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Sai shook his head.
“For every human life lost to the caprices of the ocean, a life is saved by those of us who dwell there. Mermen, Selkies, sea nymphs…”
“And dragons,” she smiled.
“Yes. Especially in Eastern mythology, dragons of all kinds are helpful to humans.”
He took a breath and plunged on.
“The Master is strongest in the darkness. In shadows where mortal eyes cannot see. In the nebulous, lost places you cannot touch. They turned creatures of the deep against humans. Made them into monsters that destroy.”
“How?” she whispered.
“When I was weak and trapped, they permeated their darkness into my friends. Transformed them into frightening beasts—almost every sea monster in every human story across the history of time could be traced to the Master’s effects. It is not to say that all ocean dwellers are good by nature, turned evil by an external force. We all have light and darkness within us. The Master’s darkness is simply more potent with creatures of the sea.”
“And after the Master got to you?” Annie asked. “Did they turn you too?”
Sai tried to pull away his hand from Brigid’s grasp before he answered. He felt wrong holding her while he recounted his sins.
But she refused to let him go. It was as if she was lending him her strength. Comforting him with the knowledge that she would not judge him harshly for the darkness of his past.
Somehow, she understood.
“Yes,” Sai rasped, his voice low and bleak.
“I do not know what I was. I do not recall what I did. But…I would lose time for days or weeks on end. I thought I’d lost consciousness from the pain of my wounds. But when I awoke, always skewered upon the bed of spikes, trapped in the lightless salt pit, I could taste the metallic tang of blood upon my tongue, the foul odor of death within my nostrils.”
Brigid squeezed his hand harder, as if she knew what this revelation cost him. She told him without words that she didn’t blame him. Even as he would always blame himself.
“The blood was not my own. The odors belonged to many. They were the reminders of creatures…likely people…I have killed at the Master’s behest. I could not remember perpetrating the acts, but I knew I’d done them.”
He looked directly into Annie’s eyes.
“Perhaps the City of Atlantis is real after all. Perhaps I was the monster who destroyed it. I cannot remember. I do not want to.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ben said, making Sai turn sharply in his direction.
“My Uncle Ere was a demoness’s right-hand man for many millennia. As were countless others. Dalair, one the Elite warriors on the Pure Queen’s guard, was mind controlled to destroy an entire enclave of Beasts led by the Tiger King.”
“Goya?” Sai asked.
“The very same,” Ben answered.
“It wasn’t Dalair’s fault either. I suppose you think you should be strong enough to fight the control, but none of us is invincible. We all have weaknesses and flaws. Beings like the Master prey on them. All we can do is fight it.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he reiterated.
“But how can we defeat this formless, all-powerful being?” Annie asked. “Can we even kill such a thing?”
It was Brigid who shook her head.
“As long as there is light, there will always be darkness,” she said. “One cannot exist without the other. I don’t think we can ever destroy such a being entirely. We can only contain it.”
“Does this mean that we should expect a slew of demonic monsters waiting for us at the destination, turned by the Master to seek and destroy?” Annie asked with a troubled frown.
“Yes,” Sai answered with ominous finality.
“We must prepare for the worst.”
