Sea Witch Rising

3

Runa

THE SONG ENDS AND APPLAUSE TITTERS THROUGH THE room, along with calls for more. Alia curtsies, and when she does, I see him in the corner, pointing his dimples at her, dangerous as they are.

Niklas.

“Again, if you will, my dear,” he says, and I hate that he’s already using terms of endearment. She has a name, Niklas—use it. “Please, for our guests.”

Alia obliges as a song strikes up yet again.

The relief of seeing her here and alive ebbs, and the panic comes in double—triple—what it was before. I try to shove it down, lock it deep within me. I have to get her attention. I have to talk to her. Is the magic she used the same as when Annemette made her choice? What did she sacrifice to come here? Or better yet, who? No, no, I cannot believe my dear sister would harm anyone, even to achieve her greatest desire. Annemette was driven by revenge, my sister by love—or so she thinks.

Alia begins dancing again, and the crowd settles back into watching her—all but two boys, who manage to break away and walk onto the balcony. At first, I think I can stay still and unseen, but then they keep walking, all the way over into the corner right above where I’ve stationed myself.

Of course.

Careful not to let my tail make too much of a splash, I pull my body as far under the latticed balcony as possible, winding my fingers around the arcing pole that holds it up, taking care that my hands don’t show.

One boy is tall, one is short, and both will be a huge problem if they happen to see me. But it seems to me as if they don’t want to be seen themselves—their voices are low, gestures short.

“How many now?” the tall one asks, a handsome smile turning up at the corners of flushed cheeks.

“The numbers are fresh to me as of last evening,” says the short boy, his hawkish features bending hard with each whisper. “Five U-boats.”

I try to process a word I’ve not heard before. U-boat.

“Shhh,” the tall boy says, nearly smacking the short one across the mouth. “Do not use that word.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” the short boy replies. “Look, I know it’s not encouraging news, Will, but it’s what I have.”

Will nods at this too. “Good work, Phillip. Thank you. The contract will be complete as of tomorrow.” His eyes search the waters. “My uncle—”

Suddenly, Will cuts off and plasters a smile back on his lips. His whole voice changes, and he plants a hand gamely on the short boy’s shoulder, his broad back to the ocean now. “What a delight that your parents are making their way here, Phillip! It has been ages since I’ve danced with your darling mother.”

It’s just then that I see Niklas striding their way. He’s got the audacity to wear a slender crown atop his head and more jewelry too—a brooch, cufflinks of shining gold, even a ring of blood-red stones that burn despite the weak light. I have a strong suspicion that this boy loves to collect shiny objects, my graceful sister being just the latest.

“Ah, Will! I thought that was you, sneaking in the back and stealing kringle!” Niklas chides, doing more than simply clapping the tall boy on the shoulder—instead he brings him in all the way for a real embrace.

When they part, guilt flashes across Will’s features. “There are some things I’ve never been able to outgrow, my friend, and kringle is one of them.”

I angle myself a bit more so that I can see Niklas as he talks to his friends, but it’s then that another person comes into view. Alia. She places a hand on Niklas’s arm.

“Oh, boys, this is my foundling. Isn’t she lovely? Did you see her dance?”

The boys nod as Niklas gives her a little twirl and she falls into him with a ridiculous smile. She’s been topside for a day, and there’s already more color in her cheeks, though I suppose that might be Niklas’s doing more than the work of the September sun. “You’ve heard the story, of course, haven’t you? I’m sure it’s all the gossip. I found her yesterday on the beach during my usual walk at dawn. All torn up from a shipwreck and no voice. Lucky to be here, I’ll say. Now she’s my guest, and quite the dancer.” He pats Alia’s hand. “Things worked out just fine, didn’t they, my dear?”

No voice? Relief floods over me—she gave up her voice instead of a life. But how? That doesn’t even make sense. And why would she give up her voice? How can he fall in love with her if he doesn’t even know her name? Wait, she could write it, couldn’t she? Surely. But she would have if she could, right? The questions tumble over themselves as the pleasantries continue.

“Please meet Phillip—a distant cousin on my mother’s side,” he says, pointing to the shorter boy. “And Will, who I’ve known since boyhood, but, I don’t know—can I still call you friend, or is cousin now more appropriate?”

Alia’s slippered feet move just so as she curtsies for the boys.

“Oh, cousins. Don’t let formalities confuse you, my lady,” Will says. “Even though it won’t be official for two more days, who cares? We’ll be cousins for the rest of our lives.” Will laughs, and I hate that I like the sound of it. “Why not start now?”

“Fine, cousin, then,” Niklas agrees.

They laugh, once again too jovial as Alia looks from Niklas to Will and back, clearly confused. The joy crumbles from Niklas’s face, and suddenly my lungs stutter themselves shut as I comprehend what would make these boys cousins.

Blood. Or oh, no.

As it hits me, the boys must realize it too and excuse themselves on the pretense of wanting coffee. When they’re gone, Niklas removes Alia’s hand from his arm, clutching her fingers sweetly.

“Dearest,” he starts, taking a deep breath almost as if he cares, “I am to be married the day after tomorrow.”

Alia’s face falls. Her other hand grips his arm so tight, her fingers wrinkle the starched fabric of his tea jacket. My heart feels as if it’s in her vise grip, too.

“Though it’s only been a day, I … I feel like I know you. It’s strange, this kinship that we have—both of us lost as sea. Washing ashore on the same beach, some miracle, my little foundling.”

Alia nods, close to him, a look on her lovely face so pure that it says a thousand of the words she cannot. Willing him to see. Willing him to know that he does know her. That she saved him. That it wasn’t an act of his God that rescued him from the wreck that drowned his brothers and father; it was her.

I hold my breath as I feel it coming. He’s leaning into her and she’s still clutching him for dear life, looking up to him with eyes that contain whole oceans of blue, her lips and cheeks rosy from dancing.

Yes. Kiss her. Please, kiss her.

For the magic to work, she needs true love’s kiss—all the stories have been the same.

Their lips touch, and my arms give way as I slide down the pole from relief. It’s short, and sweet—but I realize before it’s over that it’s not enough.

There’s no magic to it. It’s not transformative in the least. Whatever spell Alia has found to give her legs, this kiss doesn’t have the power to keep her on two feet.

Too quickly they’re apart again, all of it rushing back to Niklas—the surroundings, the people just steps away in the dance hall, what he is bound to do in two days.

“I’m sorry. I’m king now, and a king’s duty is to his people. With my father and my brothers departed … it’s up to me to do what’s best. There are so many uncertain things about the world right now …” He trails off, and I can only imagine how the war would affect a kingdom like this. “But what is certain is that despite what’s going on, I need to make the right decisions for Havnestad. And the right decision for a new king is to ensure the continuation of the monarchy.”

Continuation of the monarchy. Anger singes my veins as my breath grows short. His monarchy would be dead if it weren’t for the girl right in front of him.

The king weaves his fingers tightly in Alia’s. “But please, please stay. Sofie will love you—I’m sure of it.”

Sofie. I hate her name already.

He smiles softly. “Perhaps you can be one of her ladies and stay here as long as you wish.”

Yes, yes, I was right—this boy just likes to collect things. His foundling on the beach. Now his dancing girl in the castle. There to entertain his wife as her own heart explodes from sorrow.

What a kind and generous king indeed.

“Your Highness,” comes a woman’s voice from within, “the queen mother has requested your presence in her chambers.”

Niklas squeezes Alia’s fingers. My sister’s hand drops from his arm, obliging, as if she hasn’t just weathered the biggest blow in all her life. The boy she’s in love with, the one she rescued, the one she gambled her life on, cannot love her because his heart is wrapped up in a contract signed by his father.

“I will see you soon, my sweet foundling.”

And then he’s gone.

My sister’s form slumps on the balcony, her head resting on the cross of her forearms against the railing, her shoulders heaving beneath her tumbling hair. I slip my fingers up through the slats in the balcony floor, thin ribbons of marble crosshatched beneath my sister’s feet. I touch the toe of her slipper, as light as rain. Alia’s eyes flash open, meeting mine. She immediately glances over her shoulder to the room off the balcony, clearing out from the breakfast entertainment. The guests are gone, and a few servants run about shutting the open doors.

When all the doors are closed, Alia sinks to sit on the woven floor pretending she’s just looking out past the cove into the tip of the sea.

My voice is low and rushed. I swing around the pole so that she can see the entirety of my face as I bark at her all the questions I can’t hold inside anymore.

“How? Did Father keep the books we thought were destroyed? The ones Annemette used? Or did you ask them—Mette’s daughters? Why didn’t you tell me? And what happened to your voice?”

Alia takes a deep breath and holds up her hands—watch this, her fingers spell. When we were younger, our oldest sister, Eydis, taught us hand signals she’d devised to communicate across the room during our daily lessons while our instructors’ tails were turned.

Alia signs a single word. Witch. We used this to describe our voice instructor, who had a habit of burying us up to our necks in the sand so that we’d learn to properly project without the crutch of movement.

But there’s only one real witch I know. Alia didn’t find the magic herself through books or rumors. She went straight to the creature who doesn’t need to know the old ways—the only one under the sea dangerous enough to try something like this.

“You went to the sea witch?” My tone is appalled and disgusted at once—if there’s a single being beyond humans that we’ve been consistently taught to fear, it’s her. I take a deep breath and I ask, though I know what she will tell me. “And she took your voice?”

She nods.

My disgust squirms and twists into blatant outrage. I’d never sacrifice a life, but this. It’s all I can do to keep my voice down. “So you really can’t tell him that you love him? Who you are? What you did?”

She shakes her head slowly, sadly.

“What about writing? Can you do that? Tell him the story that way?”

With another shake, she confirms it. She’s utterly defenseless. Able only to use her smile, her shining eyes, her graceful dancing, to get what she needs. She’s done well for herself to get this far, but it’s … so superficial. Not to mention, he’s about to be married.

“That kiss didn’t do it? Didn’t appease the deal? You must earn his love,” I confirm. Alia nods and I continue. “It’s not the kiss that does it; it’s the love behind it.”

Alia squeezes my fingers and then makes our sign for human—two fingers walking. Human love.

“Or Øldenburg blood?” I whisper. Alia’s face blanches, and she shakes her head violently.

No. No. No, Runa, NO.

It’s the only other way to satisfy the spell. We know this from Annemette’s story too.

A kiss of true love or Øldenburg blood.

But this path isn’t one she’s entertained—not yet. In fact, given the look she gave Niklas, it’s the last thing she’ll entertain at all.

“Alia, listen to me. You may not have a choice. His brothers and father died in the storm where you saved him. Everyone in the sea knows that.” I think of that other boy, Phillip, but his relation to Niklas is on his mother’s side. His blood will not satisfy Urda. “His might be the only Øldenburg blood available. And if that’s what it’ll take—”

Alia shakes her head violently again, pointing at me, then her ear, then toward the door where the king made his exit. She points to herself, and through the force of her hands, the signs she’s using, the fury on her face, I understand her.

You heard him. He knows down deep I rescued him. He loves the mermaid who rescued him. That’s me. He loves me.

“Alia,” I say, hooking the pole with one arm and swirling my tail around the bottom so I don’t slide. I grab her trembling hands, trying to still them. I’ve always been the one to tell her the truth when her dreams push the boundaries of reality. “He loves the idea of you—this girl he plucked from the same sea he survived. He hasn’t said he believes in mermaids, has he? Or that he believes one rescued him? Or that you look just like her? No, he hasn’t.”

I reset my grip, harder, stronger, as she shakes her head. “You can’t hang your hopes—your life—on a boy like that. The only person he’s in love with is himself. He loves the idea that Urda swept him up and saved him while his inferior brothers sank to the deep. You were just the courier.” The words feel like darts pouring from my lips, but I have to make her see.

Alia’s shaking head gains speed, and she grits her teeth hard, a red flush gathering under her eyes.

She points to me, and I know what she’s going to say before she signs it. I know her nearly better than I know myself.

You don’t know him, Runa. You don’t. You’re wrong. That’s not true.

It’s then that Alia surprises me, breaking my grip on her with such strength that I teeter back, holding on by only my tail, curled around the balcony base.

Then she signs a single word.

Leave.

“No, I won’t leave you. Are you crazy? You have, what, three days? And he’ll be married by then. Alia, won’t you—”

Leave!

She stands, red in the face, so angry she mouths the words.

I don’t want to see you again. If I am to die, let me die in peace.

Then Alia turns, because if I won’t leave her, she’ll leave me.

And she does, not even looking back, disappearing through the nearest set of French doors and into the castle.

I slip beneath the water. All the panic I’ve pushed down rises, galvanizing within my chest, setting my heart a-skitter and my fingers trembling. The sudden need to do something holds tight to my skin, bones, heart, and tail.

I have to stop this. This can’t happen. It can’t. There has to be a way to undo this. To save Alia from herself. I can’t have Alia fail. I can’t lose her twice.

I must visit the sea witch.

4

Evie

THE LIGHT FILTERS IN SLOWLY, MY WORLD GOING FROM a sky with no stars to one with a rising sliver of moon. Beneath that weak glow, my body is a pile of lead, the casing of a ship sunk to this place, rusting and rotting as the urchins gut it out. The only energy I have left goes to trying to open my eyes further to see what, if anything, is left.

“Oh, good, you’re alive,” comes a voice.

It takes me several moments to realize it’s not a voice in my head. I’m still so unused to company that it’s nearly impossible to remember the sound.

I’m conscious of my lungs working, drinking in thin breaths of murk. As I work to test my faculties, the voice continues. “If you’d listened to me, I would’ve told you that what you need isn’t in those books. That magic is for the witches above—the sea people are magic. You can’t solve a problem like this with only land magic, you have to know the magic in the sea.”

Oh, Anna. Always with the suggestions.

“I’ve been here just as long as you,” I say, my voice sallow in my ears—nearly as dead as the rest of me. “I know what you know.”

“But you don’t,” she responds back with all the energy I don’t have. “You forget that I was Annemette for four years, squid.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

Her time as Annemette is the reason both of us are here, in the dark. Her “father” all but confirmed that when he nearly killed me in my home. If I had the energy right now, I’d shut her up yet again.

I wedge one tentacle into the sand, trying to leverage myself up and around from where I landed. The pewter grind of it coats my skin in a gray rash, embedded so deep it may never come out. The tentacle gains traction, and I’m able to add two others to fortify it and push until I’m on my side. I sit up too fast, my head spinning as I screw my eyes shut and fall back onto the sea floor with a soft whomp.

“I know a spell that might help,” Anna offers, clearly peeved I didn’t jump at her hint of knowledge before.

“What is that?” I say, as I try once again to sit up. I’m more successful this time, but my head still spins horribly, my ears clouded with bells.

“Festa.”

If it wouldn’t hurt, I’d nod. This was a spell Tante Hansa used when she’d gained the nickname Healer of Kings. It’s not anything new, and I’m unsure whether it will repair the depletion I feel down to my core. Especially if I, the depleted one, am the witch commanding the magic for strength. It’s not a spell I’ve ever tried on myself; it’s only something I’ve seen used on others.

“Go on, then,” I tell Anna. “Use that magic on me. Spell me. I gave you that voice; go ahead and use it.”

She laughs, no mirth in it. “You gave me a voice, but you took my magic when you murdered me. Or have you forgotten that?” She says it like she’s razzing me, but there’s more pain in there than she wants to admit, and she’s trying very hard to inflict hurt while I’m already down.

“No, you took your own magic when you murdered King Asger for a chance to be human,” I remind her, very close to bringing up the elephant in the room between us—Nik. Neither of us has mentioned his name since I restored her voice, and I know when we do, it’ll be even uglier than this. “All I did was make sure you couldn’t murder again.”

There’s a gasp as that barb does the job. I wonder if this will be our future, wounding each other in little ways until all that’s left is to bleed out.

It’s silent again, and as an olive branch, I try the spell, closing my eyes and digging deep for reserves of magic that are dead or sleeping.

“Festa.” The spell is meant to revive strength, though as the word echoes through my lair, I feel nothing of the sort. There isn’t much to exchange—not much strength to get when there’s barely any magic within me to give.

Still, improbably, there’s a twitch somewhere deep inside. Like a seedling poking through the earth, weak and reaching for the sun. Easy to snap. Easy to crush. Barely anything at all.

“Festa.” I repeat.

Another twitch.

“Festa.”

And then, Anna joins in, her voice subdued. “Festa,” we say together as a prickle of relief touches my heart.

We repeat it five times more, and finally I have the strength to get off the sea floor. I dust myself off. Pick at some shrimp my polypi have caught and rained from their branches. The sustenance helps, but again, I must rest. I coil my tentacles below me.

“Thank you,” I say reluctantly.

“You’re welcome.” She laughs a little, more to herself than to me. “I need you alive—you die, and the sea king’ll vaporize this whole place and those of us literally rooted to it.”

The sarcasm sits all wrong in the little mermaid’s tone, though I still recognize this Anna from our childhood, playing it off with humor because she was hurt.

I swallow a few more shrimp and gather the energy to say more, knowing that it will be a while before I can cast another spell. But then yet again there’s someone who’s come from the clear blue into my sunspot cove. The weak magic within me throbs a warning I might have noticed if I hadn’t been concentrating so hard when the sea king arrived.

It’s not him, though. There’s no excess power slipping into my waters. Perhaps another brave soul who needs my help. I stack my spell books gently by my cauldron and arrange myself into the powerful creature anyone who visits expects me to be, hoping I don’t look as drained as I am.

It is indeed a mermaid who appears, swimming feverishly, determination folding her beautiful face into a frown. She looks very much like Alia, though her hair has the colors of autumn strung through a base of curled blond. Her eyes are a honeyed amber unusual here in this kingdom of shades of blue.

“Send her away. Even if the knife is made, you don’t have the—” Anna starts in a moment before I whisper “létta” yet again, and she cuts off. This makes me smile just a little bit—I probably couldn’t make a pot boil right now, but I can do that.

The mermaid sees me and doesn’t waste a beat, diving right in.

“Witch!” she spits with rage. “My sister will fail. That boy won’t fall in love with her in four days—he’s to be married. Married! And in fewer days than she has left!”

Now that’s a surprise—he’s so young. But the fire in the girl’s eyes sparks with truth.

“Give me the antidote,” she demands. “I’ll pay whatever the cost. Take my tongue, my eyes, my ears, hell, have my tail and fashion it for your own. Whatever the cost, I’ll give it to you.”

I don’t reply, and the girl looks me up and down from the other side of my cauldron, her eyes glowing behind thick lashes. The fury within her is eager to escape through more than just words.

“One day is already gone. How can you just sit there like that? She has three days left to live!”

The girl raises a hand as if to topple my cauldron, that anger begging for release.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say, calm in the face of her fury. This only serves to make her angrier, but she removes her hand—she’s a smart one.

When she speaks again, her voice cracks, the mermaid’s ire shattering into a new wave.

“Bring my sister back. You stole her from me. From all of us. You knew hers was a fool’s ask—a death sentence—and yet you did it anyway.” Her teeth are bared, and somehow that makes her look younger—she’s close in age to the mermaid who came here. The sea king’s most recent brood. “Do you know what the sea king will do when he finds out what you’ve done? What my father will do? Why start this again? You know the danger. Why?”

I level the girl with my gaze, and I know what she sees—young face, dark hair threaded through with silver, I’m as pewter-toned as the rest of my world. To her, I must look every bit of my reputation. This thing she’s been taught to fear—a freak of nature, tethered to my cove by her powerful father because of the things that I’m able to do. She came in here with fire and verve, angry at being left behind. Angry at what Alia’s bargain may bring. But she came, despite my reputation. Because she loves her sister as much as her sister thinks she loves this boy.