by Tiana Warner
I wondered what changes he noticed in me.
His daughters blitzed by us, giggling. Off on some imaginative adventure in the canyon, I was sure.
Clio, Sedna, Halie, Pasithea, Little Meela.
As soon as I got the chance, I wanted to get to know all of them. How did talking to kids work? Was I supposed to tell them stories? Maybe I should ask what their favourite animals were.
We made it to Nilus’ grotto and he opened the door—a real wooden one with a knob and everything. I ran a hand up the smooth surface.
“Did you build this?”
“Me and Little Meela.”
Nilus removed his crossbow and tossed it to the floor.
The grotto was roughly circular, with lumpy stone walls and an air pocket overhead. Littering the floor were a few dolphin-shaped figurines and a jumble of kelp, shells, and gems. Five starfish clung to the far wall in a perfect row. In the corner sat a rawhide bag and a pile of combs and jewellery.
“Is this everything you were able to bring from home?” I said.
“It’s enough. The kids brought their favourite toys.” He reached into the rawhide bag, dug around, and grinned. “Close your eyes.”
I did. He grabbed my hand and put something in it. I closed my fingers around it, feeling a smooth stone on a ring.
“Is this—?”
I opened my eyes and let out a small scream. It was the onyx ring he’d once given me, the one I’d lent him as a token when he’d left on his Massacre. My fingers trembled as I turned it over. All these years, he’d kept it. It was exactly as I remembered it.
My eyes burned.
“You abandoned us, Nilus.”
I looked up to see grief etched in his face.
“I never stopped caring about Eriana Kwai,” he said. “Doesn’t the fact that I’m here, hiding after I tried to kill Adaro, prove it?”
“I’m not talking about your loyalties. What about me, Nilus? Our parents?”
“I’m sorry, Meela. I was scared. I thought you would rather think I was dead.”
“Me?”
Nilus drew a wooden container from the bag and removed the lid. He scooped a glob of dark paste and slapped it over his face.
“Maybe not you, as much. But our parents. Everyone else.”
He scrubbed his face vigorously, massaging the paste into his skin.
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I couldn’t. Until recently, maybe my parents did think transforming into a sea demon was a fate worse than death. A lot of our people hated mermaids enough to think so. But now?
I wondered how things had evolved on Eriana Kwai in the last few days. Did my people have a change of heart after what happened at the beach with Adaro and the serpent? Were my friends and parents making efforts to help everyone see the truth about merpeople?
“Well,” I said, “they were fine with my transition.”
Nilus froze in the middle of scrubbing his face. He peeked through his fingers with an expression as though I’d told him our father had decided to become a professional ballerina. “They weren’t upset?”
“They were sad I had to leave, of course, but they were happy for me.”
Nilus said nothing. He slowly lowered his hands, his red eyes flitting around the room. I picked up the quickening in his pulse as he considered this.
“So, you’re going to go visit them the first chance we get,” I said, and I was surprised at the anger in my voice.
I couldn’t help feeling abandoned, even if it wasn’t his fault he was lured. Part of me was also angry at Ephyra for taking him from me—for using the allure against him.
“Do you even love Ephyra?” I said.
“Of course I do! I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t.”
“She gave you no choice!”
“If she hadn’t changed me into a merman, I would have died, Meela. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t love me.”
We stared at each other, suspended in the cavern. We’d both abandoned life above water to be with a mermaid, but we had taken very different paths.
“I’m not asking whether she loves you,” I said. “I’m asking whether you love her. Allure isn’t the same as true love.”
He examined the webs between his fingers. “Whatever it is, Meela, I’m happy.”
“But how do you know it’s not—?”
“Because when I look at her, it feels … it feels like my heart is expanding. I love everything about her, every part of her, both inside and out.”
When I kept staring, stone-faced, he continued.
“Whenever I see her, I feel happier. I want to hug her and kiss her and protect her from everything bad in the world. Any day I’m not with her, I miss her, and I wish I could talk to her. I can’t imagine how I lived my life before, and I can’t imagine going back to that. I’m a better version of myself when I’m with her. From the day we met, I wanted to have all these crazy adventures together, and I kept picturing the future and how we would spend the rest of our lives. If that’s just the allure, then I don’t care.”
My eyes burned with tears. I dropped my gaze, following the idle path of something bioluminescent near my tail.
“Nilus, I’ve spent half my life without you, and it’s been horrible. I was an only child in a family that should’ve had a son.”
“None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t been sent on the Massacre.”
“I know that’s not your fault. Things ended up this way, and I don’t blame you for that. But it would’ve been a comfort to know you weren’t dead.”
I was still squeezing the onyx ring between my palms. I passed it back. Nilus held it delicately between his webbed fingers, examining the stone.
“It hurt every day,” he said, “to be separated from you—from Eriana Kwai. I’ve missed everything about it. I’d love one more run through the forest. I want to feel moss under my feet, and smell cedar … I know it can never happen again. I wouldn’t trade what I have now, but man, I miss that forest.”
I knew what he meant—but that was where I’d always felt different. I’d loved the sea most of all, ever since I was a kid.
“Our people will always be a part of us,” I said. “Even if we can never run through the forest or climb a maple tree again, Eriana is still in our blood.”
Nilus grabbed a comb from Ephyra’s corner to resume his grooming. “That’s poetic of you.”
“No, really. Eriana’s our ancestor. Papa told me.”
I hesitated. Though I’d sworn not to tell anyone about the serpent, I wanted to make an exception for Nilus. We might have spent the last ten years apart, but he still felt familiar, like someone I could trust the most after Lysi. Besides, Lysi had worked with Nilus during their assassination attempts. He could be trusted.
While Nilus tore through his matted hair with the comb, I told him about my Massacre, and how I had learned that Adaro was attacking Eriana Kwai because he was searching for the leviathan, Sisiutl, and how my friends and I searched for it where Adaro couldn’t.
“Why did you give it to him?” said Nilus.
I scoffed. “I didn’t give it to him. I wanted to find it and use it to kill him.”
“But?”
“Dani ended up having control, not me.”
“Dani? The girl you went to school with?”
“You remember her?”
He laughed. “She asked me on a date when you guys were seven. I told her she was a bit young for me. She didn’t take it too well.”
I let out a breath. The bubble rose to the cavern surface with a small pop.
That explained a lot.
“Well, I was able to wake the serpent,” I said. “Only a descendant could do it. We’re the blood of Eriana, you and I.”
Nilus stared at his hands as though I’d told him he had magic powers. “Cool.”
“Then Lysi saved my life by turning me into a mermaid.”
H
e glanced back up, gawking. His face broke into a grin. “I knew I liked her.”
I beamed.
Nilus finished on his hair and offered me the comb. I shook my head, not wanting to bother untangling my braids.
“How did Adaro get control, then, if Dani freed it?” said Nilus.
Though Dani and I had always hated each other, grief and pity twisted my gut. I glanced to the door, feeling for signs of life. Nobody was hovering nearby.
“He killed her,” I whispered. “Control is passed by blood.”
A moment passed in which the reality of the situation weighed more heavily on us.
“So … you kill him, you get control?” he whispered.
“That’s what I’m planning to do. I’ll keep her tame until I figure out how to destroy her.”
“Why do you refer to the leviathan as female?”
“She’s more than a serpent. She’s … she’s Eriana. The goddess. She’s a part of the serpent. There’s a whole legend behind it.”
Nilus’ mouth opened in a perfect O.
“The problem is that she makes a pretty good bodyguard,” I said. “We can’t get to Adaro.”
“Even if you get past that thing, I still don’t know how you’ll do it. We tried twice. There’s been at least one other attempt since then.”
“There must be some weakness. We just haven’t found it yet. I was hoping for power in numbers by coming here.”
Nilus considered this. He poked absently at one of the starfish on the wall.
“The focus here is on seizing Utopia before Adaro returns. They believe Evagore is—”
“The rightful queen, I know. They think Adaro took her. What do you think happened?”
“I think they’re right. Adaro is to blame for whatever her state—captive or dead.”
I nodded. That was what I thought, too.
“What are the chances anyone here will help me get to Adaro?” I said.
“If you can prove your plan will get their queen back, they might help you.”
“But if we can’t—or if she’s dead—Lysi and I are on our own?”
“Not entirely on your own. You’ll have me.”
I smiled.
“If Eriana is part of the serpent,” said Nilus, “can I ask why you want to destroy her?”
“Destroying the serpent means freeing Eriana’s soul from its host. The legend is complicated. But—” I glanced around and lowered my voice again. “Nilus, I might not even have to.”
He looked at me sharply. I pressed on.
“If I can keep her under my control, I can use her to make sure nothing like this happens to our people ever again. This is what Eriana used the serpent for in the first place. I’d be continuing her legacy.”
Something worked behind Nilus’ expression. I couldn’t tell what it was. Did he agree, or did he think I was crazy? A long-forgotten desire for my big brother’s approval bubbled up inside me.
I was beginning to wish I hadn’t said anything when Nilus looked at something over my shoulder, and I turned to see Lysi and Ephyra in the doorway.
“Sorry to disturb you,” said Ephyra, “but the sun is setting, and these girls don’t have a place to sleep.”
Nilus threw an arm across my shoulders. “Priorities! Let’s get you settled.”
The four of us swam a short ways to an empty grotto. We covered the entrance with kelp weeds and used a rawhide bag to pull down a fresh pocket of air for the ceiling.
After saying goodnight to the others, Lysi and I stayed awake. Though we were far enough north that night would not fall at this time of year, the curtain of seaweed and depth plunged us into blackness.
“I found out something from Ephyra,” whispered Lysi. “Up here.”
We surfaced inside the air pocket to stop our conversation from carrying outside the grotto. There, Lysi relayed in a whisper what Ephyra had told her about Adaro disappearing during king tides, and that the Reinas were planning the attack around that time.
“Wait, I don’t get the pattern,” I said. “I thought tides cycled every twenty-eight days with the moon.”
“They do.”
Lysi raised a hand above the surface. Water trickled from her fingers. I felt through the darkness and placed my palm against hers.
“So what’s a king tide? Why is it only a couple of times a year?”
“It’s about the moon’s orbit and phases. Tides happen because the moon and the earth are attracted to each other. The moon tries to pull the earth towards it.” She closed her hand over mine and pulled me in so our noses touched. “But the only part of the earth that obeys is water.”
Slowly, she pushed me away, and then pulled me in again. Water sloshed against us and the rock walls.
“The strongest pull marks a new tidecycle. But the moon’s phase also has an effect. When the moon is full or dark, it has a stronger pull than usual. High tides get higher; low tides get lower. When a new tidecycle coincides with a full or dark moon, the tides are extra strong. This is a king tide.”
I stopped her pulling me in again. “And Adaro disappears for a day every time this happens.”
Lysi dropped my hand. “Yes.”
I stared into the blackness. What were we missing? What did the combined pull of a new tidecycle plus the moon’s phase mean? I’d never properly learned about tides, except for the tracking I’d done as a kid so I could meet Lysi at low tide.
I grabbed her hand again, sorry her explanation was over. I pulled her close so I could feel her breath on my face.
“How long until the next one?”
“It’s going to happen next tidecycle—and after that, not again until winter.”
I chewed my lip. That meant we had a month until the Reinas would storm Utopia. It wasn’t soon enough. Adaro could destroy the entire coast by then. We needed to act now.
“They’re using us,” said Lysi in barely a whisper. “The serpent is the only reason Dione wanted me here.”
“I know.”
“She wants to talk to us again. What do we tell her?”
“Nothing. Not without the promise that they’ll help us get to Adaro.”
“They won’t.”
I wondered if Nilus knew anyone who would be on our side. Would it be enough to stage a rebellion within a rebellion? It was a fragile plan, I thought. Too dangerous. We would have to change Dione’s mind.
“Mee, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we need to go to Medusa.”
I sighed. “I knew you would bring that up. No.”
“But they don’t trust us enough to listen to us! And they won’t tell us any more than we need to know to help their coup. Besides, Dione knew you were lying.”
“Shh!”
“Well, don’t you agree? We’re worth whatever information we have to share.”
Lysi might have been right, but agreeing would give her an excuse to push harder for us to leave Kori Maru.
“You’re being paranoid,” I said.
“You actually think we have a shot at changing their plan?”
“If Evagore is alive, and if we can find some way to help them get her back, they’ll help us in return. Nilus agrees.”
Lysi scoffed. “How is finding Evagore faster than going straight to Medusa? At least with Medusa’s help, we’d have a chance at stopping his armies from advancing. Meela, he’s one move away from ruling everything below the surface.”
I glowered into the darkness. “I’m not leaving, Lysi.”
“Come on!”
“First you don’t tell me about my brother, and now you’re trying to get me to leave him behind. Do you even care that he’s my family?”
Lysi spluttered. It was a moment before the words came. “I told you I was sorry for that!”
“You had days to tell me, Lysi.”
“It wasn’t that easy. There was too much going—”
“And what about my pa
rents? You could have told them about him. Now they might never know, if the worst happens.”
“Don’t—” She huffed. Her anger pulsated towards me. “You’re saying that to get at me.”
I gave a half-shrug. It might have been true, but I couldn’t stop the anger from flooding out.
“I’m sorry, all right?” said Lysi. “It was a mistake not to tell you right away.”
“You should be sorry.”
I waited for her retaliation. It didn’t come.
After a pause, she said, “I don’t want to go to the Atlantic, either. But I’m trying to do the right thing for everyone.”
“Leaving behind the only family I have down here doesn’t feel like the right thing.”
Before she could respond, I submerged.
I crossed to the far side of our cavern and curled up against the rocks. Lysi stayed where she was.
We didn’t speak again that night. I spent so many hours trying to fall asleep that I ended up sleeping well past dawn. By the time I awoke, Lysi had already left.
I peeked through the curtain of seaweed to find the canyon bustling. Mermaids and mermen flitted in and out of caverns while children played games and chased each other with kelp weeds.
Deciding it was safe, I emerged into the canyon—and was almost bowled over by a group of mermen carrying a stone slab. I ducked out of the way just in time. I followed the curve of the terrain, pausing to watch a group of kids throwing shells and stones into hoops. They asked if I wanted to play, and though I did, I shook my head. “I’m looking for someone.”
As I moved along, I thought I could feel eyes watching me, but when I looked, everyone was minding their business. Was I being self-conscious? Lysi had assured me several times that I was doing fine, and it was hard to tell I’d been a human only days ago.
“Morning, little sis.”
I whirled, face splitting into a grin.
Nilus looked better groomed and rested, crossbow slung across his back like he was ready to hunt.
“Breakfast?” He offered me what looked like a string of seaweed with fish eggs stuck to it.
I accepted it hesitantly.
“Don’t do what I did and refuse to eat anything but salmon,” he said. “You need your vitamins.”
“Thanks, brother.”
I plucked off a few eggs. They were decent—less fishy than some of the other stuff Lysi had gotten me to eat.
