CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Lysi
Queen Evagore
The queen who had been missing for so long was here in front of me. Dione and her council, Anthias, Spio, and I remained motionless, staring at her.
We’d spent so long searching, and still, I could not get over the disbelief at having found her. In the back of my mind I supposed I had never expected it to happen.
Or maybe I couldn’t yet process the idea of living under any power other than Adaro.
“Is he really dead?” Queen Evagore whispered.
I nodded.
A shudder swept over her frail body. She gazed across the dark cavern towards the crowd. Surrounded and overpowered by the Utopian army, the Nereid guards’ defiance had faded. They were silent, their fear heavy in the water.
The dreadlocked merman from Kori Maru came forwards with a bag in his hands. He opened it and produced a pale blue crown. It was smooth and opaque, with a single prong at the front.
Dione took it delicately into her hands as if holding a newborn baby.
“The Pacific is yours once more, Your Majesty,” she murmured, and passed Queen Evagore the crown.
I studied the queen, understanding what Dione had meant when she said Evagore would be in no condition to make negotiations. I’d worked her up to be bigger in my mind, longer, with the aura of a deity. I’d half expected her to burst out of here with all the power and glamour of Medusa, ready to rebuild the kingdom.
But she was a normal mermaid. Beneath her withered appearance she was small, even young. Evidence of torture was burned across her stomach and back. Would she want to be queen after all she’d been through? Would she be able to sway the masses—or, more pressingly, negotiate with humans?
All I could think was that we needed to get her to Eriana Kwai, and fast. How much time did I have? Through the hole in the ceiling, I couldn’t see where the sun was.
With trembling hands, Queen Evagore took the crown from Dione. She didn’t put it on. She held it, staring down at the pale blue point. The emotions that surged from her caused a lump to rise in my throat.
There was a scuffle in the crowd. A few guards tried to break away from where our army had them corralled.
I heard a few thumps of a weapon against a body, and the scuffle died.
“Please don’t,” said Guenevere. “You can take Evagore if she’s who you came for, but don’t hurt my guards.”
She hovered away from the rest of us. No one tried to restrain her.
“We won’t,” I said, and then louder so everyone could hear. “We don’t want to hurt you. That’s not what we’re here for.”
Queen Evagore’s eyes flickered to me. They were soft, kind, and heavy with exhaustion. She said nothing, so I continued.
“Adaro is dead, and his government has fallen. It’s time to restore the Pacific Kingdom to what it once was. Under Queen Evagore—”
“The king is not dead!” shouted a merman from the crowd.
“If you don’t believe me,” I said over top of him, “I ask that you consider the word of this soldier, who has proof in his hands!” I beckoned to Spio in what I hoped was an impressive, sweeping gesture.
Spio blinked at me from where he floated. His hair was singed and blackened from the ship fire, the barrel-sized mace dangling at his side. He scratched his nose.
“Spio,” I whispered, “the crown.”
“Right.”
An unbearable silence fell as Spio struggled to pull the crown out of his bag. It caught several times on the straps before he managed to yank it free.
He held it high over his head. The single beam of light poured from the ceiling and illuminated its opaque black points. The severed locks of hair fluttered around it. The crowd broke out in whispers.
“The serpent is under the control of Queen Evagore’s allies,” I said.
“Control?” said Dione, temper flaring. “Meela controls the serpent? How?”
“She’s using it to approach the humans,” I said, evading the question. “We’re asking them to meet Queen Evagore at Eriana Kwai to make a peace treaty.”
I looked meaningfully at the queen, hoping she would agree to this without question.
She frowned. “When you refer to a serpent, are you talking about the Host of Eriana? He unearthed it?”
“Yes.”
Evagore dropped her gaze. I caught a quickening in her pulse.
“How do you know about the serpent?” said Spio.
Her aura flickered with shame. She traced a finger over the cracked skin on her arm. “The legend of the Host of Eriana was passed down my family.”
I glanced to the iron burns wrapped around her midsection. Was this the information Adaro had been trying to pry from her this whole time?
Guenevere narrowed her eyes. “Is it true that Medusa already overpowered his armies?”
I nodded. “She’s pushing back in every direction.”
Across the cavern, the army and guards fell into absolute silence.
“Why should we accept this southern mermaid as our new queen?” said Guenevere.
“Commander, remember his warning. We swore an oath,” shouted a mermaid from the crowd.
Guenevere ran a hand over the rubies in her braid and straightened, seemingly bolstered by the feel of them. “Adaro’s reign has ended. Utopia and the South Pacific are resisting. His army is surrendering under Medusa’s power, and the serpent is allied with those in front of us. We must consider the future of our kingdom.”
“We don’t intend to force a leader upon anyone,” I said. “We’ll hold an election. Everyone gets a vote.”
I felt horribly unqualified to be saying such things, but someone had to. Why not me? Why not someone who’d been working towards a new kingdom as tirelessly as I had?
Dione cast me a look of mingled surprise and anger.
But Queen Evagore said, “Everyone votes. You all have the right to decide what kind of kingdom you wish to live in.”
“And what will you have to offer?” said Guenevere.
Everyone turned to Queen Evagore. She looked too tired to hold herself upright, much less defend her position as queen.
Finally, she lifted the crown. The instant it was placed over her pale, limp hair, she became radiant. The crown’s weight drew her body longer, prouder. Her shoulders squared. Her tired eyes brightened.
“My kingdom is built upon freedom,” she said, voice soft and clear. “You are free to live as you wish, to choose your future, to express your voice. We live without prejudice. You will not be sent to a war in which the gruesomeness of the battle is determined by your gender. You will not be put to death because of your affiliation with humans. Your loved ones will not be sent to suffer and perish in a labour camp.”
The words seemed to suck the air from my lungs.
“The labour camp,” I whispered. How many were still trapped there?
“We will free them next,” whispered Dione.
“What about everyone in these cells?” said Creon. “We need to free them, too.”
“Do we?” said the dreadlocked merman. “What if they’re here because they’re criminals?”
“They’re here because Adaro deemed them too important to send to the camp,” said Guenevere.
Queen Evagore nodded gravely. “We have much to fix.”
My eyes roamed desperately over the walls full of cells. So many urgencies competed for our attention. Every moment we spent here, merpeople could be dying in the camps. Every moment, they were working closer towards unleashing a fatal storm on the Pacific coast.
And Meela. She was at risk waiting for us to get to Eriana Kwai with the queen.
How were we supposed to do all of this at once?
The crowd was murmuring, getting louder.
It was not a noise of protest.
My heart pounded. The darkness itself seemed to lift.
“Free the labour camp,” a merman shouted.
His words were met with cheers. The mood seeped through the crowd like a burst of oxygen.
Queen Evagore nodded. “Dione, please assemble a team to go to the labour camp, and another to stay here and help free the prisoners.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The queen’s energy was rising. It would likely be brief, considering her condition, but her willingness to lead inspired hope in me.
“Your Majesty,” I said. “We’ve arranged to meet the humans at Eriana Kwai so we can come to an agreement.”
She studied me. I prepared to launch into an explanation of everything the humans had been doing, all the assaults we had faced and the threat of more damage—but she nodded.
“When?”
“We have to go now,” I said, breathless. “I’ll take you.”
Dione was watching us. Queen Evagore met her eye, and something passed between them.
“I require Dione and a few of my council to accompany us.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said.
It was reasonable. We could use a guard on the way there, and afterwards, they could take her back to Utopia.
Spio swam up behind me.
“Well, off to the labour camp,” he said, like he was telling me he was going for a jaunt to catch dinner.
“Wait, what? I didn’t mean you—”
“You’re right, buddy. We need to get to the labour camp before any more damage is done. For all we know, we’re hours away from that seismic crapstorm King Asshat wanted.”
“But Spio—”
“Besides, apparently Amathia is there. I have a maiden in misery to save.”
The thought of Spio travelling all the way there with this army, of fighting through more guards in the ocean’s most painful depths, constricted my throat.
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Lysi, it’s been weird. It was good to share it all with you. Next time I see you, it’ll be a new world.”
I had to trust his judgment. I had to let him do this. Maybe I would get to meet Amathia next time I saw him.
But one last hug. I threw myself at him.
Around us, the crowd took up the chant—more voices than ever joining in.
“Not my king! Not my war!”
When Spio and I broke apart, we shared a smile—the first real smile in what might have been a lifetime.
Victory pulsated through the cavern. I felt it in every part of me. Utopia was united, and we had the allegiance of the Nereid guards. Across the world, Medusa was taking down Adaro’s remaining armies. There would be no more labour camps, no more wars.
Spio was right—we were entering a new world. At long last, the sun had set on Adaro’s kingdom.