by C. S. Wilde
Lowering her arm, the thousand icicles and ice daggers behind her slashed forward, piercing Ariella’s body and hacking her limbs at the same time. Her wrists were chopped first, then her ears, as well as her elbows.
A thicker, longer dagger that resembled a sword split her upper body in two, while a smaller icicle pierced through her empty eye-socket. Icy shards riddled her face, chest, and everywhere else, turning Mother into a frozen porcupine.
Yet the bitch wouldn’t die.
Even when an ice blade slashed across her neck, beneath her silver necklace with the egg-shaped locket, the queen refused to go.
Her head tilted back on the sand, but Ariella still gurgled bubbling sounds, trying to speak.
Mera stepped closer, studying the disfigured head covered in black, gooey blood. She’d saved the final blow for last.
Flicking her fingers, a dagger sped forward and floated under her palm. “Pray, Mother. Pray he doesn’t raise you again.”
The blade dropped with one twist of Mera’s hand, piercing the middle of the monster’s forehead. The queen’s body stopped wriggling, the gurgling sounds dying midway in her throat.
Ariella was dead.
Again.
“Danu in the fucking prairies!” Corvus gasped from the upper banks, horror clear in his tone.
Turning back and utterly ignoring him, Mera focused on Bast. More precisely, on the place to his left where Ruth had been standing.
A whimper cracked her throat as she watched a red radius on the sand; a radius that surrounded an empty spot which would never be filled again.
Some of her mom’s blood had sprinkled onto Bast, though not nearly as much as it had on Mera and Corvus.
Knees buckling, she fell on the sand. New sobs escaped her, sobs she couldn’t control.
Stepping closer, Corvus laid a hand on her shoulder, even though fear rolled in his veins, reverberating against Mera’s macabre. She’d scared him shitless, that much was clear. Despite that, the Night King showed her compassion.
A kind feat, and not at all like him.
“The Captain died protecting her child. If you ask me, that’s the most honorable way for an amma to go.”
Mera’s warm tears flowed down her cheeks, tracing a path through her mom’s blood, which coated most of her body. Amidst her sorrow and pain, however, she felt an agonizing pull that clawed at her heart, connecting her to the fae lying on the beach.
Her partner twisted in pain as he fought for his life.
“Bast,” Mera croaked, her throat dry, her body feeling as heavy as iron. She wanted to curl up and cry, to lose herself in her monumental grief, but she couldn’t. Not yet. “We have to get him to Stella.”
Mera had failed Ruth. She wouldn’t fail Bast.
“Indeed. Before we do, however… ” Corvus pointed to his bloodstained-self and then her. “Mind showering some of this off? A grim remembrance, isn’t it?”
A part of Mera didn’t want to get rid of what remained of her mom, couldn’t let go of Ruth. If only she could keep her there for a little while longer… but Corvus was right.
Whimpering as she held back cries, Mera willed ocean water to float above their heads. It spilled into billions of droplets, raining down on them and washing off most of the blood.
Corvus remained silent, respecting Mera’s pain and loss as the water rushed upon them.
Gazing at her hands, she wished the red tainting them wouldn’t drain toward the sea, wouldn’t leave her all alone in this world.
She couldn’t tell why this felt like a burial.
Once she was finished, they went to Bast. Corvus carried him in his arms, but her partner still writhed in pain, his jaw set and his eyes closed.
He hadn’t seen what happened to Ruth. At least of that he’d been spared.
“The queen didn’t attack my brother, even though he was easy prey,” Corvus noted.
When Mera placed a hand on Bast’s forehead, he stopped thrashing slightly, letting out a small and relieved breath. “Whatever curse she put inside him, it’s important.”
“And a ticking time bomb.”
“That, too,” she admitted quietly. “I’ve lost enough tonight. I won’t lose your brother, I promise.”
Considering Mera’s track record he shouldn’t believe her, and yet Corvus nodded, utter confidence beaming from his eyes.
“Are you ready?” he asked, giving her his shoulder.
No.
Her mom, her ground, the one woman who’d kept her alive and safe, was gone.
“You’re a Maurea, kid,” Ruth’s voice echoed in her mind.
Mera was maybe fifteen, and she’d just gotten a bad grade at school. Her mom sat with her on the couch, peering at her with a warm smile. Ruth’s hair was brown back then, and slightly longer. She had less wrinkles, too.
Lifting Mera’s chin, her mom winked. “And you know the thing about Maureas? We never give up. We—”
“Never surrender,” Mera muttered, watching the ocean.
Clearing her throat, she turned to Corvus.
“I’m ready.”
Chapter 28
Wood creaked under Mera’s knees and palms. Her mind spun and nausea took over, but she’d already emptied her stomach back at the beach.
Lifting her head, she stared at the big room with old wooden walls, high ceiling, and floors. Wood had a way of absorbing scents and liquids over time, so it reeked of old bark and soup.
A red couch rested on the far end, near a large herbarium with LED overhead lamps shining on tall plants. Plump red tomatoes hung from the stems, and some peppers, too.
Mera would have smiled at the sight, would have been ecstatic to return after such a long time, but Ruth’s loss left a void that gnawed at her soul.
“Detective,” Corvus called from beside her, facing the opposite direction. He kept holding Bast steadily in his arms. “I trust you’ll clear this misunderstanding?”
Misunderstanding?
Forcing herself to stand, Mera turned around to see Stella aiming a gun at Corvus’ head.
Bast’s sister carried murder in her striking blue eyes, eyes that were so much like her partner’s. She wore a red dress with golden details that twirled from her shoulders to her feet, as if she’d wrapped a fancy sheet around her body, leaving a strip of her stomach exposed.
“Mera, what is he doing here?” she snarled through gritted teeth, while an onyx strand of hair brushed over her face. “What did he do to my brother?”
“Nothing!” Corvus cried. “Also, I’m technically your brother, too. Well, half-brother, but still.”
Stella clicked the safety off, holding the gun with both hands. Her fangs grew sharper, and her irises flashed yellow. Maybe Mera was seeing things, but black fur began growing atop Stella’s arms.
“Say you’re my brother again, you bastard, and I swear I’ll shoot.” Her tone wavered between kind-hearted healer and bloodthirsty monster.
Carefully, Mera stood between them with her palms raised. This situation was escalating way too quickly for her taste.
“Stella, since when do you have a gun?”
Lifting her shoulders slightly, she narrowed her eyes at Corvus. “They’re practical.”
Good point.
“Look, I know he killed your mom when you were five.” The words hurt, since Ruth’s loss was still so fucking fresh. Mera had never expected one day she would relate to Stella’s pain. “What he did was unforgivable.”
“Terribly sorry about that by the way,” Corvus added somberly. “Not one of my proudest moments. You were a youngling, and you shouldn’t have witnessed…” his voice broke.
Stella blinked, her jaw hanging slightly as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. The onyx fur on her arms began receding into her skin, her eyes turning blue again. “Did you just apologize?”
“Yes.”
“It’s been over twenty years!”
“Better late than never?”
“You shig!” Ste
lla closed one eye, trying to find a clear path to him—not particularly hard given that Corvus was a lot taller than Mera.
“Wait! Before you shoot… ” He cleared his throat. “Since reuniting with Bast, I’ve come to recognize certain wrongs in my past. There weren’t many, I might add, but you’re the one creature in this world whom I failed the most.” He stared at the gun. “You’re the only one with the utmost right to pull that trigger.”
Stella’s hands shook, her mouth contorting into a bitter curve. Tears glistened in her eyes but she didn’t shed them.
“You’re not a killer,” Mera quietly reminded her.
Stella didn’t break eye contact with Corvus. Moments passed, a small eternity that thickened the tension in the air.
“If you want to live, don’t ever call yourself my brother again,” she finally said. “Understood?”
He nodded, and she slowly lowered her weapon.
Stella was a much better person than Mera. Even if Queen Ariella had apologized for killing Ruth, she would have still slashed the bitch into a thousand pieces.
Bast suddenly yelped, thrashing against his brother’s grasp. Corvus tried to hold him down, but her partner was in too much pain.
Fear replaced the fury in Stella’s eyes, and she motioned to a single bed near the corner of the room. “Put him there!”
Corvus quickly set him atop the mattress. Bast writhed in pain, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“He’s so weak.” Checking his eyes, Stella felt his pulse. “What happened?”
Corvus eyed Mera for a second. “An undead necromancer cursed him.”
She didn’t understand why he kept her secret, but she appreciated the gesture.
Maybe Corvus wanted to keep Stella safe, to make up for the damage he’d done. After all, simply knowing about Mera’s true nature could hurt her. The penalty for helping a siren was death. More precisely, a bullet to the head or a beheading—the accused could choose. Or maybe, Corvus wanted to keep a bargaining chip.
Mera could never tell what the Night King’s true intentions were.
“Undead necromancer? This is really bad.” Closing her eyes, Stella ran her hands over Bast’s chest, as if scanning him with her palms. “This magic is as forbidden as it gets. It’s the strongest curse I’ve ever seen, and that says a lot since it’s dormant.”
“Dormant?” Corvus scoffed, pointing at Bast’s ashen skin and the cold sweat that drenched his body. “Look at him!”
“Curses weren’t made to be dormant. That’s why it’s killing Bast, you baku,” she snapped. “We have to get it out.”
Strange.
Delaying pain for later gratification had never been Mother’s motto. So why leave the curse inactive?
Stella might seem composed, like the good healer she was, but her hands quivered when they passed over her brother’s heart. “Gods, he doesn’t have long.”
Mera ignored the panic prickling at her heart. “How will you remove the curse?”
“I’ll take it from here,” she poked his chest, then pointed at her own, “and put it here. It’s simple, in theory. Depends mostly on the curse.”
“Absolutely not,” Mera snapped. “Bast would never allow it.”
“He can’t stop me, can he?” She placed her hands on her waist. “Trust me. This is the only way to help my brother until we find another solution.”
“I’ll do it.” Corvus stepped forward. “I’ll take the curse. The detective is right. You’re precious to Bast, and if he discovers you got hurt on my watch, he will never speak to me again.”
Scoffing, Stella eyed him from head to toe. “Since when are you a hero, Corvus Dhay?”
He tipped his chin at his brother. “The shig seems to be rubbing off on me.”
Stella glared at him as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes. Finally she blinked, then clapped her hands.
“I appreciate you both trying to spare me, but you won’t be able to hold the curse without dying. I removed a malediction once, and it attacked the second host two times harder than the first.” She stared at Mera pointedly. “I was the second host by the way, and I got it under control. Trust me to handle this.”
“I can’t let you—”
“Mera, I’d love to see Corvus in pain, trust me. Thing is, I’m a healer, and I can’t let either of you take the curse. I might be the youngest here but I’m also the expert, and I’m absorbing the blasted thing. That’s final.”
“I don’t like this.” She truly didn’t, but pride swelled inside Mera anyway. “You’re as stubborn as your brother, you know that?”
“Oh, I’m fully aware.” Stella set a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to like it, my friend. I’m doing it and that’s that.”
Her partner would have told her the same. Uncanny how similar Bast and Stella could be, despite having different mothers.
“Fine, so you’ll take the curse.” Corvus shook his head, his arms crossed. “What comes next?”
“We have to find a vessel for it, a magical object designed specifically to contain maledictions.” Bast groaned then, and worry creased Stella’s forehead. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. He doesn’t have much time.”
Slamming both palms on her brother’s chest, she began chanting from deep within her throat; a droning murmur that sounded ancient and so very wrong.
At first, nothing happened.
Stella’s chanting increased, becoming louder and faster, until Bast’s back suddenly arched.
A pitch-black tip of magic rose from his heart. It looked different from his night and stars, and it felt different, too. The magic thrummed throughout the room, making Mera’s own power coil in itself. A deep, unsettling force made of nothing, a void ready to swallow everything in its path.
The cloud puffed sluggishly in the air, leaving Bast’s body. As soon as the last inch of the curse left him, he went limp. Her partner let out a deep sigh, his head drooping to the side.
He was safe.
The nimbus of forbidden magic whirled slowly before them; a thick smog with a glazed oil-like surface. Mera stepped closer to Stella without her noticing it, which was easy considering the curse held her undivided attention.
Bast’s sister kept chanting, her words as intense as her focus, which remained completely on the curse and not at Mera. Almost as if the forbidden magic was an animal Stella wished to tame.
Maybe Mera was losing her mind, but the curse seemed to consider the healer with curiosity, analyzing its potential new host.
Stella suddenly stopped chanting and spread her arms, clearing the path for the curse.
No way Mera could allow that.
Stella was not only her friend, but Bast’s little sister. He’d sacrificed a world of things to keep her safe. Her hart might be unconscious, but Mera knew what he would do. Heck, she would do the same, even if it meant her doom. Even if it meant Stella would hate her.
Protect the innocent.
The cloud of tar shot forward.
Shoving Stella aside, Mera took her place. The curse smashed into her with the force of a wrecking ball crashing through a wall, swallowing her entirely.
Everything went dark.
Chapter 29
“Mera! What did you do?” Stella yelled amidst the darkness, her tone angry yet so very distant.
Blinking back into consciousness, Mera shook her head. Her spine hurt, and her brain pulsed against her skull. The curse had knocked her against the opposite wall, which explained the soreness in her body and the ringing in her ears.
Rubbing her temple, she slowly returned to the now. “I couldn’t let you go through with it.”
Stella glared at her the way one would glare at a misbehaving child. Crouching before Mera, she analyzed her, then clicked her tongue. “I had it under control.”
Maybe, but Mera couldn’t run the risk.
Cramps prickled her insides, surely because a curse had just smashed her against a wall. Moving hurt like hell,
but other than that Mera didn’t feel any different.
Groaning, she sat up straight. “Wasn’t the curse supposed to kill me or something?”
She’d expected a rush of excruciating pain, but the only problem she had was breathing; it became more difficult by the second. The impact must have hit her harder than she thought.
Glaring at her, Stella fell back. “What the hell?”
“Fuchst ach!” Corvus stepped into Mera’s field of vision, coming from the left. “This is not good, Detective.”
“What—” Mera couldn’t finish the sentence.
She couldn’t breathe. At all.
Clawing at her throat, Mera wheezed, gasping for air, but when she glanced at her hands a chill ran down her spine.
Her skin had become as smooth as a pearl, a silvery hue that reflected the colors of the rainbow where light hit it. Thin membranes connected her fingers, and when she touched her ears, she found fins stretching from her earlobes. The gills on her neck tried to absorb air, well, water, so she kept suffocating.
“Halle! Where’s your bathroom?” Corvus asked Stella.
Bast’s sister pointed to the left, and he dashed toward it. She kept staring at Mera in shock. “This doesn’t make sense.”
If Mera could speak, she would explain that the curse had never been meant for Bast. It had been Queen Ariella’s final gift to her.
The bitch knew she would sacrifice herself for her hart. No, she was counting on it. And Mera had fallen straight into her trap.
“You’re too obvious in your ways, daughter…” Mother’s voice reverberated in her memory.
Stella ran a hand over Mera’s chest, a confused frown marring her face as she tried to pull at the sticky magic spreading through her friend’s body. She chanted lowly, but the curse kept spreading its tar tentacles through Mera’s essence.
“It’s not coming out. I don’t understand!”
“Stella… ” She struggled to speak. “C-can’t breathe.”
“Right! Shit!” Jumping to her feet, she rushed to the bathroom. “Go grab her!” she yelled at Corvus.
Only then did Mera hear the sound of rushing water.