CHAPTER ONE - Meela
Reefs, Rockfish, and Reinas
Three days as a mermaid and all I’d managed to learn was how to not die.
So far, I could swim, breach, and speak. Skills beyond that were taking longer.
Drifting somewhere between Eriana Kwai and the Aleutian Islands and surrounded by empty murk on all sides, Lysi was teaching me about layers and currents.
“Stick to the faster ones, unless there’s something big in your way.”
“How big?”
“Whales. Sharks. Trust me, you do not want to take on one of those.”
I gave a “hmph”, which materialised as a large bubble that I swatted away. I remembered vividly the terror of being nearly capsized by a pod of orcas.
“Also, don’t go below the twilight layer unless you’re prepared to rise slowly,” said Lysi. “It hurts to depressurise too fast.”
I followed her into the flow of a quick, warm current, where the rich taste of plankton met my tongue. Something crackled far below.
“We’re over top of a reef,” she said. “If you focus, you can sense the bottom.”
“Coral?!”
I looked down eagerly. Would the novelty of the ocean ever wear off?
That was when I saw it: the cutest creature alive. I squealed and took off through the water, leaving Lysi shouting behind me.
“Mee, where are you—?”
The creature tried to flee, but I shot out a hand with a speed I’d never known myself capable of and cupped it in my palms.
“Lysi! Look!”
She caught up, pushing mats of coppery-blond hair and seaweed from her eyes. “Mee, would you pay atten—oh, that is cute.”
It was a plum-sized purple octopus—or maybe it was a squid—with overlarge, googly eyes and rows of tiny suckers on each tentacle. If it hadn’t been swimming—and it had a ridiculous way of doing so by flapping little wings on its head—I would’ve thought it was a bath toy.
“What is it?”
“It’s a stubby squid.”
I brought the little thing to eye level and peered at it. “Even your name is cute.”
“Feel the way his suckers are moving?” She placed a hand under mine, bringing my attention back to our ‘How to Be a Mermaid’ lessons.
I closed my eyes. In the cloudy underwater world, I was supposed to rely less on my vision and more on my other senses. I could pick up smell, taste, sound, and feel from incredible distances—revealing the size, shape, and even chemical makeup of everything around me. When I concentrated, I picked up every whirl in the current. At first, it had been hard to cast my senses past the constantly rushing tide and gurgling bubbles, but I was getting better.
My eyes flew open. “I feel his suckers suckering!”
Lysi laughed. Below the water’s surface, my hearing better than I’d known as a human, the sound travelled pleasantly down my spine. My heart thrummed.
She kept her hand beneath mine, holding my gaze with startlingly blue eyes.
“I can also feel your pulse,” I said, noticing the way it quickened when she touched me.
She blushed. I looked down at our hands—mine over hers, brown skin against white—something that, until three days ago, I had thought I would never see again.
It felt strange to finally be allowed to be together. Nobody was around to tell us we couldn’t hold hands, couldn’t love each other, couldn’t even speak to each other.
But then, nobody was around at all.
The situation was both lucky and frustrating. Sure, none of King Adaro’s armies were chasing us down—and they’d undoubtedly been ordered to do so after the king himself had failed to finish us off three days ago. But our isolation also meant we were nowhere near finding the rebel group we were searching for. How were we supposed to find allies when all we had for company were a bunch of fish?
At the thought of Adaro swimming freely with Sisiutl under his control—my people’s sacred legend, the power that should have been mine—the pressure in my eyes built, the world reddened, and I knew I’d transitioned to demon mode. I let it happen. It was easier to see through the dark depths this way, to blend with the green-grey sea, and to make tight turns with the new webs that stretched between my fingers.
The current stirred as something large moved below. It was a shape and rhythm I hadn’t encountered yet. In a single motion I pulled away from Lysi, let go of the stubby squid, and plunged. I beat my tail a little harder than I intended and had to push out my webbed hands to stop myself from face-planting against the bottom. My hair whipped past me, and I flung the braids back over my shoulder before they could tangle around my neck.
Rockfish—big, ugly, orange things with underbites—cleared out of my path as I pushed clumsily along. Under my new fingers, the texture of rock and sand was wonderfully intensified. I followed the vibrations over my skin, which told me that somewhere ahead, a fish the size of my upper body lay hiding. I sped up. A prawn scuttled away, half-swimming, half-running, looking like a pompous galloping horse.
“Found it!”
My target darted away before I got there. He was strangely flat, with eyes on top of his face like he had evolved sideways.
I watched him go, deciding the ocean was insane.
“What was that?”
Before Lysi had even caught up, I spotted a cluster of plants to my left and zipped over to them.
“What are these?”
Palm-sized, mossy blobs clung to the rocks alongside starfish, and little white trees with fluffy tops.
I poked one of the moss blobs. It turned out to be un-mosslike, and what I thought was fluff was actually needles. I wondered if I’d discovered some sort of underwater hedgehog. The needles moved, convening around my finger as though to grab it.
“Urchins,” said Lysi, sounding out of breath.
I moved on to another blob beside it. These tentacles looked soft, swaying with the current.
“Anemones,” said Lysi, before I could ask.
I poked it. This one was squishy. The sticky tentacles wrapped around my finger and clung to it like tape.
“The cavity in the middle is so it can digest—”
Something silver glinted in the corner of my eye. A school of herring the size of a house floated nearby, noses to the current.
They darted away before I got there.
I chased them, concentrating on beating my tail in long, powerful strokes.
“Mee, wait! You need to—oh, for goodness’ sake.”
I burst into the cloud of fish, reaching for them as they scattered. They were quick, but I was quicker. Maybe too quick. My reactions outstripped my thoughts, and I found myself in the middle of an explosion of fish before I knew what I’d do with them. I grabbed one in each hand and bit them behind the skull like Lysi had taught me.
A hand closed around my arm and hauled me back into the open.
“You can’t burst into a school like that,” said Lysi. “Baitball, remember?”
I offered her one. “It still worked.”
“But if you were hunting with a group, you would’ve totally ruined everyone else’s chances.”
I watched the herring fleeing in every direction. I supposed she had a point.
“Watch.” She darted after them and made a wide circle, rounding them up.
After a lifetime on land, I’d never seen anything move with so much grace. An eagle’s wings couldn’t match the fluid coordination between Lysi’s powerful tail, slim body, and the mane of coppery hair flowing behind her.
Not for the first time, I wondered how it was possible for anyone to be so perfect.
“Then you spiral in,” said Lysi.
I hurried after her with considerably less grace, ignoring the heat blooming in my cheeks. It didn’t help that my brain still tried to separate my tail into two kicking legs. I tried not to let it frustrate me, but I hoped Lysi never watched me as closely as I watched her.
We pushed the herring in a cluster against the water’s surface. They bumped into each other, pushing to the centre and shoving the others to the outside. The effect was a pulsing silver ball that I thought looked quite pretty.
“Now it’s safe to grab them,” said Lysi, catching one easily.
Ripples hit us from behind. We turned to find a pod of Pacific white-sided dolphins approaching.
I swiped two more fish and we surfaced for breath, letting the dolphins take over the meal.
“Would you get out of demon mode?” said Lysi. “You’re scaring me.”
I flashed Lysi my smile of needle-sharp teeth before letting them retract. The pressure released from my eyes as the blood drained, my seaweed skin reverted to its golden brown, and I opened my fingers to watch the webs shrink.
“You transition way too often,” said Lysi.
I shrugged. “I was just thinking about stuff.”
“Adaro is nowhere near us.”
At the mention of his name, my eyes threatened to redden again. “For now.”
Lysi reached for my hand. “And for now, we’re calm. I like it when I can see the green in your eyes, and when your smile doesn’t say, I’m going to decapitate you.”
I grimaced. “As long as I get to decapitate a certain someone.”
Decapitate, or run a spear through, or poison, or suffocate, or set sharks on …
I inhaled deeply—a breath that would last me the next three hours—and dove. I kept hold of Lysi’s hand as we continued along, satisfying myself by considering all the ways I might eliminate King Adaro.
“You know it’s going to be impossible,” said Lysi.
I looked away, wanting to deny it, but she was right. Adaro had the leviathan for his bodyguard, which legend said was indestructible, and he himself was impervious to iron. Together, they made an invincible duo.
The thought was unnerving, but I refused to let it discourage me. I would find a way to break him.
“Whatever plan the Reinas have, I hope it involves the biggest army we’ve ever seen,” said Lysi.
The Reinas. That was what she called this mysterious rebel group because of some code phrase she’d heard. The problem was that we didn’t know where they were, who they were, how many, or what they were truly called. She only knew they’d shown up during an assassination attempt on King Adaro, and then again near Eriana Kwai, where they’d invited her to find and join them.
“As long as they let me do the honours,” I said.
“Sure, of course,” said Lysi, smiling.
She didn’t seem to grasp how important this was to me. Vengeance aside, this was about controlling the Host of Eriana. The serpent’s power was passed by blood; whoever killed its master would gain control. So while I was glad to hear of a movement against Adaro, I was terrified that someone else would get to him first.
“Did the Reinas tell you anything about their plan?” I said, voicing one of the many concerns needling at me.
“There wasn’t time.”
At my silence, she added, “I know they’re from the Moonless City—that’s in the South Pacific—and they were taking a northwestern current when we crossed paths. That’s why I think they’re headed to Utopia.”
I chewed my lip. Adaro probably wasn’t even in Utopia. He was probably on a battlefront somewhere, or the Pacific coastline, or sinking ships he happened upon in the Gulf of Alaska. He could be anywhere.
Days ago, when I’d been trying to find a giant serpent on Eriana Kwai, I’d thought the tiny island was too big. Now we had an entire ocean in which to find this rebel group. The world suddenly felt overwhelmingly vast.
I imagined Adaro swimming towards his next target, the serpent undulating behind him, her fangs stained with the blood of the day’s victims.
My teeth prickled with the urge to transition. I willed myself to stay calm.
“They could have at least told you where to go,” I said.
“They probably thought I already knew.”
“Or they didn’t trust you enough.”
“Well, they knew nothing about me.”
“And we know nothing about them. What if we’re making the wrong decision? Every day we spend trying to find them, people are dying.”
“I know, Mee. But even if we find out where Adaro is, it’s not like we can just swim up and kill him. We need a plan. We need their help.”
I sighed, expelling another large bubble. I smacked it away irritably. She was right. I’d need the Reinas’ help if I wanted to avoid death by leviathan and a thousand soldiers. The serpent might have had two heads, but she wouldn’t be able to catch a whole army swarming at once. Would she?
“I already have a few ideas as to where they might be,” said Lysi.
“Here I was thinking your plan was to just ask someone if they’d seen a group of traitors flapping around.”
She tossed back a lock of coppery-blond hair. “I didn’t spend my whole childhood exploring forbidden places for nothing.”
“Something I’m thankful for, or I’d never have met you.” I kissed her cheek.
Lysi guided us down various currents, taking the most discrete path to Utopia to avoid encountering anyone. We made a few detours, Lysi mumbling things to herself like, “No, didn’t think so,” and, “Had to try.”
I felt tormented, knowing that Adaro had the serpent. My people were no longer his only target. Everyone was vulnerable, but no one knew it yet. Only my friends back home and I knew the true story of the Host of Eriana and how its power was passed.
My insides clenched with a wave of homesickness at the thought of my friends. I was forever separated from them, which made the ache even worse.
They were the reason I had to defeat Adaro. My people had lived in poverty for decades because of him, and now he was more dangerous than ever. I gripped Lysi’s hand tighter. She was my comfort in this world that was, admittedly, a bit lonely and frightening.
Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought my emotions had intensified since becoming a mermaid. My love for my people and for the mermaid swimming next to me had become a physical sensation in my skin—a permanent rush of affection.
The sky darkened, summoning tiny glowing things—copepods, Lysi called them—from the depths. The low moan of a whale echoed somewhere ahead.
We travelled a long time without speaking, heading west. I brooded over Adaro the whole time, how much I hated him, and how satisfying it would be to finally kill him. I kept imagining Sisiutl turning her allegiance over to me, her new master. A thrill bloomed in my chest at the thought of controlling something so powerful.
When I turned my senses outwards, I picked up a gloominess about Lysi. I watched her perfect face, gaze fixed ahead, worry pulling at her features.
“What’s wrong?”
She glanced to me, quickly smoothing her expression with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “There are others I’d like to find, too.”
“Your friends?”
She’d told me a bit about the group of friends she’d made at the battlefront over the last few weeks. Without having met them, it hurt to know they had all been either killed or forced to scatter after their attempts to get to Adaro. They had been through war together and had protected Lysi. As far as I was concerned, they were worthy friends.
Whenever I asked about them, though, Lysi evaded my questions. She kept saying we had more important things to attend to in a tone that made me feel like I was a recovering hospital patient, even though I kept telling her to stop worrying about me.
Sure enough, she said, “Finding the Reinas and ending this war is more important.”
I frowned. She had loved ones at stake as much as I did. At least my parents, friends, and all my people were on Eriana Kwai. I knew exactly where they were. Lysi’s were scattered. Her parents were in Utopia—at least, they had been the last time she saw them, months or even years ago. Her brother was battling in the west, if he hadn’t been killed. Her few surviving friends from the battlefront could have been anywhere.
I squeezed her hand. “We’ll find them.”
She avoided my eye. I wondered what she was keeping from me. Was she more worried about her family than she let on? Or was it something else—something about her friends?
Abruptly, she grabbed my arm and pulled me towards her, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Whoa, hi—”
She clapped a hand over my mouth. “Listen.”
Something was drifting below us. Its shape on the current resembled a squid that was at least my size. Was that it? I tuned my senses to our surroundings.
There. Something was approaching from the north. It was more substantial than a school of fish, like a pod of whales. But no. These auras were more distinct than whales.
Lysi and I looked at each other. After three long, frustrating, but glorious days without encountering a soul, it seemed our isolation had come to an end.