He hunched over, accentuating how vulnerable he was inside the massive hull. My gaze fell to his legs, all bones and twisted at odd angles on the rocks.
My targets had always been sea demons. All of them would have killed me if I had not killed them.
But this was a man.
All the lives I’d taken over the last months—and here I was pointing my crossbow, for the first time ever, at a human being.
“I have shaped your life, Meela,” said Adaro, lip curled to bare flat, human teeth. “From your father, to your battles, to Lysithea.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, you’ve made my life miserable. Well done.”
“Ten years ago, I was visiting Eriana Kwai with a few experts. I had already spent years searching for the serpent.”
I narrowed my eyes, but let him continue.
“We spent several days searching for a passage beneath the island, to no success. It was obvious the serpent was hidden somewhere on the island itself, and only a human could get to it.
“While we were there, I noticed a young girl coming to the beach every day.”
My stomach churned. I kept the crossbow on him, but my hands were paralyzed.
“The girl did not venture close enough to the water to catch, but I watched her. She returned every day, searching for something—someone.
One day during our search, I noticed another little girl, a mermaid of the same age. She was exploring out of bounds, poking around this human-infested island. How curious, I thought, that these two girls come here every day but do not see each other. They are separated by the surface, yet they are so close they could touch.”
A voice in my head was yelling at me to shoot, to kill him now before he called the serpent back, but I couldn’t. I had to hear what he was telling me.
“I had watched you save starfish and nurse drowning insects back to health, Meela. So, acting on a hunch, I arranged to have the young mermaid caught in a net and tossed ashore for you to find. Sure enough, you freed her. You became friends, like I intended.
“But then that brat, Panopea, got in the way. She came to me with news that she was learning to speak Eriana from her cousin, who learned it from a human. When I discovered what was happening, it was too late. She had made an attempt to kill you and blamed the runt—and all my work to solidify your friendship was ruined. I killed Panopea and arranged it to look like a suicide. She was scarred and bloodied half to death, anyway, after you had finished with her.”
Tears blurred my eyes so Adaro became a pale blob against the dark backdrop. Was my entire life a setup? Even the first mermaid I’d ever killed—or thought I’d killed—was another of Adaro’s victims.
“My plan to use your new best friend to make you hand over the Host met its demise. So I thought. Ten years later, I could not believe it. My young friends had reunited—and their bond was better than I could have imagined. They were inlove. I was able to use Lysithea to manipulate you, after all. You got me the Host at the threat of her life.”
I gritted my teeth, blinking back tears. All these years, I had assumed fate had brought Lysi and me together. But everything, from the day I’d met Lysi to the day I’d woken the leviathan, had been a part of Adaro’s plan.
What about the rest of my life? My father and Nilus? How different would everything be had they not been forced on Massacres?
“But you didn’t know I would be on the Massacre.” My words came out strangled through gritted teeth. “You didn’t know my people would retaliate so hard. You didn’t know I would be here, a mermaid, and that I would be the one to kill you in the end. My Massacre training put me here with a crossbow. You’re the reason I spent years learning to shoot it.”
My own words gave me strength. He could try to make me another victim, but I would fight to my death to avoid that. This was still my life, and starting with the crossbow in my hands, I could control how it played out.
Something like fear flickered across Adaro’s face—but then a blast of air sounded outside the hull. Adaro sneered. She was coming.
“As amusing as it has been to contrive your love story,” said Adaro, “the time has come for it to end. I hope you said a proper goodb—”
“Love? You’re cowering inside a shipwreck, hiding from everyone. You built your life and your kingdom on hatred. Don’t pretend you understand love.”
He failed to take it into account, again and again. It was the most important part of life, as Lysi had said. Here was the girl in front of him, who had become a mermaid and gotten to this island because of it. Here was the girl willing to sacrifice her own life for those she loved, and with those she loved ready to do the same. As I would always be there for Lysi, she would always be there for me.
That was a kind of love Adaro had never understood. He’d never learned to trust anyone. Did he even trust himself? How could he, if he hated himself so deeply?
“The great King Adaro,” I said, “too weak, desperate, and scared to tell anyone what he is. This is how you’ll be remembered. Your Majesty.”
Inexplicably, pity seeped through my veins. I felt sorry for the crippled man in front of me. Since birth, he’d learned through rejection and cruelty that he could not trust humans. He’d grown up to hate a significant part of himself and the world he lived in—and he let that hatred become his downfall. He would never experience self-acceptance or peace.
A high wave splashed over the hull, drenching us both. I felt the serpent’s presence, angry and drawing nearer.
