Without thinking, I rubbed the place on my arm where Lysander had touched me that day with his wet fingers. The burns had become shiny, salmon-colored patches of new skin, then faded away. Only the faintest of scars remained.
If I threw myself into the sea, would it hurt? Would I feel pain first, or would I simply slip under the water and disappear?
The sea could wash away all the disappointment. It could take away the anger, the despair, and the constant ache of loss I'd felt ever since Lysander said he didn't love me. It could do all that, if only I were brave enough.
Did I have the courage to take that final step?
I would count to three in my head. Then I would find out.
One.
I inched forward on the rock until my toes lined up with the edge closest to the sea. My torn feet left dark smudges of blood on the stone. I clamped my eyes shut.
Two.
I took a breath of air and held it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A voice called my name. Father's voice.
The surprise of it almost sent me toppling into the water. I flailed my arms, caught my balance, and managed to straighten up again. Father stood in the waves less than two tail-lengths from the shore. He clutched a spear tipped with razor-sharp iron. With his beard streaming and his hair plastered to his head he looked like Poseidon himself. His gills flapped as the water emptied from his lungs. If he hadn't boasted such a dear, familiar face, his fierce expression might have frightened me.
"Father!" I cried. He swam closer . Water still trickled from his beard and glistened on his skin in the failing light. I wanted nothing more than the chance to fall into his arms, but I forced myself to take a step back. "If only I could touch you, Father. If only you could hold me."
"I will, Nyx, soon enough."
While I puzzled over Father's words, Thetis bobbed up behind him. Grandmother surfaced near her, and then my other sisters -- Ino, Galatea, Nysa, and Amphitrite. My whole family had come to see me. Thetis was crying. Grandmother's face bore a strange, tight expression. Even Galatea looked grim.
There was something different about all of them. It took a moment to sink in. I gasped. "What have you done to your hair, your beautiful hair?"
Thetis raised her hand and touched her shorn locks. Her dark curls had once fallen to her waist in a glorious tangle. Now I could see her pale scalp through the short, wispy spikes that remained. All of my sisters, and my grandmother, too, were similarly shorn.
"It's nothing, Nyx," Thetis said. I couldn't tell whether the glistening beads on her face were seawater or tears. "It was necessary for the spell. We would have done anything to get you back."
I fell to my knees on the rock. "Get me back? But -- but I can't ever come back to the sea. Don't you know I'd give anything -- do anything -- if I could? The sea sorceress said I could never --"
My grandmother broke in. "She found a way."
Father nodded. "I couldn't bear to lose you, Nyx. When you disappeared --"
"He turned the kingdom upside down," Grandmother said.
"The sea sorceress told us everything," Thetis added.
I frowned. "You went to her?"
"Yes," Father said, "yes, I went to the sea sorceress. I begged, pleaded, and bargained until she agreed to help us. In the end, I promised her a full pardon and a house of her own near the palace. Little enough, after all. I'd have given her my kingdom if she'd asked."
There was just one more thing I didn't understand. "Why? Why would you do all this, when I'm not even your child?"
Father's face crumpled. "I'm sorry you had to hear that old story from a stranger."
"Is it true? Everything she told me?"
He lifted his head and looked at me with eyes that burned bright as the sun. "I didn't tell you because it doesn't matter. You may not be the child of my body, but you're the daughter of my heart, Nyx. I love you. I couldn't possibly love you more. Don't you know that?"
Slowly, I nodded. I did know it. I had only forgotten.
"You'll never know how much I missed you, Nyx," Father said. "We all did. Now it's time for you to come home."
Home. The word spread warm fingers of contentment through my body. Home, Father's palace under the sea, with my family gathered around me. Home, where I was a princess again, not a stranger without a name. Home, where Lysander was nothing but a distant ache, a long-ago sorrow nearly forgotten.
"Yes," I said. "Please, Father, I do want to come home."
"You shall, child, I promise. There is just one thing you must do. One small sacrifice." He brought his hand up from under the water. A slim iron knife glinted in the sun. He laid it on the stone to dry.
"Shall I, too, cut off my hair? That's not such a sacrifice." I fingered my long locks with only a brief twinge of regret. It was only hair. It would grow back.
Father shook his head. "No, my dear. It's not that simple. Poseidon requires that you choose between Athena's humans and his own creatures of the sea. For the sea sorceress' spell to work, you must prove your loyalty."
"I'll do anything."
"The boy, the human you fell in love with. Before the sun rises in the morning, you must slay him."
By the time I crept back up the hill to the villa, it was nearly midnight. A sliver of new moon hung in the sky. Cool breezes swept away the day's heat. Lysander ought to be sleeping by now, worn out from the day's festivities. I concealed the enchanted knife in the folds of my dress. The mother-of-pearl hilt shone against my palm. The blade was as long as my forearm and as slender as my little finger.
At first, I'd recoiled in shock at Father's words. Kill Lysander? How could I be cruel enough to murder someone I'd loved -- still loved, perhaps, underneath my pain and anger? How could I rob him of his life while he slept?
For hours, my family had pleaded and reasoned with me.
"He's only a human boy," Thetis argued. "It's not like he's one of us, one of the merfolk."
"You owe him nothing," Grandmother added. "Your allegiance must lie with us, your family. We are the ones who suffered from your running away."
"Please, Nyx," Father said. "You must kill him. It's the only way I'll ever hold you in my arms again."
At first I was angry. I could not believe they had made such a bargain. I was the one who would have to commit a brutal murder, not Father or Thetis. It was an evil act and I could not do it. I told them this with heated words and cold silences. But they would not be silenced.
Slowly, gradually, hardly knowing how it happened, I let them win me over. I felt cornered by the decisions I had already made. Kill Lysander, or let him live and spend the rest of my life trapped on Theros -- neither choice was pleasant, but looking into Father's despairing blue eyes, I knew what I had to do.
Now I stood at the villa's gate and listened. I heard nothing. Earlier I had watched most of the party guests trickle back down the hill to the village. Those who had stayed were apparently fast asleep, drugged by the wine, the heat, and the banquet's rich food.
Lysander and his bride slept in the guest chambers at the back of the villa. I'd watched as Corinna prepared the rooms. Closing my eyes for an instant, I pictured the bedchamber and the position of the sleeping couch.
I unlatched the gate and slipped through onto the portico. Gnawed bones and bits of refuse littered the flagstones, the remains of the celebration. I pressed myself close to the wall of the verandah rather than openly crossing the cobbled courtyard. I tiptoed past the kitchen and down the long hallway that connected the guest chambers with the main house. Briefly, I remembered how, less than a week before, I'd crept into Lysander's room. That time I'd tried to win his heart. This time, though I knew it was wrong, I would stop its beating.
In front of his door, I faltered. My knees trembled so hard I almost needed to sit down. My grip loosened on the hilt of the knife, and I drew
out the blade, switched hands, and wiped my sweaty palm on the side of my tunic.
From behind me, in the main house, I heard a shuffling step and a man's muffled cough. I stood frozen in the shadows for the longest moment of my life. Then the footsteps turned away, toward the kitchen. I let out my breath in a long, quiet, shaky sigh of relief. I crouched down and waited. Minutes later, I heard the footsteps in reverse. Someone had gone for a late-night snack. A door opened, then closed. Silence fell again.
I heard Father's voice echo in my head: "You're the daughter of my heart, Nyx. I love you." It gave me the will to go on. I gripped the door handle, eased it open, and stepped into the bedroom where Lysander slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Lysander sprawled over the sleeping couch. Lenaea lay with him, her arms looped around his neck, her slim body pressed to his. The blankets had fallen away. Her hair fanned out into a halo over the pillows. She smiled in her sleep.
I hated her for holding him. I hated him for looking so happy in her embrace.
At that moment, I wanted to kill Lenaea, too. I wanted to hear her cry out, see the fear on her face, smell the salty scent of her blood as it splashed the bed and pooled on the floor. Then, as quickly as the urge overtook me, it was gone. It left me shaking with horror. The one murder I planned was terrible enough.
I crept toward the couch. Watery moonlight played over Lysander's face. He would die quickly, in his sleep, on the happiest night of his life. One could even say I did him a favor. Lysander would never grow old. He and Lenaea would never quarrel. She would never nag or badger him, or betray him with another man.
I took the blade from my skirt. The iron glinted in the moonlight. I tested its sharpness by drawing it lightly across my palm, then choked back a gasp as red welled from the hairline cut. I looked back at Lysander's sleeping form. He lay with his head twisted to one side, exposing the artery pulsing with blood at the base of his neck. A picture of the sacrificed bull flashed through my mind.
This would be no different. I, too, made a sacrifice to the gods.
I brought the knife down, ready to make my cut. It must be deep and swift and sure. To steady myself, I tried to picture Father and my sisters. Instead, I saw Corinna kneeling over the body of her only son, her face transfigured by anguish. Lysander would suffer for only a few minutes, but I knew I would sentence Corinna to a lifetime of grief.
Corinna, who took me in, and sang for me when I was ill.
Corinna, who called me daughter.
It was my memories of Lysander's mother that stilled my hand. With a sudden, stifled cry, I turned and fled.
As I closed the bedchamber door, I heard a stirring behind me, and a confused muttering. Swift as a manta ray, I darted back down the long hallway and through the courtyard and out onto the portico. In my haste I let the gate bang behind me. Sharp stones tore open the wounds on my feet, but I did not care. I had to find my family and say goodbye -- goodbye forever, since I'd just given up my only chance to return home.
I flew down the path, stumbling over stones in the dark. The breeze had died and the night was so still that my labored breathing seemed as loud as a shout. A sound in the dark startled me. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw nothing. There -- was that a shadow moving? No, it had disappeared.
It didn't matter. I floundered on. I stubbed my toes and tripped over my own feet. Oh, how I hated this human world. In the water I might have slipped along as gracefully as a dolphin through the waves. Here I bumbled like a clumsy child.
Down the hill I went. I ran as fast as my human legs would carry me. Once I fell and banged my knees. Stones scraped the heels of my palms as I caught myself. I picked myself up again and rushed on. At last, I reached the rocky promontory. The sea lay before me as flat as a sheet of glass. Where were Father, Thetis, Grandmother, and the rest? Had they gone and abandoned me already? Fat tears of self-pity slid down my cheeks. I'd hoped at least to tell them I was sorry.
I did not see Lysander until he dislodged a pebble and sent it bouncing down into the water. I whirled to find him staring at me. Sleep still mussed his hair. He'd fastened the cloth around his waist in a hurry, and now it fell askew. "Little one? What are you doing?" His voice sounded strange -- deeper than usual, and threatening.
I took a step back, toward the sea. "Go away, Lysander. Leave me alone."
Instead, he drew closer, trapping me out on the flat stone. "Not until you explain why you were in my room."
"You followed me."
He nodded. His face was hard, cold, almost cruel. "What's that glittering in your hand, little one? Is it a knife?"
I looked down. I still held the sea sorceress' knife. In my panic, I had forgotten to cast it away.
Lysander took a swift step forward and caught my wrist. His fingers were too strong; I could not pull away. "You were in our room, weren't you? Did you mean to murder us?" Lysander tightened his grip. The small bones in my wrist ground together. I cried out in pain. The knife slipped from my fingers and clattered against smooth stone.
Lysander bent down and picked it up. His grip on my wrist did not loosen. "Did you plan to kill me, little one, because I did not marry you?"
"No," I said. "No, Lysander. I might easily have done it, but I chose to spare you." I blinked, and tears spilled down my cheeks. "Please, let me go."
"Let her go," a deeper voice echoed.
I turned to look. "Father!"
Blood drained from Lysander's face as Father rose from the sea. Father's voice was a mighty roar, his eyes like live coals, his spear mighty enough to strike down Zeus himself. He lifted the spear and aimed it at Lysander's bare chest. Lysander's grip on my wrist grew slack, and I wrenched myself away.
"Don't hurt him, Father," I begged. "If you love me, please don't hurt him!"
Lysander glanced from me to Father and back again. "You're not human." His bloodless lips barely opened to let the words out. "You're some kind of -- of --" Fear twisted his face. He brought the knife in his hand up and leveled it against my throat, his eyes wide and blank.
"No!" I cried. "No, Lysander, please --"
It was the fear in Lysander's expression that horrified me. I don't believe he would have hurt me. But Father must have thought I cried out in terror for my life. He drew back his arm, the arm clutching the spear, and made as if to drive it into Lysander's heart. I looked at Father's face and saw fury written there, and love.
I knew then that, despite everything, I loved Lysander still. I could not bear to let him die.
In that split second I threw myself in front of Lysander, shielding his body with mine. Father stayed his hand. But my leap was ill-timed, my knees weak and wobbly, and I realized as my feet hit a wet patch of rock that I had put myself in great danger. I cried out and reached for Lysander. I wanted only to keep from falling, but Lysander cringed and stepped away in fear. My seeking fingers found only air.
I teetered for an instant on the tip of the promontory, seemed to catch my balance, then -- just as quickly -- I lost it again. With a cry of despair, I tumbled backwards. My father caught me, but he could not hold me up. He could not keep my body above the waves.
Together, Father and I slid down into the sea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It didn't hurt.
I'd worried that dying might hurt, but I felt nothing. There was a brief darkness. A pale glow. The sound of whalesong. A wave breaking on a far-off beach. The tickle of a lobster creeping against the sea bottom. The scent of blood in the water.
I had hated the sea, and now I was part of it.
I knew everything now. I knew when a pelican swooped down and scooped up a sardine a thousand miles away. I knew that a barracuda dozed deep in an undersea cave. I knew that my father had honored my dying wish, that he'd let Lysander live. I felt my father's wild grief, heard Thetis' cries of agony, and realized, finally, how
much my grandmother had loved me after all.
I understood all of these things, but they seemed to me like the faintest of memories, like the recollection of a childhood dream. It was all part of something long past. It no longer mattered. I had so many important things to think about.
I was foam on the waves, sand on the beach, moonlight on water, a coral reef, a forest of seaweed, the fin on a shark, the barnacles on a shipwreck. My mother was there, along with all the other merfolk who had ever lived. They welcomed me into their warm embrace. At last, I'd found my place. After so much suffering and sadness I was finally content.
I felt a peace as deep as the deepest ocean.
I laughed, and my laughter sent a ripple across the surface of the sea.
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