Once the applause dies down, I bid them good night.“Go to sleep, good people, and know that you’re safe.”
After the crowd disperses, Alia turns to me, her family at her back. The polypi generals float a short distance away. “Queen Evelyn, will you consider a first request?”
“Of course, my little mermaid.”
Alia puts on a proud smile. “Will you set me free?”
My heart drops.
The threads of magic were cut from the sea king, but they still tether all of the polypi soldiers to me. Including Alia. And Anna, who hovers apart from us, watching silently.
“Alia, no! We’ve only just gotten you back to us!” Ola exclaims, eyes already pink at the lashes.
“I’ll always be with you, Ola—with all of you. But I can’t stay in this body.” She looks to me. “None of us can. This isn’t where we are meant to rest.”
I can’t deny her. Nor any of the polypi who’ve lived so long with me. I nod. “Say your good-byes, Alia.”
She does, hugging her sisters tight, her mother. Me.
Then Anna swims forth, her arms out. I wasn’t expecting her to come, but I draw her in. “I love you,” I say—because I do. Despite all we’ve been through, and all we’ve done to each other, I do love her.
The older sisters, the ones she betrayed, circle around us. “Annemette, we’d like to say good-bye... we didn’t get a chance the first time.”
I shift away and give them privacy.
“Polypi, hjor∂,” I command the remaining soldiers.
They gather before me, their faces as beautiful as a cloudless moon, shining and eerie, yet blank.
“Minn polypi,rá∂a sjálfra∂r.”
The moment I say the words, there’s a rumbling ripple, their bodies shivering under the weight of magic spilling out of them, setting them free. And then they disappear like grains of sand from the beach, drawn up with the tide.
The magic within them leaves us with more balance restored. It won’t kill me or even pain me—who I am isn’t tied to this magic like the sea king was to his.
When I turn, Anna is there. Her blue eyes meet mine one last time, and she nods.
I take her hands.
“Minn Anna, rá∂a sjálfra∂r.”
Like the soldiers, her face shimmers—she is at once solid and then nothing at all. My hands that held hers are empty. I am empty.
Alia gives one final embrace to her mother. Then her hands are in mine. With a nod, she’s ready. She looks up to the surface, to the world she hoped to join and watches the first fingers of dawn, lighting the world above.
“Minn Alia,rá∂a sjálfra∂r.”
She shimmers, face falling to glitter, and as her figure floats away, a trail of red flowers appears in her wake.
I gather a handful, giving her sisters and mother eachone of their own. Then, with the remaining flowers, I swim to the top of my new kingdom and let them break the surface with a single order.
“Fœra, Runa.”
40
Runa
DAWN COMES LIKE A CHAPTER ENDING—ONE PIECEresolved, the rest of the story still going.
