me. I need to get closer to reach it with my dagger, so I swim
underneath it and swipe. Blood flows from the cut.
The makara writhes, swimming past Kurt and up and up until it
breaks the surface. Its cry is terrible, like a million snarling
crocs. A thin line of blood trails from Kurt’s fin. We swim away, but
not fast enough. It dives back down, barreling into me with one of the
ridges on its face, pushing and pushing until I crash against the
ocean floor. Something inside me crunches, hard. My vision is cloudy
and every breath is a fire in my chest. I can feel the abyss of its
open mouth over me, lips peeled back to expose the rows of massive
teeth.
I search the ground around me until I find the cold gold of my
scepter, screaming as I thrust it out. A blast of white light shines
from the crystal.
The makara growls.
It shivers from snout to bleeding tail. Mouth open, eyes wide, it
doesn’t move from the light. Slowly, I inch the crystal to the left.
It follows.
To the right.
It follows.
Kurt hovers above us. He holds his sword by the hilt, raises it
high over his head. We look at each other for a second, nodding for
reassurance. Kurt drives the sword between the makara’s eyes, piercing
straight through the mouth until the hilt won’t go down any farther.
The creature wails, a terrible sound that must carry on for miles.
Blood pools in dark clouds around us as Kurt pulls the sword out and
stabs it again.
I try to get out of the way, but I can’t move fast enough. The
creature goes slack and falls right on my tail. Kurt’s so bewildered
by the creature that he floats there and stares.
“A little help,” I groan.
“Yes, yes, of course. Can you move?”
“If I could move, I wouldn’t be asking.”
“Right.” His chest is heaving. He swims around and clutches the
makara by the jaw. He lifts and pulls, and I push. My scream is a
violent echo, scaring away the creatures that were just starting to
peek their gills back into the clearing.
My breathing is short and painful. I shake my head against the
blurriness clouding my eyes. “What are you doing?”
Kurt has propped the great jaws open. The smell coming out of the
creature’s mouth is enough to keep me awake. I turn over, and
everything I’ve eaten today comes right out. Every heave worsens the
pain in my ribs.
With the careful precision of a dentist, Kurt uses his sword to
carve out three of the makara’s teeth.
I spot my dagger and crawl to reach it. I put it safely back in
its sheath. Kurt throws a tooth at me, which I barely catch.
“How come you get two?”
“One is for Arion.” He takes my arm and drapes it around his
shoulder.
“That’s nice of you.”
“I can be nice.” He wonders at the makara, then turns to me with a
cocky grin. “Saved your mer ass, didn’t I?”
I hold on to my side. “Don’t make me laugh-it hurts.”
“Should I take you back to the ship?”
The angry bones in my body protest, but I shake my head. “Let’s
keep going.”
We swim south for two miles along the jagged black floor of the
sea. There is no life down here, except for patches of seaweed. I have
to lean against Kurt for most of it.
Then there it is again. The growl of a makara.
Kurt and I exchange worried glances and float back to back. I
can’t see anything other than green water and miles of black rock.
“It’s coming from beneath,” Kurt realizes.
I inch for a few yards along the ground to where it stops at a
precipice. Steam rises and I back away from the heat. My heart sinks
when I see them deep below against a stream of red rock. Makara,
slithering among themselves, feasting on the creatures down there.
I shake my head at Kurt. “It’s a nest.”
“That must’ve been the mother.”
“What do we do?”
“That’s the entrance, Tristan.” Kurt looks up at the surface, then
back at me. “That’s the entrance to the oracle’s caves.”
“We can’t just leave these things out here in the open.” I swim up
and float over the steaming head of the fissure with my scepter in
hand.
“Are you sure?” Kurt says.
I shut out his words. Concentrate on the sound of the makara
feasting below. My grandfather put them away once. I can do it again.
The scepter comes to life in my hand, energy winding from right
inside me. When I shut my eyes, I have a faint memory. It isn’t mine.
It can’t be. It’s the king, raising his hand and aiming it at the
ground. When I open my eyes again, I let the power flow from me,
through the scepter, and back again, like we’re feeding off each
other.
The light shoots straight out, blasting the ground. Stones and
boulders rain onto the trembling ocean floor. The fissure collapses on
either side, closing the gap until all that’s left is the vibration of
the makara demons’ screams.
Kurt shouts into the mess I’ve made. I hold my scepter at arm’s
length, soaking up the images that flood from it.
The thing I’m not ready for is the blowback of energy. I can feel
it recoiling back into the scepter. The light is blinding, and I know
this is going to hurt.
Blue hands me a cup full of a tea that smells like my gym locker
that one time I didn’t clean it out between sophomore and junior year.
“Your own scepter did that to you?” Gwen asks.
They’re gathered around me in the captain’s cabin. The winds have
returned and Arion’s steering us as fast as he can. Soft rays trickle
through mountains of clouds into the square windows. Kurt’s polishing
the makara teeth with a black cloth. He stares at them with a
happiness I’ve never seen in him.
Note: The way to make Kurt happy is to pit him against ancient sea
monsters.
“It was the recoil.” Layla says. “Like when you shoot a gun.”
“I don’t think merpeople use guns.” I set the tea aside, but Blue
picks it back up and holds it up to my mouth.
His blue face is scrunched up, lips trembling. “No, Master
Tristan. Must drink it all.”
Trying not to gag, I take another gulp. Then another. A sense of
calm spreads through my body. The pain from my ribs dulls, replaced by
a strange grinding sound, as though my insides are shifting.
“Urchin secret,” Blue says. “Cures all.”
“Pound it.” I hold out my fist to him. And he does, pressing his
tiny knuckles against mine in a fist bump.
Layla, who’s been pacing the length of the room muttering to
herself, shoots me a nasty glare.
“Say it to the whole class, Santos,” I tell her.
She stops mid-step and turns to me with furious watery eyes.
“You’re a big, dumb idiot.”
Gwen laughs, patting my knee. “I’ve been saying this since I met
him. But you’ve got to admit, he must be doing something right. Since
he’s still alive.”
I test the state of my ribs by sitting up. I stretch my arms up
toward the ceiling, across my chest, and behind my back. “Oh, that
feels so good.”
“I’ve never seen a makara demon before,” Kurt says. “It’s smaller
than I thought.”
“Small?” I choke on the last drag of tea. “You call that thing
small?”
“Only in comparison to the stories.” He gives his tooth one last
polishing stroke and smiles down at it. “Blue, do you think I can make
a spear out of this?”
Happy that he’s being addressed, Blue nods. “Oh yes, Master
Kurtomathetis. Straight away.” He takes the giant tooth in his hands
and rushes away with it.
Layla stops pacing. She sits to the left of me on the bed, giving