Chapter 56
Water encloses me.
My body should go into shock, but the cold is of no consequence to me in the water. I am in my element.
I am home.
My lungs are filled with air and don’t hurt yet. I slowly sink. When I eventually open my eyes, I see that green glow again.
I realize just how vulnerable I am compared to the monsters hunting me.
Nurmand?r.
They are so long and sinuous that they seem to merge together without beginning or end. They might be called a shoal, but they are too big for that. A shoal sounds small, flighty, easily startled. Nothing could be further from the truth.
They flock around me, curving their long, lithe bodies. Black scales sparkle in the sparse moonbeams penetrating the depths. They are sea serpents, yes, but they are also something else entirely.
Something much older. Something ancient and merciless.
All hard scales, muscle, and fangs.
I glimpse razor-sharp dorsal fins slicing through the water. I’m sure I’ll find out very soon if they are as sharp as they look.
Nurmand?r, I think silently as my hair floats and sways around my head.
Hatred grows in the pit of my stomach.
I am terrified, more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life, but fear is no match for the overwhelming fury surging through me.
This is my sea. My home.
They have no right to be here.
Welcome, little fish, I hear through the waves.
A thousand voices mock me, but I retort immediately, confident that they can hear me.
Go away
I am invoking authority that I don’t really possess.
They find this amusing.
I can tell by the way they circle me, in the vibrations emanating from their skin and entering into my body.
Says who?
My chest is beginning to ache, but I ignore it. The water is sustaining me.
Says me
I am thrust backward as one of them rushes toward me, only to swerve at the last second. The force of the flick of its tail through the water propels me away. I hear something resembling laughter.
They are playing with me, like a cat with a mouse.
You have no power over us, little fish
It’s much louder now. A painful, overwhelming chorus of voices in my head.
You must obey
I raise my chin and try to find a fixed point to look at. But everything is flowing together and they appear to form a single mass. There are so many of them moving in perfect harmony. An eerie, graceful mass of bodies snaking back and forth without pause.
I can hurt you
One of them, maybe the same one as before, comes for me again. This time I’m ready, and dodge at the last second.
The force of the underwater shock wave misses me.
I hear a bestial hiss of disappointment move past me.
If you don’t leave, I will sing
They laugh.
It’s not really laughter in the human sense of the word, but I hear it all the same. A sound that claws at my innermost being, sharp blades seeking blood.
We know. We hear. We are always listening. How long do you think you have left before you run out of oxygen?
My lungs have started to protest. Pressure from within. A few bubbles slip out of my mouth, and I hear that rasping laughter again.
You no longer belong to the merfolk. You are not our master. You have been weakened, polished like a pebble at the water’s edge. You have no gills. Nobody by your side. Your kind have withered away and died out. You are alone, and there is nothing you can do.
My chest hurts so much that I’m barely aware of their whispers.
This ends now
All I can think about is air.
I look up to see the surface, but the serpents above my head are blocking it from view.
They don’t even need to eat me. All they need to do is bide their time.
We are waiting for you
They come closer, so close that I feel the water move as they pass.
The strength drains from my body, and gradually I lose all feeling. I can’t hold my breath anymore. The air inside me escapes to the surface in a cloud of silvery bubbles.
Little black dots flicker before my eyes.
As the Nurmand?r swim faster and faster around me, transforming into a blur of shiny fins and deep-black eyes, images begin to appear in my mind.
Mom at the breakfast table with her braid half undone. Ms. Granberg with the gold gem on her canine. Rasmus taking my hand with a silvery light in his eyes.
I bite my lips to keep from inhaling water, but it’s impossible to resist while my body is screaming for oxygen.
Give in, little fish
They are so close that I can feel their scales against my legs when I finally open my mouth and breathe the water in.
I welcome the sea like an old friend.
It’s a different kind of pain. My body is still in agony, but it’s distant, no longer a part of me.
I’m elsewhere, on my way to a different place. It’s another Tuva floating down there in the sea, and it’s that Tuva whose vision is starting to shrink and fade to black.
A dorsal fin slashes my arm, and the sharp pain brings me back to my body.
They’re enjoying this.
Even in my final seconds, I can feel their black, bitter satisfaction. Triumph steeped in anger. Revenge they have waited thousands of years to exact.
Farewell, little fish