looks old and withered, skinny and weak. He sits on a throne of gold
and can barely push himself up to yell.
There is glass all over the floor and Kurt’s knuckles are bloody.
Kurt turns around and runs one hand through his hair, clenching the
Trident of the Skies with the other.
“I came to protect you,” Kurt says.
“Because Lucine told you that Nieve’s forces would be attacking
the castle,” my grandfather says suspiciously. “What else has that
sorceress filled your head with?”
Kurt growls. “She told me the truth. The truth you failed to tell
me for all of my life.”
There is a silence full of shattering glass and clanking swords in
the distance. The sharp screams of mermaids swimming out of the castle
and others fighting back.
“It was your mother’s choice. She wanted to raise you as his.”
“And you said nothing,” Kurt demands.
“Would you have had me force her?” the king bellows. “She wanted
him…in the end. No matter how much I offered. No matter how much I
loved her.”
Kurt puts his hand through something that breaks like cement.
I wince and Kai puts a hand over her mouth.
“Is that why you sent my father to the dragon wars?” Kurt says.
“To get rid of him?”
My grandfather doesn’t answer, and the shame of it fills the
silence.
“Kurtomathetis, you are a great warrior. A great merman. Don’t let
this-oracle-destroy that. She’s lived as long as me, and she knows how
to control minds and hearts.”
“If you think so highly of me,” Kurt says, “why did you pick
Tristan instead of your own son? To protect your shame?”
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
“I never meant to hurt you boys.”
“We aren’t boys!”
“No,” the king laments. “No, you aren’t.”
“Lucine warned you, didn’t she?” Kurt says. “She warned you to
kill Nieve and you didn’t. She told you to pass on the trident to your
son. And you didn’t. Now everything is broken. The silver mermaid has
taken our island, and now our home here. She’s more powerful than all
of us. We’ll have no choice but to follow her.”
“Don’t ever say that. I will not explain my decisions to you. Know
that everything I’ve done has been because I-”
“Do not tell me you love me.” Kurt’s voice is deadly calm. “Not
when you chose a headstrong human boy who acts more like a seal in
heat than a champion of the seas.”
Kai snorts then shoots me an apologetic glance.
I can’t take it anymore. If they’re going to talk about me, I
might as well be present. Kai grabs my hand and shakes her head
desperately.
“Go,” I whisper. “Help the others.”
“The latch door is on the ground beneath the throne,” she says,
taking her sword to do some good.
I pull the doors open. Kurt does a double take when he sees me. My
grandfather looks relieved? I can’t tell because his brow has always
been furrowed and worried-looking.
“What are you doing here?” Kurt puffs his chest like a wet
rooster.
“You know me, Uncle,” I say. “I just show up and see what
happens.”
Kurt and I circle each other, like when you put tigers in a cage
and neither one backs down.
“What’s up, Kurt?” I say, holding my dagger as tightly as I can.
“Finished giving your old lady her sponge bath?”
His eyes widen with shock. I watch him rack his brain as to how I
could possibly know that. Then he’s back to being angry, because I
called his girlfriend old, even if she looks pretty good for being a
thousand.
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?” I say. “I mean, I was supposed to be the
champion, right? I was chosen by the king.”
I turn to my grandfather, King Karanos. Up closer, I can see
withered lines on his face that weren’t there a couple of weeks ago. I
remember when we found Kai’s father in the Hall of Records, dying from
a fatal wound to the chest. His eyes faded to the palest blue right in
front of us. My grandfather’s eyes are fading.
“My dear boy-” he says.
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “I’ve been washed away at sea, beaten
up, sliced up, poisoned. I have mortal enemies that want my head on a
platter. I almost killed an innocent-and I still have to-” I still
have to kill the oracle, but I don’t tell them that because no one can
know. Instead I look at the mermen in my family. “I’ve done all of
this because you chose me. You made me think I was someone important,
someone who could change things, and all this time it was really
because you couldn’t have him.”
“Oh you think you were wronged, do you?” Kurt gets up close to my
face. “Where would you be if it weren’t for me?”
“Not standing here with you in my way.” I shove him.
He holds the prongs of the trident under my chin. They dig into my
skin, and I can feel his rage, his wanting to shove the trident
through my head.
“Tristan,” the king’s voice carries a deep grumble. Without the
trident, his body is weakening, withering to bone. Coral. I can’t look
at him. My whole life I wanted this-a grandfather. A sense of knowing
where I come from. And here I am, yelling at him for things that can’t
be undone. “Kurtomathetis.”
But I laugh.
“Why are you always laughing?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “What do you suppose you’re going to do with
that?” I swim up and back, pulling my scepter from my sternum harness
and holding it up to his face. “They’re not working, Captain Dumbass.”
Then the sparks flicker from the trident prongs and the core of my
scepter. The blast is small, but it knocks the three of us against the
walls of the chamber. Perhaps it’s the trident and scepter’s proximity
to each other. Perhaps it’s a fluke. Whatever the cause, we’re not
going to waste it. Kurt’s just as competitive as I am, and he’s not
going to back down.
“You were saying?” Kurt says, a smug smile curving at the corners
of his mouth.
“It’s been a while,” I say, “but I’m itching to finish what we
started at the pier.”
Kurt’s brows furrow when I say it’s been a while. Sure, it’s been
days for me, but for him it’s been hours.
“You know my grandfather’s right,” I say. “Lucine is just filling
your head with seaweed. Even her sisters talk smack about her.”
“She’s the only person who’s ever believed in me.” He holds the
prongs forward and I brace with my scepter.
“What about Thalia?” I swim back. “Do you remember her? Do you
remember your sister?”
“You were going to take her away from me.” He grunts. “Make her
human.”
Okay. Perhaps not the best memory to bring up. “It’s not the same.
She’d still be alive. She’d still be your sister.”
My grandfather is still trying to get us to reason with each
other. Down boys, sit. Good boys.
But we’re not good boys, are we?
“She’s got your panties in a twist, bro,” I say, quoting Angelo.
Something he said to me the first time I realized how I felt about
Layla.
“You’re one to talk,” Kurt says. “It’s your fault Nieve has the
Staff of Eternity!”
We are a two-headed dog chasing after one tail. I’m tired of
hearing him talk. I raise my scepter over my head. The quartz fills
with a bright light, ready to meet the light of the trident.
Then two hands push us hard against the walls. My grandfather
floats above us. For a flash, he looks giant, as if his power never
left him.