Sea Witch Rising

by Sarah Henning

  The daisy warms in my hand, straightening, strengthening itself until it’s become one with the ground below, its sunny heart lifting for the heavens above.

  “Dveljask,” I tell it.

  Stay.

  Though I didn’t create it, somehow this little flower is the perfect sentry, standing tall so I’ll always know where Alia left me.

  Will and I walk in silence, the only sound between us the thunk thunk thunk of the pistols slapping my legs with each step. While I’m grateful for the respite, after a few miles, even the silence is getting to me.

  “You’re different than you were at the castle,” I say. “That boy could talk my ear right off my head.”

  “I am different when I’m in a setting like that,” he concedes with a brisk laugh. “People with titles always want a show. They don’t want the farm boy from Aarhus who wakes before dawn to feed the chickens; they want the boy who cleans up nicely and bows and chuckles at all the right times.”

  “Well, I’d like to get to know the boy from Aarhus. Who is he? Besides a daisy creator.”

  “He talks like a common person and looks like one too. The distance between the nobility and the commoner has grown slimmer than is comfortable for someone who’s been born into a title their family’s held for hundreds of years.”

  It’s strange thinking of things in human years—hundreds of years under the sea can mean one ruler. Like Father.

  “If I were to show up to a soiree straight from chores, they’d shoo me out, terrified. I’m a walking warning that class lines are blurring. The people like their nobility accessible and human—the Øldenburgs are particularly good at that—but they don’t want them dirty.”

  “You don’t want the title that came with your name, William Jensen?”

  Will shrugs. “Doesn’t make me any better a person to have it. I’m still the same boy with chicken shit on his boots. The real me is in the name, not the title.”

  I think that’s true, though until my time on land I’ve never had the opportunity to live it. “So this is the real you?”

  “It’s the me I know best.” Then, he looks me square in the eye. “Is this the real you?”

  I tell him the truth. “At the moment, yes.”

  “Fair enough, Runa.”

  We stick to the coastline, the massive cliff angling down, down, down, until the beach meets the line where the sheer face of rock once was. Then, the coastline is flat as far as the eye can see, summer-stale pasture thick and rolling.

  “It’s just up here,” Will says. I look ahead but see nothing but more than grass meeting the shore.

  We come upon a hill that’s molting a bit. Instead of going up it, Will goes around, and I follow.

  But as we swerve around the mass, I realize it’s not a hill at all—it’s a house, built into the countryside. From this vantage, an old stone foundation peeks out beneath thick hatches of hay disguising the front. There is a small brown shutter covering a window, and an equally brown door beside it. From a distance it would look like nothing of consequence worth exploring.

  “Stay here,” Will says. He steps up to the door and does a very specific knock—two slow and measured taps, one pause, and then four quick raps.

  The window shutter creeps open.

  “Who’s the girl?” a feathery voice asks.

  “A friend. She’s one of us.”

  It’s strange, the non-use of names, the level of trust missing. If I weren’t standing with him, this exchange would be different. Maybe. In wartime, trust is something else altogether than in peace.

  But that’s enough for the woman inside, and we hear the sound of locks twisting. The door gives, and Will enters first. I follow, my eyes adjusting poorly to the shadows; the whole place is nearly dark as night.

  Somewhere, a light flickers on, a match meeting a lamp. The woman with the whispery voice is awash in light. Her hair is that of a lion’s mane, Viking blood deep within her, and her face isn’t as old as her voice would suggest.

  Katrine.

  I can smell the magic on her—spicy, earthen. She is powerful indeed.

  Katrine raises the lamp to my face, and I stiffen, knowing the illumination isn’t for me to see her; it’s for her to inspect me. I force myself to smile, though the heaviness in my heart can’t make it genuine. Now that we’re inside, Will begins to rattle off my better attributes.

  “This is Runa. She’s of Helsingør, and I’ve seen her work spells that I didn’t even know were possible—”

  The sound of the lamp slamming to the table cuts him off with a clatter. Without hesitation, Katrine grasps my upper arm and wheels me toward the open door. With strength that can’t all be human, she gives me one final shove.

  “Get out!”

  19

  Runa

  THE DOOR SLAMS SHUT AS MY BODY SMACKS THE ground.

  I shoot to my feet, as embarrassed as I am angry. Through the shutters, Will’s voice carries. “Katrine, why did you do that?”

  Yes, why? I want to know. I nearly stomp away, but now I’m mad, and Will has seen too much.

  I lunge for the door handle. My fingers immediately burn, and I snatch them away.

  The witch spelled the door.

  Well, I can spell it right back.

  “Frijósa.” I spit at the door. Frost immediately piles on the knob, so cold it begins to smoke.

  “Brjóta.” The knob shatters into ice pellets no larger than grains of sand.

  “Styra mót minn rodd.” The door nearly swings off its hinges toward me. The room is exposed, the door wedged open by magic, and there’s no way they’re kicking me out again without answering my questions or hearing what I have to say.

  I enter the cabin. Will and Katrine stand stunned still at the table.

  “Villieldr.” This time, when my skin goes aflame, I limit it to my left arm. It crackles like a torch and I hold it aloft, dangerously near the dry sod wall. Everything in this place is flammable. Katrine’s eyes grow wide, and she gasps, her understanding of my threat clear.

  “Promise me right now you won’t tell the guards I’ve been here, or I promise you, there won’t be a place left for them to find.” The words roll off my tongue, threats I never thought I’d utter—burning down this house is the last thing I’d want to do to survive—still, I don’t take them back.

  “We won’t,” Will says. Hurt flashes through his eyes, and yet he’s calmer than I’d like. But I suppose he’s seen my fire before.

  My attention shifts to Katrine. “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Fine,” she says, chin held far too high. “Now, leave. We don’t need your kind here.”

  I shift a brow. I’m not exactly sure what my kind is these days: murderer, mermaid, failed sister, part human. There are many reasons to despise me.

  “It was her sister who murdered him, not her,” Will says to Katrine, deciding that murderer is my most abhorrent title, though I can’t say why he believes my innocence.

  “No, she did it.”

  Another voice.

  My sturdy legs quake beneath me at the recognition of it. Heart lodged in my throat, I swing my arm wide toward the sound—coming from the shadows of the corner.

  Sofie.

  Still in her bloodied nightgown, a ratty blanket draped across her slim shoulders. The girl stands and steps into the light.

  I wield my arm around the front room to make sure there’s no one else hiding in the shadows. Along the back wall there’s an entrance to another small room, but the door is flung open and it is empty. The shadows everywhere are clear, save for an orange tabby the size of a wild turkey.

  “She’s the one who murdered the king.” Sofie drills her brilliant green eyes into my face, suddenly a much harder girl than the one I met in hair ribbons and lace. “Though not for our cause.”

  “No, she has her own reasons to fear Niklas and his U-boats,” Katrine says, finding her footing. “She’s a mermaid.”

  Both Will and Sofie gasp
.

  I look to Katrine. I don’t ask. I don’t confirm it.

  She tips her nose into the air again. “Your magic smells of the sea.”

  I expect she’ll ask me how many days I have left. After what happened with Annemette, the remaining witches likely know more about us than before. I should have guessed. Yet they have centuries to go before they know as much about us as we know about them. Our vast knowledge of humankind is the merpeople’s only advantage beyond being made of magic.

  “Where’s the other one?” Sofie asks, her eyes combing the curves of my dress, as if I have Alia hidden in the folds.

  “My sister is dead.”

  I swallow hard and pretend Katrine isn’t watching me, those questions about my exchange thick on her tongue.

  “I’m sorry,” Sofie says. “I had a sister once too.” She seems to turn into herself for a moment, and Will puts a hand on her shoulder. “Outright murdered, though no one will ever admit it.” By their lack of reaction, it’s clear Will and Katrine already know what happened to this sister, and I don’t ask. Sofie shakes the memory out of the present. “Did the king’s guard get her?”

  “No.” I meet Will’s eyes and hope he’ll keep what he saw to himself. Something tells me he will. Repeating it—or even hearing him repeat it—would be akin to living through it again and I can’t do that now. I don’t know if I ever will be able to. “But the king’s guard is most definitely still after me . . . and I suppose if you’re here in the dark, they’re after you too.”

  Sofie nods. “Yes. I ran out of the room, screaming my story to anyone who’d listen, but when the guards entered and you weren’t there, I had to leave. Even with your beds empty, my story wasn’t sound, since you’d left a note one leaves when they’re departing.” Her eyes darken. “And now we’re all suspected. I had this handled—Niklas was listening to me. He was.”

  Her face blanches, and I wonder if maybe she felt a little differently about him for those few hours after the wedding than she did that day in the garden. Again, Will seems to feel this with her, his head dipping as he rubs a hand across his brow.

  “Now the kingdom will go through with the sale for sure. No king, no heir, no money,” Will says, calm and clear. “Chaos.”

  Sofie’s eyes flash to mine. “It was ridiculously stupid to kill him.”

  “We had to . . . she had to . . .” The witches stare at me, waiting for more. I swallow. “To save her. To go home. But it all went wrong.”

  Alia’s singing face hovers against the back of my eyelids as I let the wildfire dim from my arm.

  Come away, come away—

  The tempest loud

  Weaves the shroud

  For him who did betray.

  Sofie and Will share a look, but Katrine’s eyes tighten on my face in a way that makes me feel completely naked. She sees what I’m not saying, and maybe—just maybe—she might help me go home. No matter what, I must make the days I have left here count. Alia would have demanded it. If the U-boat sale goes through, we are all in danger.

  “Yes,” I finally say to Will, careful with the word on my lips. “But if we take advantage of that chaos, we could not only destroy the boats but ensure the whole program is shut down. The boats that are built won’t be sold, and they’ll stop making them.”

  “We?” Will asks, a quirk of amusement across his lips.

  “If you can handle my kind,” I say, and Katrine purses her lips. “I’d like to help you finish the job. I came here to save my sister, and I was unable to do that. I’d like the chance to help you with your cause and protect my people. It’s what Alia came here to do.”

  A true grin spreads across Will’s face. Sofie doesn’t smile but nods. They both look to Katrine, who finally tips her chin in agreement. Once she does, Sofie rushes in to confirm my thoughts on the program.

  “What Runa said is true. We can destroy the current crop, but without any moles in the castle”—she points to herself and Will—“we can’t cut off the construction and sale of more.” Her eyes flash to mine. “What did you have in mind?”

  Burning it all to the ground.

  “We strike not only the boats, but the supplies, the workspace, the storage. Everything,” I say. “We destroy it all at once and make it impossible to rebuild.”

  A guilty look crosses Will’s face. “That would mean taking out the livelihood of half the port.”

  It’s true. It would. But it wouldn’t kill them.

  “There’s no king to approve payment for their hard work anyway,” I say, wincing. “What if we remove the drifting mines within the strait? Make it safe enough for them to sail to finish the season? They’ll be able to catch enough to survive winter and the succession plan.”

  Will frowns much like he did on the balcony, working through my line of thought. His eyes flash to mine, and his face scrunches a little. “You’re not just a mermaid; you have access to royalty, don’t you?”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I look to the group. “If we’re going to take advantage of the chaos, we must work fast.”

  One by one, they nod.

  Good.

  I pull up a chair and take a seat, the others following suit.

  Everyone glances to me. But this is not my plan. I look across the table to Katrine.

  “Tell me everything you know about the production of U-boats.”

  20

  Evie

  THE WISH THAT THINGS HAD GONE DIFFERENTLY FOR Alia presses on my lungs, heavy and leaden.

  I can’t live with regrets, not with all the years I may have left. But I do wish I’d given the magic something besides her voice. I had my reasons, but now I can’t help but play the whole thing over again in my mind. If I’d done something differently, maybe the magic would’ve been kinder.

  For all the grief and guilt hanging hooks in my chest, the sea king has fire and anger. It’s been building all day, this gurgling, unstable pressure from him—a volcano threatening to erupt. It sits like a slow-moving storm on the horizon, warm, waiting, violent. All his mercurial power and the magic that goes with it teeters on the cusp of disaster.

  I’ve been expecting the sea king and his anger to pay me another visit.

  It worries me more than anything that he hasn’t.

  Because if he’s not threatening me, he’s threatening much worse.

  And so, I lean over my cauldron and call to my missing piece.

  “Minn moli, líta.”

  The swirling murk within the pot bursts into a bright, shining light. Eyes forever used to the shadows, I blink—I haven’t seen a blue like that since the final disastrous boat ride with Nik, Iker, and Annemette.

  The effect is enough that I check the night above. The sky above my lair is most certainly black, pulled through with stars and a fat moon.

  That peculiar blue radiance of the kingdom erases the night as much as it erases the darkness that comes with depth. The kingdom is a beacon under the waves—only the sea king’s magic can bring light.

  Ensconced beneath the cerulean bubble, tens of thousands of merpeople mingle in a massive amphitheater fashioned of sea stone. An array of flowers of immeasurable elegance and color rings the very top level of the stadium in a vibrant rainbow. I can’t identify them from this distance away, but strangely, I can feel Alia’s magic in them.

  “Each daughter has a magical gift reflected in her garden,” Anna says from over my shoulder, as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Alia’s was clearly the ability to make anything beautiful—and possibly to see the beauty in others.”

  I feel deep in my bones that this is true.

  “And Runa’s is the ability to grow difficult things,” I answer.

  “Yes, and she also has the gift of properly handling difficult people—her father and yourself included.”

  I laugh, though she’s not wrong. A lifetime ago I was far easier—and more eager—to please.

  “What was your talent, reflected in your garden?” I ask, because I’m g
enuinely curious. When Anna grows quiet, I add, “Or maybe it’s best I reframe that question as—what was the talent they told you was yours?”

  Now it’s Anna who laughs, but it’s so bitter it almost doesn’t qualify. “Luck. My garden was a bed of four-leaf clovers. It was only later that I realized they thought I was lucky to be there at all.”

  There’s nothing constructive to say to that.

  In the cauldron view, the merpeople fall silent. Expectant. Anna and I grow silent too, waiting.

  I shift the view to confirm Ragn did me one better than attaching it to the sea king’s belt—instead, he wears it clasped on a chain of sea pearls around his neck. A token for the world to see. And one that lets me both see the crowd and hear him—sound I couldn’t get when summoning a view of the girls above.

  The sea king twists, and the view shifts to the stage behind him. Sitting there, lined up in a formidable row, are his daughters—the first five with their long hair and children of their own, the three younger ones wearing long strings of pearls atop their heads as if it will disguise their shorn hair. It doesn’t and they know it, their faces colored with nerves they’re trying very hard to disguise along with their bare necks. Between the groupings are the queens—Ragn, sitting proudly as queen mother, and the sea king’s second wife, Queen Bodil.

  The view changes again as the sea king positions himself at a large, cut-coral podium, its red strands reaching for the stars like the antlers of a twelve-point buck. Applause greets him. From the way my tentacle is tilted, the swell of his cut-marble chin comes into view. He nods and gestures, and I can just see the tip of his eel-mouth crown—sharp and shiny as he tosses out his thanks until the ruckus dies back into silence and expectant stares.

  “Dear citizens of the sea kingdoms, you honor yourselves, your fellow citizens, the royal family, and your king by gathering here tonight.”

  Predictably, the crowd applauds itself for showing up. Then, the sea king pauses for a key change.

  “Citizens, your sense of urgency is important in this crucial moment because, make no mistake, we are a people terrorized.”