and roars mingle with the whipping winds. The giants crest with the
waves. The sea horse stretches its forelegs, its slick mane shimmering
in the starlight. Then it dives back in, its tail a prism of colors.
Sea dragons screech above us, ready to sink their talons back in our
flesh. They fly a careful distance from the giant tentacles that curl
and stretch toward the sky. The only creature I can’t see is the
turtle with the spiked shell, but when a long angry noise rips through
the sky, I know that it’s close by.
“Hey, Leomaris!” I call out to him. “How does it feel to kiss the
feet of the mermaid who murdered your kid?”
Nieve snaps her head at me. She’s drunk on power and she smiles
with her shark teeth. “Don’t listen to the half-breed. He was there.
He could have saved Adaro and he chose not to.”
I get on one knee and face them. Then I stand, my hands still tied
behind my back.
“Do you know how I found him?” I ask.
He doesn’t want to hear it. It’s cruel of me to do this to
someone’s dad. But he has to know. “Adaro was on his ship, writhing in
pain.”
Nieve hisses at me. She sends a threatening bolt at my head, but I
throw myself to the side.
“Archer’s knife was stuck through his chest so he’d die slowly,
and for as long as he held on, he told me not to cower to her. But
here you are. Because you’re weak. You disgrace the memory of your own
son.”
Leomaris lunges at me. He unties my bindings and pulls me up
because he wants me to fight back. I jab and cross. His jaw doesn’t
even snap to the side. I kick forward but he doesn’t budge.
“You’re pretty solid for an old guy,” I say, readying my fists.
Rowdy cheers egg us on. Beneath the noise, I can hear Gwen.
“Mother,” Gwen says, “do something.”
“I promised you I wouldn’t kill him,” Nieve answers coldly. “And
I’m not the one doing the killing. Not yet, at least.”
I find the nearest rock and throw it at him. I miss and double
over when his knee hits me in the gut. I’ve lost Kurt from my sight. I
hope he’s gotten free.
Then I see it-the ripples in the great lake. They’re distorted,
like something is wading out of there. Tiger eyes appear in thin air.
In her translucent phase, Yara carefully makes her way onto the bank.
“Mother…”
Yara nocks her arrow.
Leomaris raises his sword over his head, thinking I’m too weak to
get up. “It should have been you.”
I roll out of the way, listening for the snap of the bow. The onyx
arrowhead breaks through his shoulder and he cries out. Leomaris’s
sword cleaves two inches into the ground, and I’d hate to think that
if I’d been slower, that could have been me.
He tries to yank it out but it won’t give. I uppercut him in the
jaw and, as he staggers back, kick him square in the chest. He moves
back so quickly that he falls into the pool and doesn’t resurface.
Adrenaline thumps in my ears, and I can’t make out the commotion.
Yara lands beside me. I can see through her like glass. The river
tribe emerges from the water undetected. The merrows are confused,
attacking enemies they cannot see.
Nieve fires away with her trident, but she risks hitting her
children. Yara is as fast as lightning, a whirlwind of her own. Beside
her is Karel with his axes, cleaving heads and rib cages until he’s
covered in black blood down to his elbows.
“You’re late to the party,” I tell him when he runs past me. I’ve
never been so happy to see him.
He grumbles, but I catch a smile as he throws a dagger my way.
“Kurt!” A hulking merrow is ambling toward him.
I don’t think it. I just do. The dagger in my hand spins in the
air and hits its target between the eyes. As he decomposes, I see
Gwen’s face standing behind him. She’s seen me do this before and had
to hide her displeasure at killing merrows. Now, she takes up a sword
and holds it at my face. The tip follows me as I stand, retrieving the
dagger from the stinking pile of black flesh.
“You can’t trust him, Gwenivere,” Nieve says, her voice slithering
between the fighting bodies.
And then Gwen, who patched up my wounds and begged for my life,
lunges at me with the sword. Sparks fly when our metals meet, the
sharp sound of blades slicing against each other.
“Your heart isn’t in this,” I tell her.
“You don’t know what’s in my heart.”
I tap her solar plexus with the ball of my palm and she staggers
back.
“I’ll show you,” I say, getting on my knees and holding my arms
out. My whole self is exposed to her. “Do it.”
She looks horrified and takes a few steps back.
“Your mother might love you,” I say, “but as long as that trident
is in her hands, she’ll love it even more.”
Gwen shakes her head.
“Do you remember how beautiful this place was?” I say, motioning
to the screams and bloodshed. “You say you don’t have a home but
you’ve always found yourself here in this place. Now look at it. Look
what she’s done.”
“Gwenivere, if you don’t do it, I swear I will. Do it!”
And then Gwen steps aside like I knew she would.
“I don’t know what kind of future I can give you,” I say, “but I
wouldn’t use you.”
“Mother, I won’t.”
Nieve pushes her daughter aside with a wave of her hand. I lunge
for my sword, but a force grips me and squeezes the wind out of my
body.
“You don’t deserve your scales. You don’t deserve the blood of
kings that runs through your veins.”
Even as I choke, I say, “Tough luck, Grandma.”
She blasts me with the trident. I catch the current with my dagger
until it’s so hot that I have to drop it and my fingertips are black.
There is so much fury in Nieve’s eyes that they’re stark white.
She throws the trident at me. I try to move out of the way, but a dark
force holds me in place. My feet become a tail. She’s pulling it out
of me in the most painful way. It’s like I’m cooking from the inside
out, stretched out in midair.
You know, when you’re about to die, things really do go in slow
motion. My heart races like the pulse of thunder in my throat. My name
is shouted from so many different voices I can’t tell who is who. All
I know is that they say it, over and over.
Tristan.
Tristan.
Tristan.
There’s the blow of a conch shell followed by the warrior cry of
an army of strays.
I want to close my eyes but I can’t. They’re trained on the three
prongs of the trident coming at me like a harpoon.
Gwen jumps in front of me. Her magic crackles around her like a
shield. Her lips are open, and a thin line of black blood drips from
the corner of her mouth. The trident is stronger than her shield and
rips through her body. She looks down at the golden prongs covered in
her own blood, then at me. Her eyes wide as full moons, black tendrils
spreading from the wound in her chest.
A cry starts at the bottom of my heart and can’t get out.
No, no, no, no.
She holds out her hand to me, the dark veins spreading beneath her
porcelain skin. Black blood pools out of her mouth. Tristan. She
closes her eyes and then is gone.
A jolt runs through me like a cord wound so tight it snaps.
When Nieve screams, the heavens rip open.
Nieve screams so loudly that a white light descends over the
island. I hold my arm up to block it. The rumbling starts again, and
this time, something in the water moves. The lake is one big ripple as
a horn breaks the surface, followed by the massive head of the turtle.