I eyed the iron bars as shadows lurked closer, hovering and haunting. Cowering in the corner, I tried to hold back the whimpers, but they escaped anyway. Keys clanked together as the merfolk soldier unlocked my cage and entered. A predatory grin crawled across his lips, relishing in the torture I would soon endure.
“Let’s go,” he demanded, shoving his chain link covered tail into my ribs.
I screamed as the pain echoed through my body. After so long in captivity, I had hoped the agony would turn to numbness, but I would never be that lucky.
I couldn’t find it in me to take myself right back to misery. To the clinic where they stabbed me with needles, testing my blood to compare with the others. I was considered a traitor, so I would be sacrificed anyway, but it seemed as if the Maelstrom Command cared an awful lot about my blood in particular.
The soldier grunted as I refused to move. He lunged and gripped my hair in his clenched fist, leaving no room for pulling away, and dragged me through the water.
I surrendered in his grip, allowing him to yank me further into the depths, even as we turned in a different direction than normal. Darknessovertook the corridors, my merfolk eyesight struggling to decipher anything with my weak, frail body.
I would not be afraid.
The Maelstrom Command guard threw me inside a large room carved into black stone, smooth and ancient, that hummed with the pulse of raw energy. The room was cathedral-like, its walls etched with sigils older than language, each one pulsing faintly with a sickly glow. Vast, glass leylines shimmered through the water like molten veins of light. The merfolk entered the room fighting, their scales dulled, eyes dimmed with the weight of fate. No farewells spoken. They were offerings to travel the leyline's path and emerge on land, stripped of sea and self.
The Passage.
“Finally, the chance to meet the one who ran off,” a female slowly drawled through the room, her voice leadened with calm nature.
I met her gaze, watching the woman as she hovered above the rocky ground and swam to meet me. She was beautiful, full of life, rosy cheeks, and flowing silver hair that trailed behind. When my eyes caught on the crown that rested on her head, my body trembled.
The Ocean Mother.
“You know, normally, I don’t come to this part of the ritual. But when I heard you swam back to us, I knew I needed to be the one to see you off for sure this time,” the Ocean Mother said gently, her eyes scrunched in a stark contrast to her words.
I couldn’t seem to get any words out. I couldn’t find anything to say to get me out of the goddess’s harm. She didn’t care about us, and she damn sure didn’t care about me. But when I looked at her, I didn’t see destruction. I saw beauty—ethereal and shining. For some reason, that scared me even more. I could handle monsters. I’d slain them before. But this? This was worse. This made me want to step closer.
Instead, I forced myself to shuffle backwards, away from the approaching goddess.
“Oh, dear. There is no escaping now. I’ve given you more years than I should have.” The goddess dragged the words as she drifted on a current. “You were the first born over twenty years ago… why is it that your parents did not bring you sooner?”
She waited, halted in her swimming as she stared at me, eyes of fiery ice burning into my soul.
“Go ahead. Answer the question,” she seethed. “Why is it that your parents kept you for longer than they should have?”
I swallowed, forcing myself to think.
“Hmm…” the Ocean Mother hummed, gesturing to me to answer.
“They want my blood.”
“Tell me why, dear,” she chided, moving closer. “Say it out loud. You know the answer.”
“My power… is different.”
The Ocean Mother clicked her tongue, pointing a single finger in my direction.
“Exactly. And they have no self control!” She bellowed the last two words, the chamber shaking under the sound, a vein protruding from her smooth-skinned temple.
“So, now, I’ll make sure you aren’t a threat to my plans. A royal pain in the ass you’ve been already,” she hissed. “And when you get to the Terraguard Bound, I can’t wait for your blood to seep into their veins, so when I’m ready to control it,” she lifted her arm, and my same-sided arm shot up with hers, mimicking the motion, “I will take it all.”
The goddess flicked her hands, and I flew to the stone floor out of my own control. I wrestled with my body to cooperate, but I became the Ocean Mother’s puppet. Only then did I understand the devastation the goddess would bring to the land dwellers—understood that it was more than only driving the Terraguard inhabitants mad.
She could orchestrate their very actions.
It was all a lie. The rituals. The Passage. The goddess’s lighthearted sense of innocence.
My kinds’ blood fueled the land realm, giving them a false sense of power… and the sea will steal their minds with it when the Ocean Mother demands it.
