The warriors of the clan ready themselves, facing the darkening
forest.
Yara nods. “The Naga doesn’t come here, but it’s a precaution.”
“Then how does she take so many of your people?” I don’t realize
how crass that sounds until after I say it.
“The bigger game is on the outer ring. We have to hunt.”
I stop when we’ve made a complete loop around the main village.
The fire pit is lit and older women bring out trays of food. Kai and
Brendan and Dylan emerge from their paradise getaways ready to stuff
their faces.
“If you knew Dylan was out there, why didn’t you get him before?”
She walks past me, ignoring the question, but looking back to say,
“Best eat and get some rest, Land Prince. You have no idea what you’ve
agreed to.”
The breeze brings a soft drizzle from the weeping trees, and I
know why they call it the Vale of Tears. I shiver at Yara’s words,
because I know she’s a hundred percent right.
“You aren’t going to help anyone if you can’t sleep,” Brendan
says.
His feet are at my head, and he’s wiggling his toes every ten
minutes. It’s a mer thing.
“You aren’t sleeping, either.”
“Can you sleep with Dylan’s lion roars?” Brendan says.
Dylan is on the other end of the tent beside Kai, who emits a
whistling sound every time she breathes.
“You’d think, with how big this place is, that they’d give us our
own tents.”
Brendan scoffs. “I don’t mind it so much.”
“Surrounded by every girl in the tribe, including the old lady
with the missing front teeth? Of course you don’t mind.”
“Really, Cousin, you underestimate me. It’s part of my plan. They
want us right where they can see us.”
“Easy for them to say. They’re see-through piles of water.”
We chuckle then listen to the white noise of foreign insects and
waterfalls and rivers.
“Karel wants to kill me.”
“Did you tell him there’s a very long list?”
I snort. “And that’s just my ex-girlfriends.”
Brendan chuckles, but he’s fading fast.
“And Yara is hiding something.”
He mm-hmms. “They all are. Must keep”-he yawns-“eyes open.”
A snap makes me sit straight up.
Brendan follows suit. He presses a finger to his lips, and his
turquoise eyes turn to the tent flap.
I think I see a shadow walking past, but there are a million
shadows in this place. I grab my dagger at my side. Brendan is on his
feet. We lift the flap to peek outside. The fire pit is long gone. The
weeping trees dance in the breeze. And then there’s Isi standing at
the edge of the forest.
There are no guards around her. She’s still, head bent to the
ground. Then up to the purple moon. Her hair whips around her. Then
she starts to fade, becoming water, moving in a rush where we can’t
follow.
“Is that a normal River Clan custom, praying alone in the woods?”
“I’d say not,” Brendan says. “However, your presence has given
them hope of being free of a monster they’ve known too long. You worry
too much, Cousin Tristan. All will be smooth as the seas.”
Except that he doesn’t worry enough, so I have to worry for both
of us. Smooth seas means the storm has passed, or is only just
arriving.
•••
Cold water to the face wakes me.
I jolt up, grabbing my dagger. Karel is standing over me. I take a
swing, and he ducks out of the way before I can follow through. He
laughs and that makes me swing again. This time, he laughs when I
miss, and we topple out of my tent.
Where the hell are my friends? Oh, that’s right. Brendan has his
girls, Dylan his boys, and Kai her books. Me? I have Grumble and a new
bruise on my cheek.
“You may be fast landside, Prince, but in our world, you’re still
catching up.”
And so it happens. Me throwing punches. His shoulders lean back,
but I don’t give him time to catch his step. I cross punch. My second
hit lands on his solar plexus. His breath catches. I grab a branch
from the ground and turn it to feel its weight. “I’m a fast learner.”
The thing about fighting someone who doesn’t exactly want to be
your BFF is that he’s not going to go easy. He doesn’t slow down or
hold back his punches. We fall back, narrowly missing a woman carrying
a basket of fuzzy green coconuts. I block Grumble’s stroke with my
dagger. He’s strong as hell and I can’t hold him off, falling back.
The wood digs into my throat. I bring up my knee for a cheap shot, and
he rolls off me.
“You’re strong, Land Prince,” he says, standing back up. The
villagers have stopped their day-to-day activities to watch us. “But
you have to be stronger.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“To wake the Sleeping Giants, yes. But that’s not the same kind of
strength I mean.”
“I don’t even know what you mean.”
“You’re resisting me.”
“I’m fighting back. Isn’t that the point?”
“You’re fighting like a human. Your lineage is ancient as the
seas, and yet you still haven’t discovered what it means.”
I’m panting, but I don’t stop. “Show me.”
Grumble nods. He turns and I race him into the trees. The ground
is wet and our bare feet squish against the soggy earth. “Are we going
back to the outer ring?”
“Scared of the beast, are you? You should be.”
The lush, green forest starts thinning out. The trees grow
sideways, elongated like they’re trying to stretch and break away from
the ground but can’t. Then we reach the bottom of a cliff.
“What the hell is this?”
There are carvings in the stone.
“Do you know what we did before the court took us?” Grumble asks.
I shake my head once, feeling red at my ignorance.
“We lived in the rivers of the world. We kept the waters clear,
safe from beasts. We lived every day in peace.”
“Don’t you have peace now?”
“We have warring children that will grow into soldiers like me.
They will hunt the Naga until they fall.”
“Not anymore they won’t,” I remind him. “I’m here now.”
He cocks his head to the side, studying me like he wants to
believe me, but years of fighting won’t let him. Like I’m something
rotten that washed up on his shore.
Suddenly I stop taking all of the happiness in my life for
granted.
“Climb,” he says, becoming translucent, then water moving into the
trickle running through the stone.
“Easy for you to say!” My voice echoes Say. Say. Say.
The first half is easy enough. The words “death wish” come to
mind. I have no harness. One time, I did the rock-climbing wall for my
buddy Angelo’s birthday and they were all, oh, finally we can do
something better than Tristan. I remember reaching for the red and
yellow hooks and sweating bullets, even though I was safe, and Layla
climbed past me like a squirrel on a branch. She blew me a kiss, her
helmet too big for her head, and said, “Bet you can’t catch me!” And
maybe it’ll always be like that, me a step behind.
I can’t think that way. I have to keep going, reminding myself
that this is a test.
Now, I grab hold of the edges jutting out of the wall. I’m a
merman. Mermen don’t go rock climbing. But that’s the thing-this is
the fear I have to get over. Climb to the top of the mountain. Step by
step. My bare feet burn and get cut on the sharper edges of stone. My
hand slips and I swing outward. They say, “Don’t look down,” so I keep
my head up. The pit of my stomach plummets. Don’t let go, Tristan. The