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Once again acutely aware of the stinging still spreading across her whole body, Merletta retraced her strokes. Her paua knife was there, lying abandoned on the sand below. She dove down and retrieved it, her arms still shaking.
Now that the jellyfish were gone, and her panic had ebbed away, she felt the additional sting of humiliation set in. With nothing else to do, she followed the bloom—at a safe distance—until she rejoined her original route. She couldn’t shake the unpleasant feeling that she was being watched, and she kept glancing around her, expecting Ileana to burst out of the coral and start attacking her again.
But she saw no sign of anyone until she reached the place where Felix had said goodbye to her. Not only Felix, but Freja, Agner, and almost a dozen other guards were waiting for her. None of them wore masks now, and Ileana was among them. Merletta sent a look of pure venom toward her, but Ileana just raised a disdainful eyebrow.
“Merletta, there you are!” Agner boomed. “I can’t imagine what took you so…” He trailed off, his own eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline as he looked her over. “What in the depths happened to you? You were unscathed when you emerged from the drop off.”
Merletta glanced down at herself. Angry red welts were beginning to appear on her skin, and she realized she was shaking harder than ever.
“Jellyfish bloom,” she said through teeth that were gritted in an unsuccessful attempt to stop them chattering.
“That’s unlucky,” said Agner mildly. “Performing the test so perfectly, then falling afoul of a bloom of jellyfish on your way back, once it’s all done.”
“Very unlucky,” Merletta forced out, sending another glare at Ileana. The guard looked utterly unconcerned.
Freja swam forward and cast a shrewd eye over Merletta’s arm. “I imagine it stings something brutal, with so many welts.”
Merletta nodded.
“Not dangerous though, these ones,” said Freja reassuringly. “Just unpleasant.”
Merletta’s stomach unclenched in relief, and she cast a quick look at Ileana. The other mermaid’s face was inscrutable. It was impossible to tell whether she’d just meant to humiliate Merletta, or whether she’d thought these jellyfish were as dangerous as the deadly one she’d once smuggled into Merletta’s hammock.
“Well, I was going to give you a perfect score,” said Agner, a trifle wistfully. “But the instructions were to escape injury if possible. Dangerous or not, I really think we have to count those welts as injuries.”
Merletta said nothing.
“Not to worry, though,” said Agner, smiling slightly at her mutinous expression. “It’s only a practice test, remember. Your score doesn’t really affect anything.”
Merletta nodded. She knew he was right, but she still felt angry. It wasn’t just the pain. It was the fact that Ileana had made her victory feel like defeat. And from all appearances, it had been out of pure spite.
But as she followed the group back toward the safety of the triple kingdoms, Merletta found her mind not on her test, or even on Ileana’s behavior. Her thoughts drifted instead back to the cave, and the mystery of its departed inhabitant.
There was only one conclusion to draw. She wasn’t the only one who had spent unsanctioned time outside the barrier. She squared her shoulders as the ripple of power went over her, indicating that she had re-entered her approved borders.
If someone else was doing it, surely she could once again venture beyond the barrier.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Heath walked away from Prince Lachlan’s study with slow, heavy steps. He felt like he’d aged several years in the two months since Percival’s loyalty ceremony.
He scowled as his thoughts flew to the formal dinner the night before. Prince Lachlan claimed that the seating arrangements, placing the younger generation of power-wielders all in one group far from the royal family, weren’t a targeted snub. But Heath wasn’t convinced. The trouble was, he had no counter for the prince’s waspish comment that the power-wielders wouldn’t choose any differently even if they were given the option. Unfortunately, it was all too true that, in Heath’s generation at least, the power-wielding and non-power-wielding factions of the court were separating themselves more and more consistently. Every social event, every formal ceremony, seemed to show less crossover between the two groups.
Heath let out a sigh. He was sick of all of it. Sick of Prince Lachlan’s caution, sick of Percival’s resentment, sick of Bryford. He wanted to be at his coastal home or, better yet, on Vazula. But he still hadn’t been back there.
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about Merletta’s request for his help in learning to use her legs. Every week, he attempted to discern her movements through use of his extra sight. It was possible he’d missed something, but he didn’t think she’d returned to Vazula. And since he had no way to get there rapidly, it seemed foolish to attempt another sea voyage when she probably wouldn’t even be there.
His thoughts brought him back, as they usually did, to Reka. He needed to convince the dragon to forgive him, at least to talk to him again. He’d had the impression that Reka was surprised and intrigued by what Heath had said to him last time. But Heath had been struggling to get his extra sight to work, and he’d had no real conversation with the dragon since then. Reka, of course, would think nothing of the passage of a couple of months. He was probably still mulling their conversation over, deciding what, if anything, to say in response.
Dragons were never in a hurry.
“Heath.”
Heath turned in surprise at the greeting, a true smile crossing his face at the sight of his grandmother.
“You look troubled,” she commented, as she took his offered arm. “Is something amiss?”
“Not really,” said Heath lightly. “Nothing new, anyway.”
