The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

The “wrong” goddess? How had she managed to offend any goddess at all?

Lodia was so shocked that she started to ask which one and why, but when her lips parted, a stream of bubbles escaped. She clamped them shut again. Never mind which goddess had decided to execute her! Air! She needed air!

Stripey’s claws released her tunic at last. She prayed that it was because he’d decided to save himself, not because he’d drowned.

With her free hand, she pried at the tentacle around her wrist. Now that the oystragon had dropped his mirage, she could see the spirit who held her fast. It was an octopus, wearing an official-looking helmet.

Let me go! she thought desperately and futilely at the spirits. Or at least let me say something before you kill me!

Her nails skidded off the octopus’ skin, without leaving so much as a scratch. Her lungs burned, and in spite of herself, her mouth opened to gasp for the air that wasn’t there. She sucked in water – not much, but enough to make her choke, and then cough reflexively, which only made her suck in more water and choke harder.

She was going to die. She was really going to die.

No!

Panicking, she kicked and beat at the octopus, but it just wrapped more tentacles around her wrists, her waist, her legs, pinning her arms to her sides and squeezing the last of the air out of her lungs.

I can’t die. Not now. Not like this. Please. Please, someone help me. Kitchen God, haven’t I done everything I can to spread your worship? Please, if anything I have ever done in my life has pleased you, save me!

But there was no burst of divine light, no Heavenly presence in the water. It was cold and dark, and she was out of air, and she was going to die alone, far from home, abandoned by the gods.

The last thing she saw before her vision went black was the oystragon’s gleaming fangs. “I’ll make it quick and painless, human girl,” he promised. “Like I said, it’s not personal.”

Stripey exploded out of the water, feathers plastered to his skin and so much smaller than usual that he looked like he’d been plucked for the cookpot.

Stripey! You’re alive!

I sped over to him, right as his wet feathers dragged him back under.

Hang on! Don’t sink! We’ll get you out of here! Dusty! I yelled at the horse, who was swimming in useless circles, hunting a foe who had long since escaped into the depths. Dusty! Get over here and help Stripey!

Although I half-expected him to snort something about how he was the Valiant Prince and required the appropriate obsequies, he swam for us at once. He treaded water next to Stripey, and I grabbed the crane’s forehead and pulled until he managed to haul himself onto the horse’s back. Stripey collapsed in a heap of feathers.

Stripey! Are you okay? What happened down there? Did you find Lodia?

“Let him breathe!” Dusty scolded me, sounding oddly like Floridiana. “Where’s Mage Flori?”

I blinked at him, then scanned the ocean. There was no sign of her. She went to help Stripey and Lodia! Where did she go?

I looked at Stripey for answers, but he was coughing too hard to speak.

“Bird, I can’t believe you lost both of our humans – ”

I did not lose both of our humans! And anyway, Floridiana is a mage. She can take care of herself. I’ve seen her literally walk underwater!

Argue later, Stripey croaked, then retched up a stream of saltwater. Didn’t see her. But the oystragon was sent to assassinate Lodia.

“WHAT???” What??? demanded Dusty and I in unison. Sent to assassinate LODIA? But why – no, never mind. Where is she now? Where are they?

Stripey pointed a wing straight down. An octopus spirit has her – Rosie! No!

I was diving for the water when Dusty’s teeth closed over my tail. Hey! Let me go!

I swatted at his chin, but he didn’t let go, and I swung upside down from his mouth.

You drowning or getting killed by Western Sea Water Court spirits doesn’t help us one bit, Stripey reminded me. Even his soul’s voice was hoarse from his body nearly drowning. And none of us can fight underwater.

“Speak for yourself, bird!”

Ignoring Dusty, who, if he could have fought underwater, would have been doing so already, Stripey finished, We need Den.

Yes. Water was a dragon’s element. I searched the ocean for our dragon king but saw neither hide nor scale of him. Hey, where is Den anyway? Wasn’t he fighting the oystragon?

Floridiana rammed her seal into the tentacle that was wrapped around her neck and dragging her deeper and deeper, away from Lodia and the oystragon that was about to bite the girl’s head off.

“Burn!”

The command came out garbled by a stream of bubbles, but her intent was clear, and the stamp sizzled red hot on the octopus guard’s skin. The octopus shrieked, sending out a wave of water that bashed Floridiana in the face and snapped her head back. If it had been on land, the force would have broken her neck. The water cushioned the blow enough to save her, but for a dizzy moment, she lost track of where she was and what she was doing.

During that moment, a tentacle whipped around the hand that held her seal and dug its tip between her fingers, trying to pry them open. She clenched her fist harder, refusing to let the tentacle worm its way in. There should be enough seal paste left for one more spell. Carefully, she shifted her hand, angling the base of her seal at the tentacle’s underside. When she felt it brush the edge of a sucker, she lunged.

“Burn!”

Another sizzle, another red-hot stamp, right between two suckers.

The octopus jerked, its grip slipping. Floridiana wrenched her wrist free and smacked her seal back into the seal paste dish. Another tentacle knocked the dish away, then grabbed it and ripped it off her belt. Into the depths it sank.

Floridiana pinched her lips together. One more spell. She had enough seal paste for one more spell. And she knew exactly which spell she was going to use.

When more tentacles wrapped around her torso and legs and began pulling her deeper and deeper, she didn’t fight them. They were taking her where she needed to go.

Searing pain slashed through her side. She opened her mouth to cry out and tasted blood in the water. Looking down in shock, she saw blades retract into the suckers.

As they slid out for another slash, she realized that she might have underestimated the Western Sea Water Court guards.

“Come back, oyster! Come back, coward! Where did you go?”

Den zigzagged through the water, hunting for the oystragon. The creature’s mirage had only held for an instant, but that instant had been enough for him to vanish. Could he have realized that he was outmatched and retreated? Could the fight be over?

No. In the distance, jellyfish tentacles still walled off the area. The oystragon hadn’t recalled those guards yet, which meant he was still skulking nearby.

“Jumped-up oyster! Come out and fight me like a dragon!”

Den skimmed over the seafloor but saw nothing but craggy coral, rocks, fish, crabs – all the denizens you’d expect to find but that Flori would certainly insist on dissecting and sketching anyway.

A gleaming green ribbon flashed past: Bobo, battling a cuttlefish guard. As Den watched, the cuttlefish sprayed ink straight into her eyes. While blinded, she lunged forward with her jaws wide and tore off one of the cuttlefish’s arms. Who would have thought that the cheery bamboo viper would turn so vicious when her friends were in danger?

“Yeah!” he shouted. “Go, Bobo!”

In answer, she tore off another arm.

The cuttlefish screamed. No, wait, it wasn’t the cuttlefish. It was an octopus on the far side of Bobo and her foe. An octopus that was screaming and jerking a tentacle up and down like Taila after she got stung by a bee.

Den smirked – but his amusement vanished when he noticed the figure wrapped in the octopus’ other tentacles. A human figure with long dark hair that spread around her like a cloud, and then billowed out behind her as the octopus dove, still clutching her.

The sunlight that filtered through the water glinted off a bronze seal. Flori wasn’t panicking. Den would bet his pearl that she had a spell in mind and knew exactly what she was doing.

He was turning away to keep searching for the oystragon when the taste of blood filled the water. His ears caught a muffled grunt from a human throat. Flori! He spun back. Crimson blood stained the water around her waist, and a tentacle, studded with blades, poised to strike again.

“Let go of her!”

Den shot through the water and crashed into the tentacle, knocking it aside. The blades slid off his scales harmlessly.

“It’s the dragon king!” the octopus shouted. “To me! To me! The dragon king is here!” He sucked water into his mantle, preparing to jet away.

“Oh, no you don’t,” growled Den. “Release her at once!”

One pump of his tail propelled him past the waving tentacles. He clamped his claws around the octopus’ siphon and squeezed it shut. No matter how hard the guard forced water at the siphon, it couldn’t get any past Den’s grip. The octopus’ mantle puffed up like a bladder full of air.

All of them had been sinking as they struggled, and now they touched the bottom. The octopus dragged himself along the rocks with his free tentacles, still shouting for backup.

“To me! To me! The dragon king is here! I repeat, the dragon king is here!”

Flori drooped in the octopus’ grasp, but before Den could panic, she flicked her eyes down to her seal, and from her seal to the seafloor.

Was she trying to tell him that she needed to stamp the seafloor itself?

He cocked his head and stared at her seal, then at the rocks, then back at her. She nodded once. All right then. He’d give her the distraction she needed. Keeping one hand clamped around the siphon, he kicked the tentacles that the octopus was walking on out from under him. With a shout, the octopus flung one of them around Den’s neck. The suckers latched on and blades shot out, sawing at the thinner plates over his throat.

“That’s not going to work,” he growled. “Surrender now, and I might let you live.”

“You’re the one who should surrender!” shouted the octopus. “Invader! I arrest you in the name of the Western Sea Water Court! Surrender now, and His Majesty the Dragon King of the Western Sea might show clemency!”

“Invasion,” scoffed Den. Raising his other hand, he worked two claws under the tentacle around his neck and pinched as hard as he could, nearly severing it.

The octopus roared and lashed out with his other tentacles. For a moment, his grasp on Flori loosened. A moment was all that she needed to wriggle free.

She stretched out her left hand and grabbed a piece of coral to pull herself down. She thrust the other hand, the one with the seal, down past the coral.

“Open!”

The command came out garbled by the water and the bubbles that escaped her lips, but the water around her arm trembled.

“Open!” she repeated.

“What are you doing?” yelled the octopus. He whirled, but Den yanked on his siphon and held him fast. “What is she doing?!”

In answer, Den did a back flip and delivered a powerful kick to the octopus’ mantle. “She’s defeating you, that’s what she’s doing.” Another kick. “That’s for hurting her!” A third kick. “That’s for making her bleed!”

The shaking in the water grew stronger. Flori pulled her arm back, and the water cracked open in a column from the seafloor up to the surface. Sunlight flooded down on the mage as she pushed herself to her feet and gulped deep breaths of air. But the spell didn’t stop there. It kept expanding, splitting the water in a path that ran all the way from where she stood back to the beach.

Steelfang burst out of the wall of water, dragging a cuttlefish guard with him. The cuttlefish tried to crawl back into the water on its arms, but the wolf locked his jaws around it and proceeded to savage it. Once he was satisfied, he leaped into the water after another cuttlefish.

Flori was brilliant! Den heaved the octopus onto the dry path. Pinning it down with one foot, he scanned her injuries. Flori put her hands on her hips and surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction, even as blood oozed from a series of gashes on her side.

“I will end you for that.” Den stamped down harder on the octopus.

“Mercy,” the octopus begged. “Mercy, Majesty. I was just following Captain White Lip’s orders.”

Den was about to rip the guard to shreds anyway when Flori called, “Den! Can you find my seal paste? I’m not done yet.”

Den glared down at the octopus, who blubbered and begged and shrank as far into the coral as he could. “Stay right there. Touch her and you die.”

“Yes, Majesty! Most gracious draconic Majesty! I will not move a tentacle until you return!”

The octopus went as still as the coral beneath him. He even matched his colors and patterns to it. Although Den eyeballed him suspiciously, Flori didn’t spare the guard a glance.

“Den! My seal paste?”

“Yep. On it.”

Den plunged back into the water.