near the surface or down in the deep.
Floating on my back watching the popcornlike clouds sail across the sky, I don’t immediately notice the surfer paddling toward me. Or maybe I do and hope that he will go away, but I can feel the changes in the water that tell me he’s coming closer.
“Hey, you okay?”
I turn around with a flippant remark on the tip of my tongue that gets stuck as I make contact with a pair of the oddest-colored eyes I’ve ever seen—a bottomless blue, as if he’d leached the color straight from the depths of the ocean. The eyes belong to a boy not much older than me. He paddles closer.
I must have imagined the strange, nearly navy color, or it must have been some trick of the sunlight, because on closer inspection, his eyes are more dark than light, almost blue-black. His teeth flash white at my look. Flushing, I realize that I’ve been ogling him for the better part of a minute.
“I’m fine,” I manage, tearing my gaze away from his odd eyes.
The boy shoots me another knowing glance before his gaze dips to my bare arms. “Um, you’re not wearing a wet suit. Aren’t you freezing?”
“I’m fine,” I repeat, a little irritated by his smile and the fact that my private moment of bliss has been interrupted by what seems to be some annoying local—even if he does have amazing eyes—one who probably doesn’t even go to school and spends all his days tanning and surfing. “Look, thanks for your concern...”
“Lo,” the boy supplies helpfully. At my blank look, he clarifies. “Name’s Lo.”
“Well, thanks, Lo. See you around.”
I duck-dive and swim a few lengths underwater before resurfacing several feet away. He hasn’t moved and is still staring at me with those strange dark eyes. Lo shoots another irritatingly white smile in my direction, a knowing grin as if he’s far too used to having that effect on girls. No effect whatsoever on me, of course. I’d been overemotional and caught by surprise.
“Catch you later, then,” he says loudly.
I watch him as he deftly paddles to catch a wave, his body sleek as a seal’s in his wet suit. He rides the wave expertly, skimming along the foamy lip of its crest to curl across its open face and twisting his body like a whip to bring the board up and around.
Lo’s a pretty good surfer, I admit to myself.
Then again, he probably surfs every available hour out of every day like half the other kids carving it up out there. He’s just another boy with a board, and I’ve certainly seen my share of them showing off their tricks, especially living in San Diego. Jenna’s boyfriend, Sawyer, is captain of the surf team at Dover, the reigning state champions. We’d always joked that if she and Sawyer ever had kids, they’d be born All-Star All-Americans just from the gene pool. Jenna likes her boys talented and driven, just as she is. It is one of the reasons I like her so much—she gives everything her all, from sports to studies to her relationships. She never shies away from anything.
Typical surfer-boy bravado aside, for some reason, I can’t tear my eyes away from Lo’s lithe form. He moves as if he is one with the wave, a part of it instead of riding on top of it, in some kind of fluid symmetry. He surfs like how I like to surf, something that Sawyer calls Zen-surfing.
As if sensing my stare, at the very last minute on his final turn, Lo rips backward on his surfboard to make eye contact with me one last time—a look that I can feel even as far away as he is—and winks before somersaulting backward into the surf.
I feel that last glance of his all the way to my toenails. Not even the icy touch of the water can calm the deep flush that tunnels its way through me.
2
CLOUDED WATERS
“Miss Marin, kindly report to Principal Cano’s office.”
Even though all the stares of the students in the room suddenly converge upon me, my second-period Spanish teacher doesn’t look up from the pile of papers on his desk. I shrug, grinning at the kids in the front row, and sport a sneaky thumbs-up to Jenna and Sawyer sitting in the back next to my empty desk. Jenna rolls her eyes in an exaggerated movement as if