Horizon (15 page)

A voice rang in her ears just two flashes before Hoku appeared in the room’s archway.

“The Deepfell,” Hoku said, out of breath from swimming. His freckled face burned red. “They’re going to kill the Deepfell and rip the breathing devices from their throats.”

A
LUNA TUGGED
on Pilipo’s sealskin shirt. “You don’t have to do this.”

Her brother brushed her away with a smile. “No worries, little sister, we’ll be fine. Ehu and I have faced worse than a pod of Deepfell before. A good victory will give the colony something to celebrate.”

“I could use a feast,” Ehu said. “It’s been months since we’ve had one.”

Aluna watched dozens of hunters secure their armor and sharpen their weapons. A cluster of Elders watched from a few meters away, but Aluna and Hoku had already been banished from their presence.

“This is ludicrous,” she said. “We need to be fighting Karl Strand and his armies, not each other!”

“The Deepfell are on our side,” Hoku said.

“Prince Eekikee helped us rescue Daphine from HydroTek.” Aluna looked back and forth between her two brothers. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Ehu snorted. “Didn’t help rescue her
before
she got that hideous scope attached to her face.”

Aluna turned to Hoku. She’d been angry before, but now she felt numb. “Am I really related to these two?”

“Not in any way that truly matters,” Hoku said. “I thought the Upgraders were bad, but at least they honor the people they kill before taking their tech. They don’t treat it as some sort of contest or game. As a reason to have a
feast.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Kampii don’t deserve to be saved.”

“What’s that, little guy?” Ehu grabbed Hoku in a neck hold and mussed his hair.

Hoku went limp, like he’d done as a youngling. It was the fastest way to escape the cruelty of his bullies.

“Let go of him,” Aluna said, gritting her teeth.

Ehu laughed. Aluna had put up with Ehu’s teasing her entire life, but she couldn’t bear to see Hoku subjected to it. She darted behind Ehu, wrapped her forearm around his neck, and applied the same hold on him.

“I told you to let him go,” she said.

Ehu gasped and released his grip. Hoku bolted away like a fish from a net.

“Where did you learn this trick?” Ehu asked, trying to pry Aluna’s arm off with his fingers. He wasn’t even using his full strength. Even in a choke hold, he underestimated her.

“Not from you,” she said. If she’d had a knee, she would have driven it into the small of his back and forced his body to contort. She wasn’t sure how to do that with a tail — and no kneecaps.

Ehu twisted and flipped, an easy thing to do in the water. Aluna hadn’t experienced the maneuver in the Above World. In a flash, she found herself facing Ehu, her hold broken.

“You have a lot to learn,
little fish
,” he said. Aluna silently promised to never use that nickname on Hoku again.

“I’m not used to fighting underwater,” she said. “Give me a few days to get used to it again, and I’ll be whipping your tail from one tide to the next.”

Pilipo, who had been ignoring them up until now, said, “Such ridiculous talk was fine when you were a youngling, Aluna, but you’re an adult now. Try to behave like a woman.”

Hoku grabbed her arm. “Come on,” he said. “We’re never going to convince your brothers that they’re idiots.”

“Let me know if you want a rematch,” Ehu said. “I’ll tie both arms behind my back and wear a blindfold.”

Aluna started for him, intending to punch the smile off his jeering, condescending face, but Hoku held her back. “Your brothers have a senseless, brutal war to start, and we have an entire city to save.” He raised an eyebrow and pretended to whisper, “Someone down here needs to use their brain, and your brothers have clearly opted out of that responsibility.”

Aluna snorted.
Tides
’
teeth
.
If it weren’t for Hoku and his sense of humor, she’d spend the rest of her days fighting Pilipo and Ehu instead of Karl Strand.

She let Hoku lead her away from the hunting party and the Elders. The run-in with her brothers had jumbled her insides, made her anxious and angry. It also made her feel helpless. She could scream at them with every ounce of her strength, and they’d either not hear or laugh. In all her travels, she’d never encountered anything more frustrating than her own family.

“I don’t want my brothers to die,” she said, “but a part of me hopes Prince Eekikee and his Deepfell teach them a lesson. That makes me a bad Kampii, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe, but it also makes you a good person,” Hoku said. “Don’t you remember when you wanted to save Eekikee, and I wanted you to kill him? Nothing is ever as simple as we want it to be.”

She thought Hoku had been leading her away from her brothers, but he’d actually been taking her somewhere specific: to Sarah Jennings’s memorial. The familiar white stone rose out of the sand, strong and still, impervious to the currents. Aluna swam over and pressed her palms against a smooth side, just as she’d done a hundred times in the past.

“I thought things would be different when we came back,” she said quietly. “I thought after everything we’d been through, after everything we’d done . . . that we would have earned some respect from our own people. But nothing has changed. We’re still the same younglings we were when we left.”

“No, we’re not,” Hoku said. “We’ve been to the mountains and the desert. We’ve made powerful enemies and truly terrifying friends. It’s this place that has stayed the same, not us.” He looked off, toward the distant kelp forest. “Then again, my grandma is gone and I’ll be a brother soon. So maybe some things have changed, after all.”

Aluna circled the monument until she found Sarah Jennings’s profile etched into the stone. She traced a finger down the slope of Sarah’s nose.

“Sarah Jennings tried to protect us,” Hoku said. “And for a long time, it worked really well.”

Aluna’s other hand went to the worn pouch still hanging around her neck. Someday, she’d take out her mother’s ring and actually wear it.

“I’ve got to do something,” she said. “If I can’t stop the Elders or my brothers from hunting the Deepfell, then I’ve got to warn them. Prince Eekikee and his people saved us from the Upgraders. They helped me rescue Daphine. I owe them at least a warning.”

She thought Hoku would argue with her, but when she looked over at him, he nodded, his face serious. “You’ve got some time,” he said. “You know where their secret cave is, and your brothers don’t. You can get there first.”

Her stomach clenched. “You’re not coming with me?”

“No,” he said, swimming closer. “Calli was right. Sometimes a team has to split up to accomplish its mission. I can’t help you with the Deepfell or your brothers, but I can go to Seahorse Alpha. If Zorro and I can get inside and interface with the old tech, maybe we can find a way to power the Kampii necklaces.” He ran his hand through his short, spiky hair. “And if I can access the records, maybe I’ll figure out Karl Strand’s weakness, or where he’s commanding his army from, or, I don’t know, his favorite color.”

“Green,” Aluna said. “Definitely green.” She smiled. “It sounds like a good plan, but what if Great White is still hanging around the outpost? And the glowfield is probably still up. Maybe I should come with you.”

“No,” Hoku said firmly. “I can do it by myself. Well, by myself with Zorro. I’m thirteen now, old enough to get my tail. This will be my rite of passage instead.”

Her eyes widened. “Your birthing day! I forgot!”

He grinned. “We’ve had other things to worry about.”

“I need to give you a present.” He always wanted tech or food, and she didn’t have access to either.

“Just come back safe,” he said. “We’ll celebrate when all of this is over. I’m sure Calli, Vachir, and Dash won’t want to miss out on the fun.”

She laughed. “The Aviars probably give each other weapons. And the Equians’ best gift is a canteen of water.”

“I’d prefer those presents to anything from Vachir.”

“I’m sure Vachir’s bite or trample would be full of love and affection,” Aluna said. Then she remembered why they’d started talking about his birthday in the first place, and her heart grew heavy. “So we’re really going to split up?”

Hoku nodded. “You’re going to save the Deepfell and stop our people from doing something horrible, and I’m going to go find some way to save the Kampii, even though some of them don’t actually deserve it right now.”

She swished her tail, and the remaining distance between them disappeared. She wrapped her arms around Hoku and hugged him hard.

“Be swift as a seal,” she said.

“Be deadly as . . . an Aviar,” he answered back, his mouth curled up at the corners.

S
EAHORSE ALPHA
was exactly as Hoku remembered: a cluster of ancient domed buildings hidden behind a glowing barrier of deadly jellies. The jellies had been coaxed to grow together, their tendrils woven into a tight web that could easily paralyze even
the strongest of intruders. Half-eaten fish stuck to the
glowfield, along with two dolphin carcasses and the undulating remains of a long-dead squid.

Hoku swam under an outcropping of rock on the ocean’s floor and scanned the water for Great White. If Strand had been watching Seahorse Alpha months ago, when Aluna and Hoku had first found it, then he was probably watching it now.

Zorro shifted on his shoulder. “I know,” Hoku said quietly. “Just a little bit longer. We have to be sure.”

The goldenrods Hoku had brought squirmed and thrashed in their small net, seemingly aware that he planned to use them as bait. Hoku adjusted his grip on the short spear in his other hand, but the stupid thing felt awkward no matter how he held it.

When his muscles started to cramp and Zorro had shifted his position for the tenth time, a lazy school of shiny-blues swimming near the glowfield suddenly scattered. A heartbeat later, the hulking mass of Great White glided into view.

The shark’s mouth hung open, and old, decaying meat dangled from its rows of disgustingly sharp teeth. Scars marred the tough skin of its nose. And there, just above its stony black eye, Hoku saw the tiny camera marking it as Strand’s spy.

His heart beat faster. He wished it wouldn’t, but his body rarely listened to him when it mattered. At least he hadn’t gone into shock like last time. Aluna would be so proud.

Hoku looked down at the fish in his net. “Sorry, little warriors, but it’s either you or me.”

This plan had seemed logical enough in his head — stab the fish and their blood would distract Great White long enough for Hoku and Zorro to sneak into Seahorse Alpha. But now that he was sitting here, ready to make the first cut, it didn’t feel so solid. He should have stolen one of Mags’s poison needles. Or six. And brought Aluna to shove them into the shark’s flesh.

Zorro squeaked, apparently hoping the fish were his next meal. That’s the last thing Hoku needed — to have Zorro gnawing on a fish when Great White swooped in.

“Zorro, you will not eat these fish. Got it?”

The animal’s eyes glowed green, maybe a little reluctantly.

“Then here we go,” Hoku said. He watched Great White drift around the curve of the glowfield and out of view, then he stabbed one of the fish with the point of his spear.

The goldenrod squirmed wildly. A tiny dark cloud puffed up from the wound. Hoku pulled his hand back to avoid touching it. The other fish smelled of blood now, too, but they couldn’t get out of the net.

Hoku wedged the net into the rocks where he was hiding, hoping Great White would struggle to get at them, then swam as fast as he could for the other side of the glowfield. He needed to get out of sight before the shark turned and came for the fish. If he didn’t, Great White might decide that larger moving prey — him and Zorro — was the better snack.

He made it around the curve of the jelly field, his heart beating so loudly they could have heard it in the Above World, and started to cut a hole in the web’s tendrils. Bringing the spear instead of a knife suddenly seemed like a brilliant idea, since he could stay almost a meter away from the glowfield as he worked. Getting stung by the jellies would mean that he’d be stuck there, alive but motionless for weeks, while the hungry jellies slowly digested him. It’d be a fate far worse than what Great White had to offer.