“I can only handle being seen as the illegitimate queen on one throne at a time,” Yemi replied warily.
“You’re sure? All that unpleasant business gone.” Ursla snapped her fingers. “You could leave your pretender in Ixia to direct her people in adoration of yours. We could even bring your guardian down so you’re not devastatingly lonely. Unless the steward’s daughter would have something to say about it.”
“Do you want the Mer throne or not?” Yemi snapped.
“If you insist,” she purred, reaching for a small corked bottle from some shelf above them and what looked to Yemi like a needle. Ursla pricked her own finger and bled black blood into an upturned vial. She then put it and another bottle containing crushed leaves into a leather satchel bound with string. “Your witch, Selah.”
“Your daughter.”
Ursla only paused a moment.
Yemi relished the disturbance of her calm, however brief. “She didn’t tell me on her own, if that’s worth anything to you.”
Ursla watched her with careful eyes, as if determining if Yemi were putting on a ruse of her own. “Yes, my daughter. She stole something from me a long time ago. A stone. It contains the poweryouneed to do what you’re asking.”
“The catch?”
Ursla grinned with the satchel clutched in her hand. “Good girl. Sunrise to sunrise, you must maintain a day’s worth of confidence. Not the flimsy mortal sort. You must remain in control of yourself, your senses, yourtemper. You cannot doubt the soundness of your purpose. A conflict of the mind expresses itself as an ailment in the body. You lose yourself, this weapon becomes that ailment. I cannot begin to describe what that would look like for you, but suffice it to say that if you are corrupted, only a fraction of you will sit on that throne.”
Yemi thought of the stone beckoning her behind the door in Selah’s home, but she frowned in confusion. “I know the stone. It’s known as my line’s fertility stone. She never mentioned it was stolen. Why would she do that?”
“Why would she admit to being a thief? Why would anyone?” Ursla shrugged.
“No, why steal it in the first place?”
“What curious details to leave out of all her little admonishments about me. Especially as someone bound to help you. That stone is both why and how your mother was born. Selah stole it from me and used it to give Arielle a reason to keep my daughter hidden once she betrayed me. Your little intergenerational trauma is actuallyherdoing. Surprise.” Ursla waved it off. “Now: Do we have a deal?” Ursla extended the bag to her but snatched it back when Yemi reached for it. “Be sure. My magic is not fit for half hearts. Selah does you people these little favors because even the seed she stole from me would crush her if she didn’t let it out from time to time. I wouldn’t give this to you if I thought you were weak, but you are, after all, human.”
At once, Yemi was hesitant. Every time her mother had mentioned her temper, every moment of indecision, of confusion on this trek with Nova, flickered in her mind. It raced, searching for one of Ursla’s infamous loopholes, the catch that had proved the downfall of countless desperates.
Desperate,Yemi thought bitterly. Despite herself, she—a queen—had become one of them.
Her wandering eyes fell on a row of nautilus shells, small and pearlescent amid the shelves of odd but less luminous bric-a-brac, and her grip tightened on her spear. Legend told of shells used as vessels to secure the promises and sacrifices the unfortunates offered as part of their deals. It was likely one of them was her grandmother’s, once holding the piece of her she’d given away in exchange for a future above water.
True as her version of events may have been—and there was every possibility that it wasn’t—the witch had still intended to make Arielle suffer for her dream. She’d made them all suffer. How, the question was, did she intend to make Yemi suffer now?
Nova.
“The Rakeland farmers,” Yemi said coolly. “We were attacked on our way to Sol. Was that you?” She had to be sure.
“Less me than those who paid their tribute for the chance to get their hands on you just once,” Ursla responded, unbothered.
“I could kill you for that,” Yemi hissed.
“Couldyou?” Ursla snapped, eyes flashing. At once, the swaying kelp adorning the wall behind Yemi reached out like so many tentacles and wrapped themselves around her, pulling her body taut and threatening to crush her the more she fought to free herself. Before long, she was barely able to breathe, let alone twitch her outstretched hand to activate her spear.
“I so often regret being gracious,” Ursla sighed, crossing the room on her tentacles. She gripped Yemi’s face roughly with long, bony fingers but didn’t have to force eye contact. Yemi gave her plenty of that, defiantly, on her own. “Your problem, child, is that you’re so caught up in what you believe you are owed, it has never once crossed your mind that anything you desire should beearned. I somehow owe you reparations because I gave your grandmother what she wanted? The humans in your charge owe you allegiance for being born?Thatis the difference between you and your mother, the entitlement. Why she was cherished and you are… you. So you had to scrap a little to find me. Exercise that iron will of yours physically in order to achieve a goal rather than have it handed to you. What route to a god isn’t laced with some sort of peril?”
Yemi sneered. She’d have spat if it were possible. “You’re not a god. You’re a witch who’s been on an unchecked power trip for a few hundred years.”
Ursla flinched violently and recoiled, eyes wide, nostrils flaring as if she was a word away from snapping Yemi’s neck with a flick of her finger.
“I don’t care about any of that,” Yemi added quickly. “Call yourself whatever you’d like. Take your throne. I will take mine, and we will be blessed to never have to deal with one another ever again.”
The water around them grew warmer, the room darker. Even thekelp ceased its twisting as if afraid to draw the witch’s attention, before it inevitably released Yemi.
“Come with me.”
Yemi trailed Ursla back to the entrance of her den, ever watchful for signs of a trap and wondering if it might be preferable to simply end her. Run her through with the spear and head home less than empty-handed, assured there would be no more of her meddling in Ixia’s affairs. But it was Ursla’s magic keeping her alive at this depth. She couldn’t risk losing it so far from civilization. Ursla had to know this.
