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.After seeing the mob at the pier, however, she didn’t hold much hope of a light judgment, and worry fluttered like a swarm of butterflies in her stomach.≈*This water smells like excrement,* Farsee signed to Shelly as they swam through the murky green haze of Tsing Harbor.*Landwalker excrement,* she agreed, flapping her gill slits in disgust.*But we have to see what they do with the seamage.* Cautiously, she swam up and poked her head above the surface.Her fins fluttered in shock as she looked around; there were more ships and boats than Shelly could count, some rowing, some sailing and dozens just swinging at anchor.Most of the harbor’s shoreline was edged with cut stone, save for one small beach where boats were dragged up onto the sand like dying whales.At one end was a vast shipyard, ten times the size of the one on the seamage’s island.And the city! The buildings glinted in the sun, so high they touched the sky.At the pier near the warship they had followed, landwalkers clustered thicker than sea lice on a fish carcass.It was all so daunting that Shelly considered grabbing Farsee and flipping their flukes hard for home.Only her pride held her; she could detect the seamage by her magic, and the trident holder would want to know that she had been taken to this vast city of landwalkers.*Odea! Look at them all!* signed Farsee as his head popped up beside hers.*There must be more landwalkers here than all the mer in all the oceans of the world!* Shelly signed back.*How do they live like this?**Trident Holder Broadtail will not like this.* Farsee tugged her underwater and signed, *There are too many landwalkers to find the seamage, and I cannot stand this stench in my gills for long.*Shelly agreed, but she tugged his hand and led him back toward the vast hull of the warship that had held Seamage Flaxal Brelak.It had been pushed by a dozen smaller craft against a wide stone pier that swarmed with landwalkers.*I can feel her magic moving away; she is no longer on the water.* She surfaced again to scan the crowd on the pier.They were milling about, many moving away.*Not too close, Shelly,* her cousin signed.*I don’t want to be shot full of arrows if they see us.Perhaps we should go home and tell the trident holder.**No!* she signed, flaring her fins.*We must stay here to follow in case they take her away in another ship.My father knows we have gone north.He will send someone to find us.But for now, we can go outside the harbor where the water is clean and we can breathe again.**Good.* Farsee grasped her hand and pulled her away.Shelly looked back, reluctant to go too far, but eager to be out of the stench.She clutched Farsee’s hand tightly, lest they become separated in this murk, and flipped her tail for the open sea.≈By the time the coach rattled to a halt, Cynthia’s butterflies had evolved into a seething nest of snakes.Her anxiety redoubled when the door of the coach opened onto a scene only slightly less daunting than the crowd on the pier.High above their heads, the golden spires of the Imperial Palace glistened in the sun.Cynthia remembered seeing them from afar on her first trip to Tsing, and imagining what it might be like to visit the palace.She hadn’t imagined visiting in chains.She swallowed her panic and descended from the carriage, struggling with the cumbersome leg irons.The huge courtyard was crowded with rows of imperial guards, resplendent in full regalia, their gleaming halberds held at the ready.A contingent of guards escorted them past towering doors into the palace, and Cynthia suppressed the feeling of being swallowed whole.The entrance hall proved no less crowded than the courtyard.Courtiers and nobles lined up for the spectacle, their whispers rushing like water around the clatter of Cynthia and Feldrin’s chains as they passed.Cynthia fought to keep her eyes forward.She clutched Kloe close, thankful again to Mouse for comforting the child.She didn’t know if she could have endured it if the babe was crying.Their twisting track led past innumerable chambers and halls, a maze of brilliantly painted walls, gilded columns, and glittering chandeliers.Cynthia barely noticed it.They walked until she was disoriented and leg-weary, her knees shaking from fatigue or nerves—she couldn’t tell.Finally, their guards ushered them through yet another pair of gilded doors into a small audience chamber.Cynthia caught her breath at the beautiful gardens beyond the room’s back wall, which was made entirely of windows.Hibiscus and heliconia bloomed in eye-popping colors, with a backdrop of cascading bougainvillea and lemons ripening from green to yellow hanging heavy on the trees.She felt a twinge of homesickness, remembering her gardens in Southaven.Would she ever see her home again?Only after a long moment did she realize that a man sat at a broad desk before the windows.A tall, broad-shouldered woman in simple black clothes stood at his left elbow, and a young man of perhaps fifteen stood to his right.His son, she surmised, noting the resemblance.She recognized Master Upton standing at one end of the desk.At the other end stood a man with the look of a secretary holding a ledger.Though they all looked at her and Feldrin, she got the distinct feeling that their attention was actually focused on the seated man.Then she noticed the thin circlet of gold on his brow; Emperor Tynean Tsing.“Your Majesty.” Cynthia tried to drop to one knee, but the leg irons nearly tripped her, so she settled for a curtsey.She glanced over and saw that Feldrin had chosen to bow low, rather than struggle to one knee with his peg leg.Upton stepped forward with a bow.“Your Majesty, may I present to you Cynth—”“Sire!”Steel sang free from a scabbard, and Cynthia had only time enough to gasp before the woman in black held a blade an inch from her throat.She swallowed and stared at the sword, her own terrified reflection blinking back at her from the lustrous surface.She had never seen its like before: single-edged and slightly curved, longer than a cutlass but narrower, the metal glistening black with a wavy design that was either etched or intrinsic to the metal itself.“She is hiding something in the blanket.A creature,” the woman said, her voice emotionless.Cynthia opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the emperor’s master of security.“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.I should have predicted this difficulty.There is no danger.” He stepped forward, but the dark blade did not move at his assurance.“The seamage has a familiar, a seasprite.My people have researched these creatures, and they are deemed harmless, though often a nuisance.”“Bring it out,” the woman commanded without a glance toward either Master Upton or the emperor.The sovereign remained silent, his mouth pursed in calm interest, evidently trusting his bodyguard’s judgment in this.“Make it show itself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]