“We must be off now,” Gunnar bowed. “Do you grant us safe passage?”
“Yesss,” the mermaid croaked.
My stomach lurched. Oh no. I covered my mouth with my palm, holding everything in. But the smell, the boat ride, the wave of nausea: it was all too much.
Her head snapped towards me, her patchy strands of hair—no trace of the vibrant red except in the tips floating in the water—whipping around her rubbery shoulders.
“Everything alright with this one heeere?” She swam closer.
A heave pushed its way through me. I nodded, trying to play the game. God, though, her breath was more rancid than rotten meat, the scent seeping through the cracks of my fingers no matter how tight I clutched my face.
“She’s fine, fair one. Just a little seasick,” Freyja purred. But I knew there was a command under all that flattery, a silent one directed at me.
Curiosity flickered in the mermaid’s dark stare before something else—rage, hurt—engulfed it.
She bared her teeth, that brilliant flash of white now yellow and jagged like a piranha’s. “Do you not admire my beautyyy?”
“No—I mean yes,” I started, choking on my words. “You’re stunning, I’m just…” Acid burned my throat. The mermaid that’d been perched on the floating slab was gone. A groove in the ice indicated where she’d slithered off, a small wake rippling against the side.
“You’ll have to forgive my friend.” Freyja effortlessly moved to sit next to me, draping herself across the seat. An artless pose, but a strategic one that blocked me from the mermaid’s glare. “She freezes in the presence of such sovereignty.”
A quiet splash sounded next to the rowboat, this time behind me.
“You knowww, we haven’t collected a tithe from the elves in quite some tiiime,” the creature sang.
“I think one is duuue,” a second voice grated.
Oh God, please don’t say my eyeballs. Sweat lined my brow.
“Very well.” Gunnar’s casual curtness bellowed behind me. “We’ll address it with Her Majesty promptly.”
“Once we arrive at the kingdom.” Freyja waved as if the issue was a bothersome thing she could simply toss away.
“No.” The wood groaned and rocked in the second mermaid’s strong grip.
Freyja stumbled forward, and suddenly there was nothing between me and the first mermaid.
My arms swung out for balance, but my heart dropped to my stomach. Her wide, dilated pupils were unmoving, unblinking. Already fixed on me—as if I were a bullseye, a prize.
Or worse, food.
“You cross our waters as you please. You disrespect our presence. You pay it now.” Her words held no semblance of the flirty singsong. It was deep and longing and full of… hunger.
Freyja’s shoulders stiffened as she straightened herself. Gunnar shifted his weight.
“Alright.” Freyja reached beneath the seat for the tackle box. “How’s a silver dollar? Or a vintage broach? That’d look lovely around your neck. Or maybe a pearl comb? So beautiful with your hair.” Her words were full of compliments but clipped with anger.
The mermaid’s cackle scraped against the wind, as if it didn’t belong in this world. “No. We are not interested in your trinkets. We will take our payment in flesh.”
I blinked. A few times. Flesh? That couldn’t be right.
Gunnar shifted his weight. “We didn’t bring any meat.”
“Sure, you diiid,” the first mermaid gargled.
Oh God. I could see where this was going… I wrapped my arms around my waist, as if that could protect me from the bone-crushing jaws of a cannibalistic mermaid.
“And we haven’t dined on elf in a long, long tiiime.”
