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Aaron held his coins on his palm and flicked them off one by one with his index finger. Two struck my legs and another hit my waist. Manacles clamped around my body. A web of chains shot out from me, sinking into the water. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Aaron smiled. “I don’t know how you broke out of my net, but I can use you.”
Icy water swirled around me in a crystal-clear column and swallowed me whole. It forced its way into me, into my pores, into my nose, my mouth, and began pulling me apart.
“It’s very difficult to transform a normal human,” Aaron’s magic voice echoed in both my ears despite the water filling them. “They don’t have enough magic to survive the transformation.”
The water pulled on me, trying to reshape me from inside out, and a different version of myself bloomed in my mind, one with gills and a long, glistening tail where my legs used to be.
The sea drew me in. I could feel its currents, sliding just beyond the ship. I heard its song, and it beckoned me. I wanted to swim.
“But you, whoever you are,” Aaron whispered. “You have all the magic in the world.”
I did. I did have all the magic in the world.
I focused inward, beyond the water, beyond Aaron’s magic, to the core of my power. I couldn’t speak the words, but I could think them. If faith had power, then thought had magic, and I wouldn’t permit my body to be polluted. This was my body, my blood, my bone. I owned it.
I thought the words, sinking all my power into them. Estene ared dair.
The magic swelled inside me, thrilled to be unleashed, as if it had been waiting for permission all along. I pushed, directing it to my throat, focusing all of my power on it.
Estene ared dair.
My magic collided with the creature lodged inside me. I strained, pushing hard, harder, through the blinding pain, through the instinctual panic, shaping my magic, wrapping the obstruction in it.
Pushing harder. Harder. Harder…
It came loose. The water around me broke. I gagged and spat out a tiny glowing jellyfish.
The words of a long-forgotten language spilled out on their own, crackling with power.
“ESTENE ARED DAIR.” You have no power over me.
The chains snapped, fracturing into a thousand pieces, and evaporated. Coins slid off me to the floor.
The old man cringed.
Aaron’s mouth gaped open, his face a mask.
“FEAR ME, FOR I AM DEATH WHO COMES TO THE TAKER OF CHILDREN.”
The ship quaked, rocked by the language of power. The sea hogs screamed in panic.
“ARRAT NASU SAR OR.”
Magic jerked Aaron off his feet, into the air, pulling his legs and arms taut.
“ARRAT UR AHU KARSARAN.”
His arms snapped, bones breaking in too many places to count. Aaron screamed. His magic splashed around him, broiling, but it couldn’t counter mine.
“ARRAT UR PIRID KARSARAN.”
His leg bones fractured. It sounded like firecrackers.
“OHIR GAMAR.”
The human bag of shattered bones who used to be Aaron landed on the stage. He howled as I walked to him, as I raised my sword, and as I struck, until Sarrat’s blade finally cut off his scream.
The sea swine melted back into seawater. The ocean streamed back through the gap in the hull, leaving puddles in its stead.
I raised Aaron’s head by its hair and turned to the old man.
He fell to his knees and smashed his forehead onto the stage with a thud.
My voice was hoarse. “Anyone else here who thinks he is a god?”
His voice quaked. “No, mistress.”
“Good.”
I turned to the nine prisoners.
The chains on their ankles had not disappeared. Damn.
“Darin?” I called.
He looked at me, startled.
“I’m a friend of your father.”
Darin blinked at me, clearly shocked. “My dad?”
“Yes. Thomas. I need you to explain what went on here.”
The chest of gold sat on the sea floor, about 20 feet down. The water was crystal-clear, and from my spot on the edge of the hull’s hole, every detail of it was visible. The dumpster-sized wooden box rested among the coral-textured boulders, encrusted with sea stars and urchins. Its carved lid was flung open, showing the gleaming treasure inside—a mound of gold coins, bright yellow like egg yolks, heaped in a small mountain and punctuated by glowing jewels. A god’s ransom. Literally.
Aaron had asked Manannán for powers and riches. He’d shown me his powers. That chest was the promised riches.
“On their first dive, everyone gets a coin,” Darin said. “Just one. The moment you touch the gold, you get chained up.”
Their chains led to that chest, growing from it like roots.
“Once you get that first coin and get chained, you bring it to Aaron, and he sends you back for more. Except you can dive all you want, and it won’t matter. You can touch the chest, you can scoop the coins up, but when you try to take them out of the water, they disappear.”
