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“My call?” Heath searched his memory, more bewildered than ever. “The last time I tried calling you was weeks ago.”
The dragon nodded. “I have considered the matter, and I have decided to come.”
He spoke casually, as though it was normal for him to take weeks to respond, but Heath wasn’t fooled. He could still sense the tension just below the surface, as though every part of the dragon was tightly coiled.
“Reka, what’s going on?”
“Do you wish to come, or not?” Reka asked abruptly.
Heath glanced behind him. He could see Prince Lachlan, trying to wriggle out from behind his guards for a better look. Many pairs of eyes were on them, but none of the spectators were close enough to hear their conversation.
“It’s not the best time, Reka,” he said, frustrated. “I want to go back to Vazula, more than anything, but does it have to be right now?”
“I am not your pet, to come when you call me,” Reka said, danger lurking behind his stately words. “If you wish to come, I am going now.”
Heath hesitated, confused and uneasy. Reka had never spoken this way before, at least not to Heath. Nothing could be a stronger contrast to his unprompted declaration of friendship at the Winter Solstice. What had happened to make him so, well…dragonlike?
But whatever the cause, he could see that Reka meant what he said. If Heath refused to go with him now, he might be giving up his only chance to return with the dragon to Vazula. But if he said yes, they could be there in less than two hours. Merletta might even now be waiting for them in the lagoon…
His father’s advice flashed through his mind, and the prince’s expression of gratitude. But he pushed them guiltily aside. He hadn’t asked for this responsibility, and he didn’t want it. If it waited for him, fine. If they decided he was too flighty, and gave the role to someone else, so much the better.
“Yes,” he said, a dangerous feeling of abandonment rushing over him. “I want to come.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Reka moved, seizing him in his talons and pushing into the air in one fluid movement. Heath barely heard the shouts of the onlookers as the city turned rapidly from a mighty fortress to a gray dot. He turned his face toward the sea, already visible on the horizon from this height.
He was going back to Vazula at last.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Merletta held her head high as she swam through the entrance to the scribes’ hall. She had expected to be nervous about taking her test, but the tension filling her every muscle was something else entirely. Not the best conditions for a such a crucial test, but it couldn’t be helped.
After the foiled attack, she had fled to her barracks like a fish trying to outswim a shark, and had huddled in her hammock for the rest of the night, trying to decide what to do. She couldn’t sleep—she had no idea if the Center was safe for her, and if she’d had anywhere else to go, she wouldn’t have returned there at all. Her first instinct was to wait for the relative safety of the dawn, and make straight for the barrier, leaving the triple kingdoms and whoever was trying to kill her far behind.
But what would she do then? Live alone out in the deep ocean? It might not be as dangerous as she’d been taught, but it was certainly too dangerous for a lone mermaid to survive indefinitely. The shallows around Vazula seemed safe enough, but she would be trapped there, like that turtle in its net, unable to either climb onto the land, or safely return to the sea. That was no way to live.
The attack had frightened her, though, more than she cared to admit. An attack by armed Center guards felt so much more serious even than the deadly pranks of the other trainees. Ileana had hated her from the start, and it was no surprise that she wished Merletta harm. But this…this was different.
She’d known all along that there were those who didn’t want her in the program, but that they were actually willing to have her killed to keep her from progressing was terrifying. She supposed she should be encouraged—surely they must be a little afraid she’d pass her test, or they wouldn’t feel the need to stop her taking it—but somehow she didn’t draw much comfort from the thought.
She had considered reporting the attack, of course. But her memory of her previous attempt to make a complaint to Instructor Wivell made her quickly discard the idea. She had no proof, yet again, and it had already been made clear to her that she was on her own.
She just wished she knew who’d sent the guards after her. Agner was the obvious answer, given that he was in charge of the guards. But it didn’t tally with her experience of him. He was the only one who was friendly to her, but also, he could easily have gotten rid of her in training and made it look like an accident. Ibsen would make more sense, perhaps even Wivell, but she had no idea if either of them had the pull with the guards to make such an order.
There was no way to be sure, but long before the gray light of dawn had filtered down to the Center, Merletta had made her decision. She wasn’t going to flee like a startled minnow. If someone from the Center wanted to kill her, they could do so whether she was in the program or not. She had no safe corner of the triple kingdoms to swim to.
The thought of her combat instructor bolstered her. The first time he’d met her, he’d told her she was a fighter, and he’d been right. The other trainees hadn’t been able to frighten her off, and whoever was behind this attack wouldn’t do it either. She had learned more in the last year—both in and out of the program—than in the sixteen years before it, and she had no doubt she would pass that test. It was time to prove that to everyone else, as well.
Still, she couldn’t help the way her eyes darted around as she entered the room allocated for the test. What if whoever was behind the attack was determined enough to do whatever it took to stop her from sitting for the examination?
But there was nothing sinister in Instructor Wivell’s demeanor as he began the testing, and Merletta soon pushed other thoughts aside, focusing on her answers. She knew this test wouldn’t be physically grueling like the second year test. And it wouldn’t stretch her too far in remembering what she could and couldn’t reveal of her knowledge about the history taught by the Center. The first year test qualified a trainee to become a scribe, and was consequently focused almost entirely on literacy.
It was the easiest aspect of her mental learning to quantify, and Merletta was confident. The test was in multiple parts, even longer than the entry tests, and she went through an astounding number of writing leaves in the process. Every trite saying she’d learned as a technique for remembering information danced across her mind, and more than once she paused to mentally swim through a place far from the small testing room, retrieving information from familiar spots.
But eventually, the morning wore away into afternoon, and she could see from Wivell’s tight expression that she was performing well.
When she had answered the final question, Merletta lowered the coral implement, her hand shaking slightly from the hours of exertion.
Wivell took the writing leaf, clearing his throat half-heartedly.
