“Healed enough to survive. I can’t work entire miracles. He won’t be without his scars, not only the ones on his body, but he’ll be out of danger. Or this danger, at least.”
“Alive and well, as much as possible. No trace of infection, the worst of his injuries healed?”
A smile snaked across her lips and she nodded, hand waiting. “Alive and well, ready to live a long and full life, I swear by all the magic in me.”
My fingers shook as I clasped them around hers, eyes on our hands like hers would bite. She pulled away and stood again.
“Ilan,” I said. She paused. “Why now? Why when you’ve never spoken to me before?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Because Raeth respects you, and I trust his judgement.” With that she was gone, the light trailing behind her at an unnatural crawl as we were left in the dark once again.
I slept because I had to. My eyes refused to stay open and my mind refused to keep thinking. Short, fitful bursts of sleep haunted me with images of white marble floors and clear crystal waters slowly turning red, gleaming knives and teeth, a terrible, suffocating silence, and I woke again and again gasping for breath, sweat slipping down my back like blood. Each time I forced myself to listen for Tobin’s breathing, softer and evener than before, and remind myself of where and who I was.
All I could do between nightmares was wait for dawn. The dawn that would change everything, for better or worse. My last chance.
Sometimes I thought I saw movement in the dark—the flash of Ilan’s smile or Aven’s blue eyes. My addled brain desperate to see something in the nothing. They came with whispers that cut like knives. You can’t have our world and yours. You can’t have the tidespeople and your brother. And you can’t have me and Aven.
I’d started this so sure of what would happen. I would find Aven’s skin, he would lead me to Tobin, and I’d find a way to save him, then we’d return home to the awe and cheers of the village. A happy ending. Everything would be fine.
But Aven and Moray and Raeth and Kieras—they wouldn’t let it be simple. That little thread in me, the nameless thing that pulled me deeper and deeper into the Realm of Tides, wouldn’t let it be simple.
How long had it been there? When my mother had taught me to swim in the ocean and I’d felt like all the world was suddenly right? When I’d first sat in my grandmother’s lap and listened to her spin her stories? When Aven had grabbed my hand to run from the sellye and I hadn’t flinched away?
I needed my home. Papa. The farm. The animals. Edrick.
I thought I might need the whisper of the water in the air and the ever-sunrise sky, too.
Rustling interrupted my thoughts, and I turned my face to it, head against the filthy wall. “Tobin?” I whispered.
More rustling. A soft groan. Another beat of silent, and then, “Hania? What—”
“Shh. We’re in the dark. They’ll come for me at dawn for the last Trial.” The soft scrape of movement against stone, and then his hand collided with my leg. I took it in mine. “I’m right here. I’m sorry, Tobin. I’m so sorry, I…I had to—”
He cut me off, squeezing my hand. His voice was rough, strained, but at that moment it was better than sirensong. It meant he was here, and alive. “It’s alright. I know. I’m alright.”
“You might not have been.” He wouldn’t have been. But I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t tell him what I’d done.
I would. One day.
“But I am. What’s the last Trial?”
I shook my head though he couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do it. The last three almost killed me.” As if to punctuate my point, my stomach growled, aching. If their plan was to starve me so I was too weak to go on, it was working.
“Almost. They didn’t.”
I closed my aching eyes and let out a long breath. “It’ll be worse than the others.”
“Remember when I was teaching you to hunt?”
“Yes.” Had it really been just over a month ago? It felt like years.
“What’d I tell you?”
“Know what you want to catch, breathe, and concentrate on where you want to hit.”
“I don’t know what will happen at dawn, Hania. I don’t know if either of us will make it home. But I know you already know what you want. You just need to breathe and concentrate. You never missed often.”
He made it sound a lot easier than it was, but it took some of the edge off my worry. “I’m sorry I yelled at you about Inka,” I murmured.
“I’m sorry I didn’t defend her.”
“She let me ride her. When I left.”
“You’re like Mama. Brave.”
“Aven says I’m brave and stupid.”
He gave a rough, broken laugh. “If Aven can’t see you’re twice as clever as him, he’s not good enough for you.”
“You wouldn’t believe anybody’s good enough for me.”
“I’m your brother. That’s my job.”
I smiled, for the first time in what felt like forever, and let my eyes close again. We didn’t need to keep talking. The quiet wasn’t as terrible as before.
I might have drifted halfway to sleep but couldn’t be sure. Faint light came from beyond my closed lids, and Tobin shook my hand. “Hania.”
Footsteps followed, growing closer, and my eyes opened before my mind caught up. Light. Dawn. All the tentative confidence I’d managed to scrounge up vanished like dew. My heart raced.
Normally, the guards who escorted me sneered or stifled cruel smiles. Normally, their eyes gleamed with anticipation at what was to come. This morning, they were grim and silent. Their gazes lingered like weights dragging me down, and they unchained me and walked away with dull and efficient movements. My insides twisted and my empty stomach threatened to rebel against me. Something was different about this Trial.
I watched Tobin for as long as I could, before he was drowned out by the darkness, but he wasn’t dumb enough to speak.
Then we were going up, up, up the thin staircase and into the blinding early morning light streaming through the arches of the halls. I studied each breathtaking pillar, memorizing the winding designs and glittering gold and jewels. The way some of them almost moved in the sunlight. The towering mountains and brightening sky, the way the colors and clouds danced together.
Just in case.
I wanted every piece of this place—the beautiful and the hellish, and those that walked the line between—burned into my memory if I was going to leave or die.
We took a long, winding path I didn’t know, emerging at the stables and mounting waiting asketis. I kept my head high and my shoulders back, trying to look every bit the threat I needed to be. One last Trial. One last chance. If I was going to beat Marassa, it was now or never. I wanted her to know the horrors I had, see her losing to a human and unable to stop it.
The High Court, as always, waited silently, watching me with four pairs of stoic eyes. Even Aven’s were blank. Empty.
I glanced to Raeth, but he was no better. Another wave of nauseating guilt and confusion swept through me.
More guards accompanied us than during the second Trial, keeping in a tight formation around me, with another group blocking my view of the nobles as we rode. On and on through the uneven mountain woods. I knew where we were going.
“Why another Trial at the lake?” I asked.
Nobody answered me.
We kept riding.
My hands began to shake when the glittering water came into view, but we didn’t stop on the gentle shore. We kept going, around the lake and ascending the rough, jagged rocks that bordered the opposite side. Higher and higher, the walls of rock falling away to reveal a clearing. We stopped above it, with a pure view across.
My breath caught. My hands shook.
A ring of wooden posts marked the edge of the makeshift arena. Around it little stacks of stones were scattered, carefully piled so they would stand tall. They stretched as far as I could see, thousands. Stack
s I knew well, and I whispered a curse under my breath.
A graveyard.
And kneeling in the center of it were people. I didn’t try to count, there were too many. A gap separated them in half, lined in neat rows around the grave markers with their hands bound behind their backs and guards standing watch on either side.
My brain flew ahead, trying to work out what this meant, but came up blank. The only Trial left was Honor—how did this test my honor?
Each prisoner was dressed the same: plain white shirts and pants for the men, dresses for the women. Loose, clean, and simple, matching the gags silencing them. Too identical, almost ceremonial. I couldn’t look away, even as we came to a stop and the High Court dismounted. I stared, a sharp order from a guard prompting me to get down.
A guard remained on either side as I moved to the edge of the low cliff, overlooking the grim, unnerving scene. There was only the sound of the wind, then Marassa spoke.
“This will be your final Trial. Loyalty.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and tore my gaze from the prisoners to the High Court. “I thought the last one tested my loyalties.”
She gave me that cool smile and continued. “I’ve noticed something quite interesting since you’ve arrived here. You have brought out something in two of my Lords. And I’m quite curious to learn why.”
A shudder ran through me at the way she said it, but I didn’t give her a chance to explain. Not yet. I had things to do first. I stepped forward, looking her in the eye though instinct said to look away. “I have one more request before I begin the final Trial.”
She looked ready to laugh. “And what might that be, Hania?”
I risked a glance to Raeth. His expression was stonier than ever as he watched beside the others, and he returned my look with no trace of emotion. The cold emptiness spread through me and fueled the guilt knotting my insides. “If I pass this, in addition to what we’ve already agreed, the sirens are allowed to return to their home Court, under Lord Tiraethsi’s lead.”
The silence was so heavy I thought it might crush me. It went on and on, and then Marassa glanced first to Raeth, then to me, head cocked. “An interesting proposal, but I’m afraid I cannot agree to those terms. Where the sirens call home is not my choice. Tiraethsi, do you desire to lead your sirens anywhere but here?”
He lifted his chin, watching me as he answered. “No, my Queen.”
She spread her hands as if to present his answer to me. “You see, Hania, the sirens and their honored Lord are here of their own will.”
“We all know that’s a lie.”
“Don’t meddle in affairs above you, girl. You’re trying my patience.”
I cast Raeth another look, desperate. He needed to know what I was trying to do. What I’d do for him. He needed to know that whatever he believed, it was never going to be between him and Aven, because I’d choose them both every time. They meant entirely different things to me, and I needed both of those things, even in my world.
“They’re slaves here as much as I am. I fight for their freedom, too.”
“And here I believed you were proving yourself a warrior. If you consider yourself anything else, the Trials can be forfeit,” she said.
Panicked, I spoke before I let myself think. “Instead of me,” I said, the words bursting out . The one thing I had to bargain with. “I’ll forfeit my freedom from the deal. My brother and the sirens go free.” Something passed through Raeth’s mask, and Marassa’s lips flickered. “You’ll have your blood of Lenairen.”
“Lord Tiraethsi, do you accept this bargain?”
He watched me, jaw set. I held his gaze, begging him to understand. To know what I’d said to him hadn’t been true, that I couldn’t leave here knowing he was in the position he was. He hesitated, and my heart sank. Please, I mouthed.
He gave a stiff nod. “I do.”
Marassa smiled again. “Then it’s done.”
I took a deep breath and looked at the graveyard. No going back. I was dead or I was a slave. At least I could save Tobin. Give Raeth a chance to return to that Court of golden moonlight. “What’s the Trial?”
Marassa stepped beside me, leaving the guards behind, and I forced myself not to flinch at the coldness of her presence. This close she crackled with power—Raeth’s comparison of her to a lightning storm had been accurate. “Those gems you wear mean more than you understand,” she said. My hand flew to my throat, tracing the two gems, now dull and dirty. “They’re a claim of loyalty. A vow—to protect and serve one’s own Court and kind.”
I glanced to her, to the golden necklace she wore today. No gems in sight. “I notice you’re without any claim of loyalty, my Queen.”
Under other circumstances the comment might have gotten me an execution, but now it got me the slightest narrowing of her eyes. “You belong to neither the sirens nor selkies. You are apart here. But if you insist on pretending otherwise, you will choose.”
Something deep in me tightened and I glanced over my shoulder to the waiting Lords. To Aven and Raeth. Choose?
“Fifty selkies or fifty sirens,” Marassa said, pulling my attention to the graveyard. “Choose.”
“What happens to the ones I choose?”
She smiled sweetly. “They return to their homes, of course. As whole and unharmed as they were when they left.”
“And the ones I don’t?”
I knew the answer before she said it, but it still cut through me. “You will give the order to have them executed.”
I wanted to be involved with the Lords and she was giving it to me.
Weeks ago, I had asked Aven what the worst thing he’d done as a Lord was. It took one panicked glance at him for me to know this was it. Holding life and death in his hands.
“I can’t,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I meant to say it, but I did. Some of the prisoners glanced up at me and back down again, fear written across their paled features. They knew what was ensuing and what their chances were.
I couldn’t watch another slaughter. I couldn’t let more people die because of me. Die at all. This wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right—none of it.
“I can’t.”
“Go on. I’m quite eager to hear your decision.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, unable to look from them. I was motionless, muscles refusing to cooperate. Even my lungs wouldn’t work properly; I couldn’t draw a full breath.
Her voice whispering beside me, her breath brushing my ear, and the scent of jasmine the wind picked off her skin wrenched the shock from me. “Because you killed my people. I’ll kill yours, whatever people you find.”
I met her eyes. Dark like the ocean at night. Violent and angry and strong as a hurricane. I hadn’t hurt a single person in the Court. I’d found friends here, even if the place was nightmarish as often as not. But she didn’t mean me: Lenairen and I were the same as far as she was concerned. “Who were your people, before the barrier? Before you forced this charade of a Court?”
She laughed and looked at the graveyard, folding her hands in front of her. The picture of a queen. “Charade. An interesting choice of words from a girl who’s done nothing but pretend since she arrived. Perhaps my Court is a charade, but it will last far longer than your useless bit of human life. Nothing you would call real lasts. It’s what we force, mold with an iron will, that survives.”
“My will is as strong as yours. I thought you knew that by now.”
She tilted her head as she studied me, cupping my chin in one hand. Her touch was like stone, and a ghostly caress of claws at my throat brought a wince before I could stop it. “Then choose,” she said. “Don’t come so far only to disappoint me in the end.”
I pulled away and turned to the graveyard. Rows and rows of innocent strangers I could sentence to death. I could feel their terror in the air.
Selkies or sirens. One Lord or the other. My love or my friend.
Damned either way. If my soul wasn’t stained black already, i
t would be now, just by my standing here.
You can’t have everything.
You are apart here.
I wasn’t. That something in me stirred, deep and dark and full of restless longing. That something belonged on this side of the barrier, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know where it came from, but I’d stopped caring. It was there and that was what mattered. It was the waves in Moray’s voice, and the flecks in Aven’s eyes, and Raeth’s liquid grace. It was old and new and right, and I looked to Marassa with a calmness like the silent ocean settling over me.
“I choose both. I won’t let you—anybody—tell me what I can and can’t have. They both vow loyalty to me, and I’ll vow loyalty to both of them.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she smiled. The most horrid smile I’d ever seen, even from her. “Stupid, foolish little girl,” she said, shaking her head, and then in a flash her fingers were around my throat. I gasped for breath, snatching at her wrist. My pulse echoed through my head.
“Hania!” Behind us there was the faint scuffling of feet and something striking the ground. I clawed at Marassa’s hand, panic tightening my chest, but I didn’t look away. I held her gaze as much as she held mine. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, even if she was going to kill me.
“Did you think this was some test of kindness or friendship?” she snarled. “Did you think some foolish act of nobility would save you? You are nothing, girl. Worse than the rest of your kind—even Lenairen impressed me more.”
Her grip tightened. Black spots popped across my vision. “I chose,” I forced out, my voice weak and gasping. The words scraped my throat. “Let them go.”
“This isn’t a game, Hania. It’s not a fairytale.” She waved her free hand toward the guards below, and in my blurring periphery I saw them move as one. “Kill them.”
I wanted to scream, but my air cut off entirely, taking my voice with it. I gaped, digging my fingernails into her skin, but she didn’t flinch. Muffled screams echoed in the distance. Aven’s voice joined them, shouting something I couldn’t understand as the world swam.
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