Echo and the sea, p.29
Echo and the Sea, page 29
part #1 of Echo and the Sea Series
“I used to be so much healthier before I started covering this beat,” Ike said. “I need a new job.”
“Then who would tell us all the terrifying things happening in the world?” Broadstreet said.
“Someone who doesn’t care about a dramatically shortened life span through stress,” Ike said.
“So… what happens next, then?” Broadstreet said. “Should we be preparing to cover World War III? Practicing drills hiding under our desks? Doomsday prepping?”
“I guess we wait and hope it’s the Loch Ness Monster and not a foreign adversary,” Ike said.
“I still think it’ll turn out to be the lost city of Atlantis,” Broadstreet said.
“I’ll take that bet,” Ike said.
“A week’s worth of coffee at Apollo’s. I win if it’s the fictional city of Atlantis, you win if it’s a sea monster. I’ll even sport you the mulligan that it doesn’t have to be Nessie,” Broadstreet said.
They shook on it.
“You’re on,” Ike said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go buy industrial strength antacid and try to find some reason to not live in fear.”
Chapter 65: Fathers and daughters
The return to quiet in Atlantis happened with disconcerting ease, Echo noted. The soldiers who had fought on behalf of Reina and her conspirators quickly returned to their posts, as did the men who sided with Rhegis and his supporters. The city itself seemed to be almost unaware of what had happened just beyond their borders, or within the palace walls, though they looked at the damaged prison—not completely leveled as Barnabas had been claiming, but certainly close enough—with a sort of fearfulness that seemed out of character for the people of Atlantis.
Rhegis walked, or rather swam, with Echo, showing her the neighborhoods, the residential areas, the marketplaces. People stared, as much at the king being out and about as they did at this stranger in their midst who seemed to look so much like their king.
I don’t belong here, Echo kept thinking to herself. I’ll never belong here. She felt not like a stranger in a strange land but truly alien, an oddity, an experiment. This is not my home.
Back at the palace, she stood beside her father in a room high above the city, looking out over the glittering beauty below. She knew those streets now, not just by meandering with Rhegis, but her own adventures, the manta-ride she’d never forget on her way to confront Reina. She had a map of this city at the bottom of the sea burned into her mind now.
“I can’t stay here,” she said out of nowhere.
“You don’t have to leave,” Rhegis said. “We can make you comfortable here.”
“I don’t think you can,” she said. She studied his face. I don’t look that much like him, she concluded. It’s all an illusion. People see what they want to see. “I think I understand why you never came for us.”
“I wanted to,” Rhegis said. He looked older than he should, and tired, like the events of the coup had taken years off his life. “Not a day went by I didn’t think of you.”
“But you never came to visit. You didn’t have to… you didn’t have to stay, you know that? All my life I wondered who you were,” she said. “And I only got to meet you because of all of this.”
“I had a duty to my people,” Rhegis said.
“You had a duty to your kid, too,” Echo said. “But I’m not mad for me. I’m mad for her. I don’t think mom ever loved anyone else. I don’t think she wanted to. There was just the memory of you.”
“Was she unhappy?” Rhegis said.
“I don’t think she was,” Echo said. “But I’ll never know now, will I? Because of your stupid city and your stupid politics and your stupid wars. You took her away. From me. And from yourself.”
“I know this isn’t a comfort,” Rhegis said. “But if I’d done what I wanted to do—and Echo, I wish I could make you understand, if I had been an ordinary person and not heir to this throne, I could have done what I wanted to do—I would have never come back to Atlantis. I met your mother on a beach in a place far from here and far from her own home. She was surfing, and she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life, above the waves, or below.”
Echo said nothing, watching as her father seemed to lose control of his words.
“I loved her,” he said. “But I always knew this was coming. Do you understand? This conflict has been building since before I was born, and I knew the breaking point would happen when my father died. It was always there, looming in the distance. And if I’d stayed on the surface with her? With you? Would there be bombs raining down on humanity right now? Would there be an unstoppable, unwinnable war started by my sister and her people?”
“We’ll never know, will we,” Echo said.
“There’s a lot of things we’ll never know,” Rhegis said. “I never thought I’d get to meet you, Echo.”
“I suppose you’re disappointed,” she said. “Maybe you wished your daughter would be someone who was a little different.”
“Echo, you’re exactly who you should be,” Rhegis said. He placed a hand on the window, framing the city between his fingers. “You’re perfect. And I have nothing to do with that.”
The silence between them hummed like electric lights.
“I know I’m a disappointment to you,” Rhegis said. “I don’t say that out of self-pity. I just can’t imagine in any of the visions you might have had for your father, I’d be what you hoped for.”
“You could be worse,” Echo said. “You… you’re better than a lot of your own people in some ways, aren’t you.”
“I’ve seen the world above,” Rhegis said. “Most of them haven’t. You can’t love what you’ve never encountered. You can’t understand where you’ve never been.”
“It’s time for you to change that,” Echo said.
“I know,” Rhegis said. “Gods below, Echo, I’ve wanted to change that my whole life. We need to come out of the shadows.”
“And you need to deal with your sister,” Echo said.
“I do,” Rhegis said.
She rubbed her eyes, exhaustion crashing over her like a wave.
“But Atlantis needs you both, doesn’t it,” she said. “You’re the yin and yang. Without both of you, the balance is off. Things will fall apart.”
“My father knew that much,” Rhegis said. “I wish he’d been better at predicting other things.”
“Would I have liked him? My grandfather?”
“He was a fascinating man,” Rhegis said. “I loved him with my whole heart. I think you would have enjoyed him. He would have enjoyed you.”
“Even if I’m half-human?” Echo said.
“Echo, we’re all human,” Rhegis said. “Atlantis didn’t start at the bottom of the sea. We like to deny it, or to think we’re better than humanity, but we all came from the same place. We’re not nearly as special as we think we are.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Echo said. “I think everyone is as special as they think they are.”
Father and daughter smiled together, realizing, if nothing else, they were both optimists at heart. Some small thread to share, to bind them together. This is what they saw in each other, wasn’t it, Echo thought. My father and mother. They saw hope. They had hope. And they never let it go.
“What will happen to Reina and the others?” Echo said.
“We’ll make peace,” Rhegis said. “She’s my sister, Echo. She’s not evil. She just made mistakes. Terrible, costly, tragic mistakes. But when people are afraid and angry and sad, they do awful things.”
“My mother is dead because of her,” Echo said. “I can’t forgive her for that.”
“I wish I could do the same,” Rhegis said. “But to keep this city together, I need to make peace with her. I can’t execute people for wanting to avenge their children and families.”
“We all came here for revenge,” Echo said. She almost called him ‘dad.’ She almost called him ‘Rhegis.’ Instead, she chose nothing at all. “What a waste of passion.”
“Maybe we should put you in charge,” Rhegis said.
Echo’s head jerked up. Rhegis wore the slightest of smiles.
“That’s not funny,” Echo said.
“I’m not really kidding,” he said. “You’re the only heir to the throne now.”
“You or Reina better get to work on fixing that pronto,” Echo said.
“Maybe it should be you though. You’ve from above. You’re from below. You could be the one who leads us into the sun,” Rhegis said.
“You need to cut the crazy talk right now,” Echo said.
Rhegis laughed. He has such a kind laugh, Echo thought. She pictured him talking with her mother, the two of them laughing and in love, in a time before all of this, before a life of tragedy and loss.
“Or maybe it truly is the end of the line,” Rhegis said. “Dame Rois might be right. Perhaps our time is over.”
“Well, don’t keep the seat warm for me,” Echo said.
“You might well change your mind someday,” Rhegis said. “You have time.”
He took her hand. She let him. The hand of a stranger. The hand of her father. A king. A flawed man. Someone she might never have known, had her life gone differently. None of this is worth what I lost, she thought. It will never be enough. But I will make the best of the life I have before me.
“I am so glad we met, regardless of how it happened,” Rhegis said. “I don’t know how else to say it.”
“I think… I’m better for having met you too,” Echo said. “I wish it happened another way.”
He squeezed her hand. Outside the window, Atlantis bustled with activity, like any city, seemingly unaware of how close it had come to disaster.
This is not my home, Echo thought. But maybe someday, just maybe, I could care about this place too.
Chapter 66: Sort it out yourselves
Echo attempted to sit in on negotiations between Rhegis’ people and Reina’s, but Atlantean politics proved simultaneously too polite and too rude for her to handle. She sat between her father and aunt at first, but watching them try to determine what to do was more irritating than scary.
The room full of people—senators and barristers, generals and spymasters, left her feeling sick. The passive-aggressive tone many of them took was bad enough, but the way more than a few looked at her as if she were some sort of stain on the table infuriated her. The room went deadly quiet when someone—the former senator who had introduced himself to her as Brendis Kor—referred to Echo as “the heir-apparent,” and that was nearly all she could handle from them. They bickered about whether to send a delegation to the surface or wait for an envoy, to hold off to find out if the surface had discovered Atlantis yet, to build up additional protections using arcane magic even stronger than that which currently masked the city from the surface.
“Y’know, I think you can sort it out yourselves,” Echo said, standing up. “Someone can fetch me if you need me.”
She walked away and the table erupted into more negotiations, much of which involved laws and precedents that meant nothing to her at all.
Grimmin, her father’s spymaster, walked with her to the chamber’s great glass door and followed her out into the hall.
“Not much of a politician, are you,” he said.
“And I hope I never become one,” she said.
“There’s not many of us left, we Atlanteans,” the spy said. “We’ve mastered the art of bickering because it keeps us from… well, doing what just happened. It’s been a long time since we’ve had outright warfare in Atlantis. Sure, we’ve had our share of poisonings or mysterious deaths or the occasional stiletto to the throat, but most of our bloodshed is spilled through words. It’s, well I can’t say it’s better, but it benefits the survival of our people.”
“The surface world isn’t much different, to be honest,” Echo said. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for civilization anymore.”
“You have the right to an uncivilized life, ma’am,” Grimmin said. He raised an eyebrow as he spotted Barnabas and Artem approaching, both men patched up from the infirmary. Artem’s arm was in a sling, his visible flesh a mess of bandages and stitches. Barnabas’ hand was in a cast, his fingers immobilized so they could heal from all the damage he’d sustained.
“You’ll keep my father safe?” Echo said before her friends joined them.
“That has been the one thing I’ve always tried to do,” Grimmin said. “And you, princess.”
“Really, you’re going to use a term of endearment like that on me?” Echo said.
“I use it literally,” Grimmin said, his white teeth breaking into a wide smile. “You are, without a hint of irony, the princess of Atlantis. What you choose to do with that title is up to you, but it’s yours by birth.”
“I would prefer you call me Echo,” she said.
“Your wish is my command,” Grimmin said. “I should return to your father. I suspect you might leave soon.”
“We might,” she said.
“Well then, your ‘Jem’ is in the stables,” Grimmin said. “She’ll take you wherever you need to go, and you can simply tell her to return here when you’re done. We’ll keep her safe for you.”
She took the old spy’s hand.
“I think you’re probably one of the good ones, huh,” she said.
“Shush,” Grimmin said. “I’m an intelligence agent. We’re not supposed to develop a reputation for being nice.”
Grimmin shook her hand and returned to the conference stealthily. Her father, mid-conversation, looked through the glass door and caught her eye. He looked like the most lost man she’d ever seen.
“Did I hear him call you princess?” Barnabas said.
“Shut up, Barnabas Coy,” Echo said.
“Princess Echo. Sounds like a fairy tale character,” Barnabas said.
“It’s a bit flouncy a title for you though,” Artem said.
“Are you saying I’m not flouncy?” Echo said.
“You lack certain upscale attributes one usually attributes to princesses,” Artem said.
“If I wanted to be a princess, I’d be as not-flouncy as I want to be, thank you very much,” Echo said.
“We should just call you Echo,’ Barnabas said. “For now.”
“That’ll do, guys,” Echo said. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 67: Where we go from here
Barnabas was legitimately surprised the ghost ship was still unoccupied when they climbed back on board.
“I really thought someone would’ve stolen it. The Endless is not a ship that likes to be captain-less,” he said, waving at the ghost crew as they made ready to set sail again. He laughed at the spirits’ eagerness—they were as ready to move on to the next journey as the living were.
“Who steals a ghost ship?” Echo said, setting aside her trident and sitting on the rail with a casual comfort Barnabas almost laughed it.
“In a way, I sort of stole a ghost ship,” he said.
“But you’re a lunatic,” Artem said.
“Have you met many pirates?” Barnabas said. “Mental health isn’t exactly high on their most common attributes. Once we left New Tortuga, it was up for grabs.”
“It’s good to be back, though,” Echo said. “I don’t know if I could ever live there. Never truly feeling the sun on your skin.”
“Some of them wanted you to stay,” Artem said. “I overheard them talking. There were quite a few who thought you might be the solution to some of their problems.”
“All the more reason to get out of there,” Echo said.
“But now that we’re back,” Barnabas said. “It begs the question: where do we go from here?”
“We need to find Yuri,” Echo said. “That’s my one and only goal.”
Barnabas took off his long coat and tossed it on a hook never intended to hold a coat. One of the ghosts shot him a dirty look for his disrespect. He looked over his heavily tattooed arms, noticing scratches and burn marks he hadn’t seen before.
“That compass I gave him will help him find his way back you,” Barnabas said. “I don’t know if finding a man who doesn’t want to be found is the right thing to do. Echo, he may not be ready to come home yet. Yuri might not want to be found, and it might not be our right to find him.”
“He’s out there, alone, and probably afraid and ashamed,” Echo said. “He’s my oldest friend. I can’t leave him to suffer through this by himself.”
“Then we’ll look for him,” Artem said forcefully.
“Does that mean you’re staying with us?” Echo asked.
Artem folded his arms across his chest and looked at the deck.
“I should go back to the Island of Unwanted Things. To say the goodbye I didn’t get to say to Merrick,” he said. “And to make sure everyone is okay. I abandoned them in my rush to vengeance. That was unfair. It was unkind.”
“We’ll go with you,” Echo said. “Together.”
Artem smiled. Again, Barnabas almost laughed—the Amazon, now that he’d made some peace with himself, had returned to being irritatingly grim, to the point where a smile on his ridiculously good-looking face seemed almost funny.
“Thank you,” Artem said.
“I assume I’m welcome to come back as well,” Barnabas said.
“I spoke to you in anger before, Barnabas Coy,” Artem said. “We’ve faced enemies together. We’ve fought side by side. I hope…”
“I gotcha,” Barnabas said. “And same to you.”
The two men nodded at each other and Echo threw her hands up in disgust.
“Could you two stop acting like dudes for two seconds and hug it out or something?” she said.
“Maybe later,” Barnabas said.
“We’ll consider it,” Artem said simultaneously.
“You’re not planning on staying there though, picking up where Merrick left off?” Echo asked.
“I’ll return, but I can’t stay there forever,” Artem said. “I’ve seen too much of the world. Hiding on an island, even one that does such good for the lost and abandoned… there are others who can carry on his work. This world needs heroes to fight for it, like you and me. I can’t do what needs to be done by never leaving my island.”
