Sea Witch Rising

by Sarah Henning

  I must visit the sea witch.

  4

  Evie

  THE LIGHT FILTERS IN SLOWLY, MY WORLD GOING FROM a sky with no stars to one with a rising sliver of moon. Beneath that weak glow, my body is a pile of lead, the casing of a ship sunk to this place, rusting and rotting as the urchins gut it out. The only energy I have left goes to trying to open my eyes further to see what, if anything, is left.

  “Oh, good, you’re alive,” comes a voice.

  It takes me several moments to realize it’s not a voice in my head. I’m still so unused to company that it’s nearly impossible to remember the sound.

  I’m conscious of my lungs working, drinking in thin breaths of murk. As I work to test my faculties, the voice continues. “If you’d listened to me, I would’ve told you that what you need isn’t in those books. That magic is for the witches above—the sea people are magic. You can’t solve a problem like this with only land magic, you have to know the magic in the sea.”

  Oh, Anna. Always with the suggestions.

  “I’ve been here just as long as you,” I say, my voice sallow in my ears—nearly as dead as the rest of me. “I know what you know.”

  “But you don’t,” she responds back with all the energy I don’t have. “You forget that I was Annemette for four years, squid.”

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

  Her time as Annemette is the reason both of us are here, in the dark. Her “father” all but confirmed that when he nearly killed me in my home. If I had the energy right now, I’d shut her up yet again.

  I wedge one tentacle into the sand, trying to leverage myself up and around from where I landed. The pewter grind of it coats my skin in a gray rash, embedded so deep it may never come out. The tentacle gains traction, and I’m able to add two others to fortify it and push until I’m on my side. I sit up too fast, my head spinning as I screw my eyes shut and fall back onto the sea floor with a soft whomp.

  “I know a spell that might help,” Anna offers, clearly peeved I didn’t jump at her hint of knowledge before.

  “What is that?” I say, as I try once again to sit up. I’m more successful this time, but my head still spins horribly, my ears clouded with bells.

  “Festa.”

  If it wouldn’t hurt, I’d nod. This was a spell Tante Hansa used when she’d gained the nickname Healer of Kings. It’s not anything new, and I’m unsure whether it will repair the depletion I feel down to my core. Especially if I, the depleted one, am the witch commanding the magic for strength. It’s not a spell I’ve ever tried on myself; it’s only something I’ve seen used on others.

  “Go on, then,” I tell Anna. “Use that magic on me. Spell me. I gave you that voice; go ahead and use it.”

  She laughs, no mirth in it. “You gave me a voice, but you took my magic when you murdered me. Or have you forgotten that?” She says it like she’s razzing me, but there’s more pain in there than she wants to admit, and she’s trying very hard to inflict hurt while I’m already down.

  “No, you took your own magic when you murdered King Asger for a chance to be human,” I remind her, very close to bringing up the elephant in the room between us—Nik. Neither of us has mentioned his name since I restored her voice, and I know when we do, it’ll be even uglier than this. “All I did was make sure you couldn’t murder again.”

  There’s a gasp as that barb does the job. I wonder if this will be our future, wounding each other in little ways until all that’s left is to bleed out.

  It’s silent again, and as an olive branch, I try the spell, closing my eyes and digging deep for reserves of magic that are dead or sleeping.

  “Festa.” The spell is meant to revive strength, though as the word echoes through my lair, I feel nothing of the sort. There isn’t much to exchange—not much strength to get when there’s barely any magic within me to give.

  Still, improbably, there’s a twitch somewhere deep inside. Like a seedling poking through the earth, weak and reaching for the sun. Easy to snap. Easy to crush. Barely anything at all.

  “Festa.” I repeat.

  Another twitch.

  “Festa.”

  And then, Anna joins in, her voice subdued. “Festa,” we say together as a prickle of relief touches my heart.

  We repeat it five times more, and finally I have the strength to get off the sea floor. I dust myself off. Pick at some shrimp my polypi have caught and rained from their branches. The sustenance helps, but again, I must rest. I coil my tentacles below me.

  “Thank you,” I say reluctantly.

  “You’re welcome.” She laughs a little, more to herself than to me. “I need you alive—you die, and the sea king’ll vaporize this whole place and those of us literally rooted to it.”

  The sarcasm sits all wrong in the little mermaid’s tone, though I still recognize this Anna from our childhood, playing it off with humor because she was hurt.

  I swallow a few more shrimp and gather the energy to say more, knowing that it will be a while before I can cast another spell. But then yet again there’s someone who’s come from the clear blue into my sunspot cove. The weak magic within me throbs a warning I might have noticed if I hadn’t been concentrating so hard when the sea king arrived.

  It’s not him, though. There’s no excess power slipping into my waters. Perhaps another brave soul who needs my help. I stack my spell books gently by my cauldron and arrange myself into the powerful creature anyone who visits expects me to be, hoping I don’t look as drained as I am.

  It is indeed a mermaid who appears, swimming feverishly, determination folding her beautiful face into a frown. She looks very much like Alia, though her hair has the colors of autumn strung through a base of curled blond. Her eyes are a honeyed amber unusual here in this kingdom of shades of blue.

  “Send her away. Even if the knife is made, you don’t have the—” Anna starts in a moment before I whisper “létta” yet again, and she cuts off. This makes me smile just a little bit—I probably couldn’t make a pot boil right now, but I can do that.

  The mermaid sees me and doesn’t waste a beat, diving right in.

  “Witch!” she spits with rage. “My sister will fail. That boy won’t fall in love with her in four days—he’s to be married. Married! And in fewer days than she has left!”

  Now that’s a surprise—he’s so young. But the fire in the girl’s eyes sparks with truth.

  “Give me the antidote,” she demands. “I’ll pay whatever the cost. Take my tongue, my eyes, my ears, hell, have my tail and fashion it for your own. Whatever the cost, I’ll give it to you.”

  I don’t reply, and the girl looks me up and down from the other side of my cauldron, her eyes glowing behind thick lashes. The fury within her is eager to escape through more than just words.

  “One day is already gone. How can you just sit there like that? She has three days left to live!”

  The girl raises a hand as if to topple my cauldron, that anger begging for release.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say, calm in the face of her fury. This only serves to make her angrier, but she removes her hand—she’s a smart one.

  When she speaks again, her voice cracks, the mermaid’s ire shattering into a new wave.

  “Bring my sister back. You stole her from me. From all of us. You knew hers was a fool’s ask—a death sentence—and yet you did it anyway.” Her teeth are bared, and somehow that makes her look younger—she’s close in age to the mermaid who came here. The sea king’s most recent brood. “Do you know what the sea king will do when he finds out what you’ve done? What my father will do? Why start this again? You know the danger. Why?”

  I level the girl with my gaze, and I know what she sees—young face, dark hair threaded through with silver, I’m as pewter-toned as the rest of my world. To her, I must look every bit of my reputation. This thing she’s been taught to fear—a freak of nature, tethered to my cove by her powerful father because of the things that I’m a
ble to do. She came in here with fire and verve, angry at being left behind. Angry at what Alia’s bargain may bring. But she came, despite my reputation. Because she loves her sister as much as her sister thinks she loves this boy.

  “Child—”

  “Runa. Use my name. You’re not my oma.”

  This nearly makes me smile—her oma I am definitely not. “Runa, I already know what your father will do because he’s come and done it. And because of that, I cannot help you.”

  Behind my back, I can practically feel Anna’s soundless judgment—the knife is safe and ready to use. Though it was not plain in Alia’s bargain, surely this girl knows her history—the magic will accept the boy’s blood if her sister fails at love. I could give the knife to her now. But magic always takes an exchange, and I have done the work without promise of payment until now.

  “You cannot . . . ,” the girl starts, sputtering despite her clear strength. The weakness in her voice signals a sob rising, high and hard. “It’s like you’ve torn my arm from my body. She’s my twin sister. My other half. Please . . .”

  “Your father depleted me of my magic. I want to help you, but your request alone is not enough, Runa.”

  The girl smacks the cauldron in frustration, and the metal rings out around my polypi trees, clanging to the surface, up to the sun that barely shines here. “You changed her—endangered her—for one stupid boy who doesn’t even know her name. It should be more than enough that her twin sister wants her back. I shouldn’t need anything else. I should be enough.”

  I level my gaze at her and smile, which irritates her more. “Ah, but you have what I need.”

  The girl’s brows pull together, but she doesn’t ask, waiting instead for me to plainly state what she must do.

  “You see, I know about you, Runa. Famed gardener, are you not? Little Runa and her special flowers. Alia, yes, she’s known for the beautiful things she can make,” I say, gesturing to the red flowers the little mermaid offered me before I took her voice. “But she can’t do what her twin can do. Runa, the last-born daughter by a minute, the one who keeps her father strong with all the ríkifjor he can stomach?”

  Something in the girl’s eyes hardens—honey frozen on a winter’s day. “They’re guarded. Even I can’t go there unsupervised. I can’t—”

  “Then I can’t help you.” Runa’s jaw sets as I continue. “Your father came to me, frustrated that he doesn’t have the power to bring Alia back, and drunk on ríkifjor, attacked me. He attacked my power—undermining the only person alive who can save Alia. To have the power to save her, I need to build my strength back up. Surely thirty of those flowers would do.”

  “I can’t bring you thirty flowers. Maybe one, but thirty? They’re protected both by magic and by armed guards. There’s no way—”

  “Seeds, then.”

  “But—”

  “Runa,” I say, wrapping a tentacle around her waist, drawing her in. To her credit, the girl gives me no reaction—not a blink, no curl of revulsion, no tremble of fear. Her face is blank, hard, determined. “I cannot change my price. It is up to you to figure it out. If you want your sister to live, bring me the flowers and we will deal. Then you will have what you need.”

  5

  Runa

  A WAVE OF DREAD SWEEPS OVER ME AS I LEAVE THE SEA witch’s lair. Was I really so naive as to think this creature, this slithering monster, would give me any relief?

  The whole thing almost felt rehearsed, like she had been expecting me and was prepared. She stuck to her script as the actors do in our monthly moon plays, asking for impossible things in the name of love. Alia never missed a chance to show off her dramatic skills on stage, but now, what will she do with no voice?

  No voice. No more plays. I shake my head. These are the least of Alia’s problems.

  Though I’m away from the witch’s murky waters and back in the cool blue of the open sea, I’m not any more confident that I’ll get my other half back alive. Loss already weighs heavy on my shoulders, and I fear I will carry this forever if I fail.

  No, I will fix it. I will get the antidote. I will save Alia. I won’t lose her.

  I swim on, yet I have a major problem. Father counts those flowers like he’d count gold if he were any other type of king. But to my father, gold isn’t power—magic is.

  And my flowers are magic.

  Yes, Witch, I’m the gardener. “Little Runa and her flowers”—the witch knows the common refrain. For all the beauty Alia can produce, I’m the one who can make the tough things grow. The important things. But I was telling the truth when I said that even I’m not allowed to go into the ríkifjor garden without supervision. The ríkifjor can’t be touched, not by me or anyone else, unless Father’s security—both physical and magical—deems it so on a very specific schedule.

  Though I hate losing time, if I’m to get them, I won’t be successful in the middle of the day—I need to wait for nightfall for any chance to sneak in. In fact, I won’t be successful at all if Father realizes I’ve been gone too long.

  I swim straight from the sea witch’s lair to the castle grounds. The sea kingdom can be seen from miles around, shining a brilliant cerulean blue. I sweep through the front gate and into the winding hallways as if nothing is amiss. I smile at all the right people and make proper small talk. I go about my day pretending it’s completely normal that Alia is not at my side.

  The afternoon brings my lessons—singing, dancing, the human arts—with my sisters. Alia’s absence hangs in the water between us, each drop swelling with our growing anxiety. And yet we stay silent. If Father heard us talking, it would only make it worse.

  After lessons and supper, where I looked everywhere but Alia’s empty seat, a plan begins to take shape in the shambles of my distracted mind. It’s perhaps the only way to get the witch her flowers, secure the antidote, and deliver it, though it won’t be easy. But what choice do I have? I can’t just let Alia stay there and die, even if she doesn’t want to come with me. Living with a broken heart is better than dissolving into sea foam. It has to be.

  I go to bed early, feigning illness, but none of my sisters buy it. When the castle is dark and quiet, Eydis spells on the light, but I’m already wide awake, going over the scenarios in my mind, eyes glued to the vaulted ceiling of our chambers. My other sisters—Ola and Signy—converge upon my bed, taking space among the blankets.

  Dark blue and near black—the color of the deepest part of the ocean on the cloudiest days—Eydis’s eyes fall to mine. She’s usually covered in diamond dust from brow bone to chin, but barefaced in the night, she looks more serious than she’s ever been in her life. “She went above, didn’t she? For that Øldenburg?”

  I sit up, and that’s enough of a confirmation. The sob that sat deep in my throat this morning is welling up again, fat and misshapen.

  Signy, the closest in age to Alia and me, already has it figured out, arms crossed tightly over her chest, the tips of her ink-dyed hair dusting the goose bumps on her arms. “And the sea witch did it, didn’t she?”

  I nod. Ola’s eyes grow wider as she adds another question. I may be Alia’s twin, but Ola looks the most like her—blond and ethereal in the way most humans expect mermaids to be. “Is there anything we can do?” Both her hands snag one of mine and squeeze. “Tell me what we can do. There must be something.”

  I swallow down that sob. I didn’t want to include them, because the more of us who are involved, the easier it will be for Father to know.

  Yet now I can’t leave them out of it. “There is an antidote. But Father visited the witch and weakened her enough that she can’t make it. I have to bring her something first.” The way they watch me confirms they know exactly what I must bring.

  “But Father—”

  “How? It’s guarded—”

  “He’ll be so angry—”

  “I know!” The sob squeezes out, making my voice too loud. I close my eyes to reset. “I know,” I say again, quieter and more controlled
this time. “But we all know what his wrath is like—it’s not difficult for any of us to imagine what he did to her. She needs the flower to be powerful enough to help Alia.”

  “No, no, no,” Ola says, emphatic. “We need to tell Father. If we go behind his back, it will only be worse for us.” She rises from the bed and heads for the door that leads from our chambers into the family wing.

  “No!” I snap, jumping from bed and physically cutting her off. “We can’t tell him. He’s already assaulted the witch. If he finds out that she’s willing to help us and not him, he won’t be pleased.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ola says, crossing her arms over her chest, one brow cocked. Her voice is still too loud. “He’ll reward us.”

  Eydis sweeps forward and places her hands on either side of our sister’s cheeks, forcing Ola to look her in the eye. “Ola, the last thing Father is interested in is positive reinforcement. He’s not going to start now.”

  Ola doesn’t answer her, looking to me instead. “How do you know he assaulted her? How do you know she’s not lying? We all know the tales—she’s powerful enough to ruin the sea as soon as save it. Why would she rescue Alia after sending her to her death? Maybe she just wants ríkifjor to become more powerful. She nearly destroyed us once. What could she do with the power of those flowers?”

  All of it could be true. But we have to try.

  I believed the witch when she said that Father stormed in, angry that he couldn’t get Alia back himself. That seems exactly like something he would do—our whole lives he’s been paranoid, what with the disaster that almost befell us with Annemette. The ríkifjor augments his power, which makes him feel more in control, but it also makes him volatile. He’s not the king he was the first hundred years of his reign.

  “Ola, you have to trust me,” I say. “I met the witch, and I believe her. I have to try.”

  “I want to try with you,” Eydis says. “Signy?”