The Wicked Sea

Prologue Aurelia

PROLOGUE

AURELIA

The corpse of a mermaid rots high above a bushel of pure white gardenias.

Her scales fall like stardust over the moonlit garden, shriveled but still glittering and iridescent, even as the rest of her congeals.

No one pays any mind to the devastation, however.

They’re too busy bathing in the glitter, smearing it on their chests and lips in sadistic ritual.

Bittersweet liquor flows like a fountain from their hands as they drink deeply, as they shriek with laughter and dance around their victim, reaching up to pull at her long lavender hair. The men. The women.

Humans.

They do not mourn the creature they’ve slain. They celebrate her death and dance beneath her grave.

An old anger, hot and furious, clenches my heart in its sharpened claws.

Just beyond the ornate white gates of the palace garden, beneath a dome of silvered glass and decorative marble columns, a full moon illuminates a hundred royals and nobles celebrating their vindictive masquerade.

A hundred humans whose families have spent generations claiming and slaughtering and wrecking.

Tonight they will pay.

For five centuries, humans have slaughtered merrow.

Out of greed. Cowardice. They fear what they do not—what they refuse to—understand, and instead of seeking our favor, instead of fostering peace, they butcher us on sight.

To humans, a merrow commits treason by simply existing, and our sentence is swift execution—a sword in the heart, perhaps, if the human feels merciful, or a slow and torturous flaying if not.

And then they string us up.

Without fail, they hang us like garlands from golden ropes to ridicule, to desecrate, to drag their hungry fingers through our death and paint their skin with the victory.

My eyes flick back to the dead merrow, her body jerking as a reveler shears her hair and braids it through his eagle mask.

A hiss rises in my throat. My fingers tangle in my own short peach locks as I shove them behind my ears.

My steps fall almost silent on the marble floor, and I cannot see or hear my sisters in the shadows, where they creep forward too.

Where they watch, and they wait for my signal.

We are the depths of the sea and the salt of tears. We are the violence of the riptide and the snarl of waves.

We are vengeance.

A pair of guards stands watch at each of the gates’ entrances.

They carry swords in heavy leather sheaths while their gilded armor reflects the flickering flames of cerulean torchlight.

Their hearts are hidden beneath flesh and metal, but their throats are exposed.

Veins in their wrists throb. I can almost taste their blood on my tongue.

Perhaps I’ll drink it straight from the vein.

It is less than they deserve. Humans. Men.

I nearly spit at the thought, lingering behind a topiary crowned with pansies and tulips.

Imported. Indulgent. I nearly choke on the scent of their sweet perfume, how it tangles with the rot of my people’s corpses.

The laughter in the courtyard grows louder as the liquor continues to flow.

One woman—her voice feeble, hideous, and thin as a fraying thread—sings a local hymn, snatching shorn hair and throwing it around like confetti while others snort sky-blue powder through greedy nostrils and fuck in the center of the garden. I hate them. I hate them all.

There are none so horrible, so beastly, as those who reside here in the Kingdom of Mortia.

And the lavender-haired merrow is not the only corpse rotting over their masquerade.

Seven days ago, King Constane Ador intercepted other refugee merrow from an offshore island.

Merrow who were fleeing the Sel to escape a giant squid attack.

The merrow did not harm the humans of the small fishing town.

They did not use their magical abilities to maim or kill.

They merely hid in a ramshackle building beside the docks, waiting for the tentacled monster to retreat, and when it finally did so, hours later, they left—or at least, they tried.

Except an army of men with knives and swords waited for them outside the building.

The humans gutted them on sight.

And now they—my brothers, my sisters—weep dead flesh above human decadence and brazen merriment.

My knuckles crack as my hands curl into fists. My toes cut into the cold of the floor. Though my tail transformed into two legs the moment my skin dried of any remaining salt water, I still feel it whipping, lashing, inside me. A phantom limb begging to move. To act. To wound.

This kingdom shall atone for its sins.

Now.

I erupt from the shadowy colonnade with a strangled cry, and the guards stiffen at their posts.

Ripping swords from their sheaths, they prepare for a quick but bloody battle.

I don’t give them the chance to attack, however.

Not this time. Not ever again. Instead, my cry weaves into a vicious melody, and a song spills from my lips as sinful as the Fathoms.

Their eyes widen. Brown and green fear. Their mouths open on a scream.

I enchant them before they can utter a sound.

Their swords clatter to the floor in response, and they collapse with unnatural force on brittle knees.

A tendon snaps upon the impact. Agony reddens their pale cheeks as they try and then fail to resist me, to resist my song, and my lips twist into a vengeful smile.

In a fair fight, a human will never win against a merrow.

No, they must resort to base tactics, to overwhelming numbers and brute force, or else to trickery and deceit.

I continue singing as I approach, as I bend down and scoop up one of their swords, as I aim it at their necks and relish the fury on their crude faces. Then, and only then, do I hesitate.

“Sisters?” I ask.

“It is time, Aurelia,” Argonia answers swiftly, her voice spilling across the darkness as she approaches the colonnade. “The north entrance has been conquered.”

“The south has fallen, Aurelia,” Phylla responds next, her voice faint from somewhere behind us.

The men beneath me exchange frightened glances.

One reaches thick, clumsy fingers toward the lone sword on the floor.

Before he can grasp the hilt, I slam my foot down on his wrist and twist my heel in the way I was taught by my queen—the way that severs every bone in his delicate forearm.

He shrieks out his pain, and I devour the sound.

Kneeling, I drag my stolen sword across his metal chest plate. Silver on gold. It screeches the most earsplitting song.

“S-siren,” he manages through trembling lips. His face has paled to a sickly seafoam green, and a fine sheet of sweat coats his forehead now. He knows what is coming; he has heard stories of the terrible sirens of the Sel, probably on the knee of his mother as a child.

“Siren,” I agree with a small tilt of my head.

Short locks of sunset peach fall in front of my eyes as I cross my arms over the bone-white armor of my people.

“I could control the last dredges of your mind with a single note. Does that scare you, human?” He doesn’t answer, clamping his mouth shut resolutely, so I grip his chin with my free hand and jerk my head toward his comrade.

“I could make you gnash teeth through your friend. How do you think he’ll taste?

” When he still says nothing, I lean closer, inhaling his fear.

“This is a celebration, isn’t it? Perhaps the two of you should feast on each other? ”

The scent of fresh piss scrunches my nose.

I cannot tell if it is from this guard or the other.

Both shake like frail tendrils of seaweed in a summer storm.

Cowards. I shove his face away, disgust filling my throat like bile.

These men are not worth the full force of my ire. No, that is reserved for their king.

I stand, lifting my chin, and glare down at the pathetic guards.

“P-p-please,” the other murmurs, pressing his hands together in something of a prayer. “Spare me. I’ve done nothing wrong. I—I have never hurt merrow.” His eyes widen desperately at whatever he sees in my expression. “I swear it.”

If not for the fury blazing in my chest, I would vomit on his boots.

Baring my teeth, I kick his face toward the lavender-haired merrow, toward the dozens of others who swing beside her. Debased and degraded. Dead.

“Perhaps not,” I snarl, “but you protect the garden from which they are strung. You defend those who mock our deceased. The blood staining their hands has rubbed off on yours. You are covered in it. This whole kingdom is drenched.”

“Please—”

“For the fallen,” I say, and I slit his throat before he can finish the plea.

His words gush from his lips with a burbling of blood. The other guard hastens to move, to climb onto his one good knee, but I stab him through the skull before he can flee. I pierce his brain as easily as one might pierce a sponge. He deserved so much worse. They all do.

“The east is secured,” I say to my sisters. “It is time to wreak havoc.”

“Great luck,” Phylla sings softly as she departs.

“Great luck,” Argonia and I echo.

The wish is not needed. The goddess is on our side. This kingdom will not long survive.

We open our respective gates at the same time, in perfect synchronicity, and march inside Mortia’s royal garden.

Phylla, with her brilliant blue hair and blue lips, weaves toward the largest crowd beneath the freshest merrow corpses.

Red-haired Argonia pushes toward the bar, surrounded by masked revelers. And I—

I set my sights on the king.