AllFreeNovel
Share Us
chapter 1
CEPHARIUS
A distant request came in from one of my kind, through the aqa like a tiny fish nibbling on the tip of an arm. I instantly responded, “No.”
The messenger wasn’t close enough for me to see, but sight was an often useless concept in the oceans we lived in. Waters could be choppy, or we might’ve swum too deep for light to reach. It was one of the reasons we relied on the aqa to transmit our thoughts, allowing us to communicate over vast distances, depending on the terrain.
“No? What do you mean no?” the other kraken asked back, like he had no concept of the term—and by now I was certain his mind was unfamiliar to me.
“I mean no,” I thought at him with intent, while considering which direction I should swim to stay out of his range.
I felt his confusion travel into my mind just the same as his words did. “You don’t get to say no when it’s the king asking.”
“You do when he’s your broodbrother.” In fact, when he’s your broodbrother, you can tell him to go pump himself. I was careful to partition that last thought off, though, so it didn’t travel to him.
“But—” the unseen kraken began.
“NO!” I shouted at him, flashing red in the sea I hovered in.
The pod of endangered manatyls I’d been guarding had been ignorant of my presence until that very moment; krakens could be utterly still when they wished to be, controlling our buoyancy via manipulating internal structures. But in my anger I’d betrayed myself. All of the small herd scattered, swimming through the water in different directions with their large sweeping wings, and I clicked my beak in annoyance, which only frightened them off further. I closed my mind to the ’qa, unwilling to let anyone else’s thoughts in, in my vast irritation.
After Cayoni had passed, I’d swum away from my home on purpose, trying to escape the low-level thrum of everyone else’s lives. I’d taken this job with the Monster Security Agency in the frigid Upper Ocean protecting the manatyls because they weren’t entirely safe from humans, no matter what kind of treaties the two-legged kind signed with one another on their land, and I intended to keep doing it.
But . . .
I hadn’t even asked the other kraken why my brother had wanted to see me. I’d just protected myself from the sharp pain of my past on instinct.
What if Balesur’s mate had died? Or he was sick? Or, worse yet, Gerron?
The manatyls were slowly regathering in their protective formation. I hadn’t moved in the water yet, so they’d forgotten I’d existed.
If only the rest of my family could do the same.
I hovered in the middle of nowhere, halfway between the waves above and the ocean floor, thinking hard, while hiding my thoughts from the ’qa, lest another of my kind be near.
Which would I regret more? Briefly returning to the torment of Thalassamur, or discovering that I’d missed my chance to see a loved one one last time?
I raced my mind out along the ’qa and felt the weak flashes of thoughts the manatyl possessed—some were hungry, others were tired, and one eagerly lusted—but the kraken I’d shouted at was gone.
I’d had this assignment for three years. The two-legged above knew of me, and it would take a long while for their fear of me to subside.
For now, this pod was safe.
“I will be back,” I promised the broad-winged creatures, even though I knew they couldn’t understand me, then spun in the water, and started swimming for my home.
It took two weeks to travel from the cool waters I had been in to the warmer waters of my childhood, but I knew I was getting close when I could feel the loose, chaotic, and intrusive thoughts of other krakens.
“You will?—”
“Move!”
“A sharper hook?—”
“—don’t you agree?”
I slowed my swimming and clung to a rock outcropping covered in purple anemone and orange sea fans that furled and unfurled with the current, trying to deal with my emotions before I was discovered.
Until then, I pretended to be like a piece of kelp, letting the current gently rock me, and once I’d accomplished that, managing to keep the thoughts of all of the rest of the krakens out of my mind, I let go and started swimming again, cleaving to the shadows of the outcroppings of rock and coral that created the broad road of sorts that led into my kingdom, my city, my home.
