“How much time do you need?” Danielle asked, cutting the mermaid’s spear in half.
“A week would be nice,” Snow said, her voice tight.
Danielle stomped her foot, feinting at a merman. They were strong, but as Talia always said, footwork was key to fighting. The undine had possessed feet for less than a day. She swung hard, trying to keep them back and off-balance.
Varisto let out a tremendous shout as he smashed a spear, then kicked a merman in the stomach. “If need be, I can destroy this place. My spirits can crack the land, destroy the tower, send us all into the hot sea.”
“All of us?” Danielle asked, parrying another spear.
“If they go, we all go. All but the flying fish-woman over there. My spirits are strong, but I’m afraid they’re much less discerning than my brother’s.”
“Then let’s hope Snow succeeds.”
Talia drew two knives from her forearms without breaking stride. She threw one with each hand as she ran, and two of the undine fell. Another tripped over the body of his companion, leaving only two between Talia and the tower.
She started to run between them, watching as they both drew back to swing. Talia bent backward, sliding to the ground as their attacks passed over her. They managed to avoid striking one another, though. Talia’s luck was never that good.
Talia kicked out the knee of the mermaid to her right, then rolled away to avoid another spear thrust. She grabbed the spear and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Stepping in close, she slammed a knee into his crotch.
Mermen might keep their equipment hidden within their scales, but there was only so much those scales could do. He dropped, groaning. Talia snapped a kick to his cheek, then turned to plant her heel in the nose of the other merman.
That left only the one who had tripped over his friend. He charged, spear outstretched.
Talia slipped her toes beneath a dropped spear. She waited until he was almost upon her, then kicked the fallen spear up into her hand and dropped low.
The merman’s spear passed over Talia’s shoulder. Talia’s sank into his stomach.
Soon Talia was scaling the tower wall, circling around to the ocean side in order to keep the tower between herself and Morveren. All it would take was one of those damned air spirits to rip her from the wall and dash her onto the rocks.
When she reached the window, she pulled herself up to peek into the tower. Lirea sat on the far side, her legs pulled to her chest and her head buried in her knees. Another of Morveren’s transformed mermaids was with her, her body between Lirea and the window.
“Sorry, Danielle,” Talia whispered. “I don’t intend to wait.” She pulled out her last knife, the one Beatrice had given her. Moments later she was through the window, balanced on the balls of her feet. Raising her voice, she said, “Excuse me, but you’re in my way.”
The other mermaid spun. As Talia had hoped, the movement exposed Lirea. Talia was already throwing her knife. The blade spun across the tower, only to veer right, sucked out the window by one of Morveren’s spirits.
“I am tired of those damned things.” Talia ran, but a gust of air knocked her into the wall. Her shoulder scraped stone. The other mermaid was coming at her with a sword.
“You see?” the mermaid said as she attacked. “The humans will never stop trying to kill you. Morveren is the only one who can save us.”
“What if I no longer want to be saved, Nilliar?”
Talia ducked and tried to step back, only to be shoved into the wall again by the wind.
“She can give you back your prince.” Nilliar swung again, cutting Talia’s arm. “It won’t be like before. You have to let Morveren complete her spell. Gustan still loves you, Lirea.”
“No, he doesn’t,” said Talia, scooting backward. The wind was weaker here at the wall. So long as she kept her body pressed to the stone, the air spirit couldn’t do much more than push her from side to side. Of course, that severely limited her options. If she kept backing up, the wind would either push her out the window or toss her down the steps. “He never did. You know that, deep down.”
“He said I was most dear to him,” Lirea said, hugging herself. Tears shone on her cheeks. “He was kind to me in the beginning.”
Talia dropped onto her back, kicking at Nilliar’s legs. She missed the knee, but caught Nilliar’s shin. It wasn’t enough. Nilliar’s sword rang against the stone where Talia had been a moment before. Talia tried to rise, only to be tossed away from the wall, toward the broken edge of the floor and a long drop to the bottom of the tower. She pressed herself flat, clinging to the floor.
“People lie.” Talia waited for Nilliar’s next attack. This time, she rolled toward the mermaid and rose up on one knee, wrapping an arm around Nilliar’s waist for balance. Her other hand slid along Nilliar’s arm, reaching not for the sword but for the fingers that gripped it. She found the thumb and tugged. The sword clattered to the ground.
The air spirit attacked them both, driving them past Lirea and toward a window. It meant to throw them both down to the rocks.
Talia didn’t fight it. Instead, she added her strength to the wind, pushing Nilliar back. With her left hand, she tugged her zaraq whip from her belt. A snap of the wrist launched the weighted line at Lirea, twirling it around her neck.
Talia twisted, shoving Nilliar through the window. Nilliar tried to grab the edge, but between the wind and Talia’s own weight, her grip wasn’t strong enough.
“If it’s any consolation, I’ve never had much luck with romance either.” With that, Talia yanked the whip with both hands. Lirea staggered across the floor, and then Talia was tumbling back through the window, dragging the mermaid after her.
Snow’s vision swam. There was too much magic, too many spells to counter. Three Morverens appeared to float outside of the tower, and she couldn’t begin to count the number of undine fighting Danielle and Varisto. She closed her eyes, calling forth another burst of sunlight from her choker. It was enough to distract the undine, giving her friends a momentary advantage. But there was only so much she could do.
She could feel Morveren reaching out to the tower, trying to work her way into Lirea’s mind. Morveren was far more skilled than Snow, her touch light as air. One strand at a time, she wove her web around Lirea’s will.
Snow concentrated on the cup, trying to erect a magical wall to sever Morveren’s connection to Gustan. Without that connection, there should be a very satisfying crunch as Morveren dropped onto the rocks below. But Morveren punched through the wall with ease, widening the cracks between Snow’s imaginary bricks.
“Power is subservient to skill,” Morveren shouted. She waved a hand, and one of her air spirits broke away. Rocks and sand rained against undine and humans both. The humans took the worst of it, since they couldn’t turn away to protect their faces without exposing themselves to attack.
“Maybe.” Snow pulled out the green soul jar she had taken from Morveren’s ship. Another few days and she would have figured it out. She was sure of it.
Snow bit the stopper in her teeth spat it aside. She peered through her lashes at the faint web of Morveren’s magic laced through the inside of the jar. Closing her eyes, she reached into the bottle with one finger, ripping a hole in the bonds that had trapped this soul for over a hundred years. The freed spirit rushed past, feeling like hot velvet over her skin. There was power in that soul, but Snow allowed it to escape.
Varisto yelled as a rock struck him in the knee. Another glanced off Snow’s forehead, redoubling the pain in her skull and driving her to one knee. Blood trickled down the side of her nose. With a gentle push, she nudged the strands of the jar’s magic, sending them outward like a fisherman casting his line. As soon as those strands touched the air spirit, Snow allowed the spell to collapse back into the bottle, dragging the spirit along.
The rocks and sand died down. Snow pressed a thumb over the mouth, a crude seal, but effective for the moment.
Snow could hear Morve
ren redoubling her efforts to reach Lirea’s mind. Shouts rose from inside the tower. Talia stumbled into the window, fighting a blue-scaled mermaid. Talia twisted, pushing the mermaid through. She fell to the ground with a scream. The drop wasn’t necessarily a fatal one, but the mermaid fell head first. Snow could hear the crack of bones breaking.
Talia tumbled out the window, clinging to her whip. The other end of the whip was looped around Lirea’s throat. For a moment, it looked as though she would drag Lirea down, but Lirea caught herself. She clutched the windowframe with both hands.
“Snow!” Danielle slammed her sword down, snapping a merman’s spear and cutting deep into his shoulder. “Help her!”
Talia braced her feet against the wall and pulled, but Lirea was too strong. Morveren swooped down, drawing a knife. Snow recognized the abalone blade from here, as well as the remnants of broken spells that still clung to the knife like leeches. Talia pushed herself to one side, barely avoiding the attack.
Snow still held a mirror in her left hand. She removed her thumb from the jar, placing the mirror over the mouth. The air spirit fought to escape, but she pushed him back. Using her magic to reach into the heart of the mirror, Snow struck the glass from within.
The mirror crumbled to powder, glittering as it fell into the bottle. “Mirror, mirror, crushed so fine, lend strength to this spell of mine.”
The remains of her mirror melted into the bottle. Soon both the inside and outside gleamed like quicksilver. Snow waited, but the mirror’s power held the spirit trapped. She stumbled toward Morveren, head throbbing with every step. Another of the air spirits attacked, only to be drawn into the jar.
Morveren floated higher, this time bringing her knife toward the whip. Talia tried to stop her, but the winds knocked her against the wall, and then she was falling. She spun in the air, but the spirits slammed her to the ground too quickly. She rolled with the impact and tried to stand, only to stumble as her left ankle gave out.
Morveren renewed her assault against Lirea. She floated closer, reaching into the tower. “Let me save you, child.”
“Morveren!” Snow smiled. “Sometimes raw power has its place too.”
She threw the soul jar. It spun through the air, and as it passed beneath Morveren, the spells within the jar reached out to entangle the remaining air spirits. The jar clinked against the tower wall and dropped to the ground, the mirror’s power protecting it from the impact.
Morveren screamed as she fell, but she caught the windowsill with one hand. She pushed the cup into the tower, then pulled herself up and through the window.
“No fair!” Snow muttered. To Talia, she asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Talia snapped. “Get her.”
Snow closed her eyes, trying to listen the way Morveren had taught her. Morveren’s magic was easy to detect. All her power was concentrated on Lirea now, digging into her thoughts and emotions.
“You asked for this, remember?” Morveren asked. “You begged me for it. All I’ve ever done is try to give you what you wanted.”
“No.”
Slowly, Snow reached into Lirea’s mind. She was gentler than the last time, but Lirea still sensed her touch. Unlike before, Lirea lacked either the strength or the will to fight one more intrusion.
Snow pressed deeper, until she began to see through the mermaid’s eyes. Morveren still held the knife in one hand. With the other, she picked up the cup and thrust it at her granddaughter. Lirea tried to push it away, but Morveren was too strong. Lirea’s hands reached out to take the cup from Morveren’s hand.
Snow could hear Gustan raging within the cup, the sounds more animal than human. She had no doubt Lirea could hear him as well. Little remained of the Hiladi prince but anger and confusion.
Snow tried to unravel the threads of Morveren’s control, but there were too many. Lirea twitched, her muscles rigid.
“Drink, child,” Morveren whispered. “Drink, and be great. Be complete.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Lirea said, but she was too weak to fight. She stared at the cup. “I didn’t want any of this.”
So be it. Snow couldn’t break Morveren’s hold on Lirea, so she would have to try something more direct. No subtle threads of magic were these; Snow seized Lirea’s mind like a rag doll, yanking her hands back. The cup clattered to the floor and rolled toward the edge of the broken floor.
“No!” Morveren grabbed the cup before it could fall. “You’ll destroy her mind!” She brought the cup back to Lirea, forcing it to her lips.
Lirea wrenched away, looking toward the window. Toward Snow. “Please don’t let them take me.”
“I won’t,” Snow whispered. She could feel Morveren tightening her grip on Lirea, expending her own strength to prevent Snow from wresting control away. Lirea whimpered as something within her tore. Slowly, Lirea’s hands moved back toward the cup.
“Please,” Lirea whispered.
Morveren was too strong and too skilled for Snow to fight directly. Instead, Snow simply nudged Lirea’s right arm so she reached not for the cup, but for the knife in Morveren’s other hand.
Before Morveren could react, Lirea wrapped her hand around Morveren’s and shoved the abalone blade into her grandmother’s chest.
“Sometimes brute power beats skill,” Snow whispered.
The cup fell. Tears filled Morveren’s eyes. “I tried to save you.”
Lirea didn’t appear to hear. Or if she did, there wasn’t enough of her left to understand. Now completely under Snow’s control, Lirea crawled to the window and ordered the remaining undine to break off their attack against Danielle and Varisto.
As the pounding in Snow’s skull darkened her vision, she swallowed and sent one last command. Inside the tower, Lirea picked up the cup with Gustan’s soul. Though Lirea’s mind was in tatters, a part of her still reveled in taking the knife and slashing through the web of hair, freeing Gustan before flinging both cup and knife out the window to clatter against the rocks below.
CHAPTER 18
SNOW SPENT MUCH OF THE NEXT TWO WEEKS in bed, under orders from Tymalous. Several times when she tried to sneak away, she found Talia waiting at her door. There were no words. One look at Talia’s face was enough to send Snow hobbling back to bed.
Much of what happened had the blurred, fantastical feel of a dream. She remembered fighting Morveren and then later, while they waited for a ship, working to try to undo the spells Morveren had cast on Lirea. And then there was the part where she was flying naked over the ocean, surrounded by very handsome, very large pixies . . . but she was fairly certain that really had been a dream.
The back of her head was still tender, but Tymalous had pronounced her well enough to join the others for one more voyage on the newly repaired Phillipa, under the condition that she do no magic for at least another month.
“Magic excites you,” he had said. “Your heart pounds harder, your blood rushes through your body, and your injury worsens. You may have already done yourself permanent damage. You will, if you don’t allow yourself time to recover.”
Beatrice had been quick to broaden that prohibition to . . . other forms of excitement, and Snow had grudgingly agreed. With the exception of one spell.
It was that spell that brought Snow to the queen’s cabin on the Phillipa. Snow had tried three times to talk to Beatrice, and each time her courage had failed her.
Snow knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer, so she cracked open the door and peered inside. Beatrice lay in her bed, her eyes closed. She had spent much of the first day’s journey resting. Snow stood frozen until she heard the slightly strained sound of the queen’s breathing.
Squeezing through the door, Snow set a cup of tea on the floor beside the bed and turned to go.
“Thank you.” The queen still hadn’t opened her eyes. “That smells wonderful. Dare I ask what you put into it?”
“You probably shouldn’t,” Snow admitted. “It will ease the pain.”
“Your Majesty?”
“Call me that again and I’ll have Hephyra lock you in the hold.” Bea reached out to take Snow’s hand. “When do you mean to tell me that I’m dying?”
Snow couldn’t look at her. “How did you know?”
“I’ve lived in this body for fifty-eight years. I know when it’s given up the fight.” Almost absentmindedly she touched her chest, where fresh bandages covered the old stitches beneath her shirt. “How long?”
“I used the mirror at the palace.” It had taken days to work up the courage to speak the rhyme, once she began to suspect. Mirror with your truth so cold. Show me what her future holds.
“How long, Ermellina?”
Snow made a face. “A year. Maybe two. Morveren’s knife damaged your spirit, and your body was near death. There are other medicines I can try, spells I can—”
“I’m sure Tymalous has done what he can. We’ve already risked more than we should have to save me.” Beatrice’s gaze was distant, staring out the window at the sea. “I’d consider it a favor if you didn’t tell anyone else until I’ve had a chance to talk to Theodore.”
“Of course,” Snow said. “But once Father Isaac recovers from his injuries, he and I could work together to—”
“I’ve lived an amazing life, Snow. I’ve spent more than half of my years married to the man I love, and I’ve seen my son grow up to become a father. I always regretted that I couldn’t have another child, but I couldn’t be more proud of you and Talia if you were my own daughters.”
Snow stood and hoped the queen couldn’t see her blushing. “I should let you rest.”
Beatrice merely chuckled. “So beautiful, and you still haven’t learned to accept a genuine compliment from someone who loves you.”
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