Marcela sat up, dislodging the cuelebre to fall in a coil in her lap. The serpent hissed and thrashed around as it tried to right itself.
“What do you mean? What is she?”
“Who are you talking to?”
Marcela’s attention was torn away from the cuelebre by the sound of Adelina’s voice. Her jaw dropped as she saw Adelina along with her other sisters bobbing in the waves. More than their presence, what shocked her was their hair.
Ria’s black springy curls were gone, shaved from her head, leaving only black stubble in their place. Her black eyes that had been hard as wet stone the last time they’d spoken were softer, shining with concern. Nita was beside her, her long blonde tresses replaced by goose down blonde wisps on her scalp. Her blue eyes held the same sadness they had before, but this time there was no flash of anger when she looked at Marcela, no baring of unnaturally sharp teeth. She lifted her hand in a little wave.
“You’ve been shorn,” Marcela gasped. “But…why? What…?”
“We committed no crime, if that’s what worries you,” Adelina said calmly, rubbing a hand over her own smooth scalp. “It was a trade.” She took a deep breath and swam closer, dragging herself through the surf and up onto the beach beside Marcela. She laid a dagger in Marcela’s lap.
The magic pulsed against Marcela’s skin through her soaked skirts. The hilt was made of a thin, twisted conch shell, encrusted with broken pink and lavender seashells and smooth cream-colored pearls. The blade emerged from the rugged hilt in a smooth length of what looked like polished, sharpened bone. Something about the blade sent a shiver down Marcela’s spine. Melusine’s laughter echoed in her ears and she was suddenly very certain that she did not want to know where that bone had come from.
The cuelebre was nowhere to be found. Marcela drew a finger over the dagger, looked back at Adelina, then out to her sisters. “I don’t understand?”
“We went to the sea witch to find out how to bring you back home.”
“Adelina!” Marcela’s stomach lurched and her chest grew tight. “Adelina, you promised.”
“I lied. What are you going to do, shave my head?” Adelina looked away. “I won’t leave you stranded up here. You belong back home with us.” She met Marcela’s eyes. “You had to know there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you.”
Marcela’s eyes welled with tears. What her sisters had given up for her… It wasn’t just their hair, it was their reputation. Marked as though they were criminals, the king’s own daughters. Oh, her father had to be furious… She dropped her attention to the dagger, shoving the rest away to consider later. “What is this?”
“It’s an enchanted dagger. If you use it to kill the prince, your legs will become a tail once again. If you throw his body into the sea, you’ll get your voice back as well.”
“Kill…” Marcela closed her eyes, dizzy as a sudden image of Patricio, dead and bleeding, leapt into her mind’s eye. This couldn’t be happening.
“Adelina, I’m so sorry.” Marcela looked out at her sisters. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’re not,” Ria answered. She rose up a little more from the water, baring her glistening plum colored scales. Her hands were clenched into fists. “We’re not sorry at all.”
“No, we aren’t.” Nita swam forward, nearly coming up on the shore with Adelina. “We would have given that old witch anything to help you. We’re only sorry we didn’t do it sooner. Marcela, you should have told us. Surely you could have gotten word to us somehow?”
“I was too embarrassed. It was such a stupid thing to do. I was possessed, I…” She shook her head. “It’s a long story.”
“We have all night.”
Marcela hesitated, but only for a moment. Her sisters had sacrificed too much for her to deny them an explanation. Steeling herself, she told them everything, about how she’d found Patricio attractive and how her feelings had only grown after he’d killed their brother. She told them about his curse, and about how the sea witch’s magic had broken it. Before she could change her mind, she forced herself to reveal the rest. How she and Patricio had spent time together and how she’d started to have feelings for him again. By the time she got to the part about Emiliana and how Patricio had taken her side, her sisters’ eyes were bright with fury, glowing like will o’ wisps hovering over the waves, their skin gone pallid, more alien than human. For a second, Marcela understood why her people had been the stuff of nightmares for so long.
“Take the dagger, Marcela,” Adelina said firmly. “The angel has given you no reason to put his life above yours.” She hefted herself up off the beach and dragged herself back into the waves. After she was deep enough to swim, she turned around. “We will wait for you tonight in the water underneath the prince’s window.”
Before Marcela could respond, they were gone. She sat there, staring down at the dagger. Something moved beside her and she turned in time to see the cuelebre pop its head out of the shore. A lump of sand sat on its head like a little hat and its pink tongue slithered out as it eyed the roiling surf.
“Bloodthirsssty sssissstersss you have there.”
“They love me.” Marcela swallowed hard past a throat gone thick with tears. She turned the dagger over in her hand. “And I love them. I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life apart from them.”
The cuelebre shook the sand off its head and it landed with a thick plop on Marcela’s thigh. The little serpent wound itself over her leg until it could sit on her knee and lift its body to look her in the eyes.
“Take the dagger to your room in the palace. But lisssten before you ussse it.”
“Listen to what? Listen to him tell me that his precious Emiliana can’t possibly be lying about trying to kill me because her soul is too clean?”
“You are not lissstening.”
Before Marcela could demand an explanation, the serpent flicked its insect-like wings and flew into the air. It shot out of sight in the blink of an eye, leaving Marcela staring dumbly after it.
Finally she tucked the dagger into her robe, securing it by tying the sash tightly around her waist. Wringing out what water she could from her hair, she started the trek back to the palace.
It was full dark by the time she reached the palace gates. The guards recognized her and let her in without issue, though the older one did insist on escorting her to her room. He didn’t offer her his arm or any such thing, and on more than one occasion she caught him staring at her lower half as though trying to picture the fishtail he’d no doubt heard used to be there. It was more amusing than offensive, so Marcela ignored him.
He left her when she was safely shut inside her room. She immediately went over to the window, looking out over the ocean. If she looked hard enough, she could pretend she could see her home, the sparkling towers of her father’s palace and the vibrant colors of her garden. The weight of the dagger pressed into her body underneath her sash. A reminder of what it would take to get her home again.
“Marcela?”
Marcela whirled around—and her jaw dropped. Patricio stood in the doorway, his hulking seven foot frame taking up most of it and his wings filling out the rest. He leaned heavily against one side, his shoulders drooping as if a heavy weight rested on them. Blood trickled down his temple and dark purple bruises mottled his body.
“What the…” She cleared her throat and smoothed down her wet skirts, wishing she’d taken the time to change as soon as she’d arrived. She brushed off the thought, immediately chastising herself for being so self-conscious. She focused on Patricio. “What happened to you?”
He didn’t answer. For what could have been a small eternity, he merely stood there, his crystal blue eyes boring into her with the force of a gale wind. The dagger grew heavier and heavier where it pressed against her side. She could hear her sisters’ voices screaming at her to do it, to end it now and go back to her world. He was weak, half-dead from the looks of it. Now was her chance. She swallowed hard and was about to open her mouth
to ask again what was wrong, when Patricio spoke.
“You asked me once what it felt like when I killed your brother.”
It was the last subject she’d expected him to bring up. Marcela shifted uneasily. There was something in Patricio’s tone, something…off. “Yes,” she confirmed carefully. “And?”
Patricio stumbled into the room, a sudden, lurching movement, and she flinched, using every ounce of her willpower not to draw the dagger then and there. Patricio never took his eyes off hers, his concentration growing more and more intense the closer he came. There was a wild glint in his eyes, a hint of madness. Her pulse raced and her hand drifted to rest over the dagger. Finally he stopped mere inches away.
“I felt…joy,” he said hoarsely. He shook his head, but his lips continued to move. “There was so much sin on his soul, so much blackness. I could smell it on him as soon as he left the water and… I couldn’t have resisted it if I’d tried. When my blade met his flesh, when his sin flowed into me, it was like the sweetest…” He stopped, the skin around his eyes tightening as if frustrated that he had no word for it. He closed his eyes and swayed, then forced them open again.
“It’s how it always is,” he rushed, the sounds ripped from the depths of his soul. “The rush, the ecstasy…consuming the darkness from evil souls is like nothing else in this world. Sometimes I crave it, feel like I’d die without it. I get near someone with that shade over their aura, the wickedness as thick as sugar all over them…”
Marcela held her breath, afraid to speak for fear she’d break the spell that was making him spill his guts to her. There was a desperation in his voice, a raw emotion that spoke of words he’d never dared to speak out loud, perhaps had never even spoken to himself. Somehow they’d seemed transported to another world, a world where there was only the two of them. No more lies.
He drew his sword and Marcela bit the inside of her cheek, determined not to flinch and not to draw her dagger. Whatever was going on, the battle was inside Patricio.
“The gods gave me this sword so long ago, I hardly remember ever having been without it. They told me to use it to etch the sins upon the flesh of the blackest souls I could find, to send them to the next world with clean slates so that they might be permitted to live again. I…” He trailed off, stumbled, and fell to his knees.
Marcela knelt beside him, trying to maintain eye contact, to keep his confession flowing. She would have answers, dammit. She deserved answers. “I’m listening. I’m listening, Patricio, keep going.”
“I convinced myself that it was for them I did it.” He clutched the sword in his hand until his knuckles turned white and the weapon trembled in his grip. “I told myself that this…need, inside of me was a desire for justice. What I did was a holy duty, something I had to do.”
He closed his eyes and his head dipped until his chin touched his chest. Marcela held her breath, her heartbeat so loud in her ears she feared she wouldn’t hear him when he spoke again. Suddenly Patricio’s hand shot out and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to him. She gasped, unable to hold it in as she found herself staring into blue eyes glowing with a strange silvery sheen.
“I want to kill. I want to drink the sin from their souls and feel their warm blood on my hands. The sword…the gods…” He clenched his teeth and shook Marcela once, hard enough to rattle her teeth in her head. “It’s all a convenient excuse, isn’t it? I’m not a divine punisher. I’m a murderer. What makes me any different from the people I kill?”
Marcela’s mouth opened and closed a few times and she winced as Patricio’s grip tightened. She knew desperation when she saw it, and Patricio was one of the worst cases she’d seen. He had the same look of a sailor clinging to a piece of driftwood, seeing his death etched on every wave that broke over him. For some reason, something had barreled past Patricio’s defenses and he was questioning his life and his purpose—a life that had included who knew how many deaths.
“C-can’t you see your own soul?” Marcela gasped finally.
Patricio jolted back as if she’d slapped him. “What?”
Forcing herself to remain calm, Marcela gently but firmly removed his grip from her arm. “You told me you can see people’s souls, see their sins. You said that even people who do bad things have grey souls if they do good as well, to balance it out. You’re afraid you’re as evil as the people you kill, but what color is your soul?”
Patricio shook his head. “I can’t see my own soul.”
Marcela took a careful step back, shocked when Patricio wilted at her withdrawal, wings drooping to the floor. “Patricio, I don’t have to tell you that you’re not my favorite person right now.” She steeled herself against the ridiculous urge to offer comfort to the man who had betrayed her, the man whose death she needed in order to go home.
He winced.
“So keep that in mind for what I’m about to say.” She took a deep breath. “You kill bad people, Patricio. You may be an arrogant, narcissistic, sadistic bastardo when you do it, but that’s somewhat beside the point.” She sighed. “I don’t think you’re evil, Patricio. You are not the same as the people you kill.” She crossed her arms. “And you could make the point that it is justice—”
“You don’t understand!” Patricio shot to his feet, hands gripping his hair so hard it was a miracle he didn’t rip it out of his skull. “You don’t understand how much I enjoy it, how much I need it.”
“I’ve taken my rotation as executioner.”
Patricio whirled to face her. “What did you say?”
Marcela straightened her spine and looked Patricio in the eyes. “I am the daughter of Triton. When I said my father carried out the executions, that was a half-truth. All of my family are expected to perform royal duties, including law enforcement. We rotate so each of us is familiar with all points of the kingdom—including executions. Like every member of my family, I had a rotation as executioner. I put several people to death, some of them members of my own kingdom.”
“Some?”
Marcela scowled. “I’ve executed four pirates. Miserable sea dogs, constantly getting drunk and firing at all manner of wildlife, throwing people off their silly wooden boards and drawing a line of sharks behind them like a toothy wake. They were put to death at my hand, and I certainly don’t think I’m evil because I enjoyed it.” She lifted her chin. “And I did enjoy it.”
Patricio was silent for a while, digesting that information, but then he shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
Marcela sat down beside him. For a while she didn’t say anything.
“So what made you decide to tell me all this?” she asked finally, unable to hold the question back any longer.
Patricio looked away. “I had a talk with a…friend. I realized as I was talking to him that if I couldn’t be honest with you about who I was then I had no business asking you to stay.”
Marcela caught her breath, a spark of emotion she didn’t want to identify flaring to life in her chest. “You want me to stay?”
He turned back to her. “Yes.”
Marcela leaned back, her mind a chaotic storm of thoughts. This was ridiculous. Nothing had changed, he was the same man he’d been when she’d tucked the dagger into her cloak. So what if he’d bared his soul to her? It didn’t mean anything. Did it?
She shot to her feet. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Patricio winced as he shifted in preparation to stand.
“We’re going to Emiliana’s.” Marcela squared her shoulders, prepared to argue if necessary. A small muffled groan of frustration from Patricio had her clenching her hands into fists. She spoke before he could open his mouth.
“I’m giving you a chance to show me who you really are, angel.” She whirled around. “You want me to stay? That’s all well and good, but know this. I have no intention of staying where I’m not respected. You said you couldn’t read Emiliana’s lie, fine. We’ll get to the bottom of this some other way. I know she worked some sort of magic on
me, maybe she found a way to hide the true color of her soul. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t see the blackness that I know is there. I’ll find proof—we’ll find proof—and then you’ll believe me and I’ll believe you.” She stalked up to him, stopping far enough back that she could look him in the eye without falling over backwards. “Make your decision now, Patricio. Decide whether your political alliance with her family is worth more to you than the truth, more to you than me. Because if you think for one second that I’m going to let her attempt on my life go with a casual ‘c’est la vie,’ then you are quite seriously mistaken.”
Chapter Fourteen
A weight had been lifted from Patricio’s shoulders. His confession to Marcela had left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he could never have imagined how…freeing such a confession would be. Looking back, he could hardly believe how long he’d managed to deny himself, how long he’d managed to believe Zeus’ pretty words and false praise. He should have known the god was lying, was only trying to use Patricio for his own ends. He would have been better off left to his mother, not as noble, but more self-aware. More in control.
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