Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

T hat could have gone worse. It could have gone better as well, but Maketes preferred to think on the bright side. They had gotten somewhere with the achromos. He knew what they wanted now, and he was able to at the very least make a deal to spend more time with them to get answers out of that... female.

Ace was a female.

It was still hard to reconcile the voice in his head with what she looked like. He’d been so certain he’d been talking to a male, and to realize that it was a rather odd looking female? His mind simply couldn’t match the words with the person.

Agalma stayed back as some of the others returned to their home. She watched them all swim away, and he had the feeling that he was about to get scolded.

Maybe if he just swam slightly to the right, he could sneak past her. All he had to do was move his hip fin a little more, and then he was facing the correct direction to dart forward before she would even notice.

“Stay right where you are, Maketes,” she snarled under her breath.

Right. Staying where he was. Because he knew that tone and it said she would not handle any of his shit even if he rushed forward and darted away from her.

“You always take things so seriously,” he muttered.

“Yes. I do. Because everything is rather serious right now, Maketes. You don’t seem to understand that we threatened one of the achromos’ cities, and then we destroyed another. We are on the brink of war if we are not careful and here you are, antagonizing them. Making deals without getting approval from the person who is supposed to be in charge.”

“Oh, so you’re mad I took your job?”

She glared at him. Her hands flexed at her sides, and he wondered if she wanted to throttle him for saying those words. “That is not what I’m angry about.”

“I can handle this. I’ve been talking to Ace for quite a while now. I know what she’s like.”

“You thought she was a man!”

He shrugged, a motion he’d picked up from Mira. “I was wrong.”

“You do not know this person. Therefore, you cannot trust this person.” Agalma slapped his back with her fluke. “Stay the night, if you must. But get this over with soon, Maketes. I fear you may not realize just how much danger you’re putting yourself in.”

Well, when she said it like that, it sounded bad. He watched her swim away and felt the wriggling of doubt in his mind. Had he underestimated Ace? If he was swimming into a trap because he’d thought she was more of a friend than she really was, that wouldn’t be ideal. But he’d learned a long time ago that worrying only wasted energy.

So he threw the emotions out for the sea to take care of, and every other worrying thought that might follow. He wasn’t interested in the anxiety, and he sure wasn’t interested in the headache of feeling.

There. That was better. Life was so much easier when he just didn’t care.

Floating on his back, he wrapped a long strand of kelp around his waist and tried to get some rest before the trip with Ace. But his mind was still racing with all the possibilities. He’d never explored the achromo homes much outside of Beta. He’d been born in deeper waters than the others who were now his family. There were few people in his pod at all, and those that did exist didn’t travel far. Other than him.

He’d always traveled.

Halfway through the night, a clawed hand grabbed his tail and yanked hard. He’d just about fallen asleep, so when he turned with a growl, he was ready to rise to whatever fight this other of his kind wanted. He wasn’t big, and his claws were smaller than the others, but he could still do some damage to whatever beast thought they could chase him away.

But even Maketes wasn’t dumb enough to fight the depthstrider in front of him. Let alone two of them.

Fortis was the largest of the People of Water that he’d ever seen in his life. So big that his tail sometimes just hung limp beneath him, as though dragging it was just too much effort. It was why he was suited for deeper waters than the ones they were in now. Yellow tips of glowing fins cast light from below on his severe expression, just enough to illuminate the deep violet hues that made up his tail and the rest of his body.

His son floated behind him, smaller but no less intimidating. All depthstriders were, though. Maketes had always heard they could see into the future with just a touch, and he didn’t want to know anything about his future. Not even the barest hint of what might happen.

Fortis withdrew his hand that was always a little too rough. Maybe the big beast couldn’t help himself. His hand was, after all, twice the size of Maketes’s head.

“You are here,” Fortis said, his black eyes already swirling with colors. “This is where you are supposed to be.”

“Eh!” He waved his hand in front of Fortis’s face, breaking him out of the trance. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to know anything about that.”

“But it is exactly where you should be, Maketes. You have been fighting against fate your entire life.”

“I sure have, and I plan to continue doing so.” He used his tail this time to blast water into the depthstrider’s face and also propel himself away from him. “Don’t say a word about it. I don’t want to know.”

“What if it would help you?”

“It’s not going to help me, though. It’s going to put thoughts in my head that aren’t my own. I make my own way in life. I don’t listen to prophecy or whatever it is your kind do.”

He didn’t want to know. He feared what the other male would say because he knew he wasn’t the same as all the others. He was smaller, prettier to the females, but useless to them. Maketes had all of his walls built up and all the coping mechanisms he needed. A depthstrider would not mess with all the carefully constructed walls he’d purposefully kept in place.

“We’re here for a reason,” Fortis snarled.

“What do you want, then? I know you love to stare into my future, but aren’t you just wasting the present? You’re obsessed with me, Fortis. It’s flattering.”

Fortis sighed, and even his son seemed to have a small amount of reaction. Maketes wasn’t used to the younger—yet somehow an exact copy of Fortis—reacting at all. The young version always seemed to be stoic and unmoving. But this time, Fortis’s son smiled, almost as though he was amused by what Maketes was saying.

He pointed at the son. “I see that expression.”

As soon as the words were said, the small grin disappeared.

“Doesn’t matter if you hide it. I saw it.”

Fortis slapped him with his tail and then turned to his son. “Go home. If you can’t keep it together, I will do this myself.”

“Father.” The son disappeared without argument, which could only mean that Maketes was, in fact, as funny as he thought he was. Or maybe the boy was just laughing at him, rather than with him. Both were acceptable. He just enjoyed making people laugh.

There was a small moment of silence until Fortis turned back to him again. Those eyes were already swirling with colors, a bad sign for sure. Maketes took a deep breath and then let it filter out of his rib gills. A billowing wave of air bubbles obscured him from Fortis’s gaze for the few moments it took to pull himself back together.

“What do you want?” Maketes finally asked. “I don’t want to know my future, and I don’t want you helping me find my future, or whatever other nonsense you’re here for.”

“I will not tell you your future if you do not wish to know it, but there are things about this place you need to know.” Fortis’s voice was low, quiet, and sounded more like a prophecy than it did words. “This city hides many secrets.”

“Gamma is a prison city. From what my brother’s mates have said, they aren’t hiding anything here other than what people brought with them. And I highly doubt they were allowed to bring anything important.” At least, he didn’t think the achromos were that stupid. Maybe they were.

“This city was not always a prison. It was more than that. And it has valuable information that we all need.” Fortis’s gaze did that odd thing again. Colors swirled in his eyes, similar to what Mitera could do, before he shook his head and the colors cleared. “I cannot see what it is, though. There are too many decisions between now and then for that future to be clear.”

“Sounds like your power is useless. This place is dangerous. There are things we need to know about it. But I don’t know what those things are or how to find them. Are you sure you can actually see the future, or do you just pretend?”

Fortis narrowed his gaze. “Would you like me to read your future and you can decide for yourself?”

The threat hovered between them before Maketes held up his hands in surrender. “Not really, big guy.”

“I have seen that there is something here that could help us just as much, if not more, than the achromos. You need to find out what it is and bring it to us before the achromos get their hands on it.”

“Do you know what it looks like?”

“No.”

A laugh burst out of him. “Right, so you really are useless then! Fortis, you have us all tricked. Of that, I am certain. Do you ask for payment for these fortunes? Because I wouldn’t mind doing them on the side for myself. Perhaps then I could get a better nesting site in the pod.”

The bigger male seemed to get even larger. His fins flared around his head and sides, and his tail suddenly started moving again. He was a vision of their people. Huge enough to be intimidating and even bigger than before. Nineteen feet of massive creature and Maketes could tell he’d made a mistake.

Swimming backward, he held up his hands again. “Cool it down, big guy. I meant nothing by it, just that it sure seems like you’re a little useless.”

“Would you like me to show you how useless I am?” The spines all along the back of Fortis’s arms rose, and then the ones on his back too.

“No. No, I think I’m good. Perhaps I was wrong.”

“Perhaps you were,” Fortis snarled, before seemingly pulling himself together. “I do not know how you always get under my scales.”

“It’s a gift.”

“More like an annoyance.”

“Some might even call it a blessing from the sea herself.”

Fortis took a deep, steadying breath. “I am leaving before I kill you myself.”

“Yourself?” Maketes frowned. “Did you just tell me my future?”

“You will never know.” The sly grin on his face was his only warning before Fortis darted away.

“Wow,” he muttered. “That big guy can really move when he wants to.”

Those were ominous words for him to even consider, so Maketes also tossed those fears out. He wouldn’t dwell on what someone like that said. Depthstriders were notoriously difficult to understand, not to mention that they manipulated the world however they wanted. Fortis might have seen nothing in his visions. He might have just decided that he wanted to be bothersome.

Maketes stilled his mind and worked on getting all of those thoughts out of his head entirely until he could see the slightest rays of sunlight above his head. Or rather, the faintest light blue of the water. Gamma was so deep that the rays didn’t penetrate this far down.

But the lighter water meant it was tomorrow. Or rather, that tomorrow was today. And all he could think was that now he would go and get Ace. He could gather her up and together they would start a new adventure.

How odd it would be to have a human pressed against him, as he’d seen his brothers do. They always seemed to enjoy the act, although he couldn’t tell if that was because they were in love, or if it was simply just enjoyable to hold an achromo female like that. He was excited to learn, though.

Even if Ace looked like she’d rather set herself on fire than have him touch her. Soon enough, she would know he posed little danger to her.

He returned to the same meeting spot on his own this time, and there was the fleeting worry that someone might have laid a trap. But they didn’t, and thus he let the thought drift away. Because they were all standing in the exact same spots they had been in before. The same males. The same people. The same strange barrels full of fire that made his eyes hurt just to stare at.

And she was there too. Ace. The strange and curious achromo who had made him wonder just exactly what she had hidden. They’d dressed her in a ridiculous suit. It was nearly twice her size, bulging around her like she was some strange puffer fish. There was a massive dome on her head as well, a strange looking device that resembled a bubble. From his vantage point, he could just barely see the heavy metal tank she had strapped to her back.

Was that how they expected her to breathe? With that tank?

Perhaps she saw him staring, because she spun so he could see it, then turned back around to say, “It’s oxygen. It helps me breathe underwater.”

They were going to do away with that immediately. Once he got her in the water, he was going to make sure she never had to put that stupid thing on ever again. But he couldn’t do that here. Not with everyone else looking.

She strode toward him, but paused when the leader of the group spoke.

“Hey, undine.”

Maketes bared his teeth and stared the other man down.

But the man just grinned, like he’d expected Maketes to not want to listen to him. “Remember our deal. If we don’t get that key, you don’t get the weapons.”

“I couldn't care less about your weapons,” he replied, knowing full well that only Ace could understand him. “I do this as a favor for her, not for you.”

He thought he was the only one who heard her tiny gasp echo inside the chamber of her bubble. And it would probably be dangerous for anyone else to have heard it. These people didn’t seem trustworthy to him, and he’d rather have Ace in his arms now rather than theirs.

He reached for her, his hands wide and his claws already curled. Ready to protect her. But unfortunately, she only saw it as a threat. He knew how scary he must look, but he’d forgotten that he was large in comparison to her. No one was frightened of him. Not usually, at least.

But she hesitated before putting her hands on his shoulders, and then he scooped her up and dove perhaps a little too quickly. But he would take no risks when it came to this strange achromo. She would be safer with him than with them.