Page 11 of Storm and Sea

With nowhere else to go, he turned toward the island. It was time to take his life and shape it with his own claws.

He should have given himself time to calm down before dashing into the darkening waters, half-blind with residual tears. Maybe then he would have spotted the figure resting on the sandbank. Nyel wiped away another irritating layer of tears when a voice made him jump.

“What has your tail in a twist?”

“Ahh!” Nyel shouted, kicking with all four limbs to put distance between him and the silent figure that watched with a raised brow.

“And here I thought after three months of having me around, you’d stop screaming at the sight of me.”

“Y-you should have said something,” Nyel said, placing a palm over his chest to ease his flailing heart.

“I take it from the tears that dinner didn’t go well.”

“I’m not crying,” Nyel said stubbornly.

“Uh-huh, and I’m the Kraken.”

Nyel regarded his half-brother carefully. Nephi lay on the sand dune in a leisurely pose, his tail swishing back and forth in lazy strokes. He chewed on a sliver of wood between his sharp teeth.

“I thought Mom sent you on some errands,” Nyel said, taking a spot on the soft sand beside him, close enough to be heard but not too close.

Nephi laughed. “I know what ‘can you do some mundane task while we have guests’ stands for.”

Nyel sighed. He knew too but pretended not to.

Nephi continued. “Bianca isn’t very subtle. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out she doesn’t want her husband’s bastard child hanging around.”

“Don’t…. say that,” Nyel said, feeling uncomfortable.

Nephi shrugged, moving the sliver of wood from one side of his mouth to another. “I know what I am.”

Nyel tried not to stare, but sitting on Nephi’s right side, it was impossible to look away. His brother was a halfling, a child born of two opposing species of Mer. Their father had an Unbonded relationship in his youth. It was taboo in every sense of the word—a crime against the Spirits. And Nephi was the result.

Nephi was half Sireni and half RaMaa. Nyel didn’t know much about them, only that the RaMaa lived in seas far to the south. Their scales were red as fresh blood, and their bodies were large and muscular. Nephi was by far the largest Mer in the village, towering over everyone else. The fins along his back and tail were twice as tall as a sireni’s, with the potential to flare even wider when he flexed. Because of the mixing, Nephi’s body was primarily green, like their father’s, before merging into the red of a bleeding sun. His teeth were sharp, and, much to Nyel’s disgust, Nephi consumed meat.

But that wasn’t what made Nyel stare now.

Nephi’s right side bore the twisted, scarred remains of savage burns, his skin a grotesque display of seared flesh and distorted contours. The scales melted into one another, cracking in unnatural ways. In a few places, the scales were gone entirely, revealing tortured skin beneath. The fins along the right side of his head were gone, giving him a half-bald look, and the fins protecting his ear canal were nothing but stubs. The worst part was the foggy film over his right eye, as though smoke were trapped inside. His iris and slit pupil were barely visible, and he seemed to struggle to open it fully, giving one side a perpetually squinted appearance. Nyel didn’t know if Nephi was completely blind in that eye and didn’t dare ask.

“Getting a good look?”

“Sorry.” Nyel quickly turned his head.

He wanted to ask how it happened. He wanted to ask…everything. What had his brother been doing for the past three years? Why did he come back now?

Despite sharing half their blood, the Mer sitting beside him felt like a stranger. Nephi had been absent for most of Nyel’s life and was older by nine springs—a gap that only deepened the chasm between them. They had painfully little to talk about. And it didn’t help that after Nephi left all those years ago, their family pretended he never existed to begin with.

Their father included.

“You better go back,” Nephi said dismissively, “before Bianca comes looking. I’m not in the mood for her glares at the moment.”

“I’m not going back.”

“And where will you go?” He snorted as though the idea of his helpless little brother leaving home was a joke.

“You don’t think I can be alone for a few days?” Nyel bit back.

Nephi chewed on the stick in his mouth. “I think you’re a sheltered kid with no business leaving your perfect pampered life.”