The Seafarer's Kiss

by Julia Ember

  I gave her a bloody smile.

  When I climbed over the bow late that evening and scuttled down the side of the ship, Havamal waited for me. He grimaced at the sight of my tentacles, but said nothing when I folded my arms over my chest and chose to remain in the monster’s form after I’d descended. If he and I were going to be friends again, I wanted him to get used to me as I was, not as he imagined I should be.

  “She has what we need,” I said, hovering in the water beside him. “A black substance that burns hundreds of times hotter than our scales.”

  As we broke our fast with strange human food, I’d told Ragna about the princess and the king’s prison. In front of her entire crew, she’d wheeled out a keg filled with a thick black liquid that smelled of decay. While I watched, a hesitant archer had coated an arrow with the tar and loosed it onto the ice shelf. Despite the water and cold, the arrow had burned until the ice melted beneath it and the point fell into the sea. Even against ice thickened and reinforced over years, her fire would work.

  Havamal nodded. “I went back to the glacier and I told everyone who is with us to get ready.” He pulled a woven satchel over his shoulder and drew out a block of ice, wrapped with precision in flattened kelp leaves. He pressed it into my hand. “Rala carved this. It shows the north point, and he’s indicated where he saw the king go.”

  I unwrapped the leaves and pulled out a crude statue the size of my hand. Rala had carved it in the rough shape of the point and etched a faint circle around the left corner of the berg. I turned it over in my hands and stared. I’d been so afraid to live even a part of my life locked in the glacier’s heart; what would years of total solitude have done to Inkeri? If we managed to free her, would she be fit to rule?

  “You’re not sure, are you?” Havamal asked. He scrutinized my face, analyzing my hesitation. He squeezed my shoulder. “We have support. Truly, Erie, when you left after your trial… it was like a catalyst. Things in the glacier haven’t been stable since. Even the king is nervous. He senses something isn’t right, even though he doesn’t understand what it is.”

  “The fire will work. But…” My voice trailed off. “What if we free her, and she can’t lead?”

  Havamal shrugged. “There are others who could help her, but we have to do this. We have to expose him and show everyone that he is a liar.”

  “So what?” Panic rose inside me, and for a heartbeat I wondered if I should have done what I planned all along, and simply swum away after I gained my freedom from the trickster. Deposing the king left us with a responsibility. “We just… get rid of him and hope for the best? That’s the plan? These are people’s lives!”

  Strong arms wrapped around my back, and Havamal crushed me against his chest. My tentacles flailed in protest, but I clamped down on their instincts and forced them to be still. It was pleasant to trust him again, even if I would never depend on him in quite the same way I had when we were young. I’d learned that I was stronger than that.

  “If it goes wrong, blame me,” he said. “Blame me for everything if you want. I know I blame myself.”

  The same guilt I felt, which twisted my stomach into knots, dripped from his voice. He exhaled sharply and sent a stream of bubbles to the surface. “I wish we could plan everything down to the last detail, but we won’t know how to work with Inkeri until we see her. Anyone has to be better than Calder, though.”

  “Will you be able to convince him to go with you?” I asked. “To the bay, when it’s time?”

  Havamal nodded. “He trusts me again. It took him a while, but he thinks my intentions about making you my mate were good. Plus, he will never turn down the chance to hunt blue tuna.”

  I ran my fingers across the row of missing scales on his stomach. His hand found the exposed patch on my back. We’d suffered enough at the king’s hands, directed by his cruel laws. Everyone in the glacier had endured his maliciousness for too long, and it was time to take our freedom back.

  Six

  I rode on the ship with Ragna and stood at the prow alongside her second in command as the crew rowed the vessel into the bay. Ragna paced back and forth. A line of tar barrels stood ready on the deck, and the crew’s two archers had their arrows nocked.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” the huge mountain of a man said, rubbing the beard at his chin. “This bay is dangerous, and if we hit the ice…”

  He didn’t have to say it. I knew what the icebergs did to ships.

  The man shook his head slowly as he watched Ragna pace. “The crew resents her, but she cares for them. She would blame herself if anything happened.”

  I nodded, knowing how that felt.

  “That man she told you about,” the big man hesitated and rubbed the back of his head, stealing a glance toward Ragna as if to confirm she couldn’t hear him. “The one we threw overboard. She didn’t tell you he slit a night sentry’s throat and tried to dump the water supply in the ocean in order to further his mutiny. He was a bad egg who would have killed us all to get what he wanted. The rest of the crew will come around.”

  I didn’t know why Ragna’s lieutenant chose to tell me about the man she’d killed, but when I looked at her again, something in me softened.

  We coasted into the bay, and I studied the north point. The ice mountain was twice the size of our fortress, with sharp ledges and high peaks. Its sides were so slippery that no land animals made their home atop it. Even the polar bears were afraid of the mountain. It was the perfect place for the king to have hidden Inkeri for all these years.

  Using signs and sketches, Havamal had drawn more information from Rala. They had already scouted the area. Although they couldn’t see the princess, Havamal had found a long shaft under the water where food could be lowered. Ragna’s archers would have to aim for the ice above. Then we would somehow have to get the princess out through the fissure.

  I swallowed, praying hard that Ragna’s men were as good with weapons as she was. The operation was becoming too complicated, with too many opportunities for things to go wrong. Part of me wanted to tell Ragna to turn the ship around. Then we could sail away together, and I could see the world as I’d always wanted to. But if I left, everyone Havamal brought with him would be at the mercy of the king. If he thought Havamal had betrayed him, Calder wouldn’t stop at cutting out his tongue. If I turned around now, I would be the same coward I’d been before Loki entrapped me, thinking only of myself.

  Ragna directed the ship to the other side of the north point. When Havamal lured King Calder to the bay, I wanted the human ship to be out of sight. If the king grew suspicious, he could flee to the safety of the glacier and those who supported him. Havamal had said there were plenty who were on our side, but were afraid. Without the princess, how many would back Havamal?

  As we drew closer to the glacier, I crawled over the edge of the bow. Using the suction in my tentacles, I balanced on the side of the ship right above the water. From this vantage point, I’d be able to see the ice under the waves and signal Ragna. The ice had claimed many ships, ripping their hulls apart with its jagged underwater peaks. We wanted to hide in the shadow of the glacier without sinking the boat.

  On the deck, I heard Ragna’s boots drumming as she continued to pace. I wondered if she’d chosen the pair to sound imposing. Given the image she seemed to want to project to her men, such a conscious choice wouldn’t surprise me.

  The ship turned the final corner, hugging tight to the berg. For the first time, I really surveyed the craft. Where the whaling ships coasted low in the water, this ship skimmed the surface, as agile on the waves as a porpoise. It passed easily over the sharp ice, and the oarsmen stopped their furious rowing as someone dropped a heavy anchor into the ocean. I nearly fell as the ship heaved back when the anchor’s chain forced it to stop.

  Ragna’s face appeared over the ledge. She leaned down, and I climbed just high enough to brush my hand agai
nst hers.

  “You’ll be ready for my signal?” I asked.

  She nodded, then beckoned to me. I pulled myself up alongside her. Her fingers dug into my hair and yanked my face to hers. “In case you don’t make it back.”

  A sob welled in me, and I fought to keep it down. If she kissed me, I knew I would cry, so as Ragna lowered her lips to mine, I sank my teeth into her neck. I didn’t break the skin, but she yelped nonetheless and stood up.

  “What was that for? I mean, I admit, under another circumstance and accompanying…” she blushed and trailed off. “Is that a mermaid thing?”

  I smirked, arming myself with a bravado I didn’t feel. “Now we have unfinished business. So I have to come back.”

  I didn’t wait for her to argue. Instead, I pushed off the ship with all my strength and dove into the sea.

  I attached myself to the underside of the point and waited in the dark for Havamal and the rest of King Calder’s hunting party to appear. A pair of great white sharks swam laps around the iceberg’s base, rooting in the crevices for fish. The bolder of the two sharks approached me. He swished his tail and looked at the strong tentacles that kept me attached to the glacier like a turquoise barnacle while he tasted the water for my smell.

  When I crept closer, the shark spooked and darted away. I almost laughed. The great whites inspired terror across the ocean. What did it say about me that I scared them?

  I clutched Loki’s vial. I’d gotten so used to murmuring the invocation that the words had become a blur, almost without meaning. The trickster hadn’t reappeared, and I supposed they were giving me space, hoping the misery of our deals faded in my memory so they could compel me to work with them. What was a few days to a god who lived for millennia? I made a silent promise, a prayer, not to Loki or any of the other gods watching from Asgard, but to myself. I was through living a life driven by others. I would never get involved with the trickster again, no matter how desperate I became.

  A pale blue light flickered in the dimness: Havamal’s signal. I could picture the jellyfish he held in his hand, illuminating the way toward a mythical school of tuna as he bought time and trust by chattering to the king about feasts and parties and pretty mermaids. I moved to the edge of the iceberg before whispering the invocation and shifting into my new mermaid form.

  I swam out to greet the hunting party, plastering my best smile in place. My new pearl scales glittered, and I arranged my hair so it half covered my face.

  “I’m lost,” I called, making a show of swimming sideways as if I were confused and starving, struggling to stay upright. “Please, I’m lost.”

  “Whoa,” Calder breathed as he caught the flicker of my multicolored tail. I moved my hips suggestively. He turned to his companions and whooped. “Have you ever seen such a beautiful creature? She must be a long, long way from home. What are you doing here, my starfish?”

  His use of the silly nickname made me want to vomit. But I forced myself to simper and swim a few feet toward him. He would see what he wanted to see.

  “Bet she’s fertile,” said a yellow-finned guard by the king’s right arm. Calder licked his lips and passed the man his whalebone trident. His look of possession made my stomach squirm. Pure lust was dulling the king’s instincts and killing all traces of suspicion… for the moment. But, if this plan didn’t work, and these animals attacked me, I hoped I would be able to defend myself. I prayed that giving me the vial hadn’t been a trick of Loki’s. I could imagine the trickster retracting my abilities at exactly the moment that would leave me the most vulnerable.

  There was a murmur of assent from a few of the guards, but those with Havamal formed a circle around Calder’s back. He was too enraptured by my strange and beautiful scales, too used to the guards circling around him, to notice as the hunting party split into factions. Havamal still held the jellyfish light, but he made no move to close the gap between us. I stayed half hidden in the shadows.

  I molded my features into an innocent, wide-eyed expression. I pulled more of my hair across my face and peered through the curtain of blue. “Where am I?”

  Calder swam toward me with an expression of wonder on his face. Up close, all the pockmarks and scratches on his weathered skin stood out. I’d always thought of the king as a handsome man, but maybe the cruelty inside him was beginning to show on the outside. He adjusted the mother-of-pearl crown that rested atop his head and extended his hand to me.

  I closed my eyes and shifted forms, as I pivoted to gain speed. My tentacles fanned around me, whipping into the king’s remaining loyal guards as I spun. I knocked them aside as if they were toys. The lust in Calder’s green eyes darkened to fear. In a flash of silver light, Havamal swam up behind him. He pressed the end of his tapered harpoon to the back of the king’s neck.

  “Traitor,” Calder hissed, his voice as low as an eel’s rasp. “Traitors, all of you. Siding with this fugitive? She’s a killer and, from the looks of her new powers, she’s sold her soul again.”

  “Quiet,” Havamal said, jabbing the harpoon. A trickle of blood flowed from the king’s neck, then diffused in the water. I wondered if the white sharks would come back and finish the king for us.

  King Calder swallowed hard, but his chin remained raised, defiant.

  “It’s interesting you bring up treason,” Havamal drawled. I had to respect him for his control. His voice didn’t betray anger, and the rest of the guards took their cue from him, remaining silent and still, with their arms crossed. He really had grown up. “We are here to prove treason was committed. A long time ago.”

  Only three of the assembled hunting party had remained loyal to the king. The three guards bobbed in the water now, rendered unconscious by the blows from my legs. At Havamal’s nod, one of the men with us swam to check their breathing. He rested two fingers beneath each sagging chin and pronounced each alive in turn.

  Havamal beckoned to me, and I swam from the glacier’s shadow into the open water. His men trembled, tightening their circle around Havamal to put distance between themselves and my muscular tentacles. Sighing, I shifted back into mermaid form. But the beautiful scales that had drawn looks of appreciation only moments ago now had the men exchanging nervous looks. Magic scared them even more than the monstrosity of my legs.

  Two of the men grabbed the king by both arms. Silent Rala swam forward, his eyes blazing with a lust for revenge as bright as his ruby fins. He considered his sovereign, then opened his mouth and flashed the stump of his tongue for all to see. All the color drained from the king’s face as he realized what Havamal meant by treason and why we had come to the north point. Rala led us around the iceberg to the left corner where he’d marked his carving, where Ragna waited to blow the ice apart.

  Rala swam to the glacier’s edge and felt around with his hands. His arm sank into a tunnel. He turned to us with a triumphant smile. The king flailed in the guards’ grip. He clipped the guard on his right with an elbow to the back of the head, but another guard swam to them. In seconds, the men subdued the king, wrestling his arms behind his back.

  I swam for the surface, gathering as much as speed as I could. The shimmering fins Loki had given me seemed to buzz with energy and strength. I dug my nails into my palm. I couldn’t think that; Loki hadn’t given me anything. I had paid for this magic with suffering, and, despite the invocation, it belonged to me now, not the trickster god.

  With a final kick, I breached into the air. The sunlight glistened on the colors in my scales like a beacon. I landed with sideways splash, signaling to Ragna that it was time.

  The rest of Havamal’s hunting party surfaced behind me. Most of the men kept their distance, but at their new leader’s beckoning they swam a few feet closer. We waited for Ragna to move into position.

  When the ship rounded the corner, positioning itself alongside the glacier, a few of the mermen gave cries of fear. But Havamal steadied them with a
few quiet words. I smiled at him across the waves. It was the first real smile I’d given him since our ordeal began. He had matured so much in only a few months, had grown into a military commander other men trusted and followed—and maybe into a friend that I could trust too.

  Havamal, Ragna, me… we’d all made unforgiveable mistakes. But maybe forgiveness wasn’t necessary. We couldn’t change what we’d done, but I hoped that today we’d create something new, something good.

  When they got close enough, I could see the archers on Ragna’s ship climb onto the prow. The crew rolled the barrels of tar forward. The boat groaned under the added weight, and its bow tilted toward the water.

  “Aim for the crevices,” Ragna shouted. “The arrows won’t penetrate the ice. They need to rest on the shelves and burn.”

  She climbed onto the dragon’s head that decorated the bow and sat atop it. The wild arctic wind made her golden hair billow behind her as if she had her own set of sails. I watched her as she screamed directions. Longing bubbled up in me. The vial’s magic wasn’t the only thing I wanted to claim as mine.

  A flurry of flaming stars shot through the morning sky. Some missed their targets and slipped across the ice’s slick surface until their flames were extinguished by the ocean waves. But bit by bit, the archers coated the surface of the ice with sticky tar that burned.

  “This is crazy,” the king announced, trying once again to wrench his arms free. He turned to Havamal, entreating, “Stop it. You’re accomplishing nothing but allowing these humans to pollute the ocean with their toxic fire. Release me, and we can discuss this. It needn’t end badly for you.”

  Havamal pressed his lips together and ignored his former sovereign. The ice glowed with fire, and we all waited. Then a cracking noise pierced the silence, and a section of the thick ice broke off from the glacier to hit the ocean with a mighty splash.

  We all swam forward to look. Havamal swore. A great fissure had broken in the ice, but it was several feet above the waterline. Even if the guards managed to breach high enough to jump inside and look for the princess, they would never be able to crawl back out. There wouldn’t be enough water inside to allow them to swim.