by Starla Night
“It’s so unprotected.” Elyssa bit her thumb and cast her eyes in the direction of the distant ruin. “I don’t want to pull anyone off the ruin for my paranoia. I keep telling myself that if enemy warriors break in, they’ll chop it down regardless of whether it’s in a protective cave or not. Um, how large would you say the megalodon was?”
“It could easily swallow the largest cruise ship.”
Elyssa dropped her thumb. “Then it won’t matter, I guess.”
She stuck out her still-human feet. “Which muscle controls the fins?”
Elyssa laughed. “Well, for me, it’s not a muscle. I have to believe I’m transforming, and then the fins appear.”
There was that belief Soren was always telling Aya. “Can you break it down into math? And medical science?”
Elyssa smiled at her practically. “When you were in the trench, how did you activate the power of the Life Tree to save Soren?”
“I just wanted the monster to go away.”
“You wanted it. You wanted it really hard.”
Hmm. “As Lucy would say, that’s all a little ‘woo-woo.’”
“You sound exactly like Lucy! It is all a little woo-woo. Close your eyes and let your reason go. Just feel.”
Elyssa closed her eyes, lifted her shoulders, and pushed off the dais. As she was flying up, past the Life Tree branches, her body seemed to vibrate. The Life Tree vibrated in response, a lovely, wind-chime tinkling harmony. Elyssa’s feet unfurled into the cherry blossom pink, lacy fins. Elyssa swam serenely with her eyes closed.
Serenity, faith, happiness. That’s what Elyssa had.
Aya closed her eyes and pictured morning yoga. Yoga was supposed to be twice as effective as similar forms of exercise, and she needed to be efficient with her time. It was the most spiritual-esque activity she did. Aya bounced off the ground, believed, and pretended she was gliding. She opened her eyes and looked down.
Stubby, unpainted, human toes wiggled back at her.
She floated down to the white dais. “Are you sure you’re not flexing something?”
Elyssa joined her. “Don’t feel bad. This is the hardest. Lucy said sometimes she gets so flustered she still can’t do it on her first try.”
The first mermaid queen could be scattered and indecisive. “I can see that.”
Elyssa pinched her. “Okay, I’ll try to go scientific. You have to activate your inner power.”
“That’s a little vague.”
“Resonance, I mean. You have to create a biofeedback loop that strengthens your inner resonance. We can’t sense it vibrating in our chests as light or darkness the way the mermen can, so you have to try something else. My resonance increases when I believe in myself. I have a slight problem with self-doubt. Lucy focuses on Torun. She has trouble believing in true love.”
Well, since Lucy’s first husband had been Blake, Aya wasn’t exactly shocked. “What’s my problem?”
Elyssa broke into a wide grin. “Don’t you know?”
Aya shook her head.
“Then how should I?” She laughed, hard. “I think you’re great at everything! You’ve always been my idol. Ever since we were wearing our swim tails in elementary school. You were a better swimmer. I thought you’d be the better mermaid, too.”
Elyssa’s laughter subsided, and she cleared her eyes. “It’s kind of a shock to see you struggling like this. It’s like, oh yeah, you’re human, too.”
Of course Aya was human. And she had plenty of troubles. Aya wasn’t sure whether to be touched by Elyssa’s hero-worship or irritated that her cousin hadn’t ever seen her clearly.
Elyssa noted her reaction and twirled. “Think about it. What are you bad at?”
“Making my fins.”
“Maybe you struggle with giving up too soon.”
There was no way that was true. If she gave up too soon, she wouldn’t have wasted all those hours in college on Phoenician. “I’m bad at relationships.”
Elyssa nodded encouragingly. “Okay, now make yourself good at them, and jump.”
Make herself good at them? Aya imitated Elyssa, bouncing lightly. Her toes felt every ridge of the pebbled dais. Make herself good at relationships…or feel like she was good at them.
Like, her friendship with Elyssa. They were adults now. Elyssa asked her to stay and help. They shared a meal and planned city-saving security. Aya focused on that friendship, bobbed her feet, and zoomed up.
Nope. Ordinary, stubby human toes. She floated back down.
She tried family. She imagined forgiving her dad. Because she did well at the meet, she lost her one chance at having a relationship. Like she should have toned it down. He wanted a daughter who failed.
It still pissed her off.
Her toes tingled.
Her first boyfriend had wanted her to forget Harvard, stay home, and interior decorate. Was that where she’d gone wrong? Ambition often killed her relationships.
This wasn’t working.
Imagine running into that asshole professor right now. The one who told her point-blank to drop his class because she was a distraction to the serious dead language majors (somehow) and that he was tenured so it was fine for him to base a grade on whether or not he liked her.
“There’s no poetry in your soul,” he’d said to her, when she went to speak with him about her B. “And as the daughter of a lipstick corporation, you can’t possibly do anything useful to mankind with it.”
The perp had destroyed her GPA. Wouldn’t do anything useful with Phoenician? Ooh, if only he were here. She would just love for him to see her save an entire city with it.
A fluttering sensation like butterflies brushed over her toes.
“That’s it!” Elyssa cried. “You’re doing it! Whatever you’re thinking, keep thinking it.”
Keep thinking about that unjust dead languages professor? She opened her eyes. The fluttering sensation was the water caressing her thin skin between her big toe and her second toe, enlarged in a comical way, as though she were a cartoon character who had suffered a sudden drop of a large safe.
She rested on the floor. Although she could keep thinking about the professor, it worried her. “I’m not sure this is the right path. I’m focusing on showing up the people who wronged me. It seems kind of … dark.”
Elyssa shrugged. “Whatever increases your resonance. You’re learning to get in tune with yourself.”
“I’m not exactly turning the other cheek, here.”
“The Life Tree isn’t Buddha. It’s a plant. It reacts to resonance, and that’s triggered by whatever makes you most centered, and powerful, and capable in your heart.”
“So, essentially, you’re saying what makes me powerful is dwelling on narcissistic fantasies of crushing my rivals?”
“It doesn’t have to be right,” Elyssa said. “It just has to be powerful.”
Hmm.
“Well, maybe it is right. Women spend a lot of time being told how wrong we are. How we need to sit quietly, keep our heads down, do our work. Resonance is about standing up and making noise. This is the one time you can let go of what you’re supposed to be and exist as you are.”
Weird.
But Aya went for it. She had fins to grow and a large mer-male to shock.
Focusing on the unfair professor only got her so far. There were a number of other people who had wronged her, and she enjoyed fantasizing about how she would prove each one of them fantastically wrong.
Elyssa encouraged her, and the tingling flutter told her when she was being successful.
When her mind took over and told her not to take everything so personally, to stop outperforming, and to remember what an unlikeable loser she was, the fins went away.
Ah.
No wonder she was so bad at relationships. Her need to be right conflicted with her desire to be liked. Being liked required she be humble and wrong. But she could never give less than her best. So, she gave up on relationships instead.
She didn�
�t have to force herself to be quiet. She could try. She could excel. She could succeed.
She could just see the shocked, furious expression on Soren’s face at the ruin. She’d kick past him on her fins after he’d told her to stay in her castle…
Her feet unfurled into beautiful, lacy, scarlet-red fins.
Elyssa squealed below. “You did it!”
Aya envisioned it and she did it. Like a professional athlete. Like a top-level performer. Like herself.
It was okay to be right. It was okay to be liked. It was okay to prove Soren wrong.
Aya set her sights on the distant ruin. “I’ve got rivals to crush in my narcissistic fantasies.”
“Sounds fun.” Elyssa flew up beside her. Far across their territory, two stragglers made their way home from the trench direction.
Elyssa waved. “Gailen! Ciran! We’re going to harass Soren and Kadir. Want to come?”
Gailen and Ciran both looked heartened to see Elyssa and Aya with their fins. Like, two queens with fins made them feel better about whatever had happened to them near the megalodon.
Aya would quiz them on the journey.
“Oh, yeah.” Gailen swooped along beneath them, rolling to face up. “Soren has had it easy for too long.”
Aya kicked. She zoomed through the water. Take that, state champion swim team! She could beat all of them! Hah.
She stopped the chuckle from snorting out her mouth. Under water, it wasn’t as cool, and she was living in her own resonant fantasies. “To old Atlantis!"
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aya emerged from the city like a beautiful red star.
Soren watched her approach from a speck in the distance to a shining flower. Her chest glowed with the force of her light. Her fins propelled her forward with grace that left even her expert guards behind. Next to her, Queen Elyssa flew like a pink shadow.
The warriors working on the ruin beside him paused and also watched.
Aya said his honor wasn’t lost. She said he was still a good person. She said he’d suffered an injury by being asked to do something that conflicted with what was right.
Could that be possible? Was he still honorable?
His heart raced as though an army were approaching. His hands trembled. And his guts clenched.
No. He was no honorable warrior. An honorable warrior would serve his king without question. Soren questioned Kadir all the time. An honorable warrior would assume the title of First Lieutenant and execute all orders without argument. An honorable warrior would not feel so churned up and mudblack inside.
An honorable warrior would not stop defending his city to stare in awe at the two approaching queens.
He put his head down and pushed on the stuck lever. Kadir had unearthed and then activated the first layer. Luck was on their side. The structure had shaken loose some of the rubble.
But now something was wrong. Maybe that rubble had fallen into the mechanism.
“This is the lever to activate the second stage.” Balim tapped Soren’s beam. “I have swum all around it. The structure is the same as the first tier. I do not understand why it does not operate. Push harder.”
Soren pressed his human feet against the rock and heaved.
The warriors resumed their places and all shoved.
It did not move.
He released the lever. His whole body shook from exertion. He and the other warriors rested with huffs.
“Perhaps the opposite direction.” Balim frowned. “Push again.”
“Read the diagram again.”
Female voices teased the waves, tickling his chest. Aya was here.
He refused to look, rubbing his face and arms…and then he looked despite his intention not to.
Aya barreled straight toward him.
He shot upright and caught her. “Are you trying to hurt yourself? This is a dangerous area!”
She clung to him. Her lips curved in a secretive smile that plucked his cock like a string. “I landed safely.”
“Yes. Because…” What was he angry about? Her power did something to him, stole his thoughts while heating his blood. He gripped her fiercely. “You must control yourself around me. I may not be here to catch you.”
Something flashed in her eyes. Her fins curled up into human feet again and she floated in front of him. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t know what he was trying to say. Only that the tension jumped under his skin again like water fleas, biting with sharp nails.
Soren shook off the unease. “It means this is a work zone.”
“And I’m here to work.” The cool distance returned. She straightened. “Show me the writing.”
He pulled her to the end of the lever. “Do not touch anything.”
She paddled, looked down at her human feet, and frowned. Closing her eyes, a slow smile curved her lips.
Her sweet tongue touched her lower lip. He wanted to nibble. To kiss it.
Soren fought his urges.
Her fins grew unfurled. She opened her eyes, nodded at them in satisfaction, and kicked steadily. “Now I can help you.”
The fire in Aya’s soul, shining as brightly as the Life Tree, flashed in her clear blue eyes. The rise of her soft curves and exciting body, opened to him. The promise of her true self, united to his, made him shake.
No. He refused to succumb to his wishes.
“The writing is around the lowest tier.”
Swimming down the column, the ancient city spread around them. New currents fought chaotically around the revealed rock. Rubble the size of the Life Tree had broken off the wreck and sank, smashing into the sea floor. Even now his shoulders were pelted with small stones.
As they descended, the affronting noises of the cave guardian grew louder and more offensive. It was like a cadre of warriors snoring and retching at the same time. Soren tried to ignore it.
The first lever was flush against the seafloor a few strokes from the giant cave guardian’s home. Aya eyed the gaping hole as she touched down on her human feet. “That’s a cave guardian?”
“Inside. Try not to disturb him. He’s easily angered.”
Her brows rose. She released him, turned to the first lever, and examined what she could. “Can you move these boulders?”
He shifted to his human feet and tried. Grunting, he said, “The force of a falling rock pushed the lever.” He gave up. “I can get more warriors.”
“No, it’s fine.”
She studied the markings she could see. Her focus narrowed. Her fingers traced the lines.
He waited, vigilant in case the excavations unbalanced the wreck.
She straightened. “Where is the other lever?”
“What does it say?”
“Pierce the hand.” She rubbed her palm. “Take me back to the second lever.”
He obeyed, drew her near, and pushed off. His human feet unfurled into fins. Although, she didn’t need his assistance to move. She could move all on her own.
“You made your fins.”
She smiled, nestling into their old embrace. “You noticed.”
“They look good.”
She blinked. Her hand on his shoulder tightened. “Soren. We were talking about marriage.” Her frown deepened and her soul light dimmed. “I think—”
“Here is the second lever.” He stopped abruptly, opening his arms to release her. She landed on her human feet. A wave of uncertainty crossed her face.
He didn’t want to see it. He couldn’t stand for her to deny him. Not now. Not after she knew the truth. Not this way.
She frowned and composed herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Where are the symbols?”
“There are none.”
She opened her eyes and glanced around him. “Oh, look! Here they are.” She touched symbols on the handle he had never noticed. “This is marked with a five.”
“I believe it is the fifth stage,” Balim said, from above them. He paddled on his fins, surveying t
he site. “Three were controlled under the surface, by the mer. Three were controlled above the surface, by the humans. Truly, a city in harmony.”
“Hmm.” She touched the immobile lever. “And this is the same style of lever as the lower stage? It says here to ‘Pierce Hand Bone.’”
“Push it until your hand breaks,” Balim suggested. “Harder, Soren.”
“I have pushed in every direction. Up, down, left, right.”
“It’s been a thousand years, so I’m not surprised the coils remain compressed.”
“They are not coils,” Balim said. “It is a weighted system. There are four struts counter-balanced with weights. Much of the rubble — aside from destroyed human-style dwellings — is the wreckage of upper tier counter-balance weights.”
“Four struts? Like four fingers?” She reread the markings. “Pierce the hand bone…Soren, did you try pressing in?”
“I pushed in every direction.” But to appease her, he went to the end of the lever, made his human feet, balanced against the opposing rock, and heaved the lever into the structure.
It moved with a grinding shriek.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.
The tower shuddered. Debris puffed out former windows and holes. Mermen shouted. The water filled inky black.
“Get back!” he shouted.
The wall containing the lever fell outward. Balim shot out of the way. Aya scrambled back on her human feet…right into the path of a huge swinging beam!
He dove and rolled her out of the beam’s path. It roared through the water and disappeared into the thickening darkness. He kicked hard. The city surged upward, catching him on a broken wall. He curled around Aya, sheltering her.
It roared forever.
Eventually, the shaking stopped. The water pressure lightened and warmed, sliding over his skin more breezily. The dust was still choking. He rose and held Aya, carrying her up and out, trying to free them of the dust cloud.
In the outer area of safety, the other warriors formed a cluster of awe. The cloudy, debris-filled water returned the ordinary sounds of the ocean.