CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Meela
The Secret Island
Hot flames and that toxic sting crept towards us. In unison, Spio and I dove.
My senses were more honed than ever as we swam. Every ripple told me the exact state of the wreckage, where the serpent was, how fast the chemicals were spreading. I felt the iron in the ship, the overpowering aura of the serpent, and when I focused, even the carbon in the oil slicks.
I gritted my teeth against the fresh wave of pain in my lower back as the iron-tainted water washed over the burn.
We retrieved the net and pulled it away from the smouldering ship.
It was hard to stop myself worrying about Lysi.
“Listen, buddy,” said Spio. “We’ll only be able to keep the serpent chasing us for so long. Once Adaro commands her back, there’ll be nothing we can do.”
“I know.”
“Don’t overthink it. Do it quickly.”
Did he know how nervous I was? Did he think I would hesitate at the final moment? I wasn’t offended, because it was true: I was terrified. After spending so long waiting for this, I thought I would be less anxious. But the reality of how this could end pressed against my ribs. What if that was the last time I saw Lysi? I regretted not saying a better goodbye.
“Thanks for all your help, Spio.”
We pulled the net along in silence. It was heavier now with just two of us pulling. But would it be heavy enough? It was our only chance at slowing down the serpent. If it didn’t work, I didn’t want to think what would happen to Lysi and Spio. And once the serpent turned and came back, would I have enough time to get out of there?
“Did Lysi ever tell you about the time she and I messed with a Kodiak bear?” said Spio.
I tried to say, “No,” but the word got caught in my throat. I shook my head.
“He was as big as a whale, I swear. He was on the beach on one of the Aleutians, and he’d caught a deer and was getting ready to rip in.”
We stopped at a boulder.
“I’d always wanted to try deer. We don’t get to eat it much, obviously, but anyone who has says it’s really good. And I’m all about expanding my palate.”
We wrapped the end of the net around the boulder several times. Spio secured it with the most intense set of knots I’d ever seen.
“Well, Lysi lures it away from the dead deer with a couple of live salmon. While it’s running after her, I pull myself up the beach and grab the deer.”
We dragged the other end of the net over to a second boulder.
“The thing’s faster than we anticipated. Lysi chucks the salmon and gets into the water before it catches her—but man, it’s close. Then, of course, the bear turns and sees me with his deer.”
We pulled it taut between the two rocks. I wanted to say something about creating the world’s largest volleyball net, but Spio wouldn’t know what I was talking about.
He surveyed our work with his hands on his hips. “It looks like that game humans like to play. You know?”
My lips pulled into an involuntary smile.
“Anyway,” said Spio. “We were nearly eaten by the bear in the process. But you know what? That deer was the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
We stared at each other for a minute. My heart beat frantically. Spio clapped me on the shoulder.
“You got this, whale whisperer.”
Without waiting for a ceremonious goodbye, he took off. I stared after him until he became a pulse on the current. Then I dove.
I swam hard towards the island until a steep cliff rose in front of me. Atop the cliff, the floor sloped up to the beach.
I wedged into a crevice, reminding myself of the reef fish I’d seen the first time Lysi had shown me coral. I waited, perfectly still, letting my body sway with the surrounding weeds. I felt detached from my body, its movements oddly vacant and methodical. I forced myself to stay in that frame of mind, afraid I would panic if I contemplated what I was about to do.
The plants around me crackled gently. I focused on each note, the way I used to do with leaves moving in the breeze.
The earth gave a shudder. There was a pull in the tide. I pushed my hands against the rocks to hold myself in place.
I squinted upwards, every sense jostled by the rushing current.
Two small figures shot past—Lysi, long hair flying, and Spio, lean and lanky. The serpent followed them with its jaws open. A blast of bubbles shot from her nostrils, clear and blue but reminding me of a dragon breathing fire.
Her body, as thick as a ship, seemed to go on for ages. Darkness fell as she blocked the light.
I didn’t dare move.
Finally, the second head passed.
I pulled myself from the crevice and shot upwards, taking care not to expose myself in the open. I couldn’t let the serpent feel my presence or else their decoy would have been a waste.
I crested the cliff and followed the sloping floor to the beach, moving cautiously over the sand. When I could climb no further, I let the top of my face break the surface.
A shipwreck crumbled on the beach, rusted over and broken into shards. Its size and ghostly presence paralyzed me.
Keeping my body below the surface, I scanned the mess of driftwood and seaweed strewn across the beach. Adaro was nowhere to be seen.
I chewed my lip. What if he had pulled himself into the forest?
No. For someone who hated land as much as Adaro did, he would have stuck close to the shoreline. Besides, the island could have bears, like Spio had talked about, or even people. It would be dangerous to wander, especially in a weakened condition. He had to be nearby.
Below the surface, a burst of energy ricocheted through the water and shot up my tail. Had the serpent collided with the net? The activity hit my senses with such force I wondered if we had underestimated her size. She could snap the rope or easily move the boulders. Still, she would have to untangle herself.
I ran a reassuring hand over the crossbow at my back and pulled myself from the water. My tail scraped over the rocks, the sound rising above the hissing waves.
Far behind me, flames roared around the sinking ship. The helicopter thrummed as it rescued the crew trapped aboard. I crawled across the shore, stopping periodically to listen for sounds over the distant explosions like a cautious deer in the woods.
Daylight peeked through the shipwreck where rust had eaten into the hull. The sting of iron blew towards me on the wind. Though the ship was upright, it sagged heavily in the middle as if a fire or explosion had brought its life to an end.
A fierce ache in my lower back made me think of Lysi’s scar. It must have hurt every time she was near iron, yet she hadn’t once mentioned the pain during the time we spent at Kori Maru. My heart squeezed for her.
I was close enough now to see inside the broken hull. The breath caught in my chest. A man was lying inside, crumpled, as if he had been washed ashore.
I smelled the earth and sweat of human presence. His chest rose and fell with quick, raspy breaths. His skin was milky beneath black hair, his legs twisted, devoid of muscle, lying on the rocks at unnatural angles. He must have used his arms—which were smaller than a merman’s but still showed considerable strength—to drag himself from the water. Grimy blankets and canvas littered the rocks around him.
If not for the black crown over that long, matted hair, I would not have believed it was him.
I reached for my crossbow. The stock clicked beneath my grip—and Adaro’s eyes snapped to my face, wide and terrified. They were blue.
Then, just as quickly, his expression melted into something else. It was almost a smile.
“I suppose your girlfriend was a decoy.”
His voice was the same: slow and deep.
I raised the crossbow.
Before my finger touched the trigger, Adaro dove sideways behind a piece of hull. I jerked my hand away, cursing. The burst of agility surprised me.
Adaro’s paralyzed legs dragged behind him, scraping over the rocks and debris.
“Hiding from a fight, Your Majesty?” I said coldly.
I should have reacted more quickly—but with a single bolt, I couldn’t afford errors.
“Do not lie to yourself, Meela,” he said from behind his barricade. “You are not so heartless as this.”
Though he was hidden, the sight of him lingered in my mind’s eye. Could I kill someone so defenseless?
“You gave me no choice,” I said, more to reassure myself.
“Everything is a choice.”
I resisted the urge to look back to the water, afraid the serpent was approaching. But I refused to take my eyes off my target. For all I knew, Adaro had a weapon and was preparing to throw or shoot something at me.
I dragged myself further up the beach. As long as he was out of range, I could do nothing. I had to get a better angle.
“Would you really kill the man responsible for your happiness?” he said.
I kept advancing. “Happiness? You’ve given my people starvation, grief, poverty—”
“I am not referring to your people. I am referring to you.”
His words slid past me as I braced to shoot. I would have to move quickly—to roll into firing range, aim, and release the bolt before he could escape.
I heard a clatter of rocks and flattened onto my stomach. Nothing happened.
Finger braced over the trigger, I craned to see further into the hull. Adaro was pulling himself deeper into its shadows where there were fewer holes in the sides.
I could do it from this distance, but I would need perfect aim.
“Coward,” I said. “Is the great King Adaro afraid to face me?”
Anger flashed across his face. For an instant, I thought I saw crimson in his blue eyes.
Was he still merman enough to kill me, or was he human enough that he needed iron to do it? I couldn’t be certain.
I raised the crossbow to my line of sight, aiming carefully.
“You will regret that,” said Adaro.
He hunched over, accentuating how vulnerable he was inside the massive hull. My gaze fell to his legs, all bones and twisted at odd angles on the rocks.
My targets had always been sea demons. All of them would have killed me if I had not killed them.
But this was a man.
All the lives I’d taken over the last months—and here I was pointing my crossbow, for the first time ever, at a human being.
“I have shaped your life, Meela,” said Adaro, lip curled to bare flat, human teeth. “From your father, to your battles, to Lysithea.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, you’ve made my life miserable. Well done.”
“Ten years ago, I was visiting Eriana Kwai with a few experts. I had already spent years searching for the serpent.”
I narrowed my eyes, but let him continue.
“We spent several days searching for a passage beneath the island, to no success. It was obvious the serpent was hidden somewhere on the island itself, and only a human could get to it.
“While we were there, I noticed a young girl coming to the beach every day.”
My stomach churned. I kept the crossbow on him, but my hands were paralyzed.
“The girl did not venture close enough to the water to catch, but I watched her. She returned every day, searching for something—someone.
One day during our search, I noticed another little girl, a mermaid of the same age. She was exploring out of bounds, poking around this human-infested island. How curious, I thought, that these two girls come here every day but do not see each other. They are separated by the surface, yet they are so close they could touch.”
A voice in my head was yelling at me to shoot, to kill him now before he called the serpent back, but I couldn’t. I had to hear what he was telling me.
“I had watched you save starfish and nurse drowning insects back to health, Meela. So, acting on a hunch, I arranged to have the young mermaid caught in a net and tossed ashore for you to find. Sure enough, you freed her. You became friends, like I intended.
“But then that brat, Panopea, got in the way. She came to me with news that she was learning to speak Eriana from her cousin, who learned it from a human. When I discovered what was happening, it was too late. She had made an attempt to kill you and blamed the runt—and all my work to solidify your friendship was ruined. I killed Panopea and arranged it to look like a suicide. She was scarred and bloodied half to death, anyway, after you had finished with her.”
Tears blurred my eyes so Adaro became a pale blob against the dark backdrop. Was my entire life a setup? Even the first mermaid I’d ever killed—or thought I’d killed—was another of Adaro’s victims.
“My plan to use your new best friend to make you hand over the Host met its demise. So I thought. Ten years later, I could not believe it. My young friends had reunited—and their bond was better than I could have imagined. They were in love. I was able to use Lysithea to manipulate you, after all. You got me the Host at the threat of her life.”
I gritted my teeth, blinking back tears. All these years, I had assumed fate had brought Lysi and me together. But everything, from the day I’d met Lysi to the day I’d woken the leviathan, had been a part of Adaro’s plan.
What about the rest of my life? My father and Nilus? How different would everything be had they not been forced on Massacres?
“But you didn’t know I would be on the Massacre.” My words came out strangled through gritted teeth. “You didn’t know my people would retaliate so hard. You didn’t know I would be here, a mermaid, and that I would be the one to kill you in the end. My Massacre training put me here with a crossbow. You’re the reason I spent years learning to shoot it.”
My own words gave me strength. He could try to make me another victim, but I would fight to my death to avoid that. This was still my life, and starting with the crossbow in my hands, I could control how it played out.
Something like fear flickered across Adaro’s face—but then a blast of air sounded outside the hull. Adaro sneered. She was coming.
“As amusing as it has been to contrive your love story,” said Adaro, “the time has come for it to end. I hope you said a proper goodb—”
“Love? You’re cowering inside a shipwreck, hiding from everyone. You built your life and your kingdom on hatred. Don’t pretend you understand love.”
He failed to take it into account, again and again. It was the most important part of life, as Lysi had said. Here was the girl in front of him, who had become a mermaid and gotten to this island because of it. Here was the girl willing to sacrifice her own life for those she loved, and with those she loved ready to do the same. As I would always be there for Lysi, she would always be there for me.
That was a kind of love Adaro had never understood. He’d never learned to trust anyone. Did he even trust himself? How could he, if he hated himself so deeply?
“The great King Adaro,” I said, “too weak, desperate, and scared to tell anyone what he is. This is how you’ll be remembered. Your Majesty.”
Inexplicably, pity seeped through my veins. I felt sorry for the crippled man in front of me. Since birth, he’d learned through rejection and cruelty that he could not trust humans. He’d grown up to hate a significant part of himself and the world he lived in—and he let that hatred become his downfall. He would never experience self-acceptance or peace.
A high wave splashed over the hull, drenching us both. I felt the serpent’s presence, angry and drawing nearer.
It was time to end all the horrors Adaro had brought to this earth.
And for once, instead of being driven by anger, I felt calm. This was the only way forwards. It was almost tragic to think Adaro had spent his entire life suffering in hatred.
Adaro snarled. He raised a muscular arm, calling the serpent.
A wave slammed into me at her arrival. I held my ground, letting the deluge wash back down the rocks.
After years of practice, aligning my aim felt natural. I held the crossbow firmly, not taking my eye off my target.
Adaro grabbed at whatever he could reach to pull himself further into the hull.
The sky darkened as the serpent raised a massive head. There was a wet, cracking sound of her jaws opening. The back of my neck prickled.
Adaro was scrambling away, but not fast enough. Bile crept up my throat at the thought of shooting this man in the back.
I exhaled. “For Eriana Kwai.”
For the protection of everyone back home, for Lysi, for merpeople—and for myself—I pulled the trigger.
A hot breath of air washed over me. I dove sideways, catching a fleeting glimpse of the bolt leaving my crossbow.
The serpent’s snout slammed into the rocks where I’d been and snapped closed over nothing.
The bolt plunged into Adaro’s ribcage.
The serpent drew back to lunge again. The remains of the fishing net fell from her jaws, scattering over the beach.
Adaro fell, bolt protruding from his side. Crimson blood oozed from the wound. But he was still alive.
“No,” I whispered.
I needed something to act as a second bolt. A rock, or a branch.
The serpent was too quick. The other set of jaws opened overhead with a wet crackle. The beach darkened further. I rolled to the side, but I was helpless out of water. A tooth caught my arm, knocking me flat. I dropped the crossbow.
The serpent’s breath engulfed me. My fingers found a sharp rock.
I lunged for the crossbow, stretching, reaching. I slammed the rock against the shaft. It was too short and fat, but there was no time.
I aimed at Adaro’s crumpled body, teeth gritted. My makeshift ammo wasn’t going to leave the weapon properly.
A drip of hot saliva hit my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the trigger a second time. The crossbow vibrated as the sinew snapped.
I waited for the pain of those fangs sinking into me, thinking of Lysi.