Chapter Seventeen #4
“My parents were under the ice that day. I don’t know if they made it out.
If they were crushed. If they retreated to Dhalias.
” Al’s voice thinned, gills pulsing as he swallowed.
Kai felt his own gills echo the reflex; for a moment, he thought they might seal themselves and let him suffocate on his overwhelming shame.
Alun cleared his throat and went on hoarsely.
“I’ll have a chance now to find out, but if I’m honest, I’m bracing myself to hate you.
And I don’t want to hate you, Kai. You’re my friend.
More than that, we’re a Court and a family—but that could never replace the one I lost. And I know you didn’t intend to hurt anyone, I know Avette was not what she seemed, I just—”
Alun paused for breath, a great ragged one that moved through him visibly, drawing his shoulders back and tilting his face to the sky.
“You could have told us your part in it. You could have told me.”
Kai tried to swallow; couldn’t. His heart was still in the way, swollen and aching where it lodged between his gills.
“I know,” he choked out. “I should have.”
“Yes,” said Alun. And then, “I need some time.”
Kai could only nod; could only watch as the final member of his Court turned and swam away.
The right choice, Alun had said. There was that, at least, though he couldn’t help but wonder how much of that opinion was borne of a need to put distance between them.
They were right to be angry with him; all of them.
And yet still, he could not bring himself to believe there was another way.
A better way. They needed a home more than they needed his clumsy, destructive guidance.
He may not have always made the right choices; had made so very many devastating ones.
But if there was one thing that Kai believed could redeem him as a leader, it was that he truly wanted the best for his people.
And this step back he was poised to take; it was for the best.
He knew it was.
He knew it as he watched from the short distance, already an outsider to their merriment.
Someone was sending Merrow children soaring over the ocean’s surface on a jet of water, their little bodies convulsing with laughter as they flew through the air.
Chatter overlapped their youthful squeals, and every face was bright and smiling as they passed the pendant from hand to hand, its green glow dulled beneath the brilliant Dhaliaan sun.
He wanted to enjoy their shared delight; to share, too, in that distinct, all-encompassing relief of feeling the absent waters in their veins once more.
Instead, he knew, he would have to ruin it.
But not yet. They could have this moment; he would wait. He would give them that.
But the longer the Merrow larked and revelled, splashing and dancing beneath the glittering showers of the Mother’s gift, the more Kai’s unease swelled within him.
There was a bitter taste at the back of his throat, a tightness around his gills.
He was hot beneath the midday sun, his forehead prickling, but in the dip of his collarbone, his skin was chilled to the touch.
Still cold where the pendant had been resting since they last left Nua Luane.
The hairs at the back of Kai’s neck rose, and without understanding why, his eyes drew toward the horizon, casting around in the direction of the infamous graveyard.
Where he found a bright stare locked on his own.
The chill in Kai’s chest exploded outward, and in that moment, he was in the ice once more—frozen. Helpless to move or even think.
For on a flat rock, halfway out to sea, sat a Merrow woman, pale as the moon from so many centuries spent seething in the dark of the depths.
Her long, wet hair was plastered to her naked body with saltwater.
She wore nothing but polite interest in the graceful slope of her brow—and dark intent in the slow glint of her fanged smile.
Out. It was not so much thought as instinct, something old that fed on survival. Get out.
Kai heard his own voice echo that primal demand, booming and more commanding than he’d ever managed before; “Everyone out. Get out of the water. Get out, now.”
The Merrow must have heard that same primaeval fear in his tone, because not a soul hesitated.
They glided for the shore at once, children deposited on the sand and elders swiftly hauled from the shallows.
Kai waded backward, still locked on the naked woman watching from her rock, tensed and ready should she slip into the waters.
She didn’t move. Her too-keen gaze did not falter from his. And only when Kai had stepped onto the sands did she finally jut her lower lip in a slow, dramatic pout and slide off her rock. Foam dragged through the water’s surface as she sank and swam—away, toward the horizon.
Kai watched her retreat for several long minutes before his breath finally returned.
Behind him, the Merrow were still, their fear nearly palpable in the tense ringing of the silence.
And strangely, Kai felt his own fear slip away; gone was that lump that had been lodged in his throat since his Court turned their backs on him.
Because now Kai knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was doing the right thing.
The Sealgair woman had not spared a single glance at his Merrow in all their noise and spectacle. It was Kai they wanted; it was Kai they sought in revenge, his blood they craved. His people would have a home, and they would be spared from the Sealgair’s attentions.
Safe, without him.
Kai turned to meet the Merrow’s shocked and fearful faces.
“I have something to tell you all.”