34. Chapter 34

NIARA

During the next two days our guests began to leave. Thalia and Darryck stayed a little while longer, until she and the baby were strong enough to return to the Icelands.

Nathan also stayed behind. The workers in Horn were busy producing the diving equipment Myles had ordered and would be for several more weeks.

With the Chrymphten threat eliminated for now and the near future, the vissigroths would hold a council meeting soon to decide on the fate of our enemies. If we would give them time to lick their wounds and regroup or attack a defenseless planet. I didn’t envy the vissigroths for the decision they would have to make.

In the meantime, we were sitting at the dinner table in Darryck’s and Thalia’s guest suite, to be able to include her, when our discussion returned to the Myles’ next problem.

“Niara suggested I move Aecor further from the volcano,” he said, sipping on spirit enhanced bromm tea.

“That’s quite the undertaking,” Darryck remarked.

“Zyn,” Myles agreed .

“Are you moving the entire city or building a new one?” Nathan asked, breaking a bread roll in two.

“I don’t know how we could move the entire city,” Myles’s hand moved through his thick, black hair.

I knew the look on my brother’s face. Deep at heart he was an engineer and inventor. Being baron and a floating city in ruins had never given him the funds or time to dive into his passion, but I had seen some of his inventions. As a matter of fact, Horn was only still floating and not on the bottom of the ocean because of them.

“Hmm,” deep in thought, Nathan put the pieces of bread back and pulled out a pencil. He pushed the plates away from him and began to sketch a crude outline of Aecor on the tablecloth. “Most of it is underwater, which helps.” He mumbled.

Interested, Myles watched him sketch.

“How far do you have to move it?” Nathan asked.

“The further the better,” I threw in, “when the volcano erupts we want to be as far away from it as possible.”

“Hmm, hmm,” Nathan’s hand pushed more dishes out of the way, not even noticing Darryck’s frown when his plate fell victim to the eviction.

“Here, Fall Mountain Island,” he drew the small island further away from where he had sketched Aecor.

“If we moved Aecor from here,” he drew a few lines, “to here,” he circled Fall Mountain Island with his pen, drawing more arrows, “Aecor would be behind the island. It’s far enough away from any fallout from the volcano, you might still get some of the dust cloud but that will probably happen to most places on Oceanus. The island will take the brunt of any tsunami, leaving you protected.”

Myles and all of us stared at the crude drawings.

“Alright, I can see the merits, but that still leaves the problem on how to move Aecor.”

Nathan shrugged as if it were the simplest task in the universe, swelling my chest with pride for him. “The same way we keep Horn afloat.”

“What’s that?” Darryck leaned over interested.

“Giant air bubbles.” Nathan said.

“Giant air bubbles?” Myles repeated. “With all due respect, Aecor is a bit larger than Horn.”

“So we need more air bubbles,” frantically Nathan returned to his drawing of the city. He added air bubbles by drawing simple circles all around and underneath the many tubes and domes. “They will have to be correctly stabilized to prevent breakage,” Nathan mumbled.

“What are air bubbles?” Darryck wanted to know, his eyes glued to Nathan’s hand drawing more and more circles.

“Giant bladders filled with oxygen,” I explained since Nathan was busy drawing and only pushing out grunts here and there. It had been a long time since I had seen my brother this animated. “They are made from fish skin and specially treated leather. We fill them with oxygen like the tanks we use for diving.”

“This could actually work,” Myles stared fascinated from my brother to me. “Your brother is a genius. ”

I nodded in agreement. “When Horn started falling apart and we didn’t have the funds for repairs, he figured out how to tread leather to make it water resistant and fish skin. He installed these bubbles underneath the most fragile parts of Horn and kept us afloat.”

“But an entire city? Aecor?” Darryck’s eyebrows drew together. “It has to weigh a ton.”

“That’s the beauty of water, objects aren’t weightless, but they do weigh a lot less.” Nathan muttered between pressed teeth. “We just need enough of them, larger ones. Once we get Aecor off the ocean floor, your ships can pull it toward Fall Mountain Island.”

Myles steepled his hands, deep in thought. “Fall Mountain Island is also a forbidden place, the sirens domain.”

Nathan shrugged, “It’s the closest island, we can go farther out, but with there will be pressure on your city, the longer it floats, the greater the danger of breaks.”

Myles drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ll need to speak with Queen Sarissa.”

I shuddered at the memory of the siren queen threatening me. I hadn’t interacted with her since, but I had seen her lurking about during the feasts.

“Why is Fall Mountain Island their domain? I thought all of Oceanus was yours,” I asked curiously.

“It is,” Myles drummed his fingers a bit harder, “but so far we’ve been at their mercy about certain things and I had to make certain concessions. ”

“What certain things?” I asked, aware we weren’t alone, but hoping he could talk in front of the others.

Myles sighed, “As you know, there aren’t many seffies on Oceanus.”

“Hmm, I wonder why?” Thalia snarked sarcastically, “those things are frightening.”

“They are,” I agreed, shuddering in mild exaggeration.

“Those voices,” Thalia made a face, “they grate on you.”

“Their voices are divine,” Darryck’s head moved from Thalia to me to see if we were teasing.

“The most alluring sounds,” Myles agreed.

Thalia and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Hell no,” Thalia snickered. “I rather listen to you sharpening your sword.”

“You hate that sound,” Darryck frowned.

“Exactly,” Thalia nodded.

“So you seffies are saying you hear their voices differently than us males?” Myles checked.

“Speak for yourselves, I can’t stand their wailing either,” Nathan muttered, barely looking up from his drawings.

“Humans are not very fond of sirens and vice versa,” I explained.

“I wonder if Leandar seffies perceive it the same,” Thalia speculated.

“It’s something to find out,” Myles agreed.

“Alright, that aside, so you don’t have any women to… to satisfy your manly needs, so you turn to sirens and—”

Myles interrupted me, “It’s not only about sex, with no seffies, we don’t have any way to procreate.”

Stunned I sat back in my chair, realizing for the first time, that I had barely seen any children and the few I had, had been in groups and boys.

“So you… procreate with the sirens?” I asked carefully, astounded that I hadn’t seen any children with more siren features then, because all the ones I had seen were definitely Leandar.

“Not exactly,” Myles stared into nothing, probably trying to figure out how much to divulge with Nathan, Darryck and Thalia here, but must have concluded that he could trust them or maybe it wasn’t that much of a secret.

“The sirens provide us each year with a hundred new born babies. Babies we then raise to become Leandar warriors.”

“But…” Thalia looked from one of us to the other, “but where do they come from?”

Myles shrugged, “The same place all babies come from, only they’re born to the sirens. They keep the girls and we keep the boys.”

My curiosity grew with each tidbit Myles divulged, “How come all the boys look like Leandars then? Do all the girls look like sirens?”

Startled he looked at me, “I’ve never… thought about it.”

Darryck chuckled, “Zyn, those sirens have a way of making you forget—” Abruptly he broke his sentence off as Thalia stared at him with slitted eyes.

“Zyn, go on, Darryck, what do those sirens do to you? ”

“I’ve only… heard… they’ll make you forget everything, dull your senses and…” he broke off, and amused I noticed beads of sweat on his thick neck.

“Only heard, hm?” Thalia pushed. They stared at each other while the room fell silent, even Nathan quit drawing for a few seconds, until she had mercy on him. “I would like to hear more about that, later.”

If anything Darryck looked even more discomforted by her words. When he sent an imploring glance at Myles, Myles shrugged in a, you’re on your own brother way.