Female Fantasy
I hear the sound first, deep in my eardrums.
The crackling of burning wood.
Bound paper torn at the seams.
My spine, split in two.
My spirit floats above my body, untethered from my corporeal form.
Funny, I think. It took dying to move freely beneath the waves.
To swim through the tides effortlessly like the mer.
I watch, a silent shifting observer, as Ryke lets out a guttural noise.
A primal scream, loud enough to wake the creatures sleeping deeply under the sand.
His eyes shut tight for a moment, and when they fly open, his golden orbs are melting down his very cheeks.
A single finger points in the direction of the false queen.
A brutal promise of death to come.
His muscles begin to thrum with power, as if my life force has somehow poured out of my body, traveled through the water, and entered his soul.
From one broken half to another.
I do not allow myself to think of the pain he must feel.
Of that loch shattering in real time, on his plane.
He screams again, and even Nix and Naia have the good sense to look afraid.
The former begins to gather power with his fingertips in preparation for a fight. The latter just smirks, red eyes piercing.
But that crimson blade quickly dulls as Ryke cuts through the water in a millisecond, places one large hand on either side of her head, and rips it clean from her neck.
Nix cries out at the sight of his decapitated sister, as if a bond between them, an invisible string connecting the siblings, has snapped. His tail bends in two as he barrels to the bottom of the ocean to collect her skull.
The false queen does not show an ounce of the compassion her brother displays, the same mer who took pleasure in torturing me for hours.
Instead, she looks to Ryke and says, “Very well. A life for a life, prince. A debt has been paid. And now our slate has been wiped clean ahead of the war to come.”
A snarl sounds from below me, where Ryke swims, gathering energy in his palms.
My life force.
Whatever the false queen sees in Ryke’s eyes must frighten her. As he approaches her, his fists clenching in a silent threat, she gathers her siren power and uses it to ride a current out of the cavern.
I expect Ryke to go after her. To finish what he started. The way he pointed at her was clearly an oath to end her life, one that I imagine he does not plan to break.
But no, it seems he will return to collect the false queen’s life another day. Now, he hurtles toward my broken body. Salt streams down his cheeks, mixing with the ocean water.
“Merriah,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “Merriah.”
I do not move. My chest does not rise and fall like the tides. The sun does not shine once the moon rises. And mine has permanently set. Now it will be night for the rest of his days. Forever.
His tears tickle my unfeeling lips, but he licks away the moisture.
Then he leans in and lightly lays his lips upon mine.
Stiffening at the coldness of my flesh, he pulls away and buries his face in my chest. His back shakes as he sobs.
A strange sensation overtakes my spirit.
It is almost as if I can feel his tears melting into my bloodstream, sending oxygen back into my vital organs.
Ryke must feel something, too. A tug, perhaps, on our interlocked limbs.
Because he pulls away and studies my face as if waiting for my eyes to open.
And when they do not, he leans in and kisses me in earnest. A real, lasting kiss. To say goodbye, I realize.
The prince of Atlantia is letting me go.
“I love you,” he whispers.
The strength of his kiss sings in the oxygen now flowing through my blood, resurrecting my brain and paying a visit to my heart. The water around me grows taut, a quiet vibration that no human could ever hear.
But I can.
I should not be able to.
But even in death, I can.
Ryke lets out a quiet yelp, backing away just as lightning strikes from above, where my spirit lingers.
The water all around my slain body begins to gurgle like a pot beginning to boil, blurring his view of me.
I feel the electricity answer the call of my blood, dancing with the oxygen and the energy from Ryke’s kiss.
Together, they dance down my body, repairing my bones one by one.
My skin melts and hardens and twists until I am as tough as leather: scales.
An elegant, muscular new appendage extends from my once-human spine, a straw-like yellow, as golden as Ryke’s eyes and as potent as the sun.
For I am the sun, ready to rise again.
Somewhere in between the land of the living and the resting place of the departed, where I sit and watch, entranced, another being appears.
A female. Tall and strong, with a mind of steel and energy unlike anything I have ever felt before.
Though I cannot see her, I feel her take my spirit in her arms. She lightly traces my face with her fingers, allows her breath to fill my lungs. A faint drumming sound begins.
My own heart, learning to beat once more.
“Light of my light, blood of my blood,” Amphitrite says, her voice overpowering the noise. “You carry the line. The line cannot die. The line lives on in you.”
Her power kisses my own, then disappears.
And when I awake, sitting upright with a sudden breath, it is not as a mere human.
But as a mer.