I screamed at the realization. I would be a human and my gills would close up. Not a Spark. A Spark would have a tail underwater and legs on land.
A human at the bottom of the sea was in terrible danger indeed. There was no time to reach the surface, but we had to try. I had to swim before my gills closed up. I had to get air. I had to—
“Go!” I screamed at Dane. And then I swam. My legs were not fully formed yet. It felt so strange to be using two weak, inflexible tails instead of one powerful one. I wracked my brain as I rose up and over the edge of the arena. Dane was just behind me, I was grateful to see when I paused, looking around.
I stared in horror as his gills closed over.
“We need a cave! I know one!”
“No time!”
Our words were muffled, unclear. Our Mer voices, meant for speaking underwater, were gone.
“Use magic!”
I stared as he held his hands around his head, closing his eyes. I quickly followed suit, trying to imagine a magical, oxygen-rich air bubble surrounding my head. I thought I felt something and opened my eyes.
Nothing.
I fought the urge to inhale sea water, knowing I would quickly drown if I did.
Forget the old ideas, Tri. Annaruth said you had buried Magic. Try again.
I closed my eyes and tried again.
Dig deep. Find it hidden within you. Believe.
I imagined bright, dazzlingly white and gold Magic pouring from my heart, up my arms, and out through my hands. I felt something in my hands and opened my eyes.
An air bubble! Not much, and not enough to cover my head. But I pressed my face to it and breathed in. Dane was struggling, having produced nothing. I swam toward him, offering him a sip of air from my bubble. He gasped the air gratefully. I tried again. I needed a bigger bubble! We both did!
I had an idea and grabbed his hands. “Four hands are better than two!” He nodded, getting my meaning. We crossed our wrists so that our palms faced inward in the form of a circle, and we closed our eyes.
Floating, but not in water. I had the odd sensation of floating but holding perfectly still at the same time. The strange sensation made me open my eyes. Dane lay inside the giant air bubble across from me. He was laughing and coughing at the same time. Water spilled out of his mouth to his chest. But he was smiling, visibly relieved.
I inhaled deeply, then coughed up sea water. The air felt wonderful in my lungs! Soon, I was laughing too. I stared at him, and then my legs. The skin was pink and smooth. I touched them, amazed that they had freckles, not unlike my arms, chest, and face.
Then I realized something wonderful.
This is what I would look like as a Spark.
“I guess we both really want to walk on land.”
He shook his head, smiling, and grabbed my hand.
“You did it, Tri.”
“We did it.”
We sat there holding hands as the bubble slowly dropped back into the area, landing on the sand with a slow-motion bounce. We stared in awe through the membrane. The world looked so different through the air. Clearer, but distorted. His hand felt sort of smooth, and yet our skin had a bit of friction where we touched. Annaruth walked slowly toward us with a large smile.
“Well done, children.”
And then she popped the bubble.
Chapter 19
“No one else competed together. We were partnered deliberately.”
“We both want to be Sparks. That must be why, right?”
Dane clenched his jaw. We were sitting outside the Medic tent, our wounds having been declared non-urgent. It was true. We’d escaped our Trials with only a few superficial cuts and bruises. Starla was still being treated.
“Something like that.”
I was still recovering from the shock of the day’s events. It was hard to decide which of the Trials had been harder. The first event had shaken me, but the second one had taken me completely off guard, particularly at the end. Our tails and gills had reappeared with the first splash of sea water. But I’d feared for my life for a moment.
So yeah, getting your fondest wish was pretty terrifying.
And then there was the first Trial.
It turns out, that had been real. Not only the giant squid, but Starla and Thalia had truly been there. And I hadn’t saved either of them fast enough to prevent injury, though neither was hurt too badly to continue in the competition. They were inside the tent now, getting fixed up. On the bright side, I didn’t have to worry about not finishing off the monster I’d left maimed. I’d already been told the giant squid had been magically healed and would continue to serve the Royals, though the phrase ‘obediently serve’ was conspicuously missing.
Her name was Morla. I shivered. Morla would haunt my dreams for a long time, I knew without a doubt. I wondered if the octopus from the opening race also had a name. I decided I preferred not to know. Morla was quite enough for me, thank you very much.
I just hoped she didn’t participate in any more of the Trials. Especially if she held a grudge. After all, I had attacked her egg sac. I’d simply been trying to save Starla and Thalia, but I doubted Morla knew the difference. It still rankled me that my half-sister had been included in my Trial. I hated that she knew that I cared about her, even though that familial emotion had been pushed way, way down, far below the surface.
Any love I felt for Thalia was basically deep in the trench of my soul. But apparently, it was there despite all the years of bad behavior and rejection. I supposed it made sense. I’d known her for almost all of my life. But I didn’t have to like it.
“So . . . Thalia? Really?”
I groaned.
“She’s my half-sister.”
He stared at me, a mottled bruise forming over his cheek. The truth was, it made his eyes sparkle. The Mer was pretty much too handsome for his own good.
“She’s from one of the wealthiest families in this region.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So how in Triton did you end up with no armor? Or supplies? Or food?”
I couldn’t look at him. The shame of being rejected by my so-called family was too great. I tried to sound nonchalant, when the truth was . . . I was mortified.
“After my father died, my stepmother didn’t want me in the house. So I was sent to the servants’ quarters. Servants don’t get special treatment, and neither did I.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. I stared at my tail, idly running my fingers over a sore spot. I was trying to imagine my pink sticky legs again.
“How old were you? When they forced you out?”
“Five.”
“You served your own sister from the age of five?”
His voice was quiet. I almost missed the thread of anger running through it. But I didn’t. For a moment, I found myself wondering why he was mad at me. And then I realized he wasn’t.
He was mad for me.
“Half-sister. It’s not like I like her. We didn’t have slumber parties or braid each other’s hair.” I snorted. “She has a designated hair servant for that.”
“I don’t understand why she was there.”
“Apparently, I don’t want her getting eaten by a giant squid, but that’s the extent of our family affection. Anyway, I doubt the feeling is mutual. If I’d appeared in the clutches of a creature during her Trials, it would have been during her fondest wish.”
“You are the child of a Royal Messenger, and yet you received no schooling or wealth, even though you were part of the Nobility. You wore rags and had to forage for food.”
I shrugged, trying not to take offense at the ‘rags’ comment. The tunic Lila had made me from my old clothes had its own charm. I thought so, anyway.
“That sounds about right. Not that it matters now. I am sure to get some sort of post, right? I won’t have to go back there again.”
I shuddered at the thought. Of all the possible outcomes, returning to serve my stepmother and half-sister was the most repugnant. I realized I would prefer death, which seemed a little overly dramatic, even to me.