Dolphin Knight

Chapter 2-2

That night, when Ikaz and Perza thought she was asleep, Raka heard them arguing in the other room. Their voices were low, but she caught every word that they said.

"How can you make her do this?" said Perza, her mother. "You know she isn't like the other children."

"Of course she is," said Ikaz. "She has two arms and two legs, doesn't she? She has two eyes and two ears and a nose and a mouth."

"She's not a water-breather," said Perza. "Are you blind? She has no gills!"

"She has them," said Ikaz. "She's just a late bloomer. Is it any wonder? She has hardly been in the water because of that fear of hers."

"Maybe she has the fear because she can't breathe water!" said Perza.

"No," said Ikaz. "When she's forced to use them, the gills will open."

"And what if they don't?" said Perza.

"They will."

"But what if they don't? What if she dies? Who will be your heir to the throne then?"

"First of all, my wife," said Ikaz, "they will open. She will not die. But let me ask you a question now. It is a question you already know the answer to, whether you want to admit it or not."

Ikaz paused. "What good is a queen of the Sharkites if she cannot lead her people on the hunt in deep waters? What good is a queen if she will not lead her warriors into battle astride a shark on the storm-tossed waves?"

Perza didn't answer.

"It hurts me to say this," said Ikaz, his voice softening, "because I love my daughter as if she were my own flesh and blood...but such a queen would be no good at all."

The next time Perza spoke, she was sobbing. "I love her so much," she said. "I don't want her to die."

"Trust me," said Ikaz. "She will be fine."

After that, the two of them fell silent. Raka kept listening, though, eyes wide in the darkness. She kept listening to what her father had said as it repeated over and over again in her mind: "Such a queen would be no good at all."

Raka couldn't stop thinking about it. Every time she played it back, she felt sick to her stomach.

But that wasn't the one that made her cry. Something else her father had said kept Raka up all night, weeping silently in her hammock.

By the time the light of dawn swelled through her window, these were the only words Raka could think about:

"I love my daughter as if she were my own flesh and blood..."

"...as if she were my own flesh and blood..."