heavy. But Shanty is easy to underestimate. She tosses her head back so it smacks hard against his nose, cracking it. As he snarls through the pain, she slips from his grip and tosses a cloud of bright yellow powder in front of her. With one long puff she blows it into Blarthe’s face and ducks away, drawing two long knives from her belt.
She may not like to get her hands messy, but from the deftness of her fingers on those blades, it’s clear that doesn’t mean she won’t.
The powder slows Blarthe’s movements, making him sway, but it doesn’t stop him.
“Those beasts told me I would see Corina again,” he spits. “Give me the scale! I will see her again!”
In another time, I might have pitied him.
His eyes flash from Ferrick to Shanty, and so quickly I nearly miss it, Blarthe is on her again. Though Shanty’s blades are held at the ready, she’s no match for the speed of a Ker. Blarthe knocks her back, but Ferrick must have seen through his plan. He tackles Blarthe to the ground a second before the dagger can strike Shanty; instead, it cleaves straight through Ferrick’s side.
My heart seizes. Ferrick buckles and wheezes, but already his restoration magic is working to close the wound from the inside out. But Ferrick’s magic can only focus on one injury at a time, and Blarthe’s raising his dagger again.
Both Bastian and I lunge, but neither of us reach him before the ocean roars to life behind us. The tides wrap around Shanty, pushing her across the shore before swallowing Ferrick and Blarthe whole. Bastian grabs hold of me as the waves crash down, slamming us against the sand. I hit shoulder first, and something in my arm snaps. I choke, swallowing seawater, but the tides are gone a moment later, and I blink through salt-stung eyes to see Blarthe on all fours, panting on the blood-red sand.
Behind him, the tides ripple and raise around Vataea. Relief floods my veins so fiercely that the throbbing in my arm disappears.
“You don’t get to touch him.” Vataea’s voice is a thousand songs, making my head spin and my ears threaten to bleed. “Stand up, Blarthe. Did you think you’d seen the last of me?”
His chest hitches with fear, and he refuses.
“I said STAND.” She is the eye of her own storm. Behind her, even the sky darkens as the gods shield their eyes in fear of her. Water snaps beneath Blarthe, taking him by the throat and tossing him onto his feet.
To his credit, he doesn’t beg as Vataea steps from the sea, shedding her fin as she crosses the sand. The tides wait behind her, seething and shifting, as starved as she is.
“I have thought about what I would do to you for years.” She doesn’t flinch when he lashes out with the dagger. The sea is her shield, swallowing the blade before it can strike and spitting it out at my boots. I swipe it into my wet palms. “I dreamed of pressing a dagger deep into your throat and bleeding you dry. Of taking my time, cutting you piece by piece over years, slowly enough that you would remain alive, begging to die. In other dreams, I would call you to the sea. I would rip your heart out and devour your body limb by limb. But it seems your gods favor me today, because not one of those dreams could ever beat the opportunity they’ve given me.”
The sea splits behind her, and I realize now that Vataea is not alone. Another mermaid waits, skin pale as sleet and full lips blue as a corpse’s. A crown of blond waves spreads around her in the tides, and she stares at us with piercing lavender eyes, slit like a cat’s.
The instant Blarthe sees her, his shoulders fall and a sob rattles his chest. “Corina.” The name is a prayer upon his lips, and my stomach lurches at the sound of it.
Corina. The love he’d lost to the mermaids. He’d never truly lost her at all.
Corina parts her lips, and I yell for Shanty and the boys to cover their ears. Her song isn’t silks and honey like Vataea’s; it’s gravel and steel, something not quite right about the tone. But Blarthe’s enamored all the same. He stumbles across the sand, trying to halt every few steps to look at Corina. He screams her name, willing her to stop, but she won’t.
“You traded away her love for