I reached out and touched his face, trailing a finger down his cheek. "Please hurry."
"I will," he promised, even as he threw me towards the water.
I crashed through the calm water of the surface and stretched out, pulling the clothing from my body and letting the salty sting of the sea refresh me. I hadn't realised how many aches and pains I'd had until that moment the sea stole them away. I swished my tail from side to side, loving the feel of the water against it. Something was reassuring about it. If I'd had any doubts that the water was my home, they all left me now.
A familiar bark sounded above the surface, though it was distorted slightly by the water. Even so, I knew it was Shelbie. And she wouldn't be barking without a good reason.
I swam upwards without even thinking about it, breaking the surface and powering myself back towards the shore.
"NO!" I shouted as Erickson lurched towards Aaron, his arm raised and pointing what looked like a knife.
"You must pay..."
"He already paid," I shouted, trying to gain the human's attention. "He had his soul taken by you..."
"And then you took it back," Erickson sneered. "And he's an easier target than you. From what I've seen, it'll hurt you just as much when I carve out his heart."
Tears began to stream down my face. I had to admit that it was much easier to hide them when I was underwater. Here, everyone could see that I was crying.
Shelbie ran around Erickson's ankles, clearly trying to trip him up again.
"I'm not falling for that again," he growled, kicking out at her.
A scream escaped my lips as she tumbled from the rocks and fell into the sea. With a quick glance to check Aaron was still okay, I dived under the water and towards where my best friend had fallen. If anything had happened to her, I'd never be able to forgive myself. She was only trying to protect Aaron and me. She didn't deserve to be injured just for that.
I scooped her into my arms from where she was floating in the water and swam back to the surface. It seemed that the sea was all we needed to change back into our natural forms though. I could already feel her fur falling away and her feet turning into fins. Hopefully whatever magic was turning her back into a seal from a dog was also helping fix anything that Erickson had hurt inside her.
We broke the surface, and she nudged her nose against my arm. I sighed with relief, she was alive. That was something at the very least. I flicked my tail from side to side, more conscious of the movement than I usually was. Probably because I hadn't used my tail in a while. That was certainly an unexpected consequence of being on land for so long. I wasn't sure I liked it. Another reason not to visit much. As if I needed any more now I didn't need to worry about the human who'd helped me. Not when he'd been doing it for no reason other than his own curiosity.
Shouting drew my attention away from Shelbie and back towards the two men. They were grappling one another, growing closer to the sea with every moment. I didn't know how I felt about that. There was a chance it had been too long since Aaron had a tail and it wouldn't reappear fast enough to save him if they fell. Though it should still give him a distinct advantage, particularly if Erickson had been telling the truth about his feelings about the sea. Somehow, I doubted it. He'd clearly intended to trap a mer soul that day. It had all been an act. More fool me for believing it.
The shouting intensified, and I jumped as one of their feet slipped. It was impossible to tell which body part belonged to which of them when they were grappling like this. It just all seemed to be a case of limbs flying everywhere.
They were going to fall. I knew it even before they did. And yet there was nothing I could do about it. Shelbie could clearly sense it too, as she swam out of my arms. At least that meant she wasn't injured badly. If she could swim and support herself, that was all I needed to know.
I felt the splash before I saw it as the two men hit the water. Not waiting to see if either of them surfaced on their own, I dived down into the water. Bubbles filled my vision from their frantic movements and panic began to fill me. What if Aaron was hurt? Or worse, what if his mer instincts hadn't kicked in and he drowned? I didn't want that.
I swam further down, hoping to work out what was going on before I swam into them by accident. Thankfully, they seemed to have fallen apart when they'd hit the sea.
A bright red tail flicked passed me, and I relaxed slightly. That must be Aaron. I didn't know how I knew his tail would be red, but it just felt right for him. He began to float next to me, a serene expression on his face.
"It's good to be underwater again?" I asked him.
He nodded. "I'd forgotten just how much I missed it."
That made sense to me. I'd barely been gone for a few days and had been struggling with my separation from the sea. There was no doubt it was worse for him. He never had told me quite how long he'd been away, but we'd have time to figure it out.
"Where has Erickson gone?" I asked, searching around the water for him.
"I think he fell over there." Aaron pointed to where the bubbles were falling.
I looked between the two men. There was no doubt in my mind that Aaron was the better of the two, but I wasn't sure I could let someone die when I had the power to save them, even if that was precisely the kind of attitude that got me into this mess in the first place. It wasn't Erickson's fault I was naive though. But I did know I'd be the one undoing this mess. The only thing I wasn't so sure about was why people couldn't talk about the curse. Perhaps it was just some kind of mind trick.
"You want to go after him?" Aaron asked.
I nodded. "We need to."
"We do. If we don't send him back with a warning, we won't be able to ever live in peace." He was right. If we didn't stop this at the source, then we were only solving the situation for current merpeople. Future generations would have to fend for themselves. We owed them more than that.
The two of us set off deeper into the sea, towards the source of the bubbles. It would take both of us to bring him to the surface, and to watch each other's backs. There was no way I was going to trust another human. Especially not Erickson. Stealing from me once was on him. Taking from me twice would be on me.
Cold seeped through me, taking me a little by surprise. I hadn't realised I'd gotten so used to the warmth on land, but it was going to take some adjusting to being back beneath the waves.
We finally found him, unconscious and floating away with his hair waving in the current. We needed to act quickly, or he was going to end up well and truly dead and gone. While there was some kind of poetic justice in that, I still didn't want his blood on my hands.
I hooked my arm through his, aware of Aaron doing the same on the other side. Slowly, and in surprising unison, we began to swim towards the surface, dragging the unaware human with us. I could see Shelbie patrolling above us, though I was sure she must want to spend her time playing now, rather than just doing what she could to protect us. I'd make sure to fuss over her later for her role in helping me save the souls. And I'd make sure everyone else knew what she'd done too. Some of the mer looked down on me for spending so much time with her. They even referred to her as a pet. But that was wrong. She was so much more than that, and they needed to understand that was the case.
"If we go up here, we should be able to push him up onto the rock," Aaron said.
I nodded. "Sounds good."
We broke the surface at the same time, both of us shaking our heads back to get the hair out of our eyes. Between us, we lifted Erickson to make sure his mouth and nose were above the water. It would make no sense for us to have done so much to help him, only to drown on the water still left in his system.
"One, two, three..." Aaron counted, and we lifted him together.
Shelbie pulled herself onto the rock beside us, eyeing Erickson warily, as if unsure what to make of his prone form. I didn't blame her. He'd caused a lot of our problems, and it wasn't going to be easy to forget that.
My breathing became laboured
as we moved him onto the rocks. His clothes and his unconsciousness only adding to the deadweight between us.
"Now what do we do?" I asked as we stared at the body just lying there in front of us.
Aaron picked up the other man's wrist and pressed two fingers to it, feeling for the pulse. "He's still alive."
"That's something, at least," I muttered. Though not much. A part of me was just annoyed that he'd survived after all that. The rest of me knew that there wasn't any other way to have it.
Shelbie squeaked at me and nudged him with one of her flippers.
"If you have an idea, be my guest." I gestured towards the body, hoping whatever it was she had in mind would actually work.
Without waiting for us to say anything else, Shelbie bounced up onto her back legs and threw her weight down on Erickson's chest.
I squealed and flung my arms around Aaron, unsure about what I was hiding from. His arm snaked around my waist, pulling me closer and offering the comfort I sought. That was an unexpected advantage of everything going on.
Water spurted from Erickson's mouth, and he coughed, pushing Shelbie away from him so he could choke up more water.
Good. If he was alive, he could deliver a message for us.
"What..." His voice came out croaky, no doubt from the volume of water he'd swallowed accidentally.
"We have a message for you and your ilk," I said, putting as much steel into my voice as I could muster. "Stay away from the mer. Their souls are not yours. Nothing of theirs is yours. If you come after us again, you will be faced with much worse than just a dark city." Even as I said it, I realised how true the words were. One look at the skyline showed how much what we'd done had changed things. Not one light shone from any of the windows, and I was sure the rest of the power was just as gone. They were going to struggle to recuperate from this, no matter how hard they tried.
"And if we ever see you again..." Aaron threatened.
I wondered what he was going to finish the sentence with, but Erickson clearly didn't. He scrambled to his feet and rushed away, a little unsteady on his feet.
"Do you think they'll stay away?" I asked, shivering in Aaron's arms.
"I don't think they'll have a choice," he responded. "Their city is useless. They haven't brought in any other source of power and can't replace it now."
"Let's just hope that's enough to stop them coming back." I shuddered at the thought.
"We'll make sure they don't," he promised. "Now, home?"
"Yes. Please."
Home sounded perfect at that moment.
Epilogue
I tried not to overthink about the darkness stretching in front of me. I knew we'd had no choice but to stop Erickson and his cohorts, but it still made me feel a little guilty to have displaced so many people. A lot of them probably hadn't even realised what it was that had been powering their city.
And now they never would.
All they knew was that one day, the lights had gone out, and nothing any of them did would bring them back. It must have been scary. Terrifying even. I couldn't imagine being that frightened, even after the moment where I thought my soul would be destroyed.
Shelbie pressed her head into my hand, almost as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. I was sure she did. And that she felt the same. At least none of us had come away with any lasting scars.
"I thought I'd find you here," Aaron observed, pulling himself up onto the rock and sitting next to me. "Are you trying to be guilty again?"
"There's no trying," I admitted, nestling into me as he put his arm around me and pulled me close.
"They brought it on themselves, Mari. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I know." And I did. I hadn't hurt anyone, or done anything that could cause harm. The worst thing I did was destroy a warehouse where they were storing souls. And that was an accident anyway.
"I promise, no one blames you..."
"I know no one here blames me." Quite the opposite. I was seen as some weird kind of hero, and that wasn't something I wanted. None of this had been for fame or position or anything. But now, everyone knew who I was and not just because of my father. And with all the souls of those who'd been trapped like Aaron, that was a lot more people than there'd been before.
"Do you want to get away? Travel?"
I nodded. "That would be nice. So long as no one sends word I'm coming up ahead," I half-joked.
He chuckled. "I'll make sure they don't."
We lapsed into a familiar silence. We'd become used to each other in the past few weeks. Something that I was both very grateful of, and very nervous about.
"You never did tell me what you were when we met," I told him.
"So, I didn't. I'm sorry about that, it wasn't something we talked about a lot."
"Just like the curse," I muttered. I still wasn't clear on what it was that had caused the pain in our mouths when we'd tried to talk about it. All I knew was that the problem no longer seemed to exist. The only explanation we'd come up with was that it had been something in the warehouse causing the pain. I'd have to resign myself to never knowing.
"We called ourselves the air sylphs."
"Like in the story?"
"I guess so? Someone must have heard one of the humans telling their version and decided that's what we were. It kind of makes sense. It was what happened to the mermaid after she died."
"Hmm."
"You don't believe she was real?" he joked.
"Who knows what's real and what isn't," I responded morosely. I didn't like the fact our story was so different in the version from land. No wonder they saw us as soulless. Or maybe they told the story that way to assuage them of any guilt they felt for stealing our souls and making us their energy source.
"It's probably just a story we both tell our children to make them think twice about running away to be with someone they don't know," he teased.
"Does that count for me as well?"
The laugh escaped before I could stop it. "I don't think anyone would describe us as hardly knowing one another." We spent far too much time together for that. Other than Shelbie, he was my closest friend in the underwater city. Unlike Shelbie, he was fast becoming more than that.
"Is that what you think about us?" he murmured.
I turned my head to face him, intrigued by the sudden shyness in his voice. "Are you okay?" I asked.
He flashed me a weak smile. "I will be."
I frowned, completely confused by whatever it was that had him in knots.
"Aaron?"
He reached out and touched my face. I leaned into him, enjoying the warmth of his fingers against my cheek. Without warning, he leaned in and pressed his lips against mine. After a moment to work out what was going on, I melted into him, kissing him back. I'd thought about this moment countless times but never thought it would actually happen. He was always far too careful around me.
I rested one of my hands on the smooth scales of his tail, threading the other one through his hair to pull him closer. Now he'd opened this door for us, there was no going back. Hopefully, he wouldn't decide I was a rubbish kisser that he wanted nothing to do with me than this one kiss on a rock.
A splash caught our attention, and we both pulled back from the kiss to find out what it was.
"Is she always going to be getting in the way like that?" Aaron asked, batting some water in Shelbie's direction.
She took it as an invitation to play and started chasing his hand. Despite his question, Aaron kept playing with her, even going as far as letting her catch his hand on occasion. She made some odd squeaking noises that I assumed meant she was happy.
Focusing on my aura reader sight, I looked at the seal once more. The happy glow coming from her was undeniable. She was more than happy. She was in her element, and she was making sure everyone knew about it.
Curious and unable to control it, I looked at Aaron. His aura was a similar bright vibe as Shelbie's, but there were hints of something else in it too. Whatev
er the emotion was, it was new to me, but felt almost familiar at the same time.
"Do you like what you're seeing?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, sorry, I shouldn't be looking." I glanced away, embarrassed to have been caught looking at his aura. It would have been much more polite if I'd asked him first.
"It's okay, there's nothing there that you can't see," he assured me. "But do you like it?"
His conversation didn't make a lot of sense at first, but the more I thought about it, and the more I watched his aura, the more at ease I felt.
"Yes, I like it," I whispered.
"Good," he replied, leaning in to kiss me again. I let him, enjoying the feel of his lips against mine. "Because I want to spend the rest of my second chance with you," he said once he'd pulled back.
"Where do you want to go for that second chance?" I didn't really want to stay here, but for him, I would.
"Everywhere. I want to travel the world and see everything I didn't get a chance to the first time."
"I can help with that," I promised.
"Good. Because I was hoping you'd know where to go..."
I smiled up at him, my heart beating faster with every moment. I couldn't wait to start an adventure with him. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. And now I didn't need to worry about the loss of my soul. I was free.
The End
Thank you for reading Balanced Scales. I hope you enjoyed Mari’s story. For more in the Untold Tales series, why not try Golden Wings, a retelling of Thumbelina: books2read.com/goldenwings
Excerpt: Golden Wings
Golden Wings is book two in the Untold Tales series and retells the fairy tale of Thumbelina. You can find it here: http://books2read.com/goldenwings
Shadows made the darkness even more imposing as I slipped between the streets, trying to avoid encounters with anyone who was out for any nefarious purpose. It was impossible to know who was up to what and rumour had it there was a war brewing among the different factions within these walls. I had no idea. I'd long been relegated to the slums as a result of my wingless status. It didn't matter to anyone that I was faerie sized. Or that my parents had abandoned me as soon as they realised I wasn't going to grow any taller. It had only led to me believing one thing. Faeries were cruel and humans were worse still. It was best not to trust anyone.
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