CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
What once laid beautifully down to my waist was gripped in the daggered claws of a monster that wore my father’s face. After the creature agreed to our deal, I drew the blade, freed it from its chest, and brought it down through my hair in a single cut to my shoulders.
It should have felt dreadful. Instead, it was a burden set loose when the weight of my hair drifted clean from my head. That hair suffered beside me, strand by strand. Cutting it was like burying a version of myself that had died long ago.
The creature lurked, inspecting the silvery-white locks hungrily.
“You have paid in half,” its evil, long syllabled tone drifted through the waters as it approached.
Swallowing down the hesitation, the next part of the deal took hold.
“Do it fast,” I said, attempting to hide the waver in my words, but they came out uneven anyway.
I shoved a tatter of my tunic under the chain-link breastplate I wore between my teeth and placed my hands flat against the stone wall.
Evelyn. Zahara. Jun. Calvin. Noctis. Raven. Neryssa. Laziel.
I recited their names over and over. It would save them all. My eyes slammed shut, the water moving around me at the approaching monster. The whimper that left my lips was so frail… weak.
The beast’s claws wrapped around the first fingernail, closing in slow and certain. My scream tore through the silence, and the water split with it as the nail tore leisurely from the bed.
After the fourth extraction, my throat bellowed back, aching just as much as my hands that poured blood.
After the seventh, my head spun with a ferocious dizziness I never felt before.
After the tenth, I no longer knew pain. My breaths became labored, tears threatening to spill from my eyes, and rage replacing the agony.
“Give me the trident piece,” I seethed through a snarl.
“Happily,” the creature chided. It cradled my bloody fingernails in its palm, and threw them into its blade-toothed jaws. They crunched against its teeth as I squirmed, trying to grasp a sense of reality and my breath. I refused to look down at the mutilation.
If I don’t look, it won’t hurt. It didn’t happen.
The creature raised its hand, shimmering enclosing its palm, and the trident piece appeared, drawn together by the water’s particles. The instant my fingers closed around the rounded end, a white-hot bolt of pain shot through, as if the exposed nail beds ripped from the bone.
“And Lady of the Blood?” the creature smoothly drawled.
I looked up to meet my father’s snarling glare.
“You could never grant me freedom that I couldn’t take for myself.”
I shoved the final trident piece into my satchel and rushed out the unlocked door, back through the prison chambers.
Soldiers scattered along the stone floor, rubbing their faces groggily as they began to awaken from the poison. Incoherency would follow for three minutes preceding their unconsciousness, but I needed every second I could afford.
I wasn’t leaving him.
Darting around a laid-out guard, I snatched the key ring from the loop along his mer trousers of rugged burlap material. Hundreds of keys jingled in my hand, all of the same tarnished silver. I fumbled through them as I approached the cell holding the young boy.
Seconds left, Caelyn. I needed to be quick, but I would fight every mer guard to ensure the child escaped. Even the darkest realm commits a sin when it chains a child. Iron shackles were forged for monsters, not the tiny hands that have yet to learn the world.
I reached the cell, hands still flipping through the keys as I assessed the lock.
“I’ve come back for you as promised,” I whispered into the darkness, but no response followed.
The imprisoned child felt like a reflection I hadn’t expected to find, one I recognized too well.
I would save him, I knew, without thought or hesitation, as if his freedom might stitch something back together in me.
The chamber lay empty, though, no child in sight, only mildewed hay and the tattered remains of cloth he had used to cover his face from the poison. I searched, sure it was the correct cell, but the boy was gone, and each of the corresponding rooms imprisoned unconscious, nearly dead prisoners.
I couldn’t have imagined him. He spoke to me, helped me, knew who I was…
The corridor stirred—slowly at first, then all at once. The guards were waking up. I darted for the exit, south bound, and dropped the keys on my way out.
Stalking through the shadows, I leaned closely against the walls of the thin hallway, trailing the spiral stairs that led me back above ground.
I found it strange to see stairs in a prison where the occupants did not have feet below the waters but continued on.
The kingdom’s central castle had stairs as well from originally being a drowned city, but I was certain the prison was mer artisan created.
Alarms sounded, cutting through the depths like a weapon through butter.
Metal armor clanged as I swam upward, signaling an approaching guard, volcanic stone torch lights illuminating the path faintly.
I inched the dagger from the sheath under my chain-link breastplate and awaited the rushing mer.
The trident piece dug into my hip as I plastered myself to the wall.
The plated guard sliced through the water with reckless urgency. I poised my tail perfectly, gashing into the mer soldier’s torso as he raced by. He fell instantly to the laceration, lifeless eyes cast outward, looking at no one.
I surged on, the alarms gaining volume as I elevated the Abyssal Hold. The commotion increased as guards responded to the call for help.
I was so close to the top of the staircase from the dungeons when a silent guard rounded the corner. His hand immediately clasped around my throat, his other so quick, ripping forward my arm and shoving me backward.
“Who––” his voice croaked, then he froze. His eyes widened in realization and flashed to disbelief. “Where’s the colonel?”
His grip tightened, nails digging into my flesh. My other hand fought against the restraint, the searing pain and uncomfortable feeling of clawing away at his skin without nails. It was like attempting to scream in nightmares—useless and terrifying.
Redness seeped into the soldier’s pale face, leaking throughout the white hair that peppered his upper lip and chin. He lessened the hold on my neck slightly, still asserting dominance but allowing me a breath to answer.
“Where,” he seethed, the words coming out slowly, “is the colonel?” He expected an answer.
I wouldn’t betray Laziel. I’d die protecting him, knowing the crew would return for the trident piece if I failed. I trusted them enough to know that my death would not bring the end for their mission. That their drive to save the realms was greater in importance than my downfall.
Noctis, I thought. He would die if I perished at the hands of the soldier. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words would not come out.
The mer male pulled a katana from his back sheath and shoved it through the first layer of flesh in my shoulder, right between the bone. Nothing hurt as bad as my hands, but gods… when would the pain finally end?
The blade nearly pierced halfway through flesh when the guard flew through the water against his will and crashed into the stone wall.
Locks of blonde curls invaded my vision as the missing young prisoner dove into the mer guard and positioned himself between us.
Arms outstretched, he blocked me from the fist torpedoing into his face.
The child rolled, flipping violently down the corridor before he caught his balance again and swam back to fight.
Determination laced his features—eyes squinted, fists balled, lunging in action to protect me.
I darted forward, my throwing blade in hand. It raced through the water as easily as it did on land, slicing straight through the throat of the guard. Blood sprayed, and I used the opportunity to grab the boy's lapel and take off.
Alarms and yelling rang through my ears. The noise grew louder as we reached the landing, but they also sounded distant as if we weren’t advancing toward them. As if the guards took off in the opposite direction.
Laziel did it.
A boom echoed through the prison followed by another. One right after the next, rattling the walls and fixtures. I thanked the mer under my breath for his brilliant distraction.
“What’s your name?” I whispered to the boy, attempting to calm his nerves as we snuck through the empty rotunda, hallways branching from the area in multiple directions.
“I don’t have one.” His answer was finite, as if customary.
“Everyone has a name,” I tried again, but the boy only shook his head.
We slid into another corridor, rounding the last corner toward the southern exit. It was empty per the plan.
“I don’t. I’m just the ‘seer’s son’. Born in captivity without a name.” He said it so casually, because it was all he knew. “Mother was transported to another facility when I was ten, leaving me behind. The way they used her abilities…”
“Do you have them, too?” I knew the pain of speaking on behalf of parental trauma, so I attempted to spare the boy the misery.
“No. The day they realized was the day I was beaten like the rest of the prisoners.”
My heart plummeted.
“How did you get out of the cell?”
The boy shot me a weak smile. It was sad. Not the smile of a child that was escaping captivity, but of one that had already lost too much to celebrate.
“I told you that my mother saw you save me.”
“I went back for you, but you were gone.” I didn’t understand. I didn’t save the boy.
“You poisoned the guard right outside the bars of my chamber,” he said, holding up a ring of silver keys.
“Clever boy,” I replied, a smile marking my lips.
The south exit was empty.
“You… hesitated.” Laziel said from behind us as he leaned against the exterior prison wall. It came out like a question as he eyed the boy. Guards lay strewn across the ground, unconscious at Laziel’s hand as he carved us a clear exit while I went for the trident fragment.
“He’s coming with us,” I demanded, but the young mer placed his hand on my uninjured shoulder.
“That’s not happening––” Laziel began, but the child interrupted.
“It is unsafe for me to travel with you. What is coming is… catastrophic.”
“I am not leaving you.” Something tugged at me, low and uneasy in my chest, as if this boy wasn’t just passing through our path, but had been drawn into it on purpose, for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand.
My thoughts kept drifting back to his mother, the seer who could see fragments of the future, and whether this meeting had ever been out of her sight.
The young boy smiled fuller then. “My mother told stories of you often. Of the mer offered in blood who answered in war. My aunt lives down the way. I think I’ll take my chances with her instead.”
“What about Sam? It’s simple, but it feels right. Like something you could build a life around,” I asked the boy.
While we escaped, I kept Laziel updated on the events inside the prison, my voice strained and uneven as I tried to piece everything together on the move.
The water still rumbled as we swam far away from the Abyssal Hold, bubbles and mortar drifting through the horizon even at the distance we put between ourselves and the prison.
The boy struggled to keep up, as if years of fatigue and lack of muscle use wore down his tiny body.
“It’s easily forgettable. He saved your life,” Laziel threw out, and I sighed.
“You’re right.” I thought further as the spent energy weighed us down. “What about Rick?”
“Is he sixty with a bad hip?” Laziel wasn’t helping much, but trying to give the mer child a suitable name helped the pain that seared through my fingers up through my shoulder.
“Torvryn,” the boy murmured under his breath.
I shot a glance back at him, the name itching at my brain, inching its way around the crevices of my mind.
“I like it,” I said.
“They won’t trail us beyond the Frenden Reef. Only half an hour away,” Laziel announced over his shoulder, leading us all back toward Zahara’s ship.
Torvryn’s aunt lived nearby, her cavernous home hidden along the reef on the edge of danger so close to the Abyssal Hold.
I refused to set off toward the ship without knowing he was in safe hands.
His breathing grew ragged, pushed by the limits of his small body and sharpened by the nerves creeping in.
He shoved his hair back, using his other hand to straighten the collar of his shirt.
He deserved more.
I handed him a dagger, jewel-toned and glinting in the glowing light of the creatures around the reef.
“To keep you safe, Torvryn.”
He took it, fidgeting with it between his fingers and thumb.
We came to a halt before the reef where Torvryn’s aunt lived, the currents thinning and the water growing strangely quiet as if it was waiting for us.
Torvryn took a deep breath and advanced slowly. Laziel and I watched from a distance, close enough we could intervene, if necessary, yet far enough the reunion would allow privacy.
The boy turned and caught my worried gaze.
“When the time is right, I’ll find you,” he said, like it was already decided. “You’re never far from me—not really.”
I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t question it either. He’d already led me to the door of the creature, and I had a feeling this would be important in ways I couldn’t yet see.
He turned and cautiously crept forward to the reef. Fish scurried at his approach like an alarm set off.
A middle-aged mer woman burst from behind the seagrass curtain of her hiding place, stance sharpened for battle. Her face was worn and deeply lined, every wrinkle a quiet record of the life she had survived beneath the waves.
She froze when her gaze locked onto Torvryn. Fear came first, flickering across her expression, then confusion as her eyes searched his face more desperately. Her jaw slackened. I held my breath, begging the woman to respond in the manner the child needed.
A sob expelled his aunt’s lips, fragile, like she would break if it were let out completely.
She visibly shook, inching toward the young mer in disbelief.
Her arms wobbled as they extended, and Torvyn nearly tackled the mer lady as he embraced her back.
Their bodies shook in tandem, cries racking them together.
Laziel and I turned to leave silently. I looked back, catching the smile that lit up Torvryn’s face, warmth seeping into my bones. We headed back to the crew, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of the young mer’s name. Like it was chosen on purpose.
Torvryn.