Sea Witch Rising

by Sarah Henning

  The air smells of rain, rot, and smoke, as the ashen remains of the warehouse settle behind the steep roofline of a row of shops catering to dockworkers. The Vœrtshus Havnestad is at the end of the row, its shingles whitewashed and dingy. It doesn’t help that sandbags line the foundation and are piled two deep at the door, keeping the water at bay.

  For a moment I worry that Møller won’t be out in this weather—maybe nobody will. But Havnestaders are hardier than most and, despite the relentless rain, the tavern’s windowpanes glow warm with firelight on either side of the single entrance. I think back to the alley—one exit there, likely from the kitchen. These are good things to know.

  At the red-lacquered door, I run a quickly whispered round of “Purr klœdi” to dry us. Then, we lock arms as planned—myself on Will’s left, Agnata on his right, Sofie bracketing her on the outside.

  When we enter the vœrtshus, music is playing, a trio of stringed instruments going from the corner. Laughter cloaks the room, people pleased to be dry, warm, and slightly drunk. I’ve never been in a place like this before. Luckily, though, Will either has or is really good at pretending.

  We grab a table that has an excellent view of both the entrance and the doors to the kitchen, which we know lead to the alley. Will deposits the three of us at the table before calling the serving girl without much more than a kind look her way. “The last of your summer wine for the table please, Fru . . .”

  “Caren,” she says, smiling prettily, dropping napkins on our table. “Will that be it for now?”

  Will nods with a grin that makes both the girl and me blush, and Caren leaves, flying over to the bar.

  When she’s gone, Will’s pocket watch comes out. Ten until eight. “See him, Hela?”

  Agnata is slow on the uptake, but finally begins to carefully sweep the tavern. Her lips flatten into a line as she concentrates, running her eyes over faces in profile and full-front view, the backs of heads, the cut and hunch of shoulders.

  “Well?” Sofie demands as Agnata’s eyes bounce around the room for the third time.

  I have to admit, I’m impatient too—we have to identify him before the buyer does. Or before anyone recognizes us. The longer we sit here, the more likely someone is to spot us despite the changes we made to our hair and clothing.

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “Well, what does he look like?”

  “Brown hair, blue eyes, stocky build.”

  Sofie sighs. “That describes literally half the bar, Hela.”

  “How did you find him so quickly earlier in the day?” I whisper. “Your turnaround time to give it to him after Will and I were knocked out couldn’t have been much.”

  “Frigg has a point,” Will says.

  “I can’t believe I let you out of my sight,” Sofie mumbles.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I thought we were on the same side, Sofie. But look, it was empty in here this morning, and he was in his guard’s uniform. No one in here is wearing one,” Agnata whispers.

  A minute more ticks by as we search around the room for someone in the blue of Øldenburg Castle, or with brown hair and blue eyes and a particularly expectant look on his face.

  “Ah, Caren, excellent service!” Will chirps, and we all automatically smile as the server returns, depositing four glasses of summer wine garnished with slivers of orange.

  Pressing a lock of hair behind her ear, she whispers close enough to him that I nearly lean back, her grinning profile looming right in front of mine. “So kind of you, sir. My regulars aren’t so complimentary anymore.”

  Will smiles tightly. “Well, they should be. Are there many regulars here?”

  “Oh, of course. The wedding crowd is gone, and it’s back to just the locals squatting on their stools like they own them. And then there’s you—though you look familiar.”

  Will’s smile doesn’t waver. “I’m afraid I’ve never been here before.”

  “Hey, girl!” a man calls from near the door, and Caren’s head whips around. Four men hard with ocean life gape at her, the cups on their table empty and ready for more.

  As she runs off, Will takes a deep sip of his wine. “Hela, what seat was Møller in this afternoon?”

  Agnata’s eyes skip over to the bar. “Second from the right.”

  There is indeed a man with brown hair of stocky build sitting there. “Frigg,” he says to me. “Why don’t you and Hela inquire at the bar about the loo?”

  I stand and take Agnata’s hand, leaving Will and Sofie behind. We skirt through the crowd, steering our way to the bar. Caren is there. I face her, smile up and ready, as Agnata looks around, supposedly for a sign, but she’s really inspecting the man’s face.

  “Caren, I should’ve asked earlier, but where is—”

  “Agnata, you’re too early!”

  Oh no.

  The man in the second seat is red-faced, and hvidtøl sloshes over his cup as he turns his whole body toward us. That’s when I see the ring on his hand. His knuckles are bulbous from work, and with the smaller size made for Sofie’s fingers, it only fits on his pinkie, above the second knuckle.

  “I haven’t sold the damn thing yet, kœreste. Greedy, girl, aren’t you?” He laughs far too loud, and despite the music and merriment, I feel half the eyes in the room turn to us.

  In my periphery, Will stands, hand reaching for the pistol in his pocket.

  No, we can’t do this here. Not with the ring still on the man’s finger.

  Møller finishes laughing, and that’s when he sees my face. “The mute!” He stumbles off the stool. Alia and I were not identical, but with my hair long again and in the low light, the resemblance is close enough for his mistake. “The entire kingdom’s been looking for you.”

  The girth of him spills into the space between us—this man is the kind who could reel in a baby whale all by himself, and then drink his weight in hvidtøl to celebrate. “Why don’t you come with me, right up to the castle. My buyer can wait.”

  He places a hand on my wrist.

  “Excuse me,” Will says, appearing next to Møller. “Unhand my friend, sir.”

  The tavern is now completely silent, every eye on our little circle. Møller with his hand wrapped around my wrist. Will with his hand on the hidden pistol. Sofie and Agnata both standing with their eyes the size of dinner plates, now completely recognizable as the komtesse bride and her hofdame.

  My eyes swing to Will’s. His swing to Sofie’s. In a blink, we’re all in motion.

  Will’s other arm rockets forward, punching Møller in the face. The man stumbles back but doesn’t let go of me.

  “Frijøsa.” I whisper, making my wrist go cold enough to burn.

  Møller reels back, frostbite already blackening his fingers. Sofie takes the opportunity and lunges, yanking the ring off his other hand. She stabs it onto her thumb and grabs Agnata’s wrist to run. Will takes my hand, and the four of us are now sprinting, triumphant, toward the door.

  But it’s already open, and twenty guards in shades of Øldenburg blue and Holsten green are streaming over the sandbags and into the room.

  34

  Evie

  THE RAIN HAS BEEN GOING NONSTOP FOR HOURS, THE sea king’s anger now unrelenting.

  It’s enough that the water crests yards above my polypi branches, sloshing up and over the cove’s boundaries. This teacup of mine is already spilt, the contents running up the pewter shores, lapping the fence of boulders surrounding the place.

  And worse, the ring isn’t here.

  I asked for it before the rain began, but it has yet to come. I’m a powerful witch, but this magic I need will not work without it.

  “Evie!” Ragn’s voice carries across the length of my lair. She rushes past the polypi and the bubbling mire. Her long hair streams behind her in a straight line. “It’s happening!”

  I move to meet her, but she’s going so fast, I barely get away from my cauldron before she collapses in my arms, her heart a hummingbird beating against my b
reast.

  The old woman draws in a few heaving breaths—and I wait. There’s no point in peppering her with stupid questions. I know what’s coming. I just need her to confirm it.

  “It’s happening,” she repeats, ice-blue eyes wild. “The ríkifjor is tapped out; the magical balance has tipped closer to level. It’s happening tonight. He’s already flooding the shores and claiming land so he and his army can make a move. But there’s more. . . .” She takes in another few breaths. “He blamed mines for Alia’s death and Runa’s disappearance . . . whipped everyone into a frenzy over them. But he’s been detonating them!”

  This last part I didn’t know.

  “The humans laid them first for their war, yes, but he took that technology and made it his own,” she says, a sob coming. “I had my suspicions, but it wasn’t until after he lied to everyone about the twins that I was able to find the truth.”

  “It’s not just fear; it’s propaganda.”

  Ragn shakes her head, disgusted. “If we were humans, we’d be lighting torches and carrying pitchforks.”

  “What if you talk to the merpeople? Maybe you can calm them? Keep them from blindly following?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Runa joined with the witches on land and blew up the entire Havnestad U-boat program,” I say, cutting her off before she can fully tell me no. “She’s using her magic to protect the sea kingdom and strengthening the land’s hold on magic in the process.”

  “She did? Oh, Ru.” The old woman smiles. “She can grow anything from nothing, even witches.”

  I bring the woman to arm’s length. “Ragn, understand that if the sea king brings war to the humans, he’ll be battling Runa. Your people will be discovered, they will be outmatched, and they will be directed to harm one of their own.”

  She takes a deep breath. But before she answers me, I ask for more. As long as I’m chained here, this is the best I can do. “What if you tell them the truth? That the king has been detonating his own mines? That Runa is safe, and that Alia died going to land?” I won’t spell my friend, but I wish I could send her straight back to do all of this. To use her power as queen mother to plant enough seeds of doubt to prevent the worst. “If you did that, if you told them, would they still follow the sea king?”

  “Of course they will,” another voice adds in. “And she will do no such thing.”

  We startle at Alia’s voice, coming from Anna’s polypus.

  We weren’t careful. I didn’t silence Anna, nor did either of us seek our privacy from her presence.

  Ragn turns to Anna, a sneer on her face, and for once I feel a hint of betrayal at giving Anna the voice that belonged to Alia.

  “And what will you do, polypus?” Ragn spits, not daring to use her name.

  “She’ll report back to me, Mother.”

  The sea king is there, head proud and swimming straight for us, dressed for battle. Gilded helmet over his long hair, muscles cuffed at the biceps and forearms, a chest plate shining deeply, my tentacle hanging low around his neck. Atop his head, even his crown of eel skulls appears to be bathed in gold.

  My stomach drops and twists. The sea king’s magic holds me here—of course he’d have a connection to every living thing within my confines. As the realization crosses my face, the sea king smiles. “Witch, there’s nothing I don’t know, but it never hurts to have more minnows.”

  “Aegir.” Ragn uses his first name—something only she would ever dare use. Not even that wife of his would attempt it. “Listen. Please. This is suicide. You are sending your people to their deaths.”

  Her son smiles at her, blood in it. Suddenly his face both resembles hers and eclipses it, relative youth and the last of the ríkifjor serum in his veins making him bright as the moon. “I am not forcing them to do anything. They know humans are our biggest threat. And we are nothing if not a brave civilization.”

  “Brave? Brave? We’ve been hiding under these waters for millennia because we know it’s best to hide. Our ancestors knew it, our parents knew it, and you knew it too until you filled that hole in your heart with power, magic, and greed.” Ragn gains strength, pulling away from me and daring to face him, unbidden, chin high. “There’s nothing brave in asking your people to sacrifice themselves and their future for you and your ambition.”

  At the last syllable, without hesitation, Ragn casts both arms out before her and shouts a spell, quick as a lightning strike. “Fœra!”

  But the sea king is quicker.

  He deflects easily with the golden cuffs at his wrists, shooting the spell right back at her, striking her in the chest and stomach, and sending her falling back.

  “No, please!” I scream, lunging for Ragn.

  “Morna, herfiligr kvennali∂!”

  The same spell he used on me slams into his mother. It takes her out like a cannonball the size of the moon, barreling into her slight frame. I’m still coming for her, and the spell hurls her body into mine with enough force to drive us both deep into the sand.

  I try to sit up to check her, but before I can right myself, the sea king looms over us both.

  “Now you’ll do what I say, Sea Witch, or your friend dies.”

  35

  Evie

  “DON’T HELP HIM, EVIE.” RAGN SAYS IT TO HER SON MORE than to me, defiant even as her heartbeat slows to an occasional hiccup against my skin where her chicken-wire spine is pressed to my sternum. “Whatever he wants from you . . . it will be at the risk of our people.”

  “Mother, wake up,” the sea king says with a sort of disdain. “The world is so different from before. The Havnestad U-boat program? It’s a drop in the bucket. Every great nation on earth has the same technology. And that technology grows by the day—in my lifetime, humans will sprout steel gills and live in the sea. I would rather reveal ourselves for the good of our cause than wait for someone to do it for us.”

  “But our people . . .”

  The sea king’s hand shoots out, his patience gone. “Prífa ørindi.”

  Ragn seizes, her capacity to breathe left in his hands. Her body shudders and squirms in my arms, thin lips gagging open as she reaches for any oxygen in the surrounding waters. Her chest falls concave, her veins shriveling, capillaries drying. Her face tinges blue and her eyes bulge. That heart against my own quiets.

  “Stop! You’ll kill her!” I scream at him.

  “Despite what my mother may think of me, I’m not foolish enough to put my people on the front lines. I’d rather have you do it.”

  Me? What can I do that he can’t?

  Impossibly, the sea king smiles. “Want her to live? Turn your polypi into merpeople.”

  My polypi were formed from those who died that night I was made—castle guards, Anna. Alia is the only one added by the magic in fifty years. I’ve never questioned what they could be other than creatures subsisting here with me. Anna’s spying is painful enough, but turn her into a mermaid? Turn them all into mermaids?

  “I’m not sure that’s possible. I—”

  “You better make it possible or that will be a corpse in your arms.”

  I look to his mother, thrashing out for oxygen. Stay with me, Ragn.

  I take a deep breath and reach for the polypus farthest from me, the lions that lurk at the natural entrance to my lair. “Frjáls líf innan haf, minn polypi.”

  I repeat the spell two dozen times over, as fast as I can.

  With each repetition, there’s a flash of blinding light—and a soldier who fell during that final battle rises up, peeling off the largest branch of his polypus tree. And a new merman is formed—blank-faced and gray as an Øldenburg statue, but he’s undeniably beautiful, smooth and shiny as a bark-bald tree under the light of a full moon.

  Each spell takes something out of me until my words are beginning to slur. Around us, the new mermaids are testing their bodies, moving in a spinning school around the dark waters of my cave, hurtling snatches of silver under the storm-filled sky.

  Drawing what
little strength I have left, I finish with the polypi closest to me and most important to the sea king—Alia and Anna.

  Anna’s polypus is nearly vibrating with excitement, and as I get the words out and tip my fingers up to her branches, she peels off the tree and whirls around, yelling even during the blinding light of her transition, “I’m free!”

  She dances around in a little circle, stretching her arms and tail, as I draw a deep breath and turn my attention to Alia, my little cluster of spindly flowers in the shadow of Anna’s tree.

  “Frjáls líf innan haf, minn polypi.”

  Alia appears in a final flash of brilliant diamond white. She’s instantly recognizable, a marble-and-moon version of herself.

  The sea king’s hardened face goes slack with surprise. The magical hold he has on Ragn collapses, and I check her pulse—still alive, barley. Thank Urda.

  He drops his hands and swims over to Alia, approaching as if he’s seeing a ghost. “Alia? Is it really you?” He takes her hands. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

  She doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t care. With a wave of his hand, he produces a tiara from seemingly nothing, placing it in her long, flowing hair. A gift, for a daughter who only wanted the one thing she couldn’t have.

  Anna’s mouth drops open, jealousy set into her stunning features—unlike myself and my silver hair, she looks not a day older than when I last saw her in human form. When she speaks, it’s again in Alia’s voice. “I’m your daughter too. I was loyal to you. I helped you.”

  “Gefa!” He snaps, eyes flashing her way, omitting the name he once gave her.

  Before another word of protest, Anna’s voice is no longer her own. The weight of it sits in the sea king’s palm as he passes it to Alia, touching her cheek so gently I’m surprised he’s capable of it. This man as he is now is the kind who only leaves bruises. And he is, but on Anna.

  “You’ve done your duty, distracting the witch with thoughts of land, goading her to think she could become human again, but you are no daughter of mine.”