How long since his enemy disappeared after Lucy?

Hours?

Torun paced in the glass cell. He stopped and put his palms against the glass. Burst! By the almighty power of the Life Tree, shatter into a million fragments. Melt or bend the steel. Anything.

It was not enough.

He paced again. Sweat poured off his too-hot, too-chilled, trembling limbs.

He was a male. Exhausted by two hard swims, not as powerful as a female, and not as powerful in the air.

Outside, on the television screen, footage of a young mer warrior played over and over. He was a warm-water youth from Duyung by his markings. Bruises and cuts marred his body, and he swam off-kilter. On screen, a human hand grabbed his right fin and exposed his flat, scoop-like anomaly. He kicked free. The shaky, dark images lost him in deeper water.

Many humans commented on this story. It replayed over and over.

New photos joined the Duyung mer. Blurry images in black and white and sepia hinted at city shapes. More serious humans sat at desks and talked. Diagrams of the ocean meshed over drawings of human lungs and fish gills.

Then, finally, a picture of Lucy.

Torun stopped fighting the glass and watched the screen. Sad humans tossed flowers into the ocean. An older man hugged a crying woman. Lucy’s parents? A still picture showed her again.

She was below the sea. With that Blake.

He screamed and pounded the glass.

The videos changed to show him. On the deck of her boat and in Cancun.

He quieted.

Her friend, Mel, spoke on the TV. Her eyes and nose were red. The family Torun had met in the restaurant ranged around her.

He held his breath. Mel’s words barely penetrated the glass.

“Now that we know mermen actually exist, I think we’re going to find her.” She sniffed. “Lucy’s coming home.”

The newsroom anchors cut in with a sudden announcement.

“New videos have just been posted to the Facebook page of the missing, presumed dead diver Lucy Shaw. They are dated from two weeks ago, the date of her disappearance. I repeat, these videos have just been posted.”

The videos were black. Perhaps there was muted audio? The news replayed them a number of times with different filters, and finally, the cave interior emerged from the gloom. At the sacred pool, under-lit by her flashlight, Lucy herself cupped the diluted elixir and drank. A second video showed her kneeling beside the lip of the cave and fumbling with the phone so it focused on the ceiling. The video skipped, and then feet walked past.

The anchors froze the end of the video, blew it up, and lightened it.

They were his feet.

And they transformed into fins as he pushed off the floor and leaped into the water.

“This brings up all new questions about the final moments of Lucy Shaw,” the news anchor announced. “We go now to an evolutionary biologist who will attempt to answer how, exactly, feet could be made to do what we’ve just seen.”

The evolutionary biologist began to speak.

Torun slid down the glass wall and thumped on the ground.

The mer had been exposed.

Lucy’s videos showed over and over. Torun’s frozen feet-to-fins transition interlaced with the injured young mer.

There. It was done. They were exposed.

Torun had wished to find willing brides to join with mer warriors. He had not intended to ask the entire world. His action had led to this result.

When would Lucy return? Torun paced the cell. She must return. An empty-souled man would not defeat her. She would return, release him, and Torun would rip Blake’s arms off.

A shadow moved on the stairs.

Torun faced the shadow. It was not Lucy’s. “Show yourself.”

Warlord Ailan stepped through the door.

“Release me.” Torun slammed the locked, sealed door. “Now.”

The warrior narrowed on him in fury. “I will not.”

A trident prodded Ailan in the back. Ailan snarled at the male behind him: Prince Jolan.

Jolan still had bruises and cuts, but he wielded the weapon with grace. “Warlord Ailan. Apologize for your actions.”

“Forgive me, Prince Jolan.” Ailan spit the words. “I cannot humble myself before a traitor. And if all you have told me is true, why do I feel no grief for our Life Tree? It cannot be dead. You must be lying.”

“You do not feel grief because the Life Tree has already reseeded itself.”

Torun pressed against the glass. “Truly?”

Jolan nodded. “In this warlord’s castle.”

Ailan shook. “Impossible!”

Jolan knelt, his trident still aimed at Ailan, and showed his respect to Torun. “What is your will, King Torun?”

Incredible. His feelings…that the Life Tree had selected his house to bless with the new seed, that one had managed to be planted and take root despite his own being stolen in the attack…

No. He must not disappear into the exaltation of having done right, and being rewarded by the Life Tree.

“Find Lucy,” he ordered.

“The human male swims this direction. Loudly, and slow.”

“He is alone?”

The former prince nodded.

Lucy must have escaped. “Find her. She will want to watch the felling of her foe.” He darkened. “My prey.”

Jolan rose, called the order up the stairs, and received a response. He returned to Torun. “We must free you.”

“I prefer to meet my would-be attacker in this place. Pierce only the glass.”

Jolan pushed the incredulous Ailan out of his way and positioned his gleaming, sharp trident near the door lock.

“No, an inconspicuous place. Here, in the corner.” Torun directed the deception. The glass broke with a sharp pop. “You, Ailan. Operate the cell phone camera.”

“Camera? You would expose us all.”

“We are already revealed to the world. Look!”

The others turned to the television screen. A scientist flexed a model of a human foot encased in a fin. The drawing of the injured mer youth showed in the background.

Ailan made a noise. “That is a loyal guard-in-training from Java. He has exposed us.”

“He exposed the Duyung warriors,” Jolan said. “You exposed Sireno.”

“Torun exposed us when he stole another male’s bride!”

“No, Ailan.” Torun took the tone he had used many times when correcting Ailan and his other warrior trainees. “The dark-souled Blake saw these pictures and called to you. You exposed Sireno. Now, he has desecrated our sacred church.”

Ailan growled and shook his head hard. Being wrong struck him harder than other males. “You lie! His soul is dark because his bride was taken by you. He is right to kill you.”

“He is wrong to try.” But Torun hoped he would. His trident would carve symbols of justice into Blake’s unworthy hide. “You will record it.”

Ailan tilted the cell phone. His curiosity about the device outweighed his judgment. He had always liked learning about new things.

“Can you not operate the cell phone?” Torun gestured. “Bring it here.”

“Why do you know how?” Ailan put the phone up to the glass.

“My queen operates hers often. I have seen it many times.” Torun made Ailan navigate to the square with the blue F symbol, press multiple “OK” buttons for things he did not understand, and finally pressed the red circle. Torun’s image appeared moving on the screen. “Now, we record.”

At the stairs, Jolan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “My king. Your prey is coming.”

Ailan’s held the cell phone uncertainly. Then, he hardened and growled.

“This is madness. The Council declared you a traitor.” Ailan placed the phone on the metal desk. “I will not obey.”

Curse him. When Torun got out of here, Ailan would also feel the slice of his blades.

“Jolan, take the camera and point it at me,” Torun ordered.

Jolan snatched the cell phone and hid behind the equipment pile. The camera appeared at the side, in shadow, pointed at Torun.

“Ailan, you are a worthless, frightened male. Hide and see how the human has acted with your aid.“

Grumbling, Ailan at least moved to a hiding place.

Blake lugged a large bag of Sea Opals down the stairs. They crashed with every step. The other mer shifted angrily in their hiding places.

Torun slouched against the glass cage, feigning lowered consciousness. He moaned.

“Still alive, eh?” Blake dropped the Sea Opals. They clinked helplessly.

How dare he?

Blake opened the desk, sniffed more white powder, and ate a candy bar. He chewed with his mouth open.

Torun made his voice deliberately weak. “Where is Lucy?”

“What?”

He repeated himself, forcing the man to come closer to the cage. They needed to be in the same shot.

“I left her zip-tied in the cave.”

He would rip the male’s throat out.

“You promised to release us,” Torun said.

“I did no such thing.” Blake grinned. “I promised not to harpoon you. And I’ll keep that promise.” He unlocked his desk, set the key on it, and removed a small, black handgun. “I didn’t say anything about shooting you and tossing your body overboard.”

“Murderer.” Torun tensed his body, forcing himself still.

Blake hesitated. He approached the fiberglass and put the key in the door. Then, he stepped back without unlocking it. “Maybe I’ll let you suffocate before I put a bullet in you.”

Torun tried to look more helpless.

Blake must have sensed something was wrong. He backed away from the door. “Right. I’ve got all the time in the world. I’ll shoot you off the Keys.”

He started to leave. Their time was over.

Torun leaped to his feet and slammed his body against the cage wall. “Ailan!”

Blake startled badly.

Ailan raced across the room behind Blake’s turned back, grabbed the Sea Opals, and dragged the bag up the stairs. He might not believe in Torun, but he did believe in his duty to protect their shared treasure.

Blake struggled up and staggered to the stairs. He screamed and disappeared into the stairwell. His feet pounded the metal. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all, you fish-blooded bastards!”

Jolan emerged from his hiding place, still recording, and turned the key left behind in the door lock.

Torun emerged and took the camera. His image loomed large as the live recording continued.

“Humans, hear me. We wish to be friends. Many have shown me kindness. Your female Lucy has accepted her role as our queen. But this man you have seen, Blake, tried to kill my Lucy for his greed. I do not know if he will face your justice. If she is harmed, he will first face mine.”

Torun set the phone on the desk and started for the deck.

Oh. One more thing. He spoke into the phone again. “We will gift our mating jewels, which you call Sea Opals, to women who will join our world in kindness and friendship, and love, and become our queens.”

Jolan nodded.

Torun stopped the recording and set down the cell phone. “Where is Lucy?”

“We will find her, my king. What of our enemy?”

Shots erupted from the deck.

Torun took Ailan’s trident. Now, he would put down the man who had injured his Lucy and dimmed her soul. “Pray for him.”