But I hold strong. I push myself to the point that reaches farthest into the sea witch’s cove and well into the swirling storm. With all the magic inside me and all the fight I have to give, I yell out, “Sœkja,Sea Witch!” and fling the ring into the wicked, churning deep.
37
Evie
IAM NOT TO BE OBLITERATED.NO, THE SEA KING WANTSmy magic as much as my life.
That means he’ll take his time. Draining. Absorbing. Cleaving. Until every last bit of power is leeched from my skin. Starved from my muscles. Carving marks left on my bones as he ensures whatever magic I have in me is properly added to his account.
“Skafa fró∂leikr.”
“Drjúpa fró∂leikr.”
“Réna fró∂leikr.”
“Samna fró∂leikr.”
The sea king doesn’t wait for what went into his ghost soldiers to renew. That piece of me within them is already coursing through the sinew that forms his kingly body. I feel it like blood loss—a fuzziness in my mind, a lightness about my limbs.
Each sip of light that he steals sends me lower, until I’m pressed to the sea floor and sinking in. Left staring up at his looming form, watching him grow stronger before my very eyes.
The mass of him seems to burn beneath his golden armor, the sun rising beneath the swirling clouded ghosts of his polypi generals. Yes, generals—there aren’t enough of them to be called an army—two dozen, maybe. But the collection of them is enough that, if he leaves this place with them at his disposal, they can easily set off the mines, then unflinchingly lead any of the brave merpeople into battle.
It’s exactly what he wanted.
I watch them swoop and spin, ready to go, to move, to charge, and I feel something else within me fading. Not my magic—that has dwindled enough that I’m hollowed out, skin and structure and vacant space—but what is left of my soul.
Anna told me once that mermaids don’t have a soul. Not like what inhabits humans. I’m not a human anymore, and I haven’t been for a long time, but I’m not a mermaid either. And for as long as I’ve known myself in this body, I’ve recognized that there’s a shadow of my soul left. Residue of the spirit I once was.
Evie.That girl.
It’s the last I have of who I once was, of Nik and his heart and what could never be. Of my mother’s sacrifice,and my father’s tragedy. Of Tante Hansa’s good intentions and wisdom. It’s fading, that last bit of the truebeing.
The sea king can feel it. Of course he can. He closes his eyes and revels in it, arms above his head—his crown—in triumph.
My eyesight is failing with my soul, with my magic, with the rest of me. My cheek is pressed into the pewter sands of my lair, and I sink in, ready to become one with it in the days after my last breath. Until I’m bones and nothing more.
But then something floats into my vision. Small, fire-red, round.
In this state, I nearly think it’s an illusion. My mind’s gift of peace. What I want and what I need appearing in front of me before my eyes close forever. I reach out to it, expecting to feel nothing but the end. But then my fingers dust across something real. Hard. Flecks of gemstone fastened in a perfectly round circle.
Runa, my brave little witch.
I slip the ring straight onto my ring finger, and it fits perfectly. The stone warms to my skin, merging with it. Becoming the epicenter of a thousand memories of my time on earth. Of Nik, of his love, of the magic both between us and in the lies I wove to hide my true self. I haven’t set foot on dry sand, in the salt air, under the full strength of the sun for fifty years, but somehow, I’m suddenly of the earth in a way I never realized I was when I was above. All that’sdrained out of me has returned tenfold.
From my deathbed, I lift my head and shoot my body upright, each of my tentacles flaring as I spin in wondrous, joyous movement. The sea king watches, jaw wired shut, fighting mightily not to reveal his surprise, but I glimpse the panic in his eyes.
I’m not dead. I’m thriving with power. Sucking up all that’s around us. I’ve opened a vein straight to what the sea king has left. And he knows it.
“Soldiers, line up!” he orders, ripping his eyes from me.
The polypi generals do as he commands—they have no other choice. They’re marionettes without strings. Even Alia. Even Anna—who visibly struggles against his directions. Her eyes wild, confused, betrayed. She really did believe she’d earned her freedom.
I feel the tiniest pang for her. Everything Anna did to get to this point was in the name of independence, having her own agency, being the mistress of her own destiny. It didn’t work the way she hoped, betrayal not paying what it promised.
The sea king beckons his girls up front. Alia is first, her crown a sparkling second to her father’s. Anna follows because she must.
“This isn’t over, Sea Witch.” His voice lifts up at me as he rushes out of my lair, his soldiers in tow. The opening cannon fire of a war unlike any other just minutes away.
