I bring the woman to arm’s length. “Ragn, understand that if the sea king brings war to the humans, he’ll be battling Runa. Your people will be discovered, they will be outmatched, and they will be directed to harm one of their own.”
She takes a deep breath. But before she answers me, I ask for more. As long as I’m chained here, this is the best I can do. “What if you tell them the truth? That the king has been detonating his own mines? That Runa is safe, and that Alia died going to land?” I won’t spell my friend, but I wish I could send her straight back to do all of this. To use her power as queen mother to plant enough seeds of doubt to prevent the worst. “If you did that, if you told them, would they still follow the sea king?”
“Of course they will,” another voice adds in. “And she will do no such thing.”
We startle at Alia’s voice, coming from Anna’s polypus.
We weren’t careful. I didn’t silence Anna, nor did either of us seek our privacy from her presence.
Ragn turns to Anna, a sneer on her face, and for once I feel a hint of betrayal at giving Anna the voice that belonged to Alia.
“And what will you do,polypus?” Ragn spits, not daring to use her name.
“She’ll report back to me, Mother.”
The sea king is there, head proud and swimming straight for us, dressed for battle. Gilded helmet over his long hair, muscles cuffed at the biceps and forearms, a chest plate shining deeply, my tentacle hanging low around his neck. Atop his head, even his crown of eel skulls appears to be bathed in gold.
My stomach drops and twists. The sea king’s magic holds me here—of course he’d have a connection to every living thing within my confines. As the realization crosses my face, the sea king smiles. “Witch, there’s nothing I don’t know, but it never hurts to have more minnows.”
“Aegir.” Ragn uses his first name—something only she would ever dare use. Not even that wife of his would attempt it. “Listen. Please. This is suicide. You are sending your people to their deaths.”
Her son smiles at her, blood in it. Suddenly his face both resembles hers and eclipses it, relative youth and the last of the ríkifjor serum in his veins making him bright as the moon. “I am not forcing them to do anything. They know humans are our biggest threat. And we are nothing if not a brave civilization.”
“Brave? Brave? We’ve been hiding under these waters for millennia because we know it’s best to hide. Our ancestors knew it, our parents knew it, and you knew it too untilyou filled that hole in your heart with power, magic, and greed.” Ragn gains strength, pulling away from me and daring to face him, unbidden, chin high. “There’s nothing brave in asking your people to sacrifice themselves and their future for you and your ambition.”
At the last syllable, without hesitation, Ragn casts both arms out before her and shouts a spell, quick as a lightning strike.“Fœra!”
But the sea king is quicker.
He deflects easily with the golden cuffs at his wrists, shooting the spell right back at her, striking her in the chest and stomach, and sending her falling back.
“No, please!” I scream, lunging for Ragn.
“Morna, herfiligr kvennali∂!”
The same spell he used on me slams into his mother. It takes her out like a cannonball the size of the moon, barreling into her slight frame. I’m still coming for her, and the spell hurls her body into mine with enough force to drive us both deep into the sand.
I try to sit up to check her, but before I can right myself, the sea king looms over us both.
“Now you’ll do what I say, Sea Witch, or your friend dies.”
35
Evie
“DON’T HELP HIM,EVIE.” RAGN SAYS IT TO HER SON MOREthan to me, defiant even as her heartbeat slows to an occasional hiccup against my skin where her chicken-wire spine is pressed to my sternum. “Whatever he wants from you... it will be at the risk of our people.”
“Mother, wake up,” the sea king says with a sort of disdain. “The world is so different from before. The Havnestad U-boat program? It’s a drop in the bucket. Every great nation on earth has the same technology. And that technology grows by the day—in my lifetime, humans will sprout steel gills and live in the sea. I would rather reveal ourselves for the good of our cause than wait for someone to do it for us.”
“But our people...”
The sea king’s hand shoots out, his patience gone.“Prífa ørindi.”
Ragn seizes, her capacity to breathe left in his hands. Her body shudders and squirms in my arms, thin lips gagging open as she reaches for any oxygen in the surrounding waters. Her chest falls concave, her veins shriveling, capillaries drying. Her face tinges blue and her eyes bulge. That heart against my own quiets.
“Stop! You’ll kill her!” I scream at him.
“Despite what my mother may think of me, I’m not foolish enough to put my people on the front lines. I’d rather haveyoudo it.”
