“Told you,” Misha snickered and pinched both Sasha’s and Nadia’s bare shoulders just for swimming nearby. Sasha yelped and swam away, but Nadia hissed at her.
“Sisters.” Yuliya waved a hand covered in gold bracelets for them to settle, and they did—with glares. She brushed away a long strand of hair that floated over her arm. “Go on, Rena.”
Misha flipped her orange tail and swam toward an enormous shell chair like nothing had happened. She dragged her hand along the wall of plankton on her way, waking them up until the room held a soft glow. Mood lighting, since Mere could see in the dark. Trying to make me feel relaxed. I preferred my sisters when they were mean; at least then I knew their intentions. This only strengthened my resolve not to say anything about Gideon.
“That’s really all that happened.” I shrugged, pulling my tail up to hug it, scratching at the red scales to clean them, even though I kept them impeccable. “It was boring on the surface. Just like you said it would be.”
Yuliya played with one of the shells around my neck. “Hmm. I don’t believe you.”
I snatched it out of her hand.
That only made her more confident. Her green eyes narrowed as she smiled. “You always try to tell us your stories, no matter how boring. So, what are you hiding?”
“We have ways to make you tell us,” Nadia chimed in, touching the shells on her necklace. Though she hid her collection under a heavy assortment of gold, charms, and other jewels, she held a wealth of magic around her neck. Her hand grazed a curling shark-eye shell—spelled to imitate the fear and adrenaline experienced during a shark attack—then slipped over to a tiny oyster-drill shell.
I flinched at what that one could do, pushing off the bed of kelp. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Their hands pulled me back down, keeping me in place. I considered thrashing. My tail could knock some of them out, but that’d be asking for it. For the moment, I let them hold me there, clenching my teeth.
“Tell us, then,” Nadia said, as she tickled one of the many brown-and-white-striped fish she kept as pets because they matched her tail. “What secrets are you keeping?”
I glared at her and the rest of my sisters. “Fine. I stayed too late,” I lied. “I wanted to see what stars looked like. Are you happy?”
Nadia rolled her eyes and swam lazily over to a more comfortable coral seat covered in soft starfish for cushion. “That’s boring. We all did that.”
Sasha floated down to sit in one of my tall, open windows where she could smile at passing Meremen, while Dina admired herself in my oval mirror, adding a bit of my stash of jelly to her hair to give it more shine.
But Yuliya stared at me. “I think you’re lying.”
I swallowed, trying not to react. “I’m not.”
I’d paused too long.
“Yes, you are!”
This time, when she reached out to grab my wrist, I was faster. Swimming at full speed, I crossed the cavernous room and raced through the door, ignoring the Mere in the hall. If I can just make it to one of my hiding places—a hand brushed the tip of my tail and I pushed even harder.
Through the coral palace corridors, taking the fastest way outside, I squeezed through a tiny window, meant more for little-Mere than someone my age. I shot downward, aiming for a hiding place my sisters had yet to find near the base of our enormous home, less than a minute away.
A spell hit me at full blast.
I spun off course, with the breath knocked out of me, eyes stinging.
“Got you!” Yuliya trumpeted, gripping my arm in a way that would leave bruises. My other sisters cheered as they caught up.
“Little sister.” Nadia shook her head. “I’ll never understand why you think you could be faster than us. We’ve years on you.”
“Decades.” Misha laughed.
Sasha didn’t say anything. Only eleven years my senior, we were closest in age, and no doubt she remembered all too well when she’d been the youngest. I wondered if they’d been this vicious when she was 16.
“I’ll tell mother,” I said, but my voice lacked real confidence. Mother wouldn’t care. As long as we didn’t die, she considered our ‘games’ to be good practice for leading our people.
“Go ahead,” Yuliya smiled, all teeth. She quoted our mother: “If you’re not shark bait every now and then, how will you learn to stand up to a shark?”
“When was the last time Rena was shark bait?” Dina asked, lifting one of her sharper shells.
“No! Stop,” I whined. “I don’t want to!”
I shouldn’t have reacted. Sometimes indifference would make them leave me alone. But my protest only made them more eager.
“Don’t worry, Rena. This will be fun!” Yuliya grinned, not waiting for Dina’s shell, pulling out her sharpest shell instead. In one swift motion, she sliced it across my open palm adding a new scar to the rest.
I hissed in pain.
Blood seeped into the water. As red as any other mammal. And far more pungent. The unique tang of bitter mixed with sweet was in the water. There was nothing stopping it now. A Mere’s blood spread faster than any other creature’s.
With a giggle, my sisters waved and fled in all directions. “Good luck!” Yuliya called as she disappeared within the palace.
I didn’t waste any time. Clamping my hands together, I ignored the pain and tried to hold the blood in as much as possible as I swam awkwardly toward the ocean floor. But I knew I left a small trail of blood behind me.
My heart pumped fiercely and I aimed for the thick kelp below to wrap around my hand and stop the bleeding.
I hadn’t even reached it when the alarms sounded at the kingdom borders.
Slamming into the sand on the ocean floor, I snatched at a tall strand of kelp that waved nearby. I ripped it out of the sand to twist around my palm, once, twice, three times, knotting it tightly to stem the bleeding. It would make my trail fainter, but it wouldn’t be enough.
With a flip of my tail, I swam into the deep canyons of the lower city, where dwellings were built into volcanic rock and coral. I headed for the lowest level of the palace where I’d intended to hide earlier.
In the distance, along the borders of Rusalka, the sentries stood their ground as usual, but their stony faces didn’t deter the ravenous sharks this time. Not when there was blood in the water.
A few smaller sharks, a hammerhead, and a great white that was larger than three Mere put together, all swam in my direction. Mere blood reeked for miles in the ocean and the sharks’ dark pupils widened in their frenzy until their eyes were completely black.
Nearby Mere reacted quickly, using spells to defend themselves or attack the intruders. I swam on, hoping to make it without incident.
One solitary tiger shark zeroed in on me. It spanned at least a dozen feet and blocked my path completely.
I flipped and swam in the opposite direction, toward the upper palace where the spires stretched for miles and miles toward the surface.
Glancing behind me, I panicked. The tiger shark was gaining. The shells around my neck were supposed to be for instances just like this, but in my terror, I couldn’t think of a single spell.
Desperate, I aimed for the nearest safe room with bars of steel, pulled from the hulls of sunken ships. They’d been melded together with Mere magic into a careful design that allowed a Mere to slip through, but nothing larger.
I raced by dozens of palace windows. Later, it would physically hurt that so many had seen my shame, but in the moment, I didn’t care. I hit the safe room at full speed, not caring when the coral and rough iron bars scraped my skin.
The tiger shark slammed into the side of the bars only seconds after. Flakes of coral drifted through the water, shaken from the walls, but the structure held.
Soon, I was surrounded by more sharks, all in a frenzy and determined to get to me. The attack lasted only a few more minutes before nearby Mere finished off the last one, most of the others having been chased off.
We�
��d eat well tonight... at my expense.
Chapter 3
Rena
“I’M TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED IN you, Marena Yuryevna Mniszech,” my mother repeated what she’d said to me publicly after I’d crept out of the cage in shame. But this time, we were in her chambers, without an audience. She didn’t know my sisters were responsible; I’d told her I cut myself.
“To flee an attack...” She sighed, rubbing a spot on her brow below her crown, as she shook her head. “It’s not just shameful. It’s a sign of poor leadership. Poor judgment. A complete lack of effort.”
“But, Mother, it was more than twice my size!”
Her gaze hardened. “That’s what your spells are for. You’re forever forgetting to use them. Do you even practice?”
I touched the shells around my neck, spelled for different attacks and necessities. She was right; I always panicked when I needed them.
“Don’t be so hard on her now,” my father said with a laugh as he swam into the room. “Remember our first shark attacks?”
They chuckled, sharing some dark joke. Mother and Father were both in their second century and covered in scars. Did they even remember being my age? Had their siblings treated them the way mine treated me? I’d never had a chance to find out since all my aunts and uncles were stationed across the seas and never visited.
Outside the coral palace window, a large group of Mere swam by and Father plucked his favorite trident—spelled with perfect aim—off the wall. “The plans are finalized for the shark hunt. Today’s attack was proof it’s overdue. I’ll be back in a few weeks. Maybe a month.” He swam toward the door, not bothering to kiss either of us goodbye in his eagerness.
“Let the others go after them,” Mother called out, swimming after him. She’d begged him not to go for weeks, but my father loved the hunt and this latest incident was just an excuse to go. I trailed behind, forgotten. “We need you here.”
“Nonsense.” Father smiled over his shoulder. “You’ll be fine.” We reached the halls and he joined the others.
Mother’s hand clamped down on my arm. Dragging me in the opposite direction, we swam toward the lower levels.
Even as we sank, I knew what she wanted.
At the bottom of the ocean floor, underneath the palace where only starfish and anemone lived, my mother gripped a conch shell around her neck, whispering a unique spell she’d created. A bubble of air appeared before us and slowly grew until it made a cavernous little pocket of space before us on the ocean floor. A tiny room of air, meant for me.
“Please, mother,” I begged, trying feebly to pull my arm from her grip. “I don’t want to.”
“Just this once, my sweet urchin.” She didn’t let go. Smiling down at me, she added, “Do this for me. I know exactly what I want, and it will hardly cost a thing.”
She waited, staring at the Key that hung around my neck. Sighing, I lifted it out from underneath my shells. The top of the large Key was shaped like a crescent moon, designed after the land it was from. And it was spelled with Jinni magic.
I’d grown up with the Jinni Key and knew its power better than anyone. I pursed my lips, staring at the bubble of air before us. Mother thought herself ingenious for creating this spell. It will keep your blood out of the water, she’d said with a grin when she first showed me a few years prior. I wished she would search for a way to stop the pain instead.
The Key would fulfill someone’s greatest desire, but there was always a cost. A small cut for a small desire, like a delicious meal of squid or shark. A deep gash for a deeper desire, such as my mother’s youthful appearance. Every desire was paid for with blood. I’d learned through harsh experience which kinds cost more, and when the price was too high.
Maybe the cost of using the Key would’ve been more tolerable, if I could’ve used it on myself. But there were limits. It would never allow me to bend another being’s will to fit the desire.
And what I’d wanted most over the years had not changed.
When I was a little-Mere, I’d tried to use the Key to unlock my mother’s love. But it couldn’t go against her will. It couldn’t make her hug me, or turn from her advisors to listen, or stop my sisters when they picked on me.
As I grew older, sometimes my greatest desire would shift to my father’s love, or even, on rare occasions, my sisters. The Key would show an inky black vision of them meeting my gaze and seeing me for once, instead of the Key and how they could use it. And though I knew it wouldn’t work, I still slipped the Key into the lock below the vision, hoping just this once it might turn.
It never fit the lock.
Still, the Key gave me power in the ocean. Mere would bring me gifts, hoping I’d deign to unlock their own desires. When I was a little-Mere, I often did. Mother would say yes or no, and I’d comply. It was a strange version of the love I wanted, and if it was all I could have, I would take it.
Over the years, I said no more often. Yet the Mere still doted on me more than my sisters, which infuriated them. Especially Yuliya.
To the Mere, there was always a chance I might say yes. No one wanted to be on my bad side. There was only one I couldn’t say no to: my mother.
She waited patiently now for me to give in.
Pulling the Key off my neck, I gripped it and whispered my mother’s name. It shifted and bent as its long spine melded into a new shape. A vision appeared before us like the inky cloud of a squid but with a tiny image of my mother’s greatest desire unfolding inside:
My father, seated on his throne at home instead of hunting. He lounged beside my mother, rubbing her golden tail affectionately.
His lips moved in the vision and I could almost hear him saying, “Whatever you’d like, my sweet anemone.”
As we watched the scene, my mother grinned. “Yes,” she whispered, mostly to herself, “That’s exactly what I want.”
She didn’t seem to care that in the vision my father glowered at the deep-sea storm raging outside, which tore at the coral walls and would soon make the outer rooms uninhabitable. She didn’t care if he stayed for her, she simply wanted him to stay, and a storm conjured by the Key would force him to return.
Again, I found myself wishing I could use the Key on myself.
“Unlock it for me, Rena,” my mother commanded.
“No, please,” I moaned, “It’ll hurt too much!”
“You’ll be perfectly safe,” my mother argued, ushering me toward the pocket of air. “It’s a very small desire. As long as you’re out of the water, nothing will come for you here, and I’ll visit you until you heal.”
“Promise?”
“Of course, little starfish. You’re my favorite after all.” She winked at me and gave me a push. I fell into the bubble, dropping onto the soft sand, forced to drag myself up to a sitting position.
The price for such a large desire would be steep. The Key needed fuel, after all. It had to come from somewhere.
I swallowed, my gills fluttering anxiously, as I lifted the Key. Underneath the inky vision, a tiny keyhole appeared, the perfect fit for this latest mold. I pushed the Key in, feeling the pressure, and gave it a twist.
EVEN THOUGH I SCREAMED in agony, clutching the broken scales where blood oozed from my tail, my mother only reached through to pat my head before smiling absently. “I’ll bring you some bandages and dinner shortly,” she said as she swam away, not even waiting until my tears dried.
The Key always took blood to perform the spell. Sometimes, quite a bit. This time it left me feeling faint with a long but shallow cut along the side of my tail. I dragged myself through the sand to the other side of the air pocket where soggy kelp splayed out, caught in the air pocket and dying. Wrapping a long strand around the wound as a makeshift bandage, I curled up in the rest of the kelp, already feeling dried out myself. And lonely.
Would Mother even remember to bring dinner? No doubt Father had returned just like she wanted. I’d seen the Key work its magic enough to know it never failed.
&
nbsp; My mother had told me that the Key was a gift from the Queen of Jinn. Right as I’d been born at the tail end of the Silent War, they’d bartered a fragile peace between the two nations during the Treaty of Contempt. As a gesture of goodwill, the Queen of Jinn had offered a rare treasure to the little-Mere still strapped to her mother’s chest. To me.
Whatever someone most wanted, this Key could unlock it. For a price. And it could never be stolen; only given away. Mother used to mutter bitterly that they gave it to me, the littlest, so that the Key would be useless to our kind for as long as possible.
Mother didn’t bring dinner.
Stomach growling, I tried to sleep and found myself thinking about Gideon. He’d never treat me this way.
I dreamt of him and woke smiling at how strange he’d looked without a tail. When Mother did finally bring some fish, she tossed it into my small bubble of air, where it flopped on the sand, still alive. “I’m so sorry, my little polyp, but I can’t stay,” she said, already swimming away. “You’ll be healed in just a few days. The time will fly by.”
It didn’t.
I spent the hours thinking about Gideon, imagining him with me—his skin was so clear that I would tease him about how he nearly glowed underwater. We would have long conversations where he cared what I had to say instead of waiting for his turn to speak like my family. He called me beautiful many times again, although of course, none were as sweet as the first time.
Hours passed as I imagined staring into those pale blue eyes. I held up the Jinni Key, considering it. I hadn’t tried to unlock my own desire in years. Why bother, when it hadn’t changed?
Still. Tapping the Key in thought, I took a deep breath and wrapped my fingers around it, whispering my own name. It shifted to fit my greatest desire, and when the inky vision appeared before me, there he was. Gideon stared into my eyes the way he had on the rock, seeing the real me. He didn’t even know the Key existed, but he loved me anyway. Heart beating loudly in my ears, I lifted the Key up to the lock and pushed it in.
The Jinni Key Page 2