The Rising

by Terra Harmony

Chapter Thirty-Three

  Serena turns to leave, a quick bob of her head sufficing for a departing curtsey to the king.

  "Wait!" Murphy calls after her. "I will escort you there!"

  "Any escort will need to get their own damn permission," she yells over her shoulder, not stopping.

  There is a flurry of Undine talking over one another—Kai and Murphy, among others. As she exits the Great Hall, all she can hear is the king saying, "permission denied."

  Serena smiles as she turns the corner.

  She is to the archives in record time. She runs into the cavern of books, dripping wet with her robe in one hand and slippers in the other. "Mariam!"

  Mariam is not at the catalogues. Serena runs to the first of the shelves, circling them.

  "Mariam!"

  She is stumbling into her slippers when Mariam emerges from the orca section, three books balanced in one arm and an open book in another. "What is it, child?"

  "He gave me permission." Serena is red-faced, and out of breath. She doesn't actually have proof, finally wondering if she should have waited for a scroll or something. Surely Mariam knows Serena would not lie to her, least of all about the King's Library. If Mariam allowed unauthorized entry, she would lose her job.

  Mariam makes a pointed glance at the robe, still draped over Serena's arm.

  "Oh," Serena mumbles, slipping on the robe.

  Mariam is still staring at her.

  Serena's eyes jump from Mariam to the darkened entry of the King's Library, and back.

  Mariam sighs. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

  "Yes!" It is all she can do to keep herself from shoving Mariam toward the section. Shifting from one foot to another, Serena is practically hopping by the time Mariam walks to one of the walls.

  Mariam unravels a cord strung around a nail, then pulls. A metal sheet slides open above the restricted area, filling it with light. The dust is so thick, you can see speckles floating in the air.

  Serena pauses by the sign that reads 'restricted'. Running her finger over the three holes made by her trident when she was with Kai, Serena looks in the room again. Her hand drops to her side and she takes a tentative step forward amidst the settling dust. Although the restricted section is lined with shelves, the books are sparse. Serena could make her way through them in a month, tops.

  "I thought it'd be bigger than this," Serena says, laying her hand upon one of the larger, hardback books. It is the Ancestral Book of the Undine, listing family lineages all the way back to the very first Undine, Atargatis, the Lady Goddess of the Sea.

  Mom, Serena thinks. I could find out more…

  Mariam sighs and walks into the room, pulling Serena from her thoughts. She pushes against the back wall on one side. It moves, slowly. A hidden door scrapes against cave floor. Mariam reaches inside, and tugs on another cord. Light protrudes from the room behind the half open door. Coughing at the plume of dust that floats out, Mariam turns back to Serena.

  "This section was added after the Maiden's Massacre. The king selected one single book to be moved to his library, but wanted it hidden better."

  Serena nods. This was the first door she's ever seen in Society.

  Mariam exits, holding one arm out. Serena is clear to enter.

  Serena moves her hand off the Ancestral Book, and steps forward. She knows exactly where she needs to start.

  She walks past the rest of the shelves, and squeezes through the small space in the open door.

  The dust in here hasn't had time to settle yet, and Serena coughs. Light filters down from the forest floor above illuminating a table in the middle of the room. On it lies one thick book. There is no title, nor cover pictures or markings that tell her the subject matter.

  Serena opens the book. The first few pages are blank. No table of contents, author's note, or forward. But on the next page is a simple drawing of the wolfsbane flower. All at once, Serena remembers why she is here. Her fate did not lead her down the path of Archives Assistant—she is the Werewolf Liaison, and nothing will change that. Not even Liam, pinning her down and shifting into a werewolf directly over her.

  The book begins with a verse directly under the flower:

  A simple beginning

  a life-altering change

  fins and scales

  to fur and fangs

  Serena freezes, mouth dropping open. She closes the book, picks it up, and brings it with her. Outside the King's Library, Mariam is standing by the catalogues.

  "That didn't take long," Mariam says, setting down a book at the table.

  "Of course not," says Serena. "It's right here on the first page, under the flower. Werewolves are made from Undine?"

  Mariam takes a few steps closer. "Those words should never be spoken, and this book should never come out of the King's Library." Mariam turns Serena around by her shoulders, and pushes her forward.

  Serena digs in her heels, resisting the forced momentum. "Did we make the werewolves?"

  Mariam stops.

  "I mean, I knew we made them, but not from our own kind."

  The mentor sighs, shoulders drooping. She is not shocked by the news. She has read the book. Serena wonders who else has.

  "Where do you think all of our males go?" Mariam asks.

  "I thought they all died in the battles fought after the Maiden's Massacre."

  "Those old enough went to battle. But there were very few male Undine to begin with, which has been the case for a while now. Before the massacre, we only kept the biggest ones."

  Serena's mouth drops open even more.

  "Well, go on then. Might as well ask me any questions you have. It'd be faster than plugging through that thing." Mariam motions to the book.

  "Fins and scales to fur and fangs," Serena repeats. "No wonder they rose up against us. We abandoned them as babies."

  Mariam places her finger to her lips, then glances over her shoulder, as if someone would choose now of all times to enter the largely unoccupied archives.

  "Male Undine calflings very often didn't survive three moons past their birth. They were weak, and so small. The female Undine showed ill effects as well, like their webbing…" Mariam gestures to Serena's feet. "But the majority made it. Whatever was changing us didn't seem to affect females as badly."

  Serena sits down at the same table Ervin fell asleep on, inebriated with jasmine and chamomile tea. She wishes she had some now.

  Mariam continues, "Times became desperate. Most of the elderly called it 'Poseidon's Curse'. Said we didn't respect the old gods like Society used to. All available maidens went through The Selection—we didn't have a choice. I, myself, lost three calflings."

  Serena glances up. Mariam ran the palm of one hand up and down her arm, her eyes on the floor.

  Mariam shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "It was too much. We were all under stress. The Ungainly began to get closer. Some tour company wanted to set up shop. We needed protection—and time. Hailey's predecessor came up with the potion. It didn't work, at first, but it was tweaked. The details are in that book, there."

  Serena looks down at the closed book underneath her hands.

  "It changed them to something that could survive outside the water, though transformations still took place. Different…transformations."

  Serena shudders, remembering just how different their transformations are.

  "Our first was handed to an Ungainly we trusted, who owns a dive shop near the shore. He kept his divers away from us, and has been chasing away other dive shops for years."

  "You mean, a maiden just gave up her baby to some Ungainly?"

  Mariam looks at Serena with a hard stare. "You can watch only so many of your own babies die before you decide to do something drastic." Mariam grasps Serena's arm. "The calfling would've died if we hadn't. But with the Ungainly—and the transformations—the calfling survived. And what's more, he grew big, and fast. He turned only on the full moons and seemed drawn to the water, but would never ente
r."

  Serena swallows, finally ready to ask a question. "How did they come to be our guards?"

  Mariam smiles. "That was his Undine mother's doing. It was a solution to unite with our sons at least once during every moon cycle, and it became considered good luck to have their blessing for more healthy sons."

  "So why did the werewolves decide to revolt?"

  Mariam sits next to Serena at the table, her pinky brushing the spine of the book. "There are several theories. I don’t think anyone knows for sure."

  "What do you think?" Serena prodded.

  Mariam starts slowly, "The only thing our desperate times did was add more and more babies to their clan. Even the dive shop owner could not keep them all. When the first few grew old enough, they moved out and started the camp you saw. More and more babies were sent directly to the camp for raising. The clan grew strong. They organized, and adjusted well to Ungainly life—we did not." She takes a deep breath.

  "I think they felt held back by their obligations to us. And you have to remember, there were a lot of emotions involved. Families were separated; grudges held. It isn't easy to lose a child, nor is it easy to learn you've been abandoned. But you have to understand—we couldn't have done it any other way." Mariam looks at Serena, resting half her palm over Serena's and half on the book. "They would've died, otherwise."

  "Don't they know that? Why would it have gone so far as to lead to the Maiden's Massacre?" Serena's forehead creases in wrinkles.

  Mariam pushes back from the table and stands. "That is something only the wolves can answer." She turns to walk to the catalogues, pausing halfway. "The wolves…and perhaps the king."