“It is done,” Gwrtheyrn had said. “Your brother shall inherit the throne. You will bow your head to him, your new sovereign, as you have bowed your head to me. Or you can leave this kingdom and find yourself another home. These are the only choices you have left yourself.” Heavily, his father had sunk back onto the throne, as if all the weight of the deep, deep sea had suddenly rested itself on his broad shoulders.
Kesh remembered glaring at his father, imagining a light of triumph in his brother’s eyes, since there would have been triumph in his own, had things been different. His sisters all gazed at the floor, tears like precious pearls dripping down pale, downcast faces. Betrayal sat like ashes in his mouth. A shark’s sharp teeth gnawed bitterness into his gut and soul, lodging there in perpetual motion, chewing an unceasing path of anger and sorrow and despair to his very core.
Without a word, he’d turned his back on the people who’d turned their backs on him, vowing never to return. If he could not be a king under the sea, he would make a place for himself on the land. There was power aplenty to be had there, for one who was handsome and charming and as cunning as the treacherous sea.
And if he could not have the kingdom for which he had long waited, no one would.
* * *
BEKA SPAT THE regulator out of her mouth as she reached the surface, treading water beside the faded white dinghy while she handed her collection bags up into a pair of waiting hands.
As expected, Marcus had been less than happy about his father’s decision to allow Beka to catch a ride out to where she wanted to explore. In the end, he’d only agreed to allow her aboard if she brought a buddy to keep watch as she dived. She figured that was a small enough concession to make, all things considered, and asked Queen Boudicca for the loan of one of her Mermen who was the most familiar with Humans and their ways.
Beka knew Fergus slightly from the beach, where he assumed the guise of a man in order to indulge his un-Merman-like love of surfing. They got along well enough, and he’d been happy to help out, since her mission involved his people. Now, clad in shorts and a tee shirt that said SURFERS DO IT IN WAVES, he peered over the gunwale of the boat with furrowed brows.
“Sun says it’s past two,” he said. “Your Human friends said they would be back about now. Best you wrap it up for the day, eh?” His shaggy red-brown hair blew into his face, and he pushed it back with one slender hand.
“They’re no friends of mine,” Beka said, scowling as she allowed him to help her back into the boat. “Or I wouldn’t have had to give them a bag of gold coins to bring me out here.” Not to mention arguing for what seemed like an hour with the world’s most stubborn man first. Although it had been fun to watch his hazel eyes spark and flash.
Fergus shrugged. Money meant little to the undersea folk; they mostly traded for what they needed. Gold coins were just one more shiny object in the world below. “Never you worry about that,” he said. “I’m sure the Queen will replace them for you, since you were doing her bidding.”
“I am not doing anyone’s bidding,” Beka reminded him, shrugging out of her oxygen tank, pulling off her wet suit, and piling them neatly out of the way. “I am doing my job as a Baba Yaga, that is all.”
“And how are these bags full of kelp and dead fish going to help you do it, Baba?” he asked, opening one of the airtight sacks and peering inside. “Are you sure you need all these fish? I could use a snack.”
Beka smacked his hand away gently. “I don’t think you want to be nibbling on those fins,” she said as she tucked the samples safely away with the rest of her gear. “They seem to have died from whatever is causing the flora and fauna down in your home to sicken. I’m going to take them, and everything else I gathered, to a lab for examination. I’m hoping they’ll be able to tell me what is causing the problem.”
Fergus tilted his head and looked at her quizzically out of almond-shaped green eyes. “Cannot you simply do magic to reveal nature’s secrets?”
“Could any of your magicians get answers to this malady that way?” She knew the answer to that, of course. It was a resounding NO. “When I am in the water, I can sense the wrongness of the area. I can feel the plants and animals crying out in pain. But I can’t tell what’s causing it.” She shook her head. “I’ve never come across anything like this before.”
“I am certain you will figure it out,” Fergus said, his lanky body relaxed against the side of the boat. “You are the Baba Yaga.”
Beka bit her lip, wishing she had his confidence in her abilities. “I don’t know, Fergus. Maybe we should contact the old Baba and ask her to come back and take a look. I know that the Queen of the Otherworld insisted that it was time for Brenna to retire, but with all her experience, she could probably find the answer in half the time.”