by Tiana Warner
“I was thinking,” said Nilus. “You’ll need a weapon. What kind do you want?”
I nodded to his crossbow. “Is that even a question?”
He beamed. “I’ll show you how to make one.”
He led me along the canyon, which stretched further than I’d thought. We rounded a bend and came to an area that looked like a bomb had recently gone off. Mountains of objects were piled everywhere. Dozens of merpeople were gathered around work surfaces, including Lysi and Ephyra. The mermen who’d been carrying the stone slab were positioning it in the midst of it all.
“Welcome to the armoury,” said Nilus. “Chert, slate, argillite.” He pointed to the piles of rock. “Bone, sinew, shells, things humans dropped—that’s useful for ropes and stuff—and that’s ironwood. Don’t worry, it’s not actually iron. It makes for a lighter weapon, but it’s still strong. We’ve got other wood up there.” He pointed to the surface, where a timber raft was tethered to the shipwreck some distance away.
“I want to make mine out of ironwood,” I said.
We approached an empty worktable. Nilus placed an ironwood log and a stone chisel in front of me.
“You’ll find the crossbow a lot different from what you’re used to. It took me awhile to get accustomed to the weight, and the aim is all off underwater.”
“Oh. Should I make something else?”
“No. Once you get the hang of it you’ll be as skilled as before. Assuming you could shoot straight before, anyway.”
I jabbed him in the ribs. “Anyo said I’m as good as you. Maybe better.”
Nilus smiled sadly at the mention of our old training master.
Galene’s laughter boomed across the canyon. She was leaning over Lysi, watching her chisel a slab of argillite.
“I told you, I haven’t made my own longblade before,” said Lysi.
“Clearly. Here, hold it like this.”
Galene reached her muscular arms around Lysi and adjusted her hands over the chisel and argillite slab. Lysi tensed. She glanced up, caught my eye, and pulled an exasperated face. I smirked and returned to my ironwood.
“Jealous?” said Nilus.
“I trust her.”
He hoisted a slab of chert onto the table. “She’s a good kid.”
“Does she get the big brother stamp of approval?”
“I’m more concerned about your influence on her.”
I stuck out my tongue.
Nilus filed pieces of stone into bolts, while I built my crossbow. He paused every so often to guide me.
“Don’t get carried away with the shape of the bow yet,” he said as I carved. “Finish the stock first, and we’ll add the lever.”
“Aye aye.”
I whittled the stock, trying to copy the shape of his, which I’d placed on the table for reference.
A roughly shaped crossbow and a pile of bolts later, Nilus said, “I hear you won’t agree to go to the Atlantic.”
I glared, offended that he and Lysi obviously had a conversation about me while I was still asleep. “You’re taking her side?”
He tapped the end of his bolt-in-progress, considering, then honed it more. He kept his voice low as he said, “Meela, you’re not working towards the same goal as everyone else here. They’re going to quickly realise that, if they haven’t already.”
“What, then? You want me to leave?”
His fingers slipped from the bolt. He caught it before it landed.
“Meela, of course not! Don’t even—”
“Sorry. I know.” I put down my carving knife before I cut myself. “I don’t want to be separated from you again, Nilus.”
“It won’t be permanent. We managed to find each other after all this time, didn’t we?”
“It took ten years! How’s that supposed to make me feel better?”
He stalled, chiselling carefully. “Even if you found a way to make these guys agree to go after Adaro—we need more than that to take down his entire regime.”
I glanced at the mermaids and mermen working around us. I would have found it hard to believe this many merpeople couldn’t make a difference, except I’d seen Adaro’s power on the Massacre, and I’d seen the power of the Host of Eriana. I knew Nilus was right. Adaro had a government, loyal followers, and armies all over the globe. This group at Kori Maru wouldn’t be enough to stop them.
“I’ve heard a lot about Medusa in my time as a merman,” said Nilus. “Everyone speaks highly of her. She’s ruled that half of the world for decades.”
“But if we go all the way there, we’re wasting time we could be spending trying to get to Adaro.”
“Time you’re using so preciously right now?”
I glared at Nilus. He pursed his lips.
I picked up my knife and resumed whittling somewhat aggressively. “He can’t be that hard to find. He’s only got the largest snake in the entire damn world with him.”
“Yes, but the Pacific is the largest ocean in the entire damn world. He could be anywhere between Alaska and Chile.”
I almost smiled.
“Besides,” said Nilus, “what’ll you do if you find him? You expect to just swim up and kill him?”
I shrugged.
“You need to stop and plan, Meela. You’re blinded by revenge. Think about what needs to happen. You need Medusa, and you need her army.”
“But how are we supposed to convince her to help us? How are we supposed to even talk to her?”
“You have an inside source from Adaro’s kingdom. Lysi knows things from training—attack plans, strategies. And you know more than anyone about the leviathan! You know where it comes from and how to control it. Don’t underestimate yourself. Plus, Medusa might not even be aware that Adaro is planning to invade her kingdom any day now. You can go with a warning.”
I growled in exasperation.
“I can’t come with you,” he said. “But I can help you leave, if you decide to go.”
I searched his face. My heart swelled when I found the brother who’d disappeared from my life so long ago.
“Promise me one thing,” I said.
“Yes. I’ll come with you to Eriana Kwai after. To Mama and Papa.”
I smiled.
We finished making my crossbow and bolts, and I fired a few test shots into a stone face. It took me three shots before I got the aim right.
“Uh, not bad,” said Nilus with forced casualness.
I cast him a sideways grin as I lined up the fourth. “Don’t tell me I picked it up faster than you.”
He said nothing.
The weapon fired with surprising force considering the water resistance. My fifth bolt shattered into pieces on impact.
I slung my crossbow over my back and stuffed the pile of bolts into a quiver. Nilus made me take all of them, assuring me he would make himself more tomorrow.
I went to rescue an exasperated Lysi from Galene.
“You must get this all the time, but you have beautiful eyes, Lysithea.”
I stopped behind Galene. “Can I borrow my girlfriend, please?”
They turned, Lysi giving off a definite air of relief. She followed me without a word.
I pulled her into a divot between two boulders, glancing around to make sure no one was near.
“So,” I whispered. “How are we gonna get there?”
Lysi stared blankly. Then, slowly, her frown turned into a hint of a smile. “North is quickest.”
“Through the Arctic?”
Lysi nodded.
I imagined all the ice floes, blizzards, oil rigs, and gigantic creatures we’d have to face.
“You sure?”
She shrugged. “That’s how everyone got here from the Atlantic in the first place.”
I chewed my lip. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but I wasn’t sure about crossing the Northwest Passage. I’d spent a unit of social studies learning how treacherous that was. Granted, that was f
or humans, not mermaids, but it still didn’t sound fun.
“Could we go south?”
“Medusa’s in the North Atlantic. Going around South America would take too long.”
“What about the Panama Canal?”
“You mean that man-made channel between North and South America? I’m sure that’ll go over well, a couple of sea demons gliding through. We’ll just ask nicely if they can let us pass and hope they don’t shoot us in the face.”
“All right, all right.”
“Besides, American vessels are waiting to blow us to pieces if we go south or west.”
I thought for a long moment, weighing the many things that could go wrong no matter what we decided to do.
“How will we sneak into the city once we get there?” I said.
“We don’t need to sneak. The city’s huge. No walls, no border.”
“That seems … unsecure.”
“Before Adaro, merpeople had a peaceful history. There are a small number of kingdoms, and the queens kept to their respective oceans. We never went to war, so there was no need to build walls.”
I slumped. “All right. But if I freeze to death …”
Lysi smiled, her eyes glinting in the rock’s shadow. “I’ll keep you warm.”
Galene was right, I thought, as a wave of heat rose in my cheeks. Lysi did have beautiful eyes.
CHAPTER TEN - Meela
Laws of Fae
We left for the Atlantic in the middle of the night. Nilus diverted anyone who happened to be awake so we could sneak away without having to explain where we were going, or why. He vowed not to tell Dione he knew anything about our disappearance.
We carried our new weapons: my crossbow and Lysi’s black longblade. She’d sharpened the edge so thoroughly that I wondered if she stripped it down to molecular levels.
“We might have a problem at the Bering Strait,” she said, once we’d travelled out of hearing distance. “It’s only about sixteen leagues across, and Adaro said he stations the army there to keep the Atlantic out. But he wants to keep all of us in just as much.”
She said ‘sixteen leagues’ as if referring to the length of a bathtub, but I supposed merpeople could sense up to a league away in the right conditions. It would be easy for an army to guard the entire Strait.
“We’re going underneath, then?” I said.
“Uh, it’s also less than thirty fathoms deep.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “Don’t tell me we’re trying to force our way through.”
“We’re going over top.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Part of the Strait should be covered by ice,” said Lysi.
I squeaked. “We’ll literally be fish out of water!”
“First of all, never call a mermaid a fish unless you’re trying to insult her. Second, we’ll be fine. Nothing will be able to get us. Well, unless we encounter a ship. Or whales breaching through the ice. Or a polar bear. Or—”
I groaned. “Why did I agree to this?”
She kissed my cheek and pulled me along.
We travelled in silence, keeping our feelers out for anything strange. The sun rose. Our path was crossed by squid, cod, and the occasional whale. Chunks of ice formed overhead, small and slushy, reminding me of the shaved ice Annith’s mother made.
It pressed on the back of my mind that we would need to discuss what, exactly, we were going to ask of Medusa. Lysi would probably feel differently about how much we should share with the Atlantic Queen. But I was too relieved that we’d stopped arguing to bring it up. Lysi must have felt the same, because the sun crossed the sky and touched the horizon, and still, neither of us had mentioned a plan. We might as well have been taking a holiday, for the lack of discussion about the business we’d have to attend to once we got to the Atlantic.
The temperature dropped significantly by the time we parked on a tiny island for a few hours’ sleep. I was uncertain about stopping. Though my new body handled the cold impressively, I worried a chill would set in if we stopped moving. Maybe I was being ridiculous, but I didn’t want to ask. I tried to gauge if Lysi was afraid or worried.
She caught me staring and smiled.
I frowned. “Why is your aura so hard to read?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can read Nilus’ mood so much more easily than yours.”
“Nilus is your family.”
“But you and I are …” Heat crept into my face. “I thought there would be a special connection between us.”
“Life is not that poetic.”
I rolled over, studying the sky, searching for constellations that wouldn’t appear. I hated this lack of nightfall and wondered how anyone got a proper sleep all summer around here. I was both exhausted and wide awake.
“You’ll be able to pick up everything more easily in time, Mee. You can’t expect to be an expert at this right away. It’s all a practiced skill.”
“I guess.”
Lysi shuffled around a bit. Her face appeared in front of mine. “What do you say we practice some other skills?”
I laughed. “Smooth.”
I pulled her towards me.
We slept for three hours at most before continuing northwards, swimming between a steadily rising floor and thickening ceiling of ice. Our meals consisted of whatever clams and shrimp we found along the bottom.
When the depth grew so shallow I could see both surface and floor, Lysi stopped. Nerves twisted my gut. The army would be close, now.
“We need to climb, don’t we?” I said.
The ice had grown thick enough to support us, though it was broken and necessitated careful navigation.
Lysi reached for my hand. Without another word, we found a crack and hoisted ourselves out.
The above world was flat and empty. Beneath the moaning wind were gentle creaks of broken ice and waves glopping below.
We pulled ourselves across, balancing on the unsteady floes.
Feeling like I was navigating a minefield, I prayed that all the natural movement and groaning ice worked in our favour. Maybe our relatively small bodies wouldn’t be noticed from below.
“Let’s decide now what we’re going to tell Medusa,” said Lysi with the air of someone playing a game of distraction.
“Sure,” I said casually, as though I hadn’t been obsessing over this since we left.
“I’ll tell her how Adaro’s closing in on the Atlantic,” she said. “The locations of all his armies.”
“Make sure you tell her everything you can remember about your time serving. Attack plans, strategies. Plus we can relay everything Kori Maru had on that stone table. We know exactly where he’s been and when. That’s a lot of valuable information.”
“But it’s like Dione said, isn’t it? We know where he’s been, but not where he’ll go.”
“But we still know more about Adaro’s strategies than most. We would be like the queen’s spies.”
Lysi didn’t share my enthusiasm. “We need more than that if we want her to ally with us.”
“Can’t we ask for her help in exchange for this information?”
“Mee, the Atlantic Queen is not going to strike a deal with two mermaids from the Pacific, even if we do have information about Adaro’s movements. She owes us nothing, and she definitely won’t send her armies to battle based on that.”
When she put it like that, my optimistic little fantasy sounded stupid.
I sighed. “Fair point.”
We were quiet for a few minutes while we pulled ourselves along. The waves rose and fell, sending long ripples beneath the broken sheets of ice.
“If we have to tell her we know about the serpent,” I said, “I think we should tell her what I told Dione, how I have to be the one—”
“No. We aren’t lying to the queen. If she realises, we’re done. We have to tell the truth.”
“We can’t tell the truth ab
out the serpent—”
A shadow passed beneath us. We stopped moving at once, holding our breaths. I watched Lysi for a reaction. She stared through the ice, brow furrowed.
After a moment, she said, “Whales.”
I relaxed, but Lysi stayed tense. I wondered if she was worried the whales would mistake us for seals.
We waited until their shadows disappeared before continuing on.
Lysi was right that lying to Dione did not work in our favour, and lying to the Atlantic Queen would be risky. The best bargaining power we had was knowledge of how to control the deadliest weapon in the world—but spreading that information around was also dangerous if it ended up in the wrong hands.
“There has to be another way to go about this,” I said.
“Mee, the potential to control the serpent is the only thing that will get the queen’s attention. Why else would she get involved in a war that’s not her own?”
“But it is her war!”
“Not yet. Adaro might be preparing to strike, but he hasn’t. We’re asking Medusa to initiate the war between Atlantic and Pacific by striking first. That’s a big decision, and it had better come with a high return.”
“If she’s the queen everyone says she is, she’ll want to stop the war regardless.”
Lysi wilted. “I guess.”
“Besides,” I said, “if we tell her the truth, she’ll take what we say and go after the serpent.”
“We can make sure we get to the serpent first.”
“And what if she kills us to ensure that doesn’t happen?”
Lysi hesitated for a fraction of a second. “She won’t. Besides, even if she does end up with the serpent, I’m sure we’ll be a lot better off—”
“No. We’re not taking it out of his hands only to put it into someone else’s. We need to finish this.”
Lysi gave a deep sigh, her breath clouding in the air.
We continued in silence for a long while.
When a grey mass rose in the distance, I nodded towards it. “Land?”
“Diomede Islands. We’re going between them where the ice is thickest.”
I tried to mentally locate myself on a map. I’d taught myself geography from one of Tanuu’s high school textbooks. I remembered reading that these two islands marked the border between Russia and Alaska, and the International Date Line put one island nearly a full day ahead of the other—but I couldn’t remember anything useful, like what kind of population these islands had.
