When the Sea Burned Read online

  “It’s not your fault,” he said.

  She sighed bitterly. “How is Coral?”

  “She’s alive. She has some broken bones and internal injuries, but she doesn’t blame you.”

  Alicia laughed in disbelief.

  “She did a brave thing, but it was fortunate Jace was able to get to you; he provided just enough distraction until I could help.”

  “Your nephew Jace,” Alicia said slowly, remembering. “You didn’t introduce me to your family. I didn’t know you had any.”

  He moved closer. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes with you. I shouldn’t have tried so hard to keep you away, to separate my life under the sea from the one with you. We’re linked, and it’s time I accept that…which is why you’ll be at my side from now on.” He looked at her seriously, waiting for an argument.

  She didn’t have one. She felt emotionally drained. She was a monster, and she needed to be watched.

  “No more tutors,” he said. “I’ll teach you personally. You will learn to control the power.”

  She nodded. She’d reached that conclusion, and more besides. “I need to be in the water full time.” Every waking minute needed to be devoted to self-control. If she was a nightmare, she’d at least be one that was under control at all times.

  She was going to own the water.

  “As to that, I have business under the sea. There is a mer queen who has made great progress in the war against Olan, and she needs reinforcements. That’s where I was when I felt your power yesterday.” When she said nothing, he added, “We’ll be there several days, if not longer. Her lands are completely submerged.”

  “Fine. When do we leave?”

  He studied her. “After breakfast.”

  She hopped out of the water. “I’m tanked up on water. We can go…after I apologize to Coral first.” She looked at him closely. “If she’ll see me.”

  Surge nodded thoughtfully. “I think she will. We’ll leave right after.”

  Alicia wasn’t happy about that, but she was through worrying about her wants and needs. She needed to change. No matter how much it hurt, she needed to become someone else, someone who wouldn’t destroy everything around her.

  Surge opted to travel via current instead of a portal to give Alicia time to acclimate to the water. She was silent the entire time, speaking only when spoken to. She had too much self-loathing for the water to terrify her, and she focused on it when she was tempted to be scared.

  The familiar pod of selkies who traveled with them at mad speeds helped. She might not want to talk, but they provided a visual anchor in the endlessly rushing water. She couldn’t help overhearing when Cayman began to talk about their destination and the queen they would see.

  “No one knows where she came from. Some say she’s the last of a powerful mer family. Others say she was once human.”

  One of the selkies snorted. “Not likely.”

  Cayman smiled and looked at Alicia. “How about a story to pass the time, my Lady? Or have you heard the legend of Lady Glass?”

  Alicia shook her head, irritated that he interrupted her silent self-flagellation. She tried to tune him out, but Cayman was a gifted storyteller.

  “The best stories are the ones that are true. I got this from one of her ladies, a pretty little mermaid who was there the day they found the Lady. Here’s the way it was told to me…”

  She was never sure how she ended up on the island. She was exhausted, and it was bleak and rocky, presently covered in thick mist.

  It took a long time to recover, and she sipped from the tide pool, fearing her jailer would show up at any minute. Maybe she’d given him the slip. Good.

  She raised her head as she heard faint singing. The incredible sound grew nearer, a choir of unearthly, beautiful voices. She sensed the creatures coming through the water and tensed, wondering if she should hide. She was too weary to escape.

  A redhead popped up as the mermaid bobbed in the water like a seal, followed by several others. She sniffed and focused on the girl. “I thought I sensed someone in our territory. Are you lost or did you come here to die?” She swam closer and raised her torso on a rock, revealing a halter top of woven bone beads. A seal sleek mermaid with brown hair and a coral top joined her as the others hung back.

  The girl didn’t want to admit weakness to these menacing strangers. “I’m moving on presently.”

  “What’s your rush? You got a mer lord after you?” The redhead smirked. “We get a lot of traffic like that.”

  “I’d feed myself to a shark if I did,” the girl said with feeling, remembering her jailer. “I’m just passing through.”

  The ladies exchanged glances. “I’m Wrack and this is Barb,” the redhead said, nodding at her companion. “Our pod is loosely affiliated with the Skippers, but we run alone. Some of us barely escaped the harems, and we like to thwart the mer lords when we can.”

  “I know the feeling,” the girl admitted. “My name is Lilly.”

  “We’ll call you Glass, then. You don’t want to use your real name on the run.” Wrack studied her. “You can swim with us for a while if you like.”

  “That’s generous, but…” she tried to think of an excuse. “I’m not much of a mer. I was…kept…on land for most of my life. I’m still learning about the sea.” There, she’d made herself out to be a burden, a lame duck. They wouldn’t want her now.

  On the contrary, Wrack seemed fascinated. “You were raised in captivity? Are you a selkie? Did someone steal your skin?” Barb asked, excited. “Who were your parents?”

  Apparently they could tell she was of the sea, but not what she was.

  Wrack raised a hand. “You don’t have to say if you don’t want. We get it.”

  Lilly nodded. “I just want to get on with my life, but I don’t know anything about this world.”

  “Oh, let us help you,” Barb begged. She waved urgently. “Come with us, we’ll show you a good place to rest.”

  Lilly considered and decided it was a fair offer. Should something go wrong, she could always escape. She looked at her feet and mentally prodded them, wondering if the magic would work again so soon. There was so much she didn’t know…

  Her legs merged into a big, clumsy tail that gleamed like pearl.

  “High five!” One of the mermaids, a girl with blue braids said to her buddy. She turned to her pod mate, a mermaid with coral hair. “Pay up, Coral. Five pearls.”

  Coral sighed and handed it over. “I thought selkie for sure.”

  “Wait,” Alicia interrupted. “This isn’t the Coral I know, is it?”

  Cayman smiled. “Of course it is.” He continued:

  The newly named Glass awkwardly crawled over the rocks, wiggling painfully over sharp bits of crab shell. She slipped into the sea head first, instinctively holding her breath. She opened her eyes underwater, amazed anew at the clarity. She saw five mermaids bobbing in the surf, and they crowded close to welcome her.

  Wrack held back, studying the anklet that had transformed to wrap around Glass’s tail, just above her fins. “Expensive jewelry.”

  Glass sneered. “A trap. I’d give it away if I could.” Her jailer had used it to capture and track her. It wouldn’t come off and couldn’t be cut.

  “Can it identify you? You need to cover it?” Barb asked, waving her hands. “We can fix that. Anything else?” She seemed to enjoy the cloak and dagger.

  Glass shrugged. She didn’t know enough about her jailer’s abilities to cover everything; assuming he was looking for her. Maybe he’d decided good riddance.

  Swimming with the mermaid pod was amazing. They traveled slowly so that she could learn her way around. Bioluminescence was everywhere. Every bit of coral, seaweed and fish glowed with a rainbow of pastels, and a good many rocks. “Human TV doesn’t show so many things glowing.” She’d had a fairly normal life on land until the last year, but she’d never seen the sea. She’d had no clue what she was until it was too late.

  Coral giggled
. “They don’t have mer eyes, silly. They can’t see.”

  The mermaid hang out was inside a rocky outcropping she later learned was not far from Maui. They entered from a sea channel in an old lava tube with a natural skylight. Second hand furniture littered the cave, but it was clean and pleasantly girly.

  “Come on, let’s do something to hide your tail chain,” Barb invited, slithering across the floor to rummage in a small wooden chest. She brought it with her, and held up various bits of jewelry, holding them against Glass’s tail. “Do we go for young and generic or tough?”

  Wrack studied Glass. “Try tough.”

  Barb obediently wrapped a small steel chain at the base of Glass’s fins, covering the delicate gold anklet. “It seems a shame to damage this.”

  Glass snorted. “Do your worst. It’s stronger than it looks.”

  Barb grinned and covered Glass’s fingers with rings, hiding the pinky ring in plain sight.

  “Squid ink in the hair?” Wrack suggested, lounging on a sea grass mat as Coral popped a disk in the DVD player. Glass was impressed they managed to get it out here…wherever here was.

  “Good call,” Barb agreed. She stirred the dye in a turtle shell with a stick while the blue haired girl, Beam, passed out mugs of steaming kelp tea.

  Glass sat patiently as her hair was dyed. She was glad to have help, and glad to be free. She’d do whatever it took to protect that freedom.

  Surge saw Alicia glare at her anklet. “There’s no connection,” he whispered. “She was captured by a mer affiliated with Olan. He saw what she was and tried to keep her as his slave, but she finally killed him and escaped.”

  “How could she not know what she was?” Alicia demanded.

  “Her mother never told her. She was kept far from the sea for her protection before she was discovered. The mother was also captured, but didn’t survive.”

  Cayman looked at them in mild rebuke, then went on:

  She learned many things over the next week: how to swim properly and how to eat raw seaweed and fish, staples of the mer diet. They snuck out on land at night, staying in the crowds and always wary of mermen. Glass didn’t want to risk these excursions, but Wrack insisted.

  “We need to stay aware of technology, and there are things we need.”

  “It’s a terrible risk,” Glass insisted.

  “No worse than the sea. The mer lords are powerful, and they’d love to enslave us and add us to their harems and brothels. We’re nothing to them.”

  “Not all the men are like that,” Coral said sadly. “My father and brothers aren’t, but I had to hide. They knew they couldn’t protect me from the raids anymore. They’re part of the resistance.”

  “We do our part, too,” Barb said, tucking away a knife she’d bartered pearls for. “We’ll take you on a raid soon.”

  Glass’s senses screamed as they headed for the water from the second island excursion that month. She had the feeling Wrack was underestimating the danger and felt the girls were buying things they didn’t need, compensating for their loneliness. She stiffened as they neared the sea, whispering, “Wait!”

  Coral and Beam were busy chatting about the DVDs they’d picked up and didn’t hear, rushing into waves without properly checking for danger.

  Wrack held out a hand as if she could stop them, halting at the water’s edge. The girls didn’t surface.

  “Do you think,” Barb said softly, starting as she saw men walking their way. The beach was deserted, and there shouldn’t have been anyone else out here.

  “Run!” Wrack shouted, sprinting away as one of the men gave chase. Barb frozen, undecided as others closed in. It was a trap.

  Glass felt cold rage rise. She’d known this was stupid, and her power nipped her, eager to escape.

  “Let us go,” she called, just to be sure.

  One of the attackers gave a nasty laugh. “I don’t think so.”

  Too bad. Using a trickle of power, she used a move she’d practiced secretly all week, shooting a spray of super dense water through his chest. Red colored the spray as it exited his body in a neat stream, painting the sand. He grunted in surprise and collapsed.

  Glass looked coldly at the next man. Wash, rinse, repeat. When the sand was painted with red and Wrack and Barb stared at her in awe and terror, she entered the sea to retrieve the rest of her pod.

  Nearly three years later, Glass had become a legend. She’d risen to the leadership of the small mermaid pod quickly. Mers were practical, gravitating to the strongest, looking to the natural leaders. It didn’t matter if the chosen wished to lead, especially if they were cunning, too. The gifted found their place.

  It hadn’t been easy to learn to control her power, to use the smallest part of it. Fortunately, the smallest part had been devastating to their enemies; an impressive ability that had quickly won them notoriety as outlaws bent on harassing the Octo clan.

  The first couple of months she’d focused on raiding supply lines and caching weapons. As they’d carefully distributed them to the growing resistance, they’d acquired new helpers. Coral’s brothers had joined them, leaving their father in control of the tuna ranch so he could funnel supplies and information.

  Their activities caused a backlash with some as the Octo clan sent out soldiers in retaliation, but for every village that banned them, another welcomed them as the instrument of their salvation.

  The legend of Glass had grown quickly; a powerful black haired siren, able to throw spears of killing water, unafraid of death.

  It was easy to be brave when she didn’t care if she lived. At least her mer/water elemental heritage had been good for something. She was a freak on land, but she could own the sea.

  Scattered women, running from slavers, gravitated to her. Once they understood she was strong enough to protect them, whole villages united under her rule. The merwoman known as Glass invited village leaders into her council, accepted offers of arms and warriors and supplies as the mers banded together to fight the stronger clans who’d subjugated them. She had mer ranchers and farmers, hunters and artisans in the partially restored ruins she’d made into her stronghold.

  Then news had come of a new power, the return of an ancient water elemental of immense strength.

  Surge had sent an ambassador bearing gifts of food and supplies, suggesting they meet. He wanted to join forces against a common foe: the Octo clan.

  “And that’s the lady we’re going to meet,” Cayman said, obviously pleased with his story. He must hold the lady in high regard.

  “I wasn’t aware that mers and water elementals could produce offspring,” Alicia said with a frown. She had a tight, uncomfortable premonition.

  “It’s unusual,” Cayman agreed. “But it happens.”

  Alicia chewed on that in silence. Suddenly she had more to think about than being stuck under the sea.

  She knew Surge had been free for a couple of years before she arrived on the scene.

  A lot could happen in a couple of years.

  He’d asked the Fates if he could marry a mermaid.

  Alicia sent him a covert glance, and wondered.

  Surge seemed tense. He watched the horizon instead of Alicia as he said, “Lady Glass is difficult to approach. Her people love her, and our people had to be vetted before we could get near. Her general is a defector from one of the enemy clans and paranoid about her safety. Red Jehn is famous for taking a spear to the chest for her during the battle where he defected. It’s rumored he’s passionately in love with her.”

  “Does she love him?” Alicia asked quietly.

  “Not that I know of.”

  It was the way he said it. A muscle in her jaw ticked, but she kept her eyes forward. Not that it mattered; Surge never wanted her for a wife. This meeting wouldn’t change anything.

  Alicia didn’t want him, either.

  “It’s rumored she’s had nine offers of marriage,” Cayman murmured as Surge’s current carried them closer to Lady Glass’s stronghold. “Sh
e’s a popular leader and much sought, but it’s said she has a heart of stone.”

  “I thought it was a heart of glass,” Alicia said. It came out snidely, and she winced.

  “She’s utterly unmoved by the idea of a political marriage,” Cayman continued, defending his crush. Surge slowed the current as they approached the stronghold. No need to freak out the locals.

  There was no time for contemplation. They rose through the sea star courtyard pool and faced the white throne.

  Lady Glass had long ago dispensed with the black dye. Her blue-green hair was contained in many braids under a steel crown that resembled a Valkyrie war helmet, with long cheek guards and a white enamel crown. She wore a molded chest plate of white sharkskin and a dart gun and long dagger hung at her belt. Sea snake armlets circled her biceps and bracers protected her forearms, ending at fingerless mail gloves. Her skirt was long strips of white sharkskin over chain mail, and all of it showed the wear of constant battle. A gleaming pearl tail stirred restlessly in the current.

  She hadn’t dressed for them; she’d dressed for business as usual, and she was magnificent.

  Alicia wanted to kick her.

  “Lord and Lady Water. How kind of you to join us,” Lady Glass said calmly. “As delightful as your visit is, I should warn you there are three sea monsters and a mer army on a course for our outpost. You have twenty minutes to leave if you wish to avoid their visit.”

  Surge raised his brows. “And miss the party? You have a unique way of entertaining visitors, my Lady.”

  She grimaced and rose, beckoning him to follow. “If you were going to stay, you should have brought more men.” She swam up a stone passage. His selkies trailed him, alert for a trap. There were plenty of places for hidden dart men to shoot them if they’d wished.

  “I noticed you have sharks guarding your entrance,” he said idly.