by Lucia Ashta
Mordecai moved on Washur. He swam with eyes only for the count. He was in control, possessed of a sharpness that made the Count take a small step backward before he noticed what he’d done.
Grand-mère directed Randolph to position himself across Carlton’s body in a protective stance and descended. She didn’t hesitate to round on Mirvela, who now clutched Anna as a shield in front of her own chest.
Grand-mère’s cries of outrage must’ve woken the merpeople who slept around us, because the clearing was beginning to swarm with them. I observed a merman take in the scene. He took in Carlton’s body and Randolph guarding it, then Mordecai rounding on the Count and Grand-mère stalking Mirvela with a terrified Anna. His gaze skimmed me before he looked to his queen. I noticed her shake her head in a subtle negative.
The merman seemed to have asked whether he should interfere, and his queen had told him not to. What did that mean? Were these merpeople not going to defend Mirvela?
The two mermen guarding their queen closed in, forming a shield of muscle and brawn in front of her body, but they otherwise waited and watched like good sentinels.
Washur, with his short hair and evil glint to his intentions, looked out of place. When he drew his arms back, his lips moving rapidly again, to form what I assumed would be another ball of death, I noticed several of the merpeople, crowding around us, seek direction from their queen. This time she spoke, but I couldn’t understand her words.
Whatever the merqueen said, her people weren’t going to interfere.
The ball of dark magic began to build between Washur’s hands again, but as he tried to extend them to launch his weapon, Mordecai catapulted into him, and the ball, already swirling, dissolved back into nothing.
Mordecai flattened Washur’s arms against his body, limiting his ability to cast spells. Washur thrashed and fought, but Mordecai held on. Between the two of them, they’d lived for more than eight centuries, but you wouldn’t suspect it from the vigor with which they fought for their lives. It didn’t matter that they’d already lived far longer than was natural, they intended to keep living.
Panic sloshed around inside me. Two people I loved were struggling against sorcerers that wanted to kill them, and Anna might still become collateral damage in a battle where the stakes were unimaginably high.
Grand-mère was stalking Mirvela like a big cat. Every time Grand-mère took a step closer, Mirvela pulled Anna nearer to her, making it clear without words that any attack would lead to Anna’s death.
I swung my attention back to Mordecai and Washur. Little had changed in their positions, but Washur’s ordinarily pale face was now red from frustration and struggle. His face contrasted with his pale hair, making him look like the real monster he was for the first time. His icy eyes were wide and vicious, his teeth bared and menacing. I tried not to be, but I was afraid for Mordecai.
I took my first step toward the struggling pair. Mordecai and Grand-mère had asked me not to interfere until it became necessary, but how would I know when that was? Washur had killed Carlton in seconds. Should I wait until it was too late to offer whatever help I could? It seemed that I shouldn’t.
I was about to reach for the five-petal knot at my center, realizing there I’d find calm to decide what to do and the empowerment to carry it out, when Grand-mère called out. “Mordecai, she’s going to take Anna’s life and my power isn’t working with her as I’d hoped it would.” Fear at losing someone else rolled across Grand-mère’s words. “Help, please.”
Mirvela, who’d heard Grand-mère’s desperation as well as I had, laughed. It was a terrible, merciless sound that emphasized Grand-mère’s fear. Not only would Mirvela kill Anna, but she’d enjoy it, and then she’d suck the life from the rest of us.
Unless we stopped her. And if Grand-mère couldn’t stop her, I had no idea how I might. When I’d been her prisoner, her influence over me had been so great and so expertly wielded, that I hadn’t realized I was an unwilling captive until after Marcelo’s rescue.
Even with her magic bound, Mirvela could still apparently access that of the many people she’d stolen it from. I was no match for her.
I wasn’t a match for Count Washur either.
I was a novice witch with remarkable powers, but that wasn’t enough. Mirvela and Washur lashed out before I could process what to do about it. Their magic was certain, powerful, and aimed to kill.
Would I be forced to watch Mirvela and Washur kill Anna, then Grand-mère and Mordecai, before they killed me? Was that what all the struggle and learning and hoping in my life would lead to?
Mordecai flicked a quick glance over his shoulder at Grand-mère, Mirvela, and Anna, but I could tell he was worried about turning his attention from Washur at all. Then he risked a look at me. I must’ve looked as panic stricken as I felt because he didn’t ask me to step in, to take control of the Count so he might help Grand-mère.
And then I sensed another gaze land on me and I looked toward it. The merqueen on the other side of the foray was smiling at me, and her smile was so glorious, so warm and encouraging, that before I realized what I was doing, my eyes were closing.
Despite the fact that Mirvela was about to kill Anna, and Grand-mère and Mordecai were also in immediate danger, I closed them out. I shut out the malicious intent and sense of lack of control.
I allowed the angelic-looking merqueen across the way to lead me where I suspected she meant me to go.
I felt for the five elements within me, the same ones that surrounded me even this deep beneath the ocean, where the world seemed entirely different, as if it were an alien world. The elements were there, beating as steadily as my heart, which was beginning to lose its frantic rhythm.
The five elements led me to an understanding that surpassed human subjectivity. Death was only a transition into another state. Just as with the elements, which never ceased to exist but only morphed, for a person, death was the end of one form before it transformed into another.
The shock I experienced from Carlton’s death—so fast, so unexpected, so final—transformed as I understood Carlton hadn’t ceased to exist—not really. Sure, he’d no longer be a butler in a great castle. He’d no longer be the magician and kind man he’d been. But he still was, whatever he’d become, something that didn’t have a name.
Every time I connected with the five-petal knot within me, I imagined I’d never want to leave the connection and assurance, the knowing that everything was perfect. The fire and air were present, strong as always, despite my position beneath the water where I no longer breathed the air as I was used to doing. The earth was still beneath my feet, even if it was perhaps thousands of feet beneath the earth level I’d walked all my life. And the water was at its most powerful.
The water was in everything here. It bound the five elements to each other and to me.
As prevalent as the water element was here, and as connected as a merwoman must be to the water, Mirvela’s power was augmented. If she’d been fearsome above ground, then she was doubly so in the ocean.
But what Mirvela didn’t realize was that for someone like me, so deeply connected to the water element, my power intensified as well, and the more I drew on the element of water for my magic, the stronger it became.
I realized this just in time, because before I could reach into the five-petal knot further, Grand-mère called out again. She said only one word, but that word conveyed all she didn’t say.
There was no more time. Mirvela had reached out to kill Anna. Unlike Carlton, Anna didn’t possess her own magic, so the dark merqueen couldn’t draw on Anna’s magic to fuel her own. No, this was murder. Mirvela was about to kill only because she could, because she understood that it’d hurt those of us that sought to stop her.
Once Mirvela killed Anna, she’d watch Grand-mère for her reaction. Mordecai had bound Mirvela’s power, but she was still powerful enough to take Anna from him, from us. She was a merqueen and a powerful one. She’d teach all of us this lesson.
>
If we allowed her.
As Grand-mère yelled Mordecai’s name, he jerked his head to me. I nodded.
The five-petal knot sparked and flexed in readiness before I even asked it to.
Just as Mordecai hurled the Count in my direction.
Chapter 16
If we’d been on land, the Count would’ve crashed into me. In the water, I had to meet him halfway.
No longer the fearful girl trapped in a world of magicians I’d been minutes before, I swam toward the Count before he could alter the course of momentum.
Just as he managed to recover from Mordecai’s launching him toward me and attempted to move in the opposite direction, I was upon him. Before I could think of what else to do, I wrapped my arms around the Count as Mordecai had.
Only, the Count was stronger than I was, and as soon as he started thrashing it became obvious that it wouldn’t take long for him to break my hold, no matter how determined I was to keep him where he was.
It was time for magic. I was already connected to the five elements inside me. As had happened when I entered the water and they responded to my needs even before I asked, they rose to the challenge once again. It took no more than a passing thought that I needed to find the way to strengthen my grip on the sorcerer.
My eyes fluttered closed for a second, during which I sensed the water flowing out from me, snaking forth from my center and forming into ropes that wove around the Count and bound his arms to his sides. As strong as any current of water capable of pulling the strongest of swimmers into its undertow, the ropes cinched around the struggling sorcerer.
In seconds, he stopped fighting them. He stilled, but his eyes were ablaze, and I didn’t believe the illusion that I was safe from him for an instant.
Above water, when magicians were physically bound by rope or a similar binding, their magic was also bound. However, Count Washur wasn’t like ordinary magicians. Mordecai had already bound his magic, an act that should have made it inert so long as the binding was in place.
If Washur could overcome Mordecai’s binding, then I assumed he’d find the way to overcome mine.
He was contained—for now. So what should I do with him? The logical thing would be to kill him and spare the world from all the damage he’d cause if he kept on living. If Marcelo had allowed Mordecai to kill Washur all those times he’d wanted to, we wouldn’t be here now, and Carlton would be alive.
Could I do it? Could I kill a man? A dark undead sorcerer?
No matter who I was or who my parents intended me to be, I was a witch, and a powerful one. I had the potential within me to shift the magical world, I was sure of it now.
I risked a quick look down to verify what I thought was happening. My chest was glowing. For the first time since the five elements had nestled within my body, I could actually see the five-petal knot. It looked as symmetrical and graceful as I’d seen it in my witch’s gaze. There was power in my chest, pulsing and glowing outwardly, affirming that I could do whatever needed to be done.
Beyond my chest, something else drew my attention, Marcelo’s promise ring. Its serpent of wisdom and dragon of magic glowed and pulsed, throbbing with the connection between my fiancé and me. The roses inside the band heated against my finger, reminding me of the promise, of the love, that bound me to this man.
I’d kill the Count for Marcelo. Not out of revenge or because the Count deserved all the ill will I might send his way, but for better reasons. Because if Count Washur didn’t die today, right now, he’d continue until the next encounter, part of the greater war he insisted on waging against us—until after he killed and hurt others, because that was his way.
I felt the angelic merqueen’s attention on me as I raised my head back to the Count. With my glowing chest and ring, I met his pale, frigid eyes.
He’d already managed to free himself of the ropes the water tied around him.
I’d only been distracted from the immediacy of his attack for a second, at most a few, and already I was at a disadvantage—again. No matter how many times I surprised the Count with the unique nature of my magic, he claimed the upper hand, again and again.
Beneath the sea, the water element was the easiest to call on. I reached for it as I closed the distance between the Count and me another time. My hand held out, I sensed rather than saw the water element stream through my hand. It could be a rope or a spear or anything else that might occur to me while I closed the gap between us.
From off to my left I heard Grand-mère shriek. My impulse was to react, to turn to see if she was in danger, but I stopped myself halfway. My head slightly turned but my eyes trained on Washur, I resisted and advanced.
Whatever was going on, Grand-mère had Mordecai’s support, and an entire mervillage had congregated around us, watching but not interfering.
I’d hoped they might rise to defend the side that honored life, but they hadn’t, and at least they weren’t fighting alongside Mirvela—at least they weren’t yet, and I didn’t think they would. The queen of these people irradiated too much visible goodness to fight on the wrong side.
The stream of water I held in my outstretched hand solidified, and I hurled a spear of ice toward Washur.
He deflected it, bouncing it back toward me with a satisfied look on his face. He expected the ice to pierce me. He thought I wouldn’t anticipate his rapid offense.
In any other situation this might’ve been true. But what he deflected back at me was pure water, the element unmarred.
I didn’t defend against the icicle aimed at the glowing five-petal knot in my chest. I welcomed it.
The icicle disintegrated into its purest form against my skin. My chest absorbed the water with grace.
It was immediately obvious that Washur hadn’t thought of this, that he hadn’t seen another magician transform the elements so quickly or with such ease.
His look of surprise would’ve been comical if he didn’t intend to kill me, if he hadn’t just killed Carlton with as much caring as he chose what food he’d have for breakfast. If he hadn’t killed so many already.
I moved my second hand out to the side even as the sound of a scuffle over where Grand-mère and Mordecai must be made its way to me, slightly muffled in the water, but still obvious in its distress.
But I didn’t look. I offered Washur my undivided gaze.
For the first time ever, I witnessed fear spark within him.
Whatever he saw in me suggested he might finally meet his end.
I streamed water through both open palms. When the water solidified, I closed my hands around the ice and launched the icicle spears at him, two-handed.
His eyes widened, but not at me. He was looking at something behind me. I willed myself not to look and began amassing another pair of icicles.
But when I heard Marcelo’s voice behind me, where it shouldn’t have been, when he should’ve been safe in bed where I left him, I turned.
And I saw my mistake in his desperate eyes the instant before one of the icicles Washur launched back at me pierced my heart.
Chapter 17
“Clara, no!” Marcelo’s scream was heavy with terror and loss as he swam toward me. My fall was graceful and slow in the water, and he caught me before I could reach the bottom.
He held me just long enough for me to register the desperation in his eyes, but he didn’t lower his guard as I had. His attention already on Washur, he lowered me gently to the sandy bottom and pressed a trembling kiss against my forehead. “You hold on, Clara, you hear me? Don’t you dare go anywhere. I need to take care of this… sorcerer before he can cause you or anyone else any more harm.” The word ‘sorcerer’ dripped with his disgust.
I tried to smile up at him, to reassure him that I’d be here, waiting, that the water wouldn’t hurt me, not really, even if the icicle had pierced my heart—but I didn’t manage it. The pain in my heart was terrible, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit like the water had betrayed me. It wasn’t supposed to hurt me, not
when I was so connected to it, not when the five-petal knot resided within my heart center.
“Clara, promise me!” Marcelo flicked nervous eyes between the Count and me.
“Go,” I whispered as loud as I could manage. I reached weakly for his hand. “I’ll be here when you come back.” I desperately hoped my words wouldn’t prove me a liar.
I squeezed his hand, then tossed it aside, noticing the glow of my promise ring held strong. “Go,” I repeated.
After another nervous glance, he drew to standing and turned his back on me. I watched the scene unfold from my back. I’d entered the water to spare those I loved, but in the end, nothing I’d done had made a difference. If I died, I’d die for nothing. Just as Carlton’s death had been unnecessary and senseless, so mine would be.
Brave had apparently arrived with Marcelo and he was facing his father with a peculiar look on his face. I wondered at it. It was as if Brave were seeing the Count for who and what he was for the first time in his entire life. Like a blind man suddenly gifted the miracle of sight, Brave looked both horrified and relieved at once.
And then that shifted.
“Salazar,” the Count said, “how kind of you to join us. I was hoping you would.” By the way the Count drew out the word Salazar, careful to enunciate every one of its sounds, I realized what the wily sorcerer was doing.
Marcelo realized too. “Brave, don’t listen to him.”
But Brave continued looking at his father, not at Marcelo, as if he hadn’t registered what Marcelo said. Something in Brave’s eyes shifted and I experienced great sadness that a man like Washur could override Brave’s natural goodness to make him something he wasn’t.
My heart spasmed. I let a gasp loose before I could restrain it. Marcelo swiveled to look at me.
“Don’t turn your back on him,” I said so faintly I feared he wouldn’t hear me, but he turned back to face our enemy.
The Count smiled, and I prayed that if I were to die, I’d have time to wash that sight from my thoughts before passing. It was the definition of malice. To Marcelo he said, “You came all this way and now she’s going to die. What a shame.” Then to Brave, “Isn’t that right, Salazar?”
