A BURST STRIKES THE water inches from my waist. The charge vibrates through me like hot pokers, and more lightning bolts spit in a circle, trapping me in a cage of light and fire.
Elian calls my name and I grit my teeth. At the sound of his voice, the Sea Queen turns a lazy gaze to him. As though he’s a fly she has just been reminded of. I’m not sure how much more protection the eye can offer him while still managing to keep me alive, but the only clear thought I have is that I can’t let her hurt him. I can’t let her kill him in the depths of these black waters.
Another surge of lightning drops from the air, and I spring out of the water to catch it. My skin feels like liquid against the ray of cracking light, and I know I can’t hold on for long. But I don’t need to. Just a few seconds – long enough to aim with precision that would rival Madrid’s – and I throw it through the air.
It blows clean through the Sea Queen’s side.
She lets out a monstrous cry. Skin and bone and blood and magic. They burst from her and scatter like stardust. The wound is gaping, but even if pain is the only thing the Sea Queen can feel, she barely lets it give her pause. She lashes out with a curl of water that sends me hurtling through the air.
I sink deep into the water with the force of the impact before I feel Elian’s hand on mine, dragging me back up to the surface.
“Get away,” I tell him, sending a blast of wind toward my mother.
She continues to approach with frightening speed, and I search desperately for something – anything – that might slow her down. My eyes catch the structure of the ice palace, and I don’t stop to think it through before I raise spouts of water and turn them into a blockade of icebergs. They climb higher and higher, looming pillars of frost that guard us like the spikes of a fence.
“I have to get you to safety,” I tell Elian. “We can swim under. If I put out the fire, you can take cover behind your crew.”
Elian eyes me savagely. “I’m not hiding,” he says.
A resounding boom rattles through the line of icebergs as my mother smashes into them. With her fists or her magic, I’m not sure. But the force of it is enough to make the water tremble, and I know the new wall won’t last long.
“Fine,” I snap. “Don’t hide; run instead. I don’t care just as long as you get out of here.”
Elian laughs an offbeat, exhausted sound. “You’re not understanding me,” he says, grabbing my hand. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Elian, I—”
“Don’t say something heroic and self-sacrificing,” he tells me. “Because then I might start thinking you’ve actually got some humanity in you.”
I smirk. “That would be boring.”
He nods, pressing against me. The icebergs I’ve conjured rattle, and large blocks of ice tumble around us in monstrous hailstones. It’s as though the world is crumbling.
“I don’t like you because you’re nice,” Elian says. His forehead touches mine, his lips hovering a breath away.
“That says a lot about your psyche.”
He kisses me then. Just once. Delicate in a way I’ve only known with him. And then the icebergs fall and the impact creates a wave high enough to swallow us whole. I throw my arms around Elian and let my magic coat us. Shielding us from the bursts of snow that threaten to crush us to the water bed.
When it’s over, I lift my head from the comfort of his shoulder and let out a breath. Beyond the decimated wall of crushed ice, my mother beckons.
“It would be a discredit for your legend to die in such an embrace,” she says. “I could make it so they still sing songs about the mighty Princes’ Bane. I could have them forget your cross-contamination and remember only the glory of your past.”
I push Elian behind me, keeping my hand tangled in his.
“That’s funny,” I tell her, “because I plan to make them forget everything about you. Except your death. I’ll make sure they remember that.”
The wind picks up speed, my mother’s fury swirling and tossing the air, further igniting the flames that keep my army from me. Elian’s crew. The very people who would lay down their lives for us. But I don’t need people to die for me anymore. And I don’t need them to die because of me either. The killing and the sacrifice end here, and I want each of them to see it so they can trust in the changes I’ve preached. A new world, with a new queen at its helm.
Smoke effuses from the air, only this time it’s my magic that drives it. I wrap the wind in on itself until it grows into a cyclone that spills to the height of the sun. And then another. A third and a fourth, and all the while the water rages and my mother watches with a cold, empty expression.
The fire blots out and the smoke clears, and in the abyss of charred snow and melted gravel, two armies stare back at us. Human and siren, side by side. Waiting for their prince and their princess to deliver the promised end.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” I tell my mother.
Even if I hate her, there’s something woeful pressing onto my chest, alleviated only by the gentle tug of Elian’s hand as he remains by my side. Tethering me to this precious residue of humanity.
The Sea Queen’s expression remains vacant. “You’re weak, then,” she says, no hint of regret. “For both of us to survive would show true ineptitude.” She runs a forked tongue over her lips, an unrelenting darkness in her eyes. “I could never let you live.”
“I know,” I tell her. The wind gathers faster. “I can’t let you live either.”
I throw my hands forward and the cyclones explode against her. She thrashes and snarls, wild tentacles whipping against the unstoppable gusts. Her trident is alight, but she doesn’t use it. Even when she’s carried from the water and thrown through the air like a rag.
I realize then that she can’t. My body pulses with power, but it takes every ounce of focus I have to keep the cyclones going. Such things require as much concentration as ferocity. One slip of my mind and my mother could drop back into the ocean and take that split second to regain her ground.
I syphon more magic from my fingertips, ignoring the Sea Queen’s nefarious howls. The cyclones gather like spun sugar, merging as they devour her.
Something splinters. A heavy rumble that shakes the mountain. And then there is the distinct feeling of the world turning on its hilt.
Elian calls my name and I drop my hands, letting the cyclones falter. I don’t see where my mother’s body lands, but there’s a crack like no other and the trident hurtles to the ground by Kahlia’s fin.
“Lira!” she screams.
A shadow descends.
I glance up and see a summit hurtle toward us.
Slabs of rock roll from the waterfalls with frightening speed, molding with the blizzard air to form giant bursts of white smoke. Quickly, I clinch my arms around Elian’s waist and use all of my might to throw a blanket of energy over us.
The glacier rubble pounds against the magical shield. I don’t look, my eyes closed as I cling desperately to Elian, praying the defense holds. Grateful that the others are safe on the far side of the water.
Snow chokes the air and I cough against Elian’s chest as the ice crystals slip into my gills. He squeezes me closer to him, so tight, it should hurt. But my bones feel like dust already, and with every rock that hammers away at our shield, my skull bursts.
A lifetime spins around us before the crumbling finally stops and a weight lifts from my battered body. I search to make sure the others are unscathed, but the air is an expanse of white. Elian runs his hands over my shoulders and then down my arms. For a moment I’m not sure why, and then I realize that he’s checking for injuries. Making sure I’m okay until he can see it for himself.
His hand slides into my hair, and I want nothing more than for this feeling of total contentment to stay like a shelter over my heart. But as with all things, it seizes, wiped clean as soon as the world comes back into focus.
When the fog clears, my mother’s body lies broken on the snow.
I swim to her, Elian following behind. His crew heaves us both up from the water. Madrid stares at my fin, but her hand firmly grips mine. I want to explain things to her – to them all – but the words don’t come to mind.
Elian settles beside me, gathering me in his arms. When he lifts me, my hands curl around his neck as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. I don’t think about how it feels to have him hold me – to truly see every inch of me. I can’t focus on how much my heart knocks against my chest, because whenever I catch sight of the crippled tentacle before us, it stops dead once more.
The sirens gather around my mother, slithering away as Elian approaches with me in his arms. He places me onto the ground beside her and takes a step back to give me the space I need but don’t want.
The Sea Queen is a dent in the snow.
Her great piceous tentacles cross together like the silk of a spiderweb, creating a pattern of broken limbs. There’s no blood, and for a moment I think she can’t possibly be dead. It doesn’t seem right that she can look so pristine, like the sharply carved statue of a slain beast.
I stare in stunned silence, fin gleaming against the sleet, the weight of two armies on my back. I wait like the dutiful daughter, for the sea foam to froth from her bones and melt her like the ice she lies on. Seconds pass with nothing but her oddly jarred body and the red, shimmering light of her eyes.
Nobody speaks. Time becomes something outside of the mountain, in the world below. Here there is only silence and the infinity that comes with waiting. It takes a lifetime before I finally hear a small shuffle of movement and smell the fresh scent of black sweets on the wind.
Elian crouches beside me, his arm wrapping around my shoulders, enveloping me in his warmth. We sit like that for an eternity until, finally, the Sea Queen fades away.