Saving Her Destiny

by Candice Gilmer

  Great.

  “Someone, please! Help me!” Wherever she was, hopefully someone was out there and would hear her thoughts. Though she wasn’t underwater… Would it make a difference? She didn’t know…

  There was so much she didn’t know.

  Like what had happened.

  Her memories were fragmented, split up like a broken movie clip. She’d been on the cliff, adjusting her wet suit, ready to make her dive. The cry had started not long before, wanting to be released.

  After the net incident, as she liked to remember it, she’d gotten herself a good suit to wear in the water just in case she ever went under longer than necessary. Or if her shitty merrow cousin Norton ever surprised her again.

  But she had been ready to go down, ready for this one. Then she dove in the water. What happened after that, she wasn’t sure.

  The net incident, though, had one bright spot.

  Duncan. Who saved her.

  Duncan. Duncan would save her. That was what he did, right? He was a FID agent—he saved fairies in distress.

  Well, this certainly qualified as distress.

  He had to be out there somewhere. He would rescue her. But what if he was working somewhere else? Would he be able to hear her? Know if she was in trouble?

  Probably not. If he was off in the Americas, or over in China or something, he’d never know she needed help.

  Panic hit her harder. Where was he? Why wasn’t he finding her?

  Stop it, she chided herself. Thinking about Duncan wouldn’t get her out of this mess any faster.

  What was she, Wendy in Peter Pan? Cara’s least favorite Disney movie came to mind—while Pan battled Hook in the cave, Wendy didn’t help Tiger Lilly. At the time, Cara had asked her mother why Wendy just sat there and did nothing.

  It left Cara with a strong impression—not to be a Wendy and wait for someone to rescue her.

  Whenever she climbed aboard the pity train—which happened every time she remembered she was practically chained to Avalon—she reminded herself that nope, she wasn’t a Wendy who was unable to do anything for herself.

  She could do this.

  Whatever this was, she could do it.

  Focus. What happened?

  She couldn’t remember anything definitive beyond entering the water.

  Concentrate.

  She hit the water. There had to be something. A clue.

  And then—

  Just pain.

  Fragments of rushing water swirling around her, but that could have been from when she broke the surface during the dive.

  That’s it.

  She cursed, or would have, if she could speak.

  Obviously someone had plans for her, because seaweed didn’t randomly hog-tie a person. But who would do this? Why would anyone want to stop a banshee’s cry? After all, banshees were practically useless as far as magic and all that went.

  Banshees just got cries. That was all. No control over when or where they came on, only that they had to be delivered by a certain time. Or bad things happened to the banshee and whoever was in the immediate vicinity.

  Why would anyone want to stop a banshee from delivering a cry? It didn’t make any sense. What purpose could it possibly serve?

  Other than to keep the warning from coming…

  The water began to ripple, and a figure rose from it.

  Red seaweed like hair appeared first. The cohuleen druith of a merrow.

  A burst of hope flooded Cara—she’d been found by one of The Brothers. Maybe they’d seen what happened—maybe a Brother had caught the person who did this.

  She’d been saved.

  The notion was squashed as soon as she saw the face of the merrow rising out of the water.

  Norton Lynch.

  “Hello, cousin,” Norton said, smiling at her like it was nothing to find her tied up in a cave.

  She glared at her good-for-nothing cousin. She couldn’t imagine why he would kidnap her, but of all the beings she knew in the Merrow Kingdom, he surprised her the least.

  Though she should have suspected him.

  What purpose he had, she couldn’t guess. This seemed a bit more involved than when he’d led her into a fishing boat’s net, and left her there to let the humans catch her.

  Norton continued as if she’d spoken. “Oh, I am quite well, thank you. And you?”

  She struggled.

  “Good, good.” He raised his hands. “I hope you like the accommodations. They really are top-notch. Especially for the likes of you.”

  She shot her most menacing glare at him.

  He put his hands on his hips—or what a merrow had for hips, anyway. “Do you not realize the trouble I went to, finding a secluded place with air for you?”

  She wanted to scream at her cousin, but, of course, nothing came out.

  “It was quite a chore to find a secluded spot. And I’ve been waiting for years to do this.”

  “Let me go,” she screamed with her mind, hoping he heard her.

  He continued as though he hadn’t. “I know. It’s quite courteous of me to be so accommodating. I could have just left you out there, bobbing around unconscious after you hit that magic spell. Let one of the island’s fishing nets find you and pull you up.” He swam closer. “Wouldn’t that have been entertaining?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe for you.” Cara had played that before, thanks to Norton. To this day, she still believed that somehow Norton had lured the human fishing boat into Avalon’s waters just to mess with her.

  No proof, of course, but she had always wondered. It seemed way too coincidental to be anything else.

  Norton grinned that oily smile that made her skin crawl when they were kids.

  Concentrate, she told herself. She had to be able to communicate with him somehow. “What are you after, Norton?” She focused her telepathy as hard as she could. With no idea whether he would actually hear her words, she thought a quick prayer, just in case.

  He froze for a second, tipping his head like a dog. “Why, Cara, you can use telepathy. It has been so long, I thought you forgot.” He rubbed his hands together. “That will make things easier, I think.”

  “I have hours before my cry erupts! Release me!” she projected again. From the effort, her head throbbed even harder.

  “My dear.” Norton swam closer to her and ran a wet hand over her hip. “I’m counting on it.”

  Chapter Six

  There’s no sign of her out here, Duncan thought. Thank the stars. He didn’t want to find a body in the water.

  He wanted to find Cara.

  Alive and well.

  Yet with every passing moment, he was more and more certain that something horrible had happened.

  Because if she’d gotten distracted, they would have found her by now. There would have been a magical trace in the water—show where she’d been, just like on shore. The spell he’d cast would have illuminated her trail.

  Yet there was no sign of the trail.

  No sign of her anywhere.

  Duncan didn’t like this development. It meant something sinister had to be afoot. Like someone with magic had her—because only magic could block the tracer spell from working.

  “She must have gotten inside the Kingdom,” Keefe said, swimming around a rock.

  “No other place, really,” Kealan agreed.

  They’d circled the entrance cave to the Merrow Kingdom hoping that Cara hadn’t made it inside.

  Well, hoping wasn’t quite the right word. But she wasn’t out here.

  As they entered the underwater cave that led to the kingdom’s entrance, Duncan shook his head.

  “It amazes me you don’t have guards here at the entrance.”

  “You can’t get through without a cohuleen druith.” Keefe approached the wa
ll, and the red seaweed atop his head swirled around him as he put his hand on the solid-looking stone. The cohuleen druith’s strands brushed against the stone and the wall glowed, the light almost blinding in the dark cave. The rocks slowly disappeared, revealing a much brighter cavern on the other side.

  “Would someone have let her in?” Duncan asked as the three of them passed through the entrance. “Is there any record of who comes and goes?”

  “No record,” Keefe said.

  “Maybe you should do something about that…”

  “Maybe,” Kealan said. “We’re more concerned about keeping others out. She can’t get in without her cohuleen druith.”

  “She doesn’t have a cohuleen druith.” Keefe led the way as they glided through the water. Soft, green-glowing torches placed at intervals along the cavern’s wall illuminated the tunnel toward the kingdom.

  Duncan didn’t think he’d ever come this way. One of the fairy benefits—if he wanted to be somewhere, he could just appear there—within reason, anyway. He didn’t have to swim for it like this. But if he tried to teleport inside, he might miss some clue to Cara’s whereabouts.

  Of course, the only reason he could break past their security magic was his FID status. Not just any fairy could pop in and out of the Merrow Kingdom.

  “Cara does too have one. I’ve seen it,” Kealan said.

  “She does not have red seaweed sticking out of the top of her head,” Keefe said, stroking his long red strands. “I think I would notice my cousin’s cohuleen druith by now.”

  “No, it’s on her wrist,” Kealan said. “I asked her about it. She’s got this bracelet thing on her wrist. It was Great Aunt Meira’s cohuleen druith.”

  “Wait. Stop.” Duncan hovered in the cave, letting the merrow’s words sink in. “Cara’s your cousin?”

  They both turned to look at him. “Aye, she is. Didn’t you know?” Kealan said.

  “How is she your cousin? She’s a banshee.” Banshees and merrow didn’t have any lineage connections—not pure ones, anyway. They descended from different mythical base beings. And cross-bred beings, unlike how they were shown in movies, wound up being twice as vulnerable as full-blood mythical creatures. They’d have both beings weaknesses, rather than double the strength.

  “Her grandmother, Meira, was our Crown Princess. She fell in love with a banshee and left the Merrow Kingdom,” Keefe said as he swam ahead, the light in the water getting brighter.

  “That must not have gone over well.” Duncan followed him through the tunnel’s exit.

  “It wasn’t the most popular thing Meira could have done,” Keefe replied, pausing just outside the exit.

  Duncan caught up and stared at the kingdom before him. A soft green glow illuminated the rocks that surrounded a kind of valley on the sea floor. From this angle, Duncan could see the kingdom was made up of several rings of buildings—turret-like structures surrounded the outer ring, with the center enclosed under a dome of…

  “Is that magic?” Duncan asked, gesturing to the dome.

  “Aye,” Keefe said. “Sealed away and protected from harm.”

  Duncan shifted in the water, kicking his legs slowly. “The center of your kingdom?”

  “The most important part,” Kealan added. “You’ve never seen it before?”

  Duncan shook his head. “It looks like a castle.”

  Thick walls surrounded the external ring, and even from this distance, he could make out other merrow swimming about. Some merrow had carts, being hauled by larger fish, in and out of the few gated entrances.

  His gaze followed the lines of the turrets, and he realized something. “Those are connected to the island!”

  “Aye,” Keefe said. “We shift as Avalon shifts.”

  Duncan waved his hand, gesturing toward the kingdom. “Does everything move? The ground, everything?”

  “All connected,” Kealan said. A swarm of small blue fish swam by them, and Keefe made a gesture in the water, followed by a few noises Duncan couldn’t decipher. The fish shifted their path and headed toward the castle.

  Duncan raised his brow. “You speak to the fish too?”

  “Of course,” Kealan said. “They will take our report to the king.”

  “You need to get out more, fairy,” Keefe said. “Figured they’d give you more details…” As Keefe spoke, he kept scanning around the rocks, as did Kealan.

  Duncan started looking around as well, though what he was looking for, he wasn’t sure.

  “Upset a lot of merrow, that’s for certain,” Kealan said.

  “What did?” Duncan asked.

  “Aunt Meira turning over her crown,” Kealan said and flicked his tail. “You know, how Cara’s related to us?”

  “That’s how our line inherited. Meira’s brother, our grandfather, became king. And so on and so on.” Keefe twirled around, spinning on his back as he spoke, then upright again.

  “Quit that. You look like a girl when you do that,” Kealan said.

  “I am quite comfortable with my masculinity,” Keefe replied, smoothing his cohuleen druith.

  Duncan wracked his brain, remembering the conversations he’d had with Cara over the years. They would talk about anything and everything, including her family. But not once did he remember her telling him about her grandmother being a merrow.

  Think she would have mentioned that particular detail.

  “How upset did that make your people?” Duncan asked.

  “Well, there was some battling early on—especially in our father’s generation. I think one of Aunt Meira’s kids even tried to get the throne at one point,” Kealan said as he swam ahead.

  “Yeah, but Aunt Meira sided with our line. That was just after our father became king,” Keefe said.

  “We have to find Cara. Is there anyone with anything against Cara? Or maybe against the monarchy?”

  “Sure. The king always has enemies.” Keefe and Kealan started rambling on about the kingdom’s political stance on several subjects that currently were causing strife among the different classes in the kingdom.

  None of it screamed as a possible motive to cause the royal family harm. Trade disputes between the different classes of merrow and all that, but nothing that seemed volatile enough to tie back to Cara. Even with their own internal difficulties, the merrow were generally a peaceful race.

  Yet this had to be magic related. And if it was magic related, then whoever did this was looking for a banshee scream. A banshee scream was one of the strongest forces in the Realm. Energy that could not be contained.

  And Cara was the only banshee that came into the Merrow Kingdom.

  Then Keefe and Kealan started talking about Cara’s family again. The other line, as they called it. Duncan’s instincts sprang to life. Something about that felt right. Like that was where he needed to go with this.

  This was personal with Cara. This wasn’t political at all. This had to do with the family. He could feel it.

  He waved his hand. “Who in the family would have a grudge against the king?”

  The two Merrow glanced at each other, and a light sparked in their eyes.

  “Norton,” they said together. “Norton Lynch.”

  “Then we need to find him. Now.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Keefe said, though he stared at the rock around the entrance.

  Duncan twisted around, trying to see what Keefe was staring at. Then, before Duncan could get a good view, Keefe took off, slapping hard against the water as he dove deep and stuck his hand into a crevice.

  “What is it?” Kealan asked, swimming down to join him.

  Keefe jerked out his hand, and held a red band of seaweed-looking vines, woven together in a braid.

  “God’s knees,” Kealan said.

  “What?” Duncan asked.

  “That’s Cara’s bracel
et. Her piece of cohuleen druith,” Kealan said.

  “I was hoping that wasn’t what it was,” Keefe said and muttered a curse.

  Duncan agreed with the sentiment.

  “She’s in here then,” Duncan said.

  “Right, but where? If her bracelet’s here, then she could be anywhere. Whoever took it could have taken her to any one of a million…hiding…places… Wait…” Keefe trailed off as he dove again, and this time, Duncan followed him, seeing a flicker of silver on the floor that didn’t belong.

  Keefe snagged it and returned with the little piece of metal. “What is this?”

  Duncan accepted the metal. “It’s a breather.” Duncan patted the one on his face and held up the slightly smaller one for them to see.

  “Well, she has to be around here somewhere,” Keefe said.

  “She can’t get too far if she can’t breathe,” Kealan agreed. They started to pan out, looking for a singular spot that might hint where Cara had been taken. Duncan stuffed her breather in the pouch on his hip, because when they found her, she’d need it.

  If it wasn’t too late.

  He brushed away the thought. They’d know if she wasn’t alive anymore—the scream would erupt.

  On land, Duncan would have just used magic to track her…

  On land.

  Wait.

  He pulled out his wand and Cara’s breather. He held out the small piece of metal and waved his wand around it to generate a tracking spell.

  “What are you doing?” Keefe pulled on his arm.

  “Trying to find Cara.”

  “You can’t do it with magic,” Keefe said.

  “Why not?”

  “We have to do this with our eyes,” Keefe said.

  “That could take too long,” Duncan said and waved his wand. The magic started to glow, then began to fizzle and pop and fade away. “What the—”

  “Told you. You can’t use magic down here. The only person who can do that is the king.”

  Duncan put his wand away, muttering curses the whole time. How in the world was he supposed to find her? He was FID. They used magic—that was what they did. And now he was down here, looking everywhere for a girl, with little to no sign that she was anywhere.