Page 93 of A Kingdom Restored

“Emil!” Sage called, more loudly this time.

The young record holder’s head jerked upward, a rare display of strong emotion crossing his face as he caught sight of them.

“Sage!” He propelled himself upward, meeting her halfway.

For a moment Merletta was distracted by their reunion. To her astonishment, Sage looked to be berating him, rather than falling on him in relief as Merletta had expected. Emil looked stunned for a moment, then—even more astonishingly—he pulled Sage into his arms and kissed her with a recklessness that was entirely out of character for the cautious merman.

Feeling a little dazed, but knowing it wasn’t the moment to get distracted, Merletta shifted her attention to the fighters below.

“We’re out of time!” she roared as loudly as she could over the seething mass of limbs and scales below. “The dragons are coming, and we need to flee the triple kingdoms NOW!”

There was a lull in the fighting, many faces turning up to them in confusion.

“Flee!” Merletta cried again. “The dragons are on their way!”

Panicked cries rang out, and the crowd devolved into utter chaos. Some eyes stayed fixed on the new arrivals, however, and Merletta saw many widening as they caught sight of her captive.

“But that’s the Record Master!” cried a guard, scandalized.

“He doesn’t deserve the title!” Sage’s voice rang out, surprising Merletta with its ferocity. She’d extricated herself from Emil, but he hovered close behind her. “He’s the one who revealed himself near the dragon colony, and he’s the reason they’re coming this very day. He even has a plan to flee to a safe location, but he only intends to take a select few with him. The rest of us are expendable.”

It was unclear how many had heard her—probably not many given the pandemonium—but Merletta didn’t try to reason with the crowd. She flicked her fins, still dragging the wounded Record Master with her. When she dropped into the center of the ring which had until a moment before been protecting Emil, she passed the chained and injured prisoner to Freja.

“Don’t let him get away,” she told the demoted squad leader. “The things binding him are metal chains—they should be too strong for him to break, so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep him subdued. But he’ll escape if he’s given any opportunity, and won’t hesitate to murder anyone who gets in his way.”

The letters Heath had given her were getting ruined by the water as they spoke, but she couldn’t think about that now. If they survived this, she’d have to find another way to expose the Record Master to the populace he’d betrayed.

Putting that problem aside for later, she met the older mermaid’s eyes. “I wasn’t exaggerating. The dragons are coming right now. They’ll slaughter anyone they can get their talons on. We have to scatter to have any hope.”

“I’m not scattering any more than you are,” said Freja grimly. “But we’ll keep trying to tell the others.”

Felix floated up beside her, nodding. “We’ll fight beside you until the end, Merletta,” he said. “None of us would be guards if our lives meant more to us than our duty.”

Merletta gripped his offered arm, too overcome to speak. After everything, she could hardly comprehend that at the very end of her mostly futile defiance, she had so many good merpeople willing to float beside her. It was undoubtedly more than she deserved.

“Merletta!” Andre swam out of the clump to embrace her in a crushing hug, the tension clear in his lean frame. “I’m so glad you and Sage are alive.” He grinned. “But I won’t follow Emil’s lead and kiss you in greeting, if it’s all the same to you.”

Merletta gave a choking laugh. Clearly her friend had witnessed the astonishing event as well.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” she told him. “What happened to you all?”

Andre shrugged. “Nothing much worth telling. Ileana and Indigo helped break us out of the holding cell.” He sent his cousin a warm look. “We’ve been hiding out here ever since. Some shellsmith apprentices took us in, if you’d believe it.”

Merletta smiled grimly, not doubting for a moment that Tish’s loud-mouthed but good-hearted colleague had been behind it. “I do believe it.”

“Well, we didn’t waste the time,” Andre said. “We’ve been spreading the word as widely as we could, about the coming dragons, and the fact that the Center knows about it but is doing nothing to protect us and is still actively keeping us trapped inside.”

“So there’s been no lifting of that since the Record Master left?” Merletta asked.

Andre shook his head. “I didn’t even know hehadleft. The only change to the orders seems to have been to stop bothering with a guard on the upward barrier—given everyone now knows dragons can get through it—and instead intensifying the fortification of the borders around Tilssted. From what I hear, the other cities are still swallowing the Center’s line. But in Tilssted—maybe thanks to our efforts—no one’s buying it. As soon as the guard was doubled, they got the message, and the attempts to escape were tripled.”

“Good,” said Merletta grimly. “At least someone’s listening.”

A guard formation sped past on the far side of the square, and Merletta caught sight of a familiar form.

“Agner,” she muttered. Without a word to Andre, she flicked her tail, ducking her way through the swirling mass of panic toward the instructor. He had a full complement of guards behind him, and they were heading for the barrier with purpose.

“Agner!” she called, when she was within hailing distance.

---