by Matt Larkin
Keanu took a step back, but Makua shoved him forward.
Pele looked deep into his eyes, feeling a twinge of sympathy. “The gods must have their due. I offer this sacrifice to you, King Moho.”
She lunged at him, caught the side of his cheek with her flaming hand, and drew him in close even as he shrieked. The older kahuna tried to grab him, but Makua shoved him away like he weighed nothing.
Keanu’s flesh sizzled, popped, and sloughed off in reeking chunks. The man slumped to his knees.
And then the pain and fear in his eyes melted. Replaced with smoke and a hint of flame. The screams died all at once. Pele released him and he rose. Though swathes of his face remained missing, the bleeding slowed immediately. The man opened his mouth, and a billowing cloud of steam escaped.
“The true heir of Maui.” His voice was wispy, seeming to come from somewhere beyond his chest, and yet deep, as if originating in something much bigger than the shell of a man standing before her.
One of the other kāhuna screamed. Some fled, and others fell prostrate, weeping and pledging obedience. The old man dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
“I give you Moho, the God of Steam,” Pele said.
The akua strode to stand beside her.
“Who are you?” Pele asked the old kahuna, one who had obviously been second to Keanu.
“Kamalo, formerly of Moloka‘i, pledged to Queen Naia.”
“Pledge to me, Pele the Flame Queen.”
Kamalo’s mouth trembled. But he said the words.
When Pele left the temple, every kahuna in it had sworn fealty to her, declared her a goddess, and promised to make regular sacrifices into the volcano to appease the akua of fire.
It was a start.
The kāhuna would bring the people in line. And with commoners and priests supporting her, Pele doubted she would have to wage war against the ali‘i to get them to submit to her as queen.
Hi‘iaka had wanted a minimum of violence.
Pele had taken the throne at the cost of one man’s life.
That, and his soul.
14
Hundreds of mer soldiers swam before Namaka, leading the way to the front lines, while she hung back with Ake. It felt like they’d been swimming the whole damn night, and yet her new body still had the endurance to keep going.
“Everyone is praying you have enough control over the host’s power to turn the course of the war,” Ake said. The merman was now armed with a trident and it jutted out behind him as he swam forward. The weapon appeared to be metal, and well-wrought with elaborate barbs. But how did the mer forge metal weapons underwater?
We trade with humans.
Oh. Well, that had been a stupid question.
Ake glanced at her and she realized she hadn’t answered his implied question.
“I am the host, Mahalo.”
Ake quickly looked away, but she’d have sworn he rolled his eyes. Who did he think he was, doubting his princess’s right to let a queen control her own body? Here she was, two royals wrapped in one, and this boy was treating her like she needed his approval.
Boy? You realize he’s many times your age.
“Huh,” Namaka said.
Ake glanced at her again, eyebrow raised.
“Exactly how old are you, Ake?”
“Human, that is a rather rude question.”
Namaka shrugged. “I would argue that kidnapping and drowning me was kind of rude too. The way I see it, you’re probably ahead on that front.”
“I was following orders from my ‘ohana.”
“Uh huh.” Namaka fell silent a moment to bask in the glorious undersea realm. “Is it really true what the kāhuna say, about Kāne flooding the Earth to punish the wicked gods? There truly used to be more land?”
Ake uttered a long-suffering sigh, then looked at her, some internal debate going on behind his blue-green eyes. “The elders say the Earth was once much less hospitable, yes.”
Less hospitable? Namaka snorted. What a perspective these mer had.
And you think your perspective more neutral, to assume a world with more land is more suitable for life? There are twenty times more species living beneath the waves than above them.
“Huh.”
You are one of us now. Learn to think like a mer.
She swam beside him for a time. Wherever this battle was, it was damn far. They had to have swum sixty miles or more already.
Every time she opened her mouth, she tasted the salt in the water and a dozen other strange, intoxicating flavors. Her stomach growled. ‘Aumākua, she was hungry.
Then eat.
Eat what?
Control slipped from her and a beat of her tail carried her off course, crashing into a school of fish. Her hand snapped out and caught one with uncanny reflexes. Nyi Rara stuck the whole fish in her mouth and bit down. The moment of revulsion that filled Namaka fled as soon as succulent flesh and blood poured down her throat. A few bites had shredded the fish. Of course. She had shark teeth too.
Of course, you do. They descend when you need them.
Nyi Rara released her and she darted back after Ake. “Sorry. I was hungry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” The Ranger had a strange, almost continuous twitch about his lips.
Namaka shrugged. No human inhibitions at all? Hmmm. A delicious freedom, in its own right.
“Princess, why did you want to see the Urchin?” Ake asked.
Namaka opened her mouth to answer, realized she had no idea what the Urchin even was, and shut it. An instant later, she felt herself pushed down as Nyi Rara seized control of her body. “There are questions I need answered. I need to know what it will show me before I can be certain of my course.”
“What does that mean?”
Nyi Rara’s mind closed to Namaka like a falling curtain. “You were not at Tenebrous Chasm when Father died.”
Ake cast a glance at her, mouth twitching more than ever, then began increasing his pace, as if eager to catch his soldiers for some reason.
“What’s wrong?” Namaka asked, finding herself back in control.
“I expected scouts to report back to us by now.”
Namaka frowned. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
Everything now was so fascinating, so new. This whole other life—another world—had opened before her and she didn’t even know where to begin. She could swim faster than she ever thought possible, explore a realm of strange beauty with no limits or borders.
You are the strangest host I have ever had.
A strange sensation of jealousy filled her. Just how many hosts had Nyi Rara had before her? Was it odd that she felt possessive of the spirit inside her?
Very odd. Most hosts are horrified, writhing in their impotence as a spirit enslaves their bodies.
Well, put like that it did sound horrifying. But it didn’t have to be like that, was not going to be that way. Nyi Rara was hers now.
I am not a puppy, human. I am possessing your body.
“Awww, that’s a cute little mermaid,” Namaka mumbled under her breath.
Water carried the sound farther than she expected, and Ake turned to her. Before he could speak though, he pulled up short behind the soldiers, looking again in their direction. And he sniffed.
Actually, she did smell something. What was that scent? Like a tangy flavor tickling her senses, calling her …
Blood.
Wait, so she could smell blood? Sharks and mer must have been even more closely related than she’d known. Were they, in fact, something like weresharks?
Nyi Rara scoffed in her mind. I will lock you in a dark corner, host.
No. Namaka didn’t think Nyi Rara had nearly that much strength, or she would have done so already. A queen didn’t give in to threats, much less idle ones.
Ake frowned, then took off with renewed speed, darting past the other soldiers. Namaka followed, wending her way among scowling, cursing, or muttering mer. The blood scent had
carried a long way, and they had to swim perhaps another half league before they saw its source.
Hundreds of mer floated dead in the water, torn apart by a feeding frenzy of sharks. Tiger sharks, hammerheads, gray reefs—all had gathered to gorge themselves on the bloody feast. A severed arm floated in front of the mess, before a tiger shark spun with surprising agility and snatched it up.
Namaka’s stomach lurched, then she belched out bits of half-digested fish.
This had been a massacre. One on a scale to rival even the war in Uluka‘a. Numbers would be impossible to guess. But they weren’t really dead mer—they were dead human hosts. All those people, taken against their will, made slaves to fight in a war they knew nothing of.
“Our army,” Ake said. “We’re too late. They must have been ambushed by the Hiyoyans.”
It seemed the whole sea was a blur of red waters and guts and swarming sharks. How could one determine who these victims had been?
Because if any of our people had survived, we would have met them on the way here.
‘Aumākua, she had just found a new people. And now this. Again, her people died in droves and she was helpless to stop it.
The waters around her began to swirl, and Namaka screamed. A sudden current scattered the sharks and sent bloody remains of mer spiraling in a whirlpool. So much beauty down here. And so much death. Everywhere she went—death.
The sea tugged at her as the whirlpool grew. Soldiers were shouting, Ake was shouting. None of it mattered.
Stop it!
But she couldn’t stop anything. Her powers wouldn’t respond properly.
Her chest suddenly constricted, like a clam had snapped shut around her. And then coldness seeped through her limbs, pulsed through her veins, much as it had when Nyi Rara had first taken hold of her. Except this was not quite so cold, and not quite so alien.
Stop it!
She was choking, as the mermaid fought for control of her body.
Nyi Rara was the one doing this. The mermaid kept trying to control everything and so, instead, neither of them had proper control. Namaka’s power flared wildly, churning into a maelstrom.
She gritted her shark teeth and growled, raising her hands. She reached out before her and touched the sea. The mana in her soul surged, driving the sea to calm, and for a brief instant she felt control. A single heartbeat of perfect discipline. And then it fled, even as the whirlpool spun itself out and the sea returned to normal.
Namaka panted, suddenly feeling weak, exhausted even, and unable to keep herself steady in the current. She faltered and Ake caught her.
Damn Nyi Rara.
No answer was forthcoming. “Nyi Rara?” What had happened to her mermaid? Why wasn’t she answering? Could she have hurt the mermaid too? She twisted around in Ake’s arms, eyes wide as she stared into his.
Confusion, and then something else—perhaps compassion—graced his features, and he touched a webbed hand to her cheek. “She is probably resting. All mer have some ability to control the sea, and the strongest and oldest have greater power. But she is not used to coupling that power with a host’s own. Humans don’t usually have such gifts, after all.”
Namaka swallowed and nodded slowly. Humans weren’t meant to have such powers at all. She was kupua and, one might argue, the kind of being who should not exist. Now she was kupua and a mermaid.
Why should she care if Nyi Rara suffered for her arrogance, though? If the damn mermaid princess would agree to a true partnership, none of this would have happened. And yet … Yet something clenched in her stomach at the thought of the mermaid being gone. Of losing this world, too. Nyi Rara was … maybe all Namaka had left.
“So, you don’t think I hurt her?” she asked after a moment.
Ake smiled awkwardly, lips twitching, as if uncertain what to make of her concern for Nyi Rara. Namaka got it—everyone expected her to hate the spirit for possessing her, for taking away any measure of control or sense of self. But they had no idea of the life she’d led, or the pains she’d left behind. When one had lost all else, a new life—any new life, no matter how strange—offered a reprieve.
“A spirit completely drained might be forced back to the Spirit Realm. If that had happened, you would have reverted to human form and drowned. Since you still have that beautiful tail, I can surmise she’ll recover soon.”
Namaka sighed, trying to relax, then realized she was still in Ake’s arms and wiggled her way free. “I-I think I’m fine to swim on my own now.” He had called her tail beautiful. It was gorgeous, vibrant as the burning sky right after an eruption.
“We have to get back to Mu. Queen Aiaru needs to know of our failure.”
That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t their failure, they hadn’t even gotten to fight. But if what had happened with her power was any indication, maybe she wasn’t ready to wage war anyway. She had to establish some better relationship with the mermaid, or they were both dead.
Ake ordered the other soldiers back, and Namaka swam behind them.
The sun had risen and the afternoon dragged on, before Namaka and Ake returned to Mu, and the city’s lights once again illuminated the darkening sea. After witnessing the carnage in the wake of the mer war, somehow Mu had lost some of its majesty for Namaka.
You’ve seen death before.
Namaka started at the sudden return of Nyi Rara’s voice. The mermaid princess sounded breathless, if such a thing were possible for a disembodied voice. Breathless and groggy. And though it was a comfort to have the mermaid back, it was a small comfort. Yes, she had seen death, and all too recently.
Nyi Rara offered no further comment as Namaka swam through the palace.
“She’s back,” she whispered.
Ake glanced at her, then nodded. “I have to inform her majesty about the loss.”
“Loss? That looked like a massacre.”
The merman scowled. “Well, then you know why we have to stop the Hiyoyans. Unless you’d like to see this city wind up looking like that battlefield.”
The very thought of it soured her stomach. To see this beautiful city awash in blood, the waters obscured by the frenzy of sharks … it was some primal, blasphemous violation of tabu. She could almost see Leapua trying to propitiate the ghosts born of such madness and not knowing where to start.
Leapua. Namaka did have someone to go back to …
Ake must have seen the pain on her face, because he offered a nod, then swam down the hall.
Had she welcomed her new life here? Thought it so much easier, so much more beautiful than suffocating beneath the weight of her losses as a queen? She’d run from that life only to find the alternatives were equally horrifying. Part of her just wanted to go home.
And abandon another people?
Who in Milu’s vile domain did that mermaid think she was? The mermaid princess could go fuck herself in a clamshell for all Namaka cared. Damn her for being so … so … damned … right. One day in Mu and things had gone as horribly wrong as they had in Uluka‘a.
I am not recovered … I need rest …
Namaka frowned at the thought of another person—or whatever—sleeping inside her body. So much about being a mermaid felt off, and yet also so right. The part of her that was the Sea Queen loved her new form, her new reality. But Nyi Rara wasn’t half as forthcoming as Namaka might have hoped. No matter where she turned, her life seemed flawed.
A slow shift in color above drew her eye, as a he‘e seemed to melt off the ceiling. Namaka’s heart lurched in her throat and, before she had even thought it, a beat of her tail had carried her several paces away.
“What do you want?” It had to be Ambassador Punga—unless there was another he‘e in the palace. How would she even tell the difference? The creatures could shift their skin to any coloration they wanted. How did they tell each other apart?
“Conversations spoken loudly and with fervor pose little difficulty to overhear, even when one makes no effort at eavesdropping.” Once again, the creature’s vo
ice sounded alien, muffled, and thick, emanating from beneath all those arms. “Condolences are due for such losses, one must think. Mu fairs poorly, it seems.”
Namaka glowered at the octopus a moment, then had to look away. Those fathomless eyes made it hard to tell if he was looking at her, or what he—assuming the he‘e was even male—saw when he did. “Condolences are about as useful as a surfboard atop a volcano.”
The coil of arms beneath the creature shifted, propelled it forward just slightly, causing its head to bob. Was that a nod? A shrug? Some alien gesture she had no word for? The he‘e had no face, really, just those eyes—black as a starless night. “The human asks no question, but still, one might think she desires an answer.”
Namaka threw up her hands. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe an answer that involved actually saving people.”
“In conflicts between mer kingdoms, the he‘e remain bound, always officially neutral.” Which made them officially useless right now. “One might wish there were more solace to offer to one’s friends at such a time, of course. But such things are a matter of politics … complex interrelations between kingdoms giving rise to paralysis on the part of all parties. You understand, one must imagine.”
Not really—the octopus’s words were as tangled as his arms. Politics. What a pointless excuse for inaction. It was like Punga cared, but not quite enough to swim through the hoops of formality.
Except … he had said they were officially neutral. If they lived by their rules like her people lived by tabu, then he couldn’t overstep what he perceived as his bounds. But maybe those bounds could be changed.
“What if Mu were to offer a treaty, to ask for aid?”
Once again, the octopus’s arms shifted in some inconceivable gesture, almost like they were discussing the idea among themselves. Strange and frightening as the he‘e were, Ake had called them ancient. They might make formidable allies. “Any request must naturally depend on the asker and the terms offered.”
