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I didn’t dare answer her.
I knew how the two-legged communicated above, with their words that traveled through air, with voices and how they were unable to hear one another think or to truly know one another’s feelings.
This was how they were able to easily lie, whereas for the most part, my kind could not.
“Let us talk where it is more quiet. For you,” she said, providing me with a graceful exit and then I had no choice. She turned, and I was forced to swim beside her.
Sylinda cut a magnificent swath through the waves, bunching her lower-arms in and swirling her mantle between them as she pushed them back out, jetting herself forward and not giving me a chance to do anything but follow.
I recognized the path we were taking though. To the center of Thalassamur, where the most formal of the structures were, a series of lava tunnels with ceilings that time had worn down to have large gaps in them, so that light could pass through.
I could hear the thrum on the ’qa of everyone reacting to my presence, so I knew news of my return had preceded our entrance to the central throne room. It was a large open cavern, filled with life and other krakens, many of whom were leaving after Sylinda sent them a request to depart.
They stayed long enough to see me in person though, and I didn’t need to wonder about their thoughts.
“Where has he been?”
“Poor Cayoni?—”
“—their egg?—”
And this was why I’d left.
I felt anger rush inside me, as I clenched my beak and scowled with my lips above it, the short tentacles that framed my face clutching one another in my fury, until a high-pitched thought crashed into my mind.
“Uncle Cepharius!”
You couldn’t hear the thoughts of children until they were within a body-length of you or so most times, which allowed adults the chance to be adults, and our young the chance to be innocent, without growing up in a stew of other people’s opinions of themselves and others.
But Balesur’s son, Gerron, was close enough for me to hear him now, as he raced into the room to meet me, his entire body an elated pink as he bounced around, making excited gestures with his upper arms and hands, while his lower-arms shot him from place to place in speedy squirts while squealing.
“Where have you been? Why haven’t you visited? Why didn’t you take me?”
His thoughts crashed into mine, and I realized the second reason kraken children couldn’t join the ’qa until they hit their breeding age—because most of them talked far too much, and were far too loud. If Thalassamur’s ’qa let children into it, we’d never hear the end of them.
“I was working,” I told him, twisting my neck to keep an eye on him as he zipped about the room. I could sense he didn’t believe me. He finally slowed and made a disappointed sound. “Far away,” I went on. “Guarding manatyls.”
“Why?”
I huffed, trying to come up with an answer that would make sense to him, without bombarding him with my sorrow.
“Because he had an important job to do,” Sylinda cut in, saving me from myself. “It is a trade we make with the two-legged for certain information.”
That part was true at least. I was one of the few krakens that had willingly had contact with the outside world.
“But manatyls are stupid,” Gerron complained, and he wasn’t wrong.
“They are dense creatures, to be sure. But they deserve to live, same as any other.” And to not be hunted for their meat, which certain unscrupulous two-legged above believed had magical powers, a thing that I knew to be manifestly untrue. I contained more magic in one lower-arm than a manatyl did in its entire body, but the two-legged didn’t need to know that.
Gerron wove back and forth, clearly holding something back, and I was proud of him for managing to keep it from us—he was growing into his abilities, and a few years more he’d be ready to join the ’qa. As it was, either Sylinda or I could’ve upended his mind to make him tell us what he was hiding, but that was not our way.
Then finally he confessed. “You didn’t leave because I broke your statue?”
I blinked.
“No, of course not. How many times have I told you that?” Sylinda said, close enough to hear us and answer for me.
“I just needed to be sure!” Gerron shouted at her, then hovered in the water between us, anxiously winding his lower-arms.
