Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  23

  Sacrifice

  Any plans I was formulating on how to deal with the situation had to be put on hold as Hayden barreled through my door just minutes after my mother had left.

  “What do you think you are doing?” I demanded. “This is my room. You can’t just walk in here.”

  “Why not? I’ve never had to wait for an invitation in the past.”

  The way he spoke, his lips pulled back in a sneer, I could tell he was angry.

  “Because things were different then.”

  They were too. All the times that Hayden had been in my room, and there had been many, were innocent. Just a couple of friends hanging out together. Just as recently as a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have questioned Hayden walking into my room without asking. Now it seemed wrong somehow.

  He sat on the bed, just as he had always done, and picked up the unicorn Ari had been picking at. “Why are they different, Erica?” His voice was full of venom. No wonder Astrid was feeling miserable if Hayden was behaving the same way with her too.

  “They just are,” I answered lamely. Things had changed because of Ari, and we both knew it.

  “They just are,” Hayden repeated back slowly. I watched as he began to pull the stitching from the unicorn. It wasn’t deliberate; it was almost as though he was doing it in a trance. The poor unicorn wasn’t going to survive the week with all the stress people were feeling.

  “What is this all about, Hayden? Why are you so angry all of a sudden?”

  He stopped picking at the stitches and looked up at me. “Don’t you know? How is it possible that we have been friends for so long, and you don’t know the first damn thing about me?”

  “No, I don’t know. You’ve been acting like an ass for days. Poor Astrid is upset, and you won’t tell either of us what the matter is.”

  He stood up, throwing the unicorn onto the bed. He strode over to me and grabbed my shoulders forcefully. I sucked in my breath quickly, thinking he was going to hit me, but he drew me in towards him and kissed me violently, crushing my lips with his. Before I had any time to react, he turned around and marched out of the door leaving me alone and shell-shocked.

  It took me a good few minutes to get my breathing back to its regular pace and try to comprehend what just happened.

  I ran to my door and looked out. Hayden was nowhere to be seen. Without bothering to put any shoes on, I dashed down the corridor and down the stairs. I caught up with him arguing with the guard at the doorway to the balcony outside.

  “Please let us through,” I said to the guard sweetly. “I promise we won’t go far.”

  The guard gave me an odd look, but he let the pair of us pass. Hayden stomped out onto the balcony and down the stairs to the promenade. He was like a small boy having a temper tantrum.

  “Hayden, wait.” I tried to keep up with him, my bare feet cold on the paved surface.

  He turned to me, his face as dark as thunder.

  “I’m going with my father tomorrow. He is riding a few miles up the coast to where the sea is unaffected, and there, he’ll meet his ships. Then, we will rid Trifork of those abominations.”

  Inside, I was seething. Who was he to call Ari and his kind abominations?

  “Up until a few days ago, you didn’t even know that merpeople existed.”

  “Well, I do now,” he huffed.

  I glared at him, unable to comprehend where all this was coming from. Hayden was usually the most inclusive person I knew. I hated the words I knew were about to come out of my mouth, but I shouted them anyway. “You are doing this because of Ari. This has nothing to do with anyone else. You are jealous of him. I just don’t understand why. What has happened that you suddenly care who I’m with?”

  “How could you possibly choose someone like him over me?” He shot back. “He’s not even human for goodness sake.”

  I tried keeping my voice low and even. I didn’t want everyone overhearing this conversation, not my half anyway. I was pretty sure the people in the next kingdom could hear Hayden. “I didn’t choose anyone over you. You’ve never shown any interest in me. You’ve been dating Astrid for months. I thought you were happy with her. You certainly seemed like it. You never shut up about her.”

  He sighed and sucked in his breath as though I was being deliberately stupid.

  “How can you say I’ve never shown any interest in you? I spent every day with you. Every single day for years!”

  “We were friends,” I countered, beginning to feel angry myself now. My lips felt bruised where he had kissed them.

  “Friends?” he laughed, though it wasn’t a laugh of mirth. He sat on the low wall, his back to the rocks and the sand.

  I walked over to where he was sitting and sat beside him, not quite daring to sit too closely for fear of how he’d take it.

  “Yes, friends. How was I supposed to know that you liked me in that way? You never said anything.”

  “I kissed you.”

  I wracked my brains to the last time he’d kissed me. “That was in fifth grade. We were children.”

  He hung his head low.

  “What about Astrid?” I asked him.

  “I only dated her, so you’d be jealous. I acted all happy around you, so you’d want me.”

  “I was happy for you both. I thought you were too.”

  “Well, that’s just great. You were happy for us both.”

  He looked so lost and yet so angry. I’d never seen him like this before. I wanted to rant and rave at him. It was hardly my fault that he’d not worked up the courage to tell me how he felt. We’d known each other for years, and his proclamation of us spending every day together, while not exactly true, wasn’t that far off the mark. We did spend an inordinate amount of time together.

  Instead of shouting I placed my hand on his. “I’m sorry. Maybe if you’d have told me sooner, things would have been different, but the truth is, you have Astrid, and she really loves you.”

  “And you are dating a sea monster.”

  I chose to let that one slide. “I’m dating Ari, yes.”

  I waited for Hayden to speak, but he didn’t. He kept his eyes straight down at the ground.

  “What can I do?” I asked gently.

  “You can leave him. Leave him and stop this thing.”

  I wondered if by this thing, he meant the war between the kings of Havfrue and Trifork.

  My thoughts turned to what Ari had told me about the two of us being bonded. I couldn’t leave him if I wanted to, and I really didn’t want to. To pretend otherwise, even to stop a war, would be unfair to Hayden.

  “I can’t do that Hayden. I’m sorry. I love him.”

  Almost immediately, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. He ripped his hand from mine and stood up.

  “Well, I hope you had the chance to say goodbye to him because after tomorrow, he won’t exist anymore. My father will see to it.” He stormed off leaving me alone once again. I guess no one had told him that Ari was in the hospital wing in the palace, not that it mattered. Hayden and his father were still going to either kill or be killed tomorrow. It only made me more determined to set out to put my plan into action tonight. First, I needed to get changed. I headed back up the stairs quickly. Just as I was about to head back into the palace, I caught the outline of someone in the shadows. Someone who didn’t want to be seen. They were weeping softly. I could have imagined it, but I was sure I saw a hint of green hair.

  After everything that had happened with Hayden, once I got changed, I headed down to the infirmary. I needed to see Ari, even though I knew he’d be sleeping. I needed his presence beside me as I decompressed from the massive fall out with Hayden. I stayed for a few hours, watching him sleep, the rise and fall of his chest beneath the covers. In the short space of the time that I’d known him, he’d become everything to me. No one, not even Hayden, would spend his life in pain just to be with me. I wouldn’t want him to either, just like I didn’t want Ari to. Enough was enough. T
oo many lives had been impacted by the sea witch’s actions already, and even though my grandfather treated me like dirt when I went to warn him, tomorrow the whole of Havfrue would be blown to smithereens if I didn’t do something quickly.

  Just after midnight, I slipped away from the infirmary, gently kissing Ari’s cheek before I left. He didn’t stir. I slipped off my mother’s necklace, the ruby of Havfrue and left it on his bedside table. I knew it was the only thing I had to keep me safe from the witch but keeping safe wasn’t my main agenda. Whatever drugs the nurse had administered to Ari had sent him into a deep sleep which was just as well. I didn’t want him waking and trying to stop me.

  There were more guards than I thought there would be on the shorefront, but it was a cloudy night, and the moon kept disappearing behind them, pitching us all into darkness. I just had to wait until one of the clouds hovered in front of the moon before making a dash for it. I ran as fast as my feet would carry me, doing my best to dodge rocks and slippery seaweed. Ari had pointed out where the sea witch lived, to the left of Havfrue. I didn’t need to worry about swimming to her, I only had to dip my toes in the ocean near her cave, to have her come to find me. The water sounded so gentle as tiny waves lapped at my feet, that it was almost impossible to imagine the horror of what I was about to face.

  At the sea line, I strode purposefully into the ocean, waiting for the blackness to appear. I wouldn’t see it. It was so dark out that all the ocean looked black, but I knew she would come, and when she did, I’d be able to breathe underwater. At least, that’s what I told myself as I allowed my body to slip below the briny surface.

  It didn’t take long. Less than twenty seconds after submerging myself, I felt the strong current pulling me away from the shore. Another few seconds, and I was breathing quite normally under the water. A tentacle wrapped itself around my arm, terrifying me as it pulled me through the water. This was no octopus, though. This was the sea witch.

  Her cave looked the same as it had the last time I’d been there, but this time, I knew I wasn’t going to escape. I’d already decided that tonight was the night I was going to die, and I’d made my peace with it.

  The greenish purple walls looked even more eerie, knowing that this was to be my final resting place.

  “I didn’t expect you to come here again,” the sea witch eyed me up as she let go of my arm. Her eyes darted down to where the necklace had been around my neck, and I noticed she kept her distance.

  “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to surrender myself. This is what it’s always been about. Right from the very start, you wanted me. Well, now you have me.” I made a step toward her, but she kicked off the ground using her tentacles and floated backward, kicking up some sand as she did.

  Her brows drew together. “Why?” she asked, keeping a safe distance from me. Her hair, or should I say Astrid’s hair floated about her, the only beautiful part she had. I wondered what part of me she’d steal. Maybe all of me. I pushed the thought to the back of my head.

  “I’ll give myself to you on a couple of conditions,” I announced keeping still so as not to shock her.

  She arched a brow. “What conditions?”

  “Firstly, I’m here in payment for my mother’s legs. She promised you her firstborn, and here I am. Now that you have me, I want you to stay clear of Trifork and any of my family. I want my brother to be able to swim freely in the ocean in a way that I never was.”

  “Some would say that would be a fair swap and no other conditions should be attached,” she mused aloud.

  “Maybe, but you’ve hurt a lot of people, and even though I haven’t known you to play fair, I think you believe that one exchange deserves another. You took Astrid’s hair without giving her anything in return. By your own rules, you owe her something.”

  I had no idea if this was true. She’d certainly demanded something back from my mother and had swapped with Ari – his voice for his legs. I had a feeling that there was an interest in fairness within her somewhere.

  I could feel my heart beating rapidly beneath my breast. Issuing demands to a sea witch was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. But knowing that I was planning on ending my life here, being strong and standing my ground was easier than I expected it to be.

  “Secondly, I want you to put the water back. The people of Havfrue and the people of Trifork have not wronged you. If you leave the water out, they are planning on war. I don’t want anyone else being hurt. You have to leave the city of Havfrue alone. You’ve caused enough damage there.”

  She nodded.

  “Finally, I want you to stop the pain in Ari’s legs and give him his voice back.”

  “You are asking a lot, young lady. What makes you think that you are worth it?”

  I’d been thinking about it a lot ever since she’d been scared by the necklace. My grandfather was a powerful man—the most powerful man in the ocean. When his eldest daughter came to her all those years ago, it must have been a dream come true for the witch. A young woman full of the power of the ocean, willing to give her anything she wanted in exchange for legs. She could have taken anything, but knowing that she would live a long time, to get someone even younger with the same royal power, she had decided to wait for the princess to have a baby. A baby, she could watch grow and feed off her power. When the time was right, she’d steal her body parts and use them for her own. Then, and only then, she would be equal to the king.

  “You cannot beat the king without me. I know you’ve tried. You might have been able to do it with my mother, but your magic doesn’t work like that. You can’t take without giving. Well, you gave my mother her legs; you can take me without consequences.”

  Of course, there would be consequences, but not to her magic. I knew what I was doing would risk the town of Havfrue. If she used me to become all powerful and try to take over, I’d only be swapping one problem for the king for another.

  What the sea witch didn’t know was that I had no powers. She’d seen me with the necklace and believed it was me that controlled it. But the truth of the matter was, the necklace was powerful without my help. I hadn’t done anything the last time I’d been here. The necklace had worked all on its own. By the time the witch figured that out, the water would be back to where it should be, and Ari would no longer be in pain. At least, that was the plan.

  The sea witch nodded her head again as she circled around me. The weird water in her cave seemed to have no effect on her as she swam through it, keeping an eye on me.

  “Ok,” she said, accepting my offer. “You ask a lot of me, but you are right. I’ve taken without giving, and that is unacceptable to me. I will do everything that you ask, but first, you must remove that necklace.”

  I pulled my shirt down slightly to show her that I was no longer wearing it. “I left it back at the palace.”

  The way she looked at me sent shivers down my spine. Her eyes crinkled up at the edges in glee as she realized I was completely helpless against her.

  She waved her hands about, disturbing the water around her, sending ripples through it that tickled my cheeks. I felt the magic force all around me, but I had no way of knowing just what magic she’d done.

  “I’ve done everything you asked,” she said once the magical disturbance died down. “Now, come to me.”

  “I need to see it for myself first,” I demanded.

  She wrapped a tentacle around my arm and pulled me up through the hole in the ceiling to the surface. Even with the night being as dark as it was, it was easy to see the reflections in the water of the palace lights, and of the other buildings that were dotted along the shorefront.

  “There you have it,” she said, a tone of amusement in her voice. “The sea is back to normal. Your boyfriend is the same. He’ll be pain-free by tomorrow morning. I have also given him his voice back. I believe that’s everything you asked. More than you asked for even.”

  I nodded. I’d saved my family. I’d saved Ari. The people of Havfrue would st
ill have to deal with her, but she wouldn’t be any more powerful than she was now, no matter what parts of me she took. In the eighteen years I’d been alive, I’d shown no promise of having any magic. I was sure to be a huge disappointment to her, and that’s what I was gambling on. I closed my eyes as the witch pulled me back beneath the surface. Back inside her cave, I stood and waited for whatever she had in store for me.

  The shock on her face was evident. I think she was waiting for some kind of trick that never came.

  “You really came here to give yourself to me? I was expecting a fight.”

  I nodded slowly, suddenly feeling the enormity of what I’d done. I slowly took a step towards her, my arms outstretched in front of me.

  A menacing smile erupted on her lips as I closed the gap between us.

  “There is just one more piece of magic I’d like you to perform,” I said, taking a step backward. What with everything else I’d asked for, I’d almost forgotten the most important bit of all. “This magic is not to rectify something you have done. It’s...it’s a favor to me.”

  She laughed, but I could see she was intrigued. I was pretty sure she’d do it for me. She had nothing to gain by not doing so.

  “Ari and I are bonded. I want you to cut the bond, so he may live after I die.”

  I saw her thinking it through. “Why would I do that? It will benefit me in no way.”

  “I’m giving myself to you, all of me. You don’t need Ari. You took his voice and didn’t use it. You barely used any of the crew of the Erica Rose. You want to be beautiful.”

  “It’s a shame,” she mused taking a step toward me and running her hands through my fiery red hair. “I’d have preferred this color, but it would be such a shame to waste this beautiful blonde hair I already have. I’ll take your legs, of course. Tentacles are handy for getting around the ocean, but oh, so cumbersome on land.”