“The oracle,” I offer. She doesn’t deny it, but she also doesn’t confirm what I’ve said.
“You don’t look so old,” I joke. “I mean, to be an elder.”
“You should know better than anyone else how deceptive our exterior is.”
We walk in silence for a bit, passing eyes that follow us with unabashed curiosity.
“I feel like I have something on my forehead.”
She licks her finger and rubs it between my eyebrows. “It’s gone now.”
“That’s gross.”
“You asked,” Yara says. “We haven’t had a court visitor in—ages. You have to understand that to us, there isn’t a world outside here. There’s the outer ring where the beast lives. Then the inner ring, where we live. This is it.”
Suddenly the warriors start marching past us. They form a circle around the border of the village where the tree lines start.
I’m about to unsheathe my dagger, but Yara places a hand over mine. “It’s okay. It’s just our guard.”
“Does this happen often?”
The warriors of the clan ready themselves, facing the darkening forest.
Yara nods. “The Naga doesn’t come here, but it’s a precaution.”
“Then how does she take so many of your people?” I don’t realize how crass that sounds until after I say it.
“The bigger game is on the outer ring. We have to hunt.”
I stop when we’ve made a complete loop around the main village. The fire pit is lit and older women bring out trays of food. Kai and Brendan and Dylan emerge from their paradise getaways ready to stuff their faces.
“If you knew Dylan was out there, why didn’t you get him before?”
She walks past me, ignoring the question, but looking back to say, “Best eat and get some rest, Land Prince. You have no idea what you’ve agreed to.”
The breeze brings a soft drizzle from the weeping trees, and I know why they call it the Vale of Tears. I shiver at Yara’s words, because I know she’s a hundred percent right.
“You aren’t going to help anyone if you can’t sleep,” Brendan says.
His feet are at my head, and he’s wiggling his toes every ten minutes. It’s a mer thing.
“You aren’t sleeping, either.”
“Can you sleep with Dylan’s lion roars?” Brendan says.
Dylan is on the other end of the tent beside Kai, who emits a whistling sound every time she breathes.
“You’d think, with how big this place is, that they’d give us our own tents.”
Brendan scoffs. “I don’t mind it so much.”
“Surrounded by every girl in the tribe, including the old lady with the missing front teeth? Of course you don’t mind.”
“Really, Cousin, you underestimate me. It’s part of my plan. They want us right where they can see us.”
“Easy for them to say. They’re see-through piles of water.”
We chuckle then listen to the white noise of foreign insects and waterfalls and rivers.
“Karel wants to kill me.”
“Did you tell him there’s a very long list?”
I snort. “And that’s just my ex-girlfriends.”
Brendan chuckles, but he’s fading fast.
“And Yara is hiding something.”
He mm-hmms. “They all are. Must keep”—he yawns—“eyes open.”
A snap makes me sit straight up.
Brendan follows suit. He presses a finger to his lips, and his turquoise eyes turn to the tent flap.
I think I see a shadow walking past, but there are a million shadows in this place. I grab my dagger at my side. Brendan is on his feet. We lift the flap to peek outside. The fire pit is long gone. The weeping trees dance in the breeze. And then there’s Isi standing at the edge of the forest.
There are no guards around her. She’s still, head bent to the ground. Then up to the purple moon. Her hair whips around her. Then she starts to fade, becoming water, moving in a rush where we can’t follow.
“Is that a normal River Clan custom, praying alone in the woods?”
“I’d say not,” Brendan says. “However, your presence has given them hope of being free of a monster they’ve known too long. You worry too much, Cousin Tristan. All will be smooth as the seas.”
Except that he doesn’t worry enough, so I have to worry for both of us. Smooth seas means the storm has passed, or is only just arriving.
•••
Cold water to the face wakes me.
I jolt up, grabbing my dagger. Karel is standing over me. I take a swing, and he ducks out of the way before I can follow through. He laughs and that makes me swing again. This time, he laughs when I miss, and we topple out of my tent.
Where the hell are my friends? Oh, that’s right. Brendan has his girls, Dylan his boys, and Kai her books. Me? I have Grumble and a new bruise on my cheek.
“You may be fast landside, Prince, but in our world, you’re still catching up.”
And so it happens. Me throwing punches. His shoulders lean back, but I don’t give him time to catch his step. I cross punch. My second hit lands on his solar plexus. His breath catches. I grab a branch from the ground and turn it to feel its weight. “I’m a fast learner.”
The thing about fighting someone who doesn’t exactly want to be your BFF is that he’s not going to go easy. He doesn’t slow down or hold back his punches. We fall back, narrowly missing a woman carrying a basket of fuzzy green coconuts. I block Grumble’s stroke with my dagger. He’s strong as hell and I can’t hold him off, falling back. The wood digs into my throat. I bring up my knee for a cheap shot, and he rolls off me.
“You’re strong, Land Prince,” he says, standing back up. The villagers have stopped their day-to-day activities to watch us. “But you have to be stronger.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“To wake the Sleeping Giants, yes. But that’s not the same kind of strength I mean.”
“I don’t even know what you mean.”
“You’re resisting me.”
“I’m fighting back. Isn’t that the point?”
“You’re fighting like a human. Your lineage is ancient as the seas, and yet you still haven’t discovered what it means.”
I’m panting, but I don’t stop. “Show me.”
Grumble nods. He turns and I race him into the trees. The ground is wet and our bare feet squish against the soggy earth. “Are we going back to the outer ring?”
“Scared of the beast, are you? You should be.”
The lush, green forest starts thinning out. The trees grow sideways, elongated like they’re trying to stretch and break away from the ground but can’t. Then we reach the bottom of a cliff.
“What the hell is this?”
There are carvings in the stone.
“Do you know what we did before the court took us?” Grumble asks.
I shake my head once, feeling red at my ignorance.
“We lived in the rivers of the world. We kept the waters clear, safe from beasts. We lived every day in peace.”
“Don’t you have peace now?”
“We have warring children that will grow into soldiers like me. They will hunt the Naga until they fall.”
“Not anymore they won’t,” I remind him. “I’m here now.”
He cocks his head to the side, studying me like he wants to believe me, but years of fighting won’t let him. Like I’m something rotten that washed up on his shore.
Suddenly I stop taking all of the happiness in my life for granted.
“Climb,” he says, becoming translucent, then water moving into the trickle running through the stone.
“Easy for you to say!” My voice echoes Say. Say. Say.
The first half is easy enough. The words “death wi
sh” come to mind. I have no harness. One time, I did the rock-climbing wall for my buddy Angelo’s birthday and they were all, oh, finally we can do something better than Tristan. I remember reaching for the red and yellow hooks and sweating bullets, even though I was safe, and Layla climbed past me like a squirrel on a branch. She blew me a kiss, her helmet too big for her head, and said, “Bet you can’t catch me!” And maybe it’ll always be like that, me a step behind.
I can’t think that way. I have to keep going, reminding myself that this is a test.
Now, I grab hold of the edges jutting out of the wall. I’m a merman. Mermen don’t go rock climbing. But that’s the thing—this is the fear I have to get over. Climb to the top of the mountain. Step by step. My bare feet burn and get cut on the sharper edges of stone. My hand slips and I swing outward. They say, “Don’t look down,” so I keep my head up. The pit of my stomach plummets. Don’t let go, Tristan. The day is bright with white sun, and I pull myself one more time. The top of this cliff is flat. Chipped stones litter the ground, and I inch my way up.
“I made it!” It. It. It. “Take that motherf—”
Hands, wet and fluid, press down on mine.
I lose my footing and bang my knee, dangling off the side of the cliff.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
Grumble’s face is in his water form right in front of me. His breath is like wet soil. “Getting rid of your fears, Land Prince.”
“Don’t—” Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
His fingers are solid around mine, crushing, lifting, and pushing me off the edge.
I scream for hours.
At least, when you’re falling off a cliff as tall as the Empire State Building with nothing to cushion your fall, it feels like hours.
Perhaps I should rethink words like “forever.”
I feel like I’m sifting through the air, screaming until my throat is raw. I hate this. I hate Grumble. I hate, hate, hate heights.
But the one thing I hate more than this free fall is that I lost control. I let him get to me.
With all the strength I can muster, I flip myself over, facing the oncoming ground, my arms waving like a flightless bird. I can see myself in the reflection of the ground, and as it comes closer and closer, I’m relieved it’s water.
This is not to say that belly flopping doesn’t hurt. I choke hard, swallowing a mouthful before my gills flare open.
This is not the ocean.
This is not a pool.
But I taste the salt and I’m overcome with a loss I can’t shake. Images appear in the water—faces that seem like ghosts made of light. I kick up, running my hands along the stone wall to find some sort of opening. I’m inside a sphere. A goddamn fishbowl.
“Mom?”
I see her. Her stomach is unnaturally big—I know she’s pregnant, but I left hours ago and she had only just found out. I’m going to be a brother. My folks are going to get another chance. She’s trying to swim up. Her red hair floats around her, and I see my dad. His glasses float off his face and into the dark. I scream for them, but when I swim, they get farther away. Someone yells my name, and I flip around and swim to the other end of the sphere. I push my hands on it.
Then I’m surrounded by familiar faces—Angelo, Bertie, Coach. They materialize around me holding their necks, their cheeks full of air.
It isn’t real.
I repeat that over and over, but being surrounded by my drowning parents shakes me. It’s like I’m retreating into a part of myself, shrinking into a useless, helpless kid.
Then it happens. My gills shut. My legs rip, bloody and raw, and I join them. I join my family in drowning.
There’s got to be a switch somewhere. Then the bottom becomes black, a void sucking everyone downward.
I hold my breath until I’m sure I’m blue. I grab my mother’s hand, and she, in turn, holds on to my dad’s. I try to pull them up, against the current taking us into that darkness.
“Let go, Tristan,” she says.
I shake my head. Her hand feels so real in mine.
“Please,” she whispers.
But I hold on. I hold on to my mother’s hand as my vision starts to blur because my fear isn’t falling. It isn’t the dark or heights or Nieve. My fear is this.
“Let go, darling.”
“I can’t!”
“You have to.”
It’s not her, but it’s her voice, soothing and familiar, singing to me. And I remember, before I was chosen, before I was grown, when she held me and pushed away the darkness that crept in my room. I remember that my dad always said her voice could change the world. Her voice made everything feel right.
And so I close my eyes and let go.
As soon as I let go of my mother’s hand, I get pulled upward until I breach the water’s surface. I float on the river by the inner ring. The air is sweet with pollen and laughter.
My body is frozen. I don’t want to even paddle. I want to let the river take me away.
“Cousin!” Brendan yells. He walks to the bank and extends a hand to pull me out. “You’ve found the falls.”
I make to run my hands though my hair but then remember. Plus side of a buzz cut is less time air-drying. Brendan pats a dry hand on my wet back.
“Grumble threw me off a cliff.” He did something to me. My mind is a mess of thoughts and voices and the dark shadows he keeps rubbing in my face. Those aren’t his fault though. They must have always been there.
“Ah, spirit quests,” Brendan says. “My father made me try once. Couldn’t get over the first hurdle. But d’you know what I’ve decided?”
“What?”
“I was never lost. My father always told me I could do great things, if only I changed my ways. Yet, deep in my heart I know all the great things I’m meant to do in my life, and I can only accomplish them as the terrifyingly handsome merman you see before you.”
I shake my head, though I can’t help but laugh. “So I’m lost?”
“No. You’re just a very long way from home.”
“At least you’re having fun,” I mutter.
“Worry not, dear cousin.” He taps his temple, stepping close enough so that I can hear him whisper. “You carry out your mission. Leave the rest to us.”
He turns and, with a flourish of his hand, directs me to the falls he’s been talking about. The green grass is lush and radiant, and the flowers bloom with light. Strange glass animals perch on boulders. Naked and see-through guys and girls jump from the top part of a waterfall. From this far I can see black marks of tattoos, and I wonder if they’re anything like the trident on my spine.
Dylan is kissing the guy who challenged him at the armory. And then it hits me.
“Oh,” I say. “Oh! That’s what he meant by stethos!”
Brendan elbows me.
“Sorry, I just put two and eight together.”
“You were right, Tristan,” Brendan says, resting his hands on his hip bones. His eyes are closed and his chest expands with deep breaths. “There is something about this place.”
The soft spray from the waterfall feels nice. At the bottom of a fall, the river forms a small basin where the young girls and guys swim lazily, freely.
“The Goddess Falls are the most beautiful falls on this plane or any other. And there are some truly beautiful places in this world. There’s a lagoon in Galapagos that is the closest thing to paradise I’ve ever seen. But this…” he says, his face full of wonder as he runs to his new paradise. “This is better!” he shouts.
Brendan grabs a blue-haired girl around the waist. She stands on her toes, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him. Then together they jump off. She lets go, dissolving into a splash. He flails like a baby bat that can’t control its wings. But it doesn’t seem to matter because he bops back out of the water unscathed, with t
he blue-haired girl attached to him once again.
I look at the waterfall. What makes it so much better than any other place? What makes it so special? It’s not very high—certainly not after the cliff Grumble pushed me off. But the thrill is not about the height. It’s about the redheaded merman who chases them off the ledge.
Fine, I’m jealous.
Not of the blue-haired girl.
Not of my cousin Brendan.
Not exactly.
It’s all of them, really. I’ve never been this—alone. And with my girl being held hostage by my enemy, yeah, I feel pretty damn shitty.
I want to be mad at Brendan because he’s so happy when we’ve had so many of our friends die. But maybe there’s a reason merpeople don’t leave behind traces of their bodies. It’s so that they won’t mourn. So they can move on faster. That has to be it, right?
Music fills the Goddess Falls. It comes right out of the air—the long, weeping vines trickling with water, the birds flitting about as if they could sing for always. There’s a different kind of magic in this land. It’s as if there isn’t a care in the world, and I bet if I let myself, I’ll forget about my own cares. About getting out of here and being the hero of the day.
Like Dylan. He’s been here for nearly two weeks, and I’m not convinced he’s ready to go back.
I hold my toe over the ledge.
“Cousin!” Brendan shouts. “What’s taking you so long? Jump in!”
The girls around him echo him. “Yes, jump in!”
But there’s something I have to do. It’s whispering in the wind. “Maybe later!”
They boo and call out my name as I turn around and walk away.
I know I’m right. There is something about this place. It’s perfect. It’s eternal. And if I’m not careful, it won’t let us go.
“It’s not polite to stare,” I tell Isi. She’s watching the frolicking in the Goddess Falls from behind a tree.
I wonder if she’s pissed off that her daughters are so attached to Brendan.
“I’m not staring,” she says indignantly.
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