by Julia Ember
Some part of me had always wished I could blame the gods for the way we did things and our laws. Our kingdom had struggled to hatch live children ever since the clans migrated to the harsher winter world from the southern world. We’d lost a war, and the price of our defeat had been exile. Life in the ice chilled our wombs and made eggs difficult to incubate after they were laid. In my clutch, Mama had laid a dozen eggs, and I was the only one to hatch.
A group of mermaids swam into the hall. Their giggles echoed down the hallway after them. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but I felt a pang of jealousy seeing them all arrive together, so obviously friends. Vigdis swam at the head of their little column like a general leading her troops into battle. Most of the other girls had dressed for the occasion. Their long hair contained mother-of-pearl fragments, rare shells, and finely woven nets. Many wore iridescent cloaks of stretched jellyfish skin that blinked blue, then pink, in the pale light of the glacier’s interior. Seeing them like that, together and in all their finery, I felt small and even more exposed.
When Vigdis saw me sitting with the mage, her eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. She rushed to sit on the mage’s other side, exclaiming, “Ersel! I didn’t expect to see you here… early?” Then she schooled her voice into that patronizing sympathy. “Wanted to get it over with before the rest of us arrived? I understand.”
I clenched my jaw and glared at her.
Aegir’s mage was unfazed. She patted Vigdis on the hand. “There, there, dear. You’ll get your chance too. Ersel has simply volunteered to go first.” She turned to me with a twinkle in her eyes. My heart leapt into my mouth. First? No… “I have a feeling she’s going to get excellent results.”
One of Vigdis’s cohort, Rayne, snorted. “Not likely. She practically hides from the sun.”
I wanted to punch Rayne in her smug face, but the mage’s stated confidence comforted me and made the situation a little easier to tolerate.
“What is your birth season, child?” The mage asked, brushing my hair back off my shoulders. I heard the collective gasp as the human pendant was exposed. But as before, her fingers left a trail of warmth and quieted my fear.
“Haustr,” I replied. I was a child of the deep autumn; a child of death and grayness and so, maybe, as cold to the core as everyone imagined.
The mage’s smile widened, revealing rows of sharpened teeth that overlapped like a shark’s. “Uncommon in a mermaid, to be sure. But haustr is Loki’s season, so she may surprise us all. The trickster is known to have a game or two up their sleeve.”
I never thought of myself as a child of Loki. Haustr was Baldr’s season as well, and I preferred to think of myself as a child of the god of love and joy rather than of deception. Still, it couldn’t hurt to murmur an extra prayer to Loki now. I cast my eyes toward their bust on the ceiling and silently mouthed the words to one of the incantations I’d known since childhood. Staring up at the imposing ice statue, I could have sworn Loki’s glassy lips curled into a smile.
“Ready?” the mage asked. I looked back at her and jumped in shock. Her appearance had totally changed. She was glowing brighter than any jellyfish cloak. Pure sunlight seemed to emanate from her very pores; the wrinkles that had lined her eyes had smoothed away. The barnacles were gone, replaced by the smoothest beluga-white flesh. The other girls in the hall gasped. She smiled. “Climb up onto the table and lie back. Let’s see what we’re working with.”
I did as she instructed while the other girls gathered round. With their eyes on me, I felt like a prized catch, about to be butchered and divided up for a grand dinner or the Nacht feast. Considering how many mermen would be waiting with the king for the results, ready to catch a prize of their own, maybe I was right to feel that way. If my grading went well, they’d all see me as something to hunt.
Havamal doesn’t see you that way, a voice in my head insisted before I silenced it. Maybe once that had been true. Now I didn’t know what he saw when he looked at me.
The mage stretched her fingers over my belly. Then she began to massage the fleshy area above the line of my tail scales. Her deft hands kneaded my doughy stomach and I allowed myself a small grin of satisfaction. Vigdis could say what she liked about my sunbathing habits, but I ate well, and my body showed it. Even if the mage could only find a single follicle, my fat reserves could nourish a hundred developing eggs. I cringed inwardly. I didn’t want children, so why was I proud of that?
A sudden blast of heat cut through me. I struggled for breath as pain coursed in waves through my stomach and down into my tail. My back arched, and I let out a strangled cry. I’d never experienced pain like this. It was dizzying in its intensity, clawing at my insides. The heat abated, but it was replaced by a pulling sensation, almost like a rope tightening around my organs, dragging them out through my mouth. I screamed and screamed, trying desperately to grip the slippery ice table and steady my struggling body.
No wonder our mothers were forbidden to tell us about the ceremony. If I had known about the pain I would experience, I might have decided to hell with Vigdis. Her opinion of me wasn’t worth this torture. Above me, the mage was chanting. Her eyes glowed white, and she didn’t seem to see me. I thrashed on the ice table, and my tears made the room warm.
Then a sensation like liquid ice moved up my throat, forcing my mouth open. I tried to swallow, but a mist of glowing orbs erupted from inside me. They scattered in the water around us like multicolored stars: some turquoise blue, others green or coral, a few the same piercing silver as Havamal’s fins. The pain vanished almost as quickly as it had begun. I sat up and stared in awe at the orbs.
The old mage’s eyes regained their sharpness. She smiled at me and stroked my cheek with a long finger. Standing, she twirled with her arms spread wide. The orbs followed her fingers as if pulled by a current, forming a glittering cyclone around her.
A collective gasp rose in the hall.
“Are those… eggs?” Vigdis asked, looking at me. The pity in her eyes was gone, replaced by pure hatred.
“No,” the mage laughed. She snatched one of the delicate silver balls from the air and held it to her cheek. The little ball took on her glow and began to hum softly, almost like a lullaby. “They’re voices. All the voices she has the potential to create.”
After releasing the orb and letting it float away, the old woman squeezed my bicep. “The best result I’ve seen in decades. It would be fruitless to count. You could hatch as many children as you desire.” The wrinkles slowly etched themselves back around the corners of her eyes and mouth as she spoke. “But I know that isn’t what you desire. You’re a haustr child through and through. Full of paradoxes. Loki is playing their little jokes with you.”
Feeling suddenly drained and heavy, I wrapped my arms around my chest. Everyone was staring at me. Everyone was jealous of me. I should feel overjoyed. I’d showed them. Vigdis would never again be able to say there was something wrong with me.
But there was, wasn’t there? I wasn’t like the other mermaids. And the little silver orbs that shimmered so much like Havamal’s scales as they hummed their sweet ballads just made me feel all the more broken.
Five
I didn’t wait as the others queued up to face the mage’s touch. The walls of the fortress bore down on me, and I needed to get into the open sea. The orbs’ voices followed me as I rushed for the hall’s exit. They seeped straight into my skin as I swam, as if my body were made of nothing but water.
The mage called out to me, and a few of the other girls tried to grab my arms, but I pushed past them. I didn’t need to hear any congratulations they were going to offer. And I definitely didn’t want to know whatever the mage would say next.
A row of curious mermen waited by the hall’s exit. No doubt they were trying to get a first glimpse of the girls before the rest of the suitors, who waited with the king. I swallowed a lump of bile. The mermen moved aside when I s
wam past. The oldest, a blue-finned sentry, gave me a look that was almost pitying. They thought I had failed and couldn’t face it.
The irony made me want to laugh and scream at the same time. Aegir’s mage showed us the voices we had the potential to create, while our king stripped us of our own voices and condemned us to years brooding in chambers like prisons. No one ever asked me what I wanted. Our glacier’s need to survive had turned us all into slaves of this ritual and the king’s ugly pride.
I knew that the ceremony would last through the day and into the night. A feast would follow once all the mermaids had their results. If I left now, I could disappear until sundown before anyone would miss me. It might be the only opportunity I’d get to bring wood for Ragna.
I wasn’t willing to risk raiding Ragna’s own ship for materials. It was too close to the glacier. Any number of feasters, drunk on soured dolphin milk, could wander off looking for a quiet place to rest, or a place to mate if they were some of the newly paired. I shuddered. I couldn’t think about the aftermath of the ritual.
Would Havamal choose someone else? The question sent a wave of nausea through me. As a member of the King’s Guard, there would be more pressure on him to find a match. I imagined him with his Vigdis as his strong arms curled around her coral tail. Rage shot through me like a lightning bolt. I didn’t want the life he’d chosen, but the thought of him with someone else hurt almost as badly as the mage’s inspection.
I swam for the wreck I knew best, located a mile or so beyond the beluga’s surfacing hole. It was an ancient ship, half buried in the sand, rusted and rotting despite the cold of the water. A school of silver-finned herring came out to greet me as I dove into the ship’s hollow interior. The skeletons of a hundred dead humans leaned against the walls. Stray bones—fingers, ribs, and toes—were scattered over the decaying deck.
I trembled. The sight of the eyeless skulls and scattered bones had never bothered me before. As a child, Havamal sometimes picked up the skull fragments and wore them as masks. I would giggle as he rammed his head into the walls to impress me with his makeshift armor. But that was before I’d met a human: before I’d seen the depth, intelligence, even empathy, in Ragna’s eyes; before I knew that humans spoke the godstongue and smiled like starfish.
I swallowed another sob. What did it say about my life that, when everything was falling apart, the only being I could go to for comfort was a human I barely knew? An enemy.
I wrapped my fingers around her pendant and held it tightly. Ragna was the only one who understood what it meant to feel like a prisoner. Right now, I needed whatever level of understanding we had.
The least decayed part of the ship was at its very center. Shielded from the elements and the less adventurous scavenger crabs, most of the interior remained sodden but intact. A lone skeleton lay on the remains of a framed box in the enclosed cabin. I supposed humans used the boxes as beds, though they didn’t look very comfortable. He held a pair of rusting crossed blades over his bare ribs. Swallowing distaste, I pried one of the blades from his brittle fingers. I swished it through the water, hoping it would be strong enough to help me break pieces of the fragile wood from the ship’s walls.
Behind me, someone cleared his throat. I whirled around, raising the blade.
“I thought I might find you here,” Havamal said. He swam slowly toward me, hand half raised, as if to calm me as he would a frightened whale. “I asked about you when the first girl came through. I was worried about how nervous you’d be. And how safe, especially after I saw that human pendant you were wearing. She said you’d gone first. The sentry said he’d seen you swim off.”
So he was tracking me now, inquiring after my every movement. Annoyance bubbled up inside me. This was supposed to be my chance. “So you thought you’d just chase after me? Did it even occur to you that I might want to be alone?”
“The next girl to come out said that you passed… that you were the best in decades.” A small smile lit up his face. He swam closer and rested his hand on my back. “That’s great. I’m so proud of you. You don’t have to be afraid of it anymore.”
Proud of me? He was proud of me? With all my strength, I pushed him away and into the wall behind him. “I was never afraid. I did it because I was tired of Vigdis saying there was something wrong with me.”
Wincing from the impact, Havamal muttered, “Well, you won’t have to worry about Vigdis saying anything ever again.”
“That’s right!” I snapped.
Havamal took a seat on the edge of a wooden chest and crossed his muscular arms over his chest. His beautiful, pure silver scales twinkled in the dim light and reflected in his eyes. He whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “She’s not fertile. Only two eggs.”
Even though I knew what kind of person it made me, my heart soared. All those years of enduring Vigdis’s teasing and veiled insults, and, it turned out, she was the one who was broken!
It was too easy to slip back into the easy mode we’d always shared, gossiping together in the hull of the dead ship. With news like that, I couldn’t stay angry at him. “What?” I sat beside him and rested the blade over my lap. “Two? Are you serious?”
He nodded emphatically. “Just two. She’s beside herself.”
I covered my mouth, stifling a giggle. I knew I shouldn’t laugh, but I couldn’t help it.
Plucking the sword from my lap, Havamal examined the edge of the blade. Then his deft fingers traced the clouded jewels on the hilt. “I can’t believe you stole from a corpse, even if it’s a human. Thor’s going to zap you all the way from Asgard, you know.”
I punched his arm. “Like we haven’t done it before a thousand times. Thor doesn’t care what the merfolk do.”
He snorted, returning the blade to my lap. “Me, never. You’ve always been the rebel.”
“You sure? I seem to remember that you were the one convincing me to sneak out at night.”
He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m not confirming.”
A moan pealed through the ship as a strong wave passed overhead. Havamal’s fingers brushed the blue scale patterns on my palm. I let my weight sag into the reassuring and familiar firmness of his torso. A deep breath escaped, and a feeling like relief made my body feel boneless. How long had it been since we had done this?
“Erie,” he whispered, bringing his fingers up to toy with a curl in my hair. Hesitantly, he touched the ornament around my neck and rubbed the detailed engravings with his thumb. Bubbles from his breath tickled my earlobe. “I still love you, you know.”
A sob caught inside me. Whatever easiness I’d felt vanished. He always had to ruin things. “Did you come here to convince me… convince me to be your mate?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I know you’ll need some time.”
I looked up into his storm-gray eyes and his full, blood-red lips. I had to be honest with him, even though it hurt both of us. “I don’t know if time is what I need.”
Havamal stiffened, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded forced. “I know you want to explore. I know you want your freedom… whatever that means. And I’m sorry that isn’t what I want anymore. I’m happy here. I have a position. I want to build a life.”
I nodded, setting my jaw. “We had plans to build a life.”
“We had stupid childish dreams,” he snapped, throwing up his hands. “You really think we could make it out there? Just the two of us? Swimming endlessly around the ocean forever?”
“We could have made it to the south,” I said. “Everyone knows our kind haven’t lived in this ice cave forever.”
“And what, you’d leave all our friends? Your Mama?”
“I don’t have any friends! All anyone ever talks about is the ceremony and about finding mates.” I tried to ignore what he said about Mama. She’d be all alone and the thought of that made something die inside me. But she would understand, and I kn
ew she’d be happy for me. She knew why I couldn’t stay. She’d be relieved that I’d gone somewhere better.
“Well, I do!” He yelled back, squaring his shoulders. “And I don’t want to feel torn between them and you.”
“Then choose them!” I screamed. “I’m not asking you to choose me, because I won’t choose you if it means I have to stay here. You’re not worth that to me.”
My whole body trembled with anger and pain, but I was way past the point of tears. We’d always argued, even when we were kids. But now there was venom in the water between us. We poisoned each other whenever we were together.
“I don’t want to spend my life alone in the dark,” I whispered.
“You think I would do that to you?” He sighed and closed his eyes, and I watched his expression change as he forced his anger down deep. Then his fingers cupped my chin, gentle but shaking. “It would be your choice. Always your choice. But I didn’t come here to fight. Just promise me there’s no one else?”
A choked laugh erupted from me and I shoved him, but there was no vehemence in it. “Of course there’s no one else. I can’t even tolerate anyone else.”
That teased a smile from him. Brushing my hair behind my ears, he got up and hovered in the water in front of me. “Just promise me you’ll think about it?”
I sighed and didn’t protest any further, because arguing with him only hurt both of us. “I will.”
He nodded and tried to wink. “I’ll leave you to your grave-robbing.” Then he swam away, fast as a harpoon, head tucked against his chest.
I clutched the rusting sword so tightly it cut into my palm. Blood blossomed into the sea, unfurling like a sea anemone. A warm current streamed behind Havamal toward me. I leaned my head back against the ship’s decaying walls and broke as his tears bathed me in heat.
