Kurt has the look that he had when we first met, that strong
soldier stare.
“I will not justify the decisions I’ve made in my lifetime,” my
grandfather says. “Nor will I allow our bloodline to be extinguished
like fire in water. I have been king. I have been a father. I have
loved. I have done what was necessary to keep our people alive. I
stand by what I said to you the first time you set foot on Toliss,
Tristan. I meant every word. You both have very different paths. The
seas are vast and ever changing. You will need each other.”
“I don’t need anyone,” Kurt says.
The king looks down sadly. “That is where you’re wrong, my son.”
In the distance, there is a great crash. I need to get down that
tunnel, and I need to do it without Kurt or my grandfather.
“We can beat the crap out of each other later, Kurt. I’ve got my
team helping push back the merrows outside.”
“Team?”
“Yeah, the Fintastick Mer Friends, yourself not included.”
He faces the large steel doors, because I know what he wants more
than to beat the crap out of me is to fight some merrows. Then he
looks back at the king.
“You two must go,” King Karanos says, sinking down to grab the
armrest of his throne.
“What’s happening to him?” I ask Kurt.
“He’s losing strength too quickly. He can barely swim, let alone
lift a sword.”
“Then we have to get him out of here.”
“I’ve tried that,” Kurt hisses. “He won’t listen.”
I mutter, “Now we know why our family is so stubborn.”
Screams ring out in the halls of the Glass Castle. Kurt and I look
at each other, almost like we’re a team again.
Then the chamber doors fly open and a current pushes the three of
us against the opposite end of the room. My head bangs against the
glass wall so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t crack open.
My vision is foggy at first but then I see we’re surrounded. Gwen
swims over us in wild splendor. White blond hair a massive electric
cloud around her pale moon face. Those gray eyes focused right on me.
Her lips are flushed pink like her cheeks. From swimming. Fighting.
Magic.
“Isn’t this nice,” she says. “The generations together at last.”
She doesn’t let us get a word in.
A dozen merrows swoop in on us in seconds. They’re fast and strong
with deformed fishy faces. The gaping mouths of sharks and eels. With
webbed hands and feet, they’re a cross between wild sea creatures and
humans. They are the unwanted of the seas, thrown out. They are
Nieve’s children and they’ve come to storm the castle.
Their screams are feral, all grunting teeth swarming around the
king.
I swim in front of my grandfather. I dig my scepter into the belly
of an eel-headed merrow. He chokes on the black blood that oozes out
of him and clouds the water. Kurt is as fast as lightning, ramming
through the merrows’ tender heads with the prongs of his trident.
It happens again-our weapons sparking. I try to hold on to that
spark, but the energy slips away as quickly as it arrived.
A scaly leg knocks the wind out of my chest and pins me to the
wall. I choke on air. Water. But all I can think of is Gwen pushing
the golden throne with all her weight. Kurt buried under four merrows
who taste his blood from a deep bite. Then a merrow going straight for
my grandfather.
I shout as teeth rip into my shoulder.
My grandfather screams as he grabs hold of his attacker’s face. He
snaps the neck of the creature and lets it go, now limp in the dark
water made darker by their blood.
I elbow the creature off me and push the pointed quartz of the
scepter into its chest. My skin burns where I pull teeth out of my
shoulder and throw them to the side.
The king clutches his chest over his heart and sinks backward. His
body shakes and his blue eyes keep getting paler. I grab him from the
front to keep him from sinking.
He leans into my ear and whispers, “My son.”
Only he’s not talking to me. He’s talking about Kurt, fighting
blindly in the dark water. I lean my grandfather against a corner and
leave Triton’s dagger in his hand.
“Stay with us,” I tell him.
But I notice the strain on his face. The hand clutching his heart
as if trying to stop it from bursting out.
I click the quartz on the floor. The crystal lights. I can feel
its power and I latch on to it, willing it to stay. Stay. I remember
Thalia’s words to my buddy Ryan as he lay dying. Stay.
I swim and ram the ancient weapon through a blowfish merrow, its
face ready to shoot poisoned thorns. The light glows from within him
and he screams as it blazes through his body, lighting up his bones
through flesh. Kurt’s eyes widen. Is he really so far gone that he
doesn’t think I’d come to his aid?
The closer we are, and the closer we use our weapons near each
other, the more they come to life. He uses the current of the trident,
and soon we’re back to back taking down every creature that comes at
us.
“The king?” he asks, impaling his trident in the meaty head of his
enemy.
“We have to get him out of here,” I say. “There are still too
many.”
The wound on my shoulder makes me more of a target than Kurt
because the blood is fresh. “I’ll get them to follow me.”
“I don’t think-”
“Get him out of here! Now!” I swim upward, and just as I thought,
the horde follows me up and through the skylight in the ceiling. I’m
up and above the castle surrounded by echoing screams of mermaids
getting ripped to shreds. I see Kai evacuating the people inside.
Brendan, a wild man trying to hold back the merrows breaching the
front walls. And Dylan, surrounded by an entire guard that wears his
emblem. More and more merrows are swarming out of the tunnels with
sharp teeth. Their own bodies are weapons, and with so much spilled
blood, they’re in a frenzy.
As I hoped, the merrows in the king’s chambers surround me. I hold
my scepter at the ready, but with over a dozen of them, I’m a Happy
Meal. One of them, with a human face and sword hands, bites at the
air. He hisses and it sounds like, “Alone.”
But I’m not alone.
A great set of dragon teeth bite off his head. Amada, in her Naga
form, swims like a whip, chomping off arms and limbs. When she’s done,
she swims to me and licks the wound on my shoulder.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her. “The others need you.”
She nods and swims back to my friends as they retreat.
Then a jolt goes through my body. “Gwen.”
I dive back down through the skylight and into the king’s chamber.
I open the latch to the trapdoor. A blast of energy knocks the wind
out of me and presses like a foot to the chest.
Gwen swims out and keeps her hands up, holding an invisible force
on me. It’s hard to breathe.
“Don’t,” I say. “Gwen, don’t.”
She swims closer to me. Behind her, Archer and another merrow
carry a woman. Her eyes are closed and the pink tendrils of her hair
hang slack, while her crippled legs float limp. Chrysilla, ripped out
of her shell.
“Go on, and don’t stop ’til you reach Toliss.” Gwen looks to the
nautilus maid then back to me. “My mother would like to thank you for
this gift.”
“Tell your mother to go f-”
“You don’t have to be so valiant.” She pulses another crushing
blast at my chest. My heart skips a beat and my lungs clench. I have
the vague notion of being stomped on by an elephant.
“You don’t have to be so bitchy,” I gasp.
She swims closer to me but keeps the invisible stronghold up. “You