The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  His eyes dropped to the ocean floor again, picking out shards of bone and coils of spine jutting from the sand. Close, now. So close.

  A shiver ran over him, from throat to tail.

  He passed over a ridge, and the Bone Trench gaped below him, a savage scar cutting through the sea floor. He twirled over the dark crack, teeth bared, gills flaring.

  Have courage, he told himself. And he thought of blue-eyed Jewel with his golden tail. Jewel, whom the Queens planned to raise as a slave for their attendants. Jewel would be treated even worse than Rake. He’d seen the males who belonged to the other high mermaids, and to the mermidons—some were scarred worse than he was, and others were missing fingers or pieces of tailfin. The memories boiled in Rake’s gut, fired his soul, and drove him into the dark.

  He plunged through layers of night-black water, down and down, his large eyes widening even farther as he tried to discern shapes around him. He could barely make out the walls of the chasm and the arched bones of immense things that had lodged in its grip and died—or had been dragged down into it.

  He swam along the trench, lashing his tail from side to side, hands stretching and feeling forward with each stroke.

  And then it came, the voice he had waited and dreaded to hear. Not through the impenetrable black water, but into the private channels of his thoughts. The voice lilted, light as air, bright as dawn, a tempting touch in his mind.

  “My heart-slayer, my beautiful boy. You return to me.”

  He answered the voice in thought, with the words he had concocted during the journey. “Yes, my true liege, my dark enchantment. You know I cannot stay away from you for long.”

  “It has been nearly a year.”

  “The Queens are insatiable.”

  “Are they now?”

  Rake stopped swimming, hovering where he was, alone in the still water. Prickles of light began to appear around him, bursts of brightness in the dark. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought perhaps he was floating high above the earth, far out in the night sky, encircled by stars.

  But the dots of light weren’t anything so far away or harmless as stars. They coiled around him, bioluminescent spots on the arms of a monster. By their light he saw the tentacles writhing, each one a slim snake of flesh rimmed with rippling translucent frills. He bolted upward, only to encounter more tentacles curling over him from above.

  “Don’t fight me, lovely,” echoed the voice. “We’ve been friends for years. You know what I want.”

  Rake’s heart thundered in his chest. “Of course I know. I was hoping we could come to a less painful arrangement, in which you don’t touch me.”

  “But it’s so rare that a lovely creature like you comes to visit me.” The edge of a tentacle brushed his right arm, sending a flood of white-hot pain up his nerves from wrist to shoulder. He cried out and jerked in the water, his back striking another tentacle. More pain, jolting through his spine. He arched, screaming again.

  “Hush, hush now,” murmured the voice. “The pain will be over soon.”

  Another tentacle whispered against his left arm, but he couldn’t scream now. He quivered, the paralysis creeping warm through his muscles. He was immobile, helpless, as the creature slid more tentacles around his body and drew him in. Through wide-frozen eyes he could see it—a pallid lump of gelatinous flesh studded with eyes—so many eyes. Between them he glimpsed the throbbing organs of the creature—heart, brain, stomach, and vessels all distinctly visible through clear flesh ribboned with glowing stripes. One thick, glittering nerve bundle shot from the creature’s brain straight to a sucking orifice at the slimy surface. A tentacle brushed aside Rake’s floating hair, pressing his forehead to the suction mouth.

  It will be over soon, he repeated fervently to himself. Hold on, just hold on, courage, courage—

  “Courage?” The voice sounded amused. “What does a breeder know of courage?”

  “You know me,” he retorted in thought. “Am I not different than the others you’ve encountered?”

  He desperately wanted to be told Yes, Rake, you are different. You’re unlike all the others. You are brave. But the only response was a hungry moan as the creature began to feed on his memories. The memories weren’t erased from his mind; they were shared, sucked in greedily by the Horror holding him in its grasp. Pain pulsed behind Rake’s eyes and along his spine, but he couldn’t move or cry out—and that was perhaps the worst torture of all. He was immobile, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, his brain a haze of pain and hurtling memories.

  At last the creature withdrew, pushing him a little distance away.

  “Thank you for the feeding,” it said. “It has been long since I had such interesting nourishment. And I will let you leave again, on the condition that you promise to return in a year’s time and feed me again.”

  “You know I will.”

  “Yes, yes. I can see it in your head. You believe in honoring the debts you incur. It is the only reason I let you leave alive.”

  Rake struggled to clear his mind, to think through the haze of pain and scattered memories. “I need something in return.”

  “You always do. What will it be this time? I have a memory of a beautiful human girl you haven’t seen yet. I know you like those.”

  “I need anything you have about the ancient artifacts of my people—the technology that allows humans to live under the sea and mermaids to walk on land. If any such thing exists, I need everything you know about it.”

  He felt the creature’s surprise and suspicion. “You are looking for those objects so you can leave the sea. And if you leave the sea, you will leave me forever.”

  “No,” he answered. “I will still return. Please—this isn’t for me. This is for the spawn you saw in my recent memories—for Jewel.”

  “Jewel,” the Horror said. “Your emotions for him are powerful. Delicious. I haven’t felt emotions like these since the last human brain I drank.”

  “Then you know I would do anything for him. I want to find out if it is possible to escape the sea, for his sake. If you give me what you know, I will return in a year’s time. I swear it on my life, on his life, on everything—”

  “Calm yourself, beauty,” said the voice, amusement coloring its tone. “I see your sincerity. I will give what you ask, and you will keep your bargain.”

  “Thank you.”

  The creature pressed him to the mind-mouth again, and Rake’s eyes rolled up, his brain illuminating with a flood of images and words.

  “It’s all there now,” said the Horror. “It may take an hour or two for it to settle so your little mind can make sense of it.”

  “Thank you,” Rake said again. “I owe you. And I promise to pay my debt.”

  “If you do not die from this absurd idea of yours, I shall look forward consuming your new experiences. It’s a gamble I’m willing to take. Now go—I have months of fresh memories to savor.”

  “I wish you joy from them,” muttered Rake. His tailfin and fingers were beginning to twitch, and within minutes he could move again. He sprang up, rocketing out of the trench as fast as he could go.

  He burst out of the dark chasm into the blue glimmer of the ocean. How long had he been in the creature’s clutches this time? No sunshine glow filtered through the waves, which meant it was still night—or perhaps a cloudy day. He had no way to know and no time to figure it out. He had to get back to his cave, to Jewel. He needed to rest, and think, and sort through the memories he had gleaned—memories of a metal belt clasped with a strange mechanism, and of a scaly tail splintering and reforming.

  On the way back he encountered no one, not even merlows, which was a mercy, because he didn’t think he could summon the strength for the cry again. He felt hot and weak, and his tail trembled as he swam. The new memories pounded in his head, a persistent, blinding ache.

  At last, with relief, he recognized the long ridge of undersea rock where the males’ caves were located. The quarters of the Queens’ chosen had be
en set up so long ago that Rake couldn’t tell which parts were natural stone and which had been crafted or piled in place—not that it mattered. He hoped to leave it all behind soon.

  Pushing himself harder, he darted through the arch into his cave with Jewel’s name on his lips.

  And froze.

  Queen Acrid held Jewel by his dark curls. Knife in hand, she turned, smiling. “Welcome home, Rake. How do you like my work of art?”

  -5-

  Kestra

  “This,” said Kestra, gesturing to the sketches and scales lying on the table, “is my cousin Mai’s current passion. She’s studying the mermaids.”

  Flay traced the edge of the paper with a finger, his handsome face sober. “Why?”

  “She wants to find a way to kill them. Not just a handful—all of them at once.”

  He looked up, his blue eyes catching the lamplight. “Some kind of weapon?”

  “Perhaps. I’m not sure exactly what she has in mind, but I do know that she needs to study them more closely if she’s going to make any progress. Everything she has now is from distant observation or word-of-mouth, which isn’t as reliable as one might hope.”

  Flay peered at the images. “Decent renditions, these. The little one has a good eye.”

  “Little? She’s only two years younger than me.”

  “Really? She seems much younger.” He picked up one of the mermaid scales, trying the edge with his thumb. A thread of scarlet blood appeared on his skin.

  “Careful!” Kestra stepped to his side and took his hand, inspecting the cut. He flashed a smile at her, his teeth surprisingly white, given his months at sea. He must be using the mouth-scrub the herbalist sold in his shop. The village sometimes gave Flay’s crew a supply of it as part of their payment, a protection against the tooth rot that often plagued ill-fed sailors.

  “Blossom.” His grin spread. “You’re admiring me.”

  “I’m not.” She released his hand and turned away. “I was thinking about the mermaids. Wondering what you think of Mai’s idea.”

  “Ah. The idea is a good one, but forgive me if I don’t leap for joy. A thought is far from a plan.”

  “I know. But we must do something.”

  They faced each other silently, two figures in a globe of golden light, with the shadows of the hut crowding and crawling at its edges. For a moment, Kestra imagined that they were the only two spots of happiness and hope in a vast expanse of thickening darkness.

  The mix of light and shadow threw Flay’s face into sharp relief—his crisp jawline, the smudges of weariness under his eyes, the wrinkles of worry already forming across his forehead. He was twenty-two, and growing older quickly under burdens he shouldn’t have to bear.

  “Imagine how it would be if there were no mermaids.” Kestra scarcely ever allowed herself to fathom such a future. Her mother would say, Foolish dreams shrink the hearts of those who entertain them. But Kestra forced herself to speak, because if she and Flay and Mai were going to attempt something so enormous and desperate, they needed a dream. A prize to attain. “Imagine it. If you could come and go safely, without fearing for your men.”

  He flinched as if she had struck him. “We lost someone on the way in. A new recruit. Our cabin boy.” He bit out each phrase, his eyes hard. A strange, brittle energy flowed around him; Kestra didn’t know whether to touch him or not. Last time he’d lost a man to the mermaids, he’d drunk himself into tears and she’d hustled him away so he wouldn’t cry in front of his men. This time was different. His stiff bearing and set jaw scared her more than the tears had.

  “I’m sorry, Flay,” she said.

  “He was young. Thirteen, I think. Four years younger than I was when I took over the Wind’s Favor.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He wasn’t quite careful enough, and he fell overboard. The mermaids dragged him down—not the swarms, though. The big ones. These.” He pointed to Mai’s drawing of the warrior mermaids. “I would have gone in after him, but—” He gripped the table so hard that the wood groaned.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Flay. You were right not to go after him. You would have died too, and if you were lost, many more on this island would die. You are a lifeline for us.” She swallowed. “For me.”

  The faintest smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “You did miss me, then.”

  If the truth could salve his heart, she would give it, even if she might die of shame afterward. “I thought of you every day.” Blood rushed to her cheeks and heated her forehead.

  His eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Yes. Now back to business—will you help Mai and I with this project?”

  “I suspect I’m not going to like what you want me to do,” he said wryly.

  “We need you and your crew to catch a mermaid, so Mai can study it.”

  “Aha! I was right. I don’t like it at all.”

  “But you could do it,” Kestra said. “You have a ship, and men who are used to danger at sea. If we asked any of the villagers they would surely say no, but you—”

  “I what?” He leaned a hip against the table. “I’m crazy enough to listen to you?”

  “You’re fearless enough to try.” Fearless enough, and kind enough. And why was she asking this fearless young captain to put himself in more danger? The thought of him being clawed or lacerated by a mermaid—her resolve wavered, and she opened her mouth to retract the request—but Flay was already speaking.

  “Do you think Mai can find a way to kill them, or drive them away?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I know she’ll devote herself to the effort.”

  He nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  “You will?”

  His chuckle sent delicious prickles over her skin. “Did you expect me to refuse you?”

  “Mai thought you’d be hard to convince. She wanted me to bargain with you, to bribe you.”

  “With what?” He quirked an eyebrow.

  Kestra tugged at her lower lip with her teeth, tilting her head and swaying her hips as she moved toward him. His eyes widened.

  “Oh,” he breathed. “Like that.”

  “She doesn’t know,” Kestra said. “About what we—about the last time you were here. She told me to give you a kiss. A few caresses.” She loosened his shirt from his pants and slipped her hands beneath it, reveling in the sensation of smooth skin over muscles hardened from life at sea.

  “She thought I could be bought with such trifles?” His laugh was ragged, and his hands closed around her waist, pulling her nearer.

  “Yes. But she didn’t know that this—” she touched her chest, then placed a palm over his heart— “isn’t something to bargain with. Not for me. It means—more than that.”

  “For me as well.” His hands moved behind her, stroking the length of her spine, probing for the buttons of her dress. She barely felt it as he released them, one at a time.

  She looked up, searching his face. Wondering things she couldn’t say aloud. Am I special? Am I your favorite? Could I be the only one? Please?

  Somehow, he understood anyway. He stopped unfastening her clothes and took her chin in his hand. “Blossom, I haven’t been with anyone since you.”

  Startled, she frowned at him. “That—that can’t be true. Three months—”

  He slid the dress off her shoulders, kissing the skin he bared. “I know,” he said. “Shocking, isn’t it? The handsome young captain of the Wind’s Favor, celibate for so long. But I had thoughts of you to keep me—satisfied.” He winked at her.

  “You’re terrible,” Kestra whispered, shocked and enticed at the same time.

  “And you,” he growled, kicking away the dress and pulling off his own shirt— “are irresistible. Come here.”

  And for a little while there was no more talking, only a shared rhythm of panting breaths, and soft cries that Kestra muffled against Flay’s skin, and a deep groan that quaked from his lips into her hair.

  Afterward, as they la
y on the floor in a mess of discarded clothing, he pulled her tight against him, and she rested her head on his arm with her hair spread over his shoulder.

  “Leader Chiren was pressuring you tonight,” Kestra said. “I heard him asking for men, and weapons.”

  Flay’s chest heaved, a tired sigh. “I’ve worked hard to carve out this route of mine, Blossom. My crew and I go where the others won’t. That’s our specialty. The rare, the dangerous, the hard-to-get items.” He ran a hand down her arm, over her hip. “If I don’t turn a profit, I’ll draw my father’s attention, and he’ll make me take one of the slave routes instead. But as long as I make money and I don’t ask him for anything, he leaves me alone. Begging him for more men, for weapons, for anything—it would attract attention. Which is never good.”

  “Chiren doesn’t realize the position you’re in.” Kestra rolled over so they were face to face. “Couldn’t you explain it to him?”

  “I’d rather not. The people here would look at me differently if they found out my father is a slaver.”

  “They might. But I think they would also honor you for what you do, and what you refuse to do. I know I respect you more for it.”

  His eyes warmed, and he closed the distance between them, his lips brushing hers. “Blossom,” he said softly. “I want you to come with me when I leave.”

  She jerked back, shock filtering through the warm afterglow in her body. “What?”

  “Come with me. I don’t want to leave you here. Things are getting worse—leaner, more desperate. I can tell. If I ever came back to find that you’d become ill and died, or starved, or that you’d fallen from the wall—” He kissed her fiercely. “You have to come with me.”

  “And do what? Live on your ship with you? With all your men? For months?” Every time Kestra asked a question, a dozen more crowded up behind it, ready to spill out. “What of my mother and Mai? They need me here. And what if I hate living at sea? What if I’m prone to seasickness? What if—”