Ice Crypt (Mermaids of Eriana Kwai Book 2) (41 page)

She stood on her toes to see the top of the nearest head.

Lysi’s eyes flashed red, then. Her teeth lengthened. Before I understood why, something leapt from the water and crashed into us, knocking Lysi into me.

Lysi snarled like a wildcat, and then I was underwater.

A hand closed around my hair and pulled me back up. I surfaced, gasping and blind, to my friends’ terrified screams.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sworn Oath

Strymon’s full weight landed on me, knocking me backwards.

I braced myself in time to stop my head from slamming against Meela.

“Where is the king?” Strymon shouted over the screams of Meela’s friends.

He prickled with both anger and fear. Did he think we had succeeded?

I hesitated to transform into a demon in front of Meela. Then I realised how ridiculous that was.

I snarled. “With any luck, he’s dead.”

Strymon reached for my throat. I tried to roll him off me but he was like a boulder pinning me down.

“You reeked of treachery since you arrived,” he said, fingers closing around my neck. “Now I discover the remains of bloodshed on the way here.”

He pushed me into the rocks, strangling me. I clawed at his eyes. He grunted and grabbed my wrists instead. With a force that would shatter human bone, he pried my hands away from his face.

“I warned the commander not to trust you,” he said. “In the end, he was just as foul. He deserved his fate.”

The tide rose, the next wave submerging me.

“You have one more chance to tell me,” said Strymon. “Where is the king?”

“Gone!”

Rage flared in his aura—but I sensed the fear beneath it.

Meela was screaming. The boy, Tanuu, was pulling her away from us. My mind flipped back to her language.

“Blacktail, your dagger!”

No. I couldn’t let her get involved. He’d kill her with one blow.

“Stay back, Mee! He’s too—”

Strymon barked a laugh. “And you speak a human tongue! It should not surprise me. A traitor right through. I should have killed you the moment I became commander.”

“Lysi, what’s he saying?” said Meela.

She was fighting the boy, trying to get closer.

“Mee, stay—”

Strymon shoved my face beneath the water. While one hand held me there, the other slammed against my ribcage. The air left my lungs. He punched me again, and again, until my lungs emptied.

Through his webbed fingers, his head eclipsed the cloudy sky, agitated water blurring his face. I clawed at his arm. He pressed me harder against the rocky bottom, keeping his face out of reach.

He kept punching until I wasn’t sure which was worse: the pain in my ribs or my deflated lungs. I was going to drown.

I twisted, desperately trying to roll him off me, when one of the humans launched herself at Strymon. He stopped punching to throw her off. Ripples spread out as she splashed into the tide some distance away.

At once, three more humans threw themselves at him. Pain surged from his pores. Blood dripped into the water above me. One of them must have had iron.

Strymon let go. I pushed myself up as he threw someone away from him with the ease of tossing a fish. But before I could surface, his fist came down across my face, pushing me back into the rocks.

I screamed in fury, though no one would hear it. My lungs spasmed, sending a jolt of pain up my throat.

The world overhead darkened. I thought I was losing consciousness—but then I caught a glimpse of white, shining teeth and a pink tongue. The two remaining humans scattered.

It had been a matter of time until the serpent came for us. I stopped fighting. At least this death would be a quick one.

The jaws closed over Strymon. I heard his scream from beyond the water. The serpent lifted him away from me.

I stayed still, watching through the turbulence as the head flung his body into the air and swallowed him. Droplets of blood hit the surface, smelling fresh as they spread out in front of my face.

I waited for the other head to descend on me.

It didn’t come.

The darkness drew away. The sudden brightness of the grey sky made me squint.

I pushed myself up and surfaced with a shuddering gasp.

The humans were scattered in the waves. I searched for Meela, for the smell of blood draining from her body. I couldn’t sense her. The scent of Strymon’s death filled my nose, masking all else.

“Help!”

It was Tanuu. He staggered, fell to his knees, and then stood again, trying to lift something. A girl, face barely held out of the water. One arm was draped across Tanuu’s shoulders. Her long, wet hair clung to her face.

I lunged for them, half-swimming, half-crawling through the shallow tide. I passed under the serpent’s second head. It watched me but made no move.

Gasping for breath, I had no energy to fight the panic bubbling inside me.

“Mee!”

“She’s conscious,” said Tanuu.

Weak and groggy, she repeatedly tried to get her legs under her, only to have them give out. I let her use my shoulder as a crutch while the girls splashed over.

Annith pulled Meela’s arm across her shoulder. They waded for shore, stumbling over the rocks.

Too low in the water, I could do nothing but watch. The other girl, the one they called Blacktail, gripped an iron dagger, glancing around for more attackers.

The serpent’s eyes followed us. So did Dani’s. Her mouth was open. With an air of surprise, she dropped her gaze to her hands—the ones that had commanded the serpent to kill Strymon.

The same hands had commanded it to spare me. Why?

Water streamed down Annith’s face, which might have come from her hair or her red eyes—or both. Tanuu’s eyes, too, were puffy and red. Blacktail was solemn, stony, like someone numb with shock.

Dani waved an arm. The serpent faced us, its energy rising. I braced myself, ready to break away from Meela and her friends. But the girl wavered.

One instant, she projected that blind desire for prey I only felt in animals; the next, such intense fear and dread that I might have smelled the change in her blood.

She flickered between these states as she watched us labour through the waves. I couldn’t get a steady read on her. My muscles stayed tense, preparing me to flee any moment.

Then Dani turned away.

Slowly, the serpent ducked below the surface.

Above the waves, I barely heard the movement. Below the waves, soft ripples brushed my tail as she retreated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
One Last Chance

Tanuu and Annith dropped me just out of reach of the water. The tide would catch up to us soon, but they were panting too hard to carry me further.

Rocks groaned beneath hands and knees as they collapsed behind me.

“Are you hurt?” I said, glancing to Lysi.

“Who cares about us,” mumbled Tanuu.

I closed my fingers over the blood-soaked bandage.

“Look, I lived a month longer than I was supposed to.”

Lysi’s eyes widened. “Don’t say that!”

“We both know it was my fate to die on the Massacre.”

“No, it wasn’t. I would never have let that happen.”

She pulled herself from the tide and sat next to me.

Every part of me seared with pain, both inside and out. My heart laboured to pump blood that wasn’t there.

The world blurred. Ocean merged with cloud, the horizon broken and jagged. Somewhere closer, the dark mass of the Host swelled with the waves. Dani played with it, bringing it close and then pushing it away. I wondered if she was afraid to bring it to the ceremony. I thought I might be, if I were in her position.

The rising tide hissed in my ears, ready to coil around my chest and pull me down.

I stretched out my injured hand. Even that appeared fuzzy. Blood dripped into the waves and disappeared.

Lysi closed her hand around it.

I raked my eyes over her, grateful I got to see her one last time: her skin, smooth and golden; her greenish-brown tail, fading into her stomach like a sunset; her hair, coppery blonde, made thicker by tangles and seaweed; her perfect, arched eyebrows; her eyes, inhumanly large, white as pearls, blue as sapphires; her lips, full and rosy.

I lingered on her lips.

Might as well,
I thought,
if I’m going to die anyway.

I slid a hand around the back of her neck and tried to pull her towards me. She didn’t move, resisting as easily as if I’d been pulling a tree trunk.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“You entered this world a human, and you should leave it a human. I would never forgive myself for taking that from you in your last …”

Her voice cracked. She shook her head.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I want to die having kissed you.”

Her breath hitched. She pulled back, but I held on.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” she said.

“I am. I’ve … I’ve known since the Massacre.”

Her eyes flicked to my lips. “You have?”

My next words came easily—even urgently. My moments were too numbered for anything else.

“I love you, Lysi.”

It was as though something inside her disintegrated. Her shoulders dropped, her face softened, her eyebrows pulled down over those large, bright eyes.

“I love you, too,” she whispered.

I felt her words as much as I heard them—a gust of breath on my skin, a stammer in my heart, a tingling in my lips.

“Then kiss me,” I said.

Her gaze dropped to my lips again. She seemed about to speak, but then closed her mouth.

“Do it!” said Tanuu.

Lysi and I started. I’d all but forgotten we weren’t alone. We turned to him just as he howled in pain, and Annith rubbed her knuckles where they’d made contact with Tanuu’s jaw.

“Don’t be a pig!” she shouted. “Our friend is about to die and all you can—”

“No!” he said. “I mean she’s gotta be taken from her human form.”

“What?” said Blacktail and Annith together.

Tanuu pulled the soggy parchment from his pocket.

“Whatever curse is acting on Meela won’t harm her if she’s not human.”

Nobody spoke as he massaged his jawbone back in place. Lysi and I stared at each other.

“Listen,” said Tanuu, flattening the parchment. “It says,
the soul hosted by the human revives the one within the leviathan
. Human! Even in the rest of it—it talked about human blood, human souls.”

Annith covered her mouth.

“Oh,” Blacktail breathed.

I tried to recall what the story said. I could barely focus on the present.

I glanced between my friends, really seeing them since that merman had attacked. Annith’s hair dripped down her face, taking a stream of blood with it. She’d hit her head. Tanuu had a swollen cheekbone that would soon become a black eye. Blacktail cradled her left arm across her chest.

“Meela, this is how you can survive,” said Tanuu.

My heart beat faster, as though renewed by the prospect of staying alive.

After a stunned silence, I turned to Lysi. “You can save my life.”

“Are you sure that’s true?” she said, voice high.

“No,” said Tanuu. “But she has nothing to lose by trying.”

Lysi’s eyes darted between us, wide and fearful. “I … I haven’t … Mee, I’ve never changed a human before.”

“Good,” I said.

She searched my face, seeming to gauge whether I was being serious.

Annith grabbed Tanuu and Blacktail by the hands.

“We’ll be over there,” she said, nodding towards the crumbled ship.

She strained to her feet and pulled the others with her, leaving Lysi and me alone.

Lysi watched them hobble away for several seconds, until I ran my fingers through her hair. She turned back to me, eyes glossy with fear.

“You’re sure you want to?” she said.

I raised myself on my knees, linking my hands around her neck. “Yes.”

“If this works, you’re a mermaid forever.”

“I want to be with you,” I said.

“What if you change your mind? I don’t want to be the one to steal you from your people.”

“You’re not stealing anything. You’re giving me my life.”