was a long way down. In the middle the water churned as if fish had been jumping. The council must have been getting air, thought Lilliana. This was it. Lilliana looked down. Now she knew why the otter had said she would have to be able to fly. A jump like this would kill an otter, or a person. Lilliana reached in her pocket for some blue berries. They were the only thing that could help her now. Her fingers brushed against something hard. She pulled out her hand and saw the sparkling crystal. She wasn’t alone. The Morning Star was with her. He was with her in the pit, and he was with her on this cliff. Lilliana lifted the crystal to the sun and watched the light play across its surface.
“With you, I can do this,” she whispered.
Lilliana put a large handful of blue berries in her mouth and jumped off the cliff. She moved slowly down through the air and put out her arms to feel the soft breeze. She looked below and saw a clear spot on the sandy ground behind the throne. She aimed for it and gasped as her body fell into the cool ocean water.
20. Council
Something sharp grabbed Lilliana’s feet as soon as they broke the water. She was pushed and turned and tossed so much that she lost track of which way was up.
“Get the intruder!” someone yelled.
“Hold it still!”
“Stop! Help me!” Lilliana yelled with the last of the air from her lungs as she struggled against the fish and dolphins all around her. She tried to breathe and the cold saltwater filled her lungs. Drowning. After all this time under the water she was drowning again. She felt the crystal in her pocket growing warmer. She wasn’t alone. She had done this before and she could do it again.
Lilliana laid face down on the ocean floor heaving with pain. Her chest felt like it was going to explode and her body felt cold. This time she felt her gills opening up and pulling the cool water across them. She peeked up at the angry guards who were ready to snap her or stab her with the slightest movement. The taste of gold and other precious metals of the throne lingered in her mouth.
“Princess? Is that you?” Pierce asked, nudging her gently with his sword. He looked torn between helping her and fighting her.
“I think so,” Lilliana sat up and the other fish backed away from her. Pierce gave her a quizzical look.
“I thought you had left for Atlantis, your home. You said you weren’t part of the prophecy so there was no reason for you to stay,” his voice trailed off at the end. The guards were still tense and no one moved. The waves high above were lapping at the edges of the volcano with tiny ripples from Lilliana’s jump.
“Bring her forward,” spoke a deep and resonating voice.
Lilliana’s heart beat faster. The king. What was she supposed to do? Lilliana pushed herself to her hands and knees and steadied her nerves. There were rules to be followed. Face forward, never lie, and don’t pick up the toes. Right. Lilliana stood up and the guards swam close to her shoulders as she half-stumbled, half-swam to the dais. Queen Doris shifted her tail nervously back and forth in the water. Her huge fluke sent pulses of water from her like a warning. King Nereus looked at her directly and watched her every move as she came forward.
“It is not often that we have anything bigger than an urchin fly into the throne room from the sky. Why didn’t Lance bring you back through the fountain gate?” the king asked.
“I tried to sir, but I couldn't. They didn’t work for me, and Lance wasn't there to help me through.” This comment brought a stir of activity from around the throne room.
“There are few times when the gate will not open,” Queen Doris said, “and most of them have been times of battle or of ill will towards Star Shadow.” She swam forward a little towards Lilliana. “Your skin smells like the sulfurous pit of burning water. That is the pit of our enemies.”
“Is that true?” the king asked.
Lilliana looked down at her hands. What if they thought she was the traitor? She looked back up at the king.
“Yes sir. I was captured by sharks at the trench and taken prisoner in the pit. Lance is still there, being held as a prisoner.” The fish and dolphins gasped. Everyone in the throne room stopped swimming and all eyes were on Lilliana.
“How do we know that you’re not a traitor or a spy?” one of the dolphins asked.
Lilliana didn’t know how to answer that. She knew she wasn’t a traitor, and she knew Lance wasn’t, but there was still a spy in the kingdom somewhere. Lilliana looked down at her hands. Please Morning Star help the truth be known.
“Are you here as a friend or as a foe?” the King asked.
“I am here as a friend. Titan plans to take over Star Shadow and then to move on to my kingdom.”
“How can a shark rule a kingdom on land?” Pierce asked, looking doubtfully at Lilliana.
“Tell us all that you know, starting when you left our boundaries,” the Queen said.
Lilliana relayed the story from the beginning. She told of the fight at the ditch and how Spectrum was lost and she and Lance were captured. She told of the sharks and how she was supposed to get married. Then she told about Lance and how he was tortured as a prisoner.
“My brother is still alive then?” Pierce asked.
“He is. He was tortured by a cookie-cutter shark and I found him in a cell. He stayed behind so he can trick Titan and he told me to come to you with Titan’s plans.”
“So he plans an attack,” the king matter-of-factly said. “I wonder, do you know who will fight with him?”
Lilliana thought about the sharks and other fish she saw. What had Lance told her? “They have over 100 sharks of different types and sizes with them, and they have the help of a blue...” she struggled to descried Serena, monster-squid-woman? That didn’t sound quite right. What was Serena?
“A blue what?” Pierce asked.
“Some sorceress who is blue with two tails and she wanted to use magic to make me marry Titan.”
“How did she propose to do this when you refused?” the Queen asked.
“She told Titan that we would be bound together by magic and that then he would rule over the land and the sea, but she told someone red that she would really rule over Titan. Sire,” Lilliana said looking at the king, “there is more to this battle than just the dark shark and you.”
“Every battle has more to it than meets the eye, little princess,” the king said. “Each fight we engage in is but a mirror image of what is going on between the Morning Star and the fallen one. In the end the Star will win, and he has already won, but there are still battles to be fought. It appears that one of the three daughters is helping Titan.”
“How does the shark plan to come through the fountain gate? Even you, princess had trouble with the magic. He can’t get through there, and he can’t come the way you did,” Pierce said.
Lilliana shook visions of stars and sea witches out of her head. What had Lance told her? “He plans to come through the mermaid tunnel.”
“No!” There was a collective gasp across the chamber.
“The mermaids have a pact with us. Both fish and mermen guard that tunnel, and if the sharks are coming through that way, then they will have to chew their way through the mermen first,” the king said. He swam back and forth across the dais reminding Lilliana of how her father sometimes paced when he was thinking. “They cannot break the pact without causing great harm to their own kingdom. Queen Rusalka will not fail us.”
“I don’t know who Queen Rusalka is, but the blue woman is leading the mermaids now. Pierce said that although the mermen will not fight us, they will let their guard down and allow the sharks through.”
The king’s court looked at her with stunned silence. She wished she had better news for them.
“When do they plan this attack?” the queen whispered.
“Tomorrow night when it is dark. They may come sooner when they find out that I have escaped. They plan to use Lance as bait, to draw out Pierce and then they will all pour in.?
??
“Surely they know that we will fight until there is none left. We will never let them get to the king,” Pierce said, waving his sword in the air. “We will not let them defeat Star Shadow!”
“They know things Pierce. I don’t know how, but they know so much about what goes on here. They know how the kingdom is laid out and who is likely to fight first. They know how many fish we have to fight and how many live in the safety of the walls. They even knew that Lance called me Beastie. Somehow they are getting information.”
“How can we be sure the spy isn’t you?” asked a dolphin at the king’s side.
Pierce shot the dolphin a look that would boil most fish, and Lilliana was glad to have a friend with her. She wished she had Lance and Spectrum there too.
“Obviously the princess could have chosen to go home to her family. She has lost her horse and now her kingdom is threatened, and her story about the pit sounds like other stories we have heard,” said Pierce swimming up a little with each statement. “She is telling the truth. You would serve the king better by listening to her than by throwing accusations.”
“She is here, but Lance is not. He stayed behind to help the shark! Lance can’t be trusted!” shouted another dolphin. “We’ve seen his pranks. He thinks the kingdom is a joke!”
In a flash Pierce’s sword was at the dolphin’s throat. “Do not speak ill of my brother. Ever.” Pierce pushed his sword slightly closer