Blood.
Their blood.
Because the woman struck back, whether from fear that she was about to be killed or for some other reason that Arelle didn’t yet understand … she attacked. Grabbing the blade from Coral, she first slashed it across the younger girl’s face, and then plunged it deep into her chest.
Violet all around.
It swirled and danced.
She could taste it in the water.
Arelle screamed, darting forward in the water to help her sister when Poe finally came back. She cut past Arelle so fast that she was only a blur of shimmering scales and red hair. Terrified Poe might be the next to find herself on the wrong end of the blade the other woman now had, Arelle swam into the fray as well.
Poe had her own knife, though. And hands that were fast with every strike. Their fight sent them farther down the canal, even as Arelle swam circles around the two women, trying to find that safe opening to help.
“Poe, we have to help Coral—Poe!”
Poe heard nothing.
Every swing of her arm caused another slice.
More purple in the water.
It was all Arelle could see.
“I want to die in the sea,” the dying woman whispered.
Arelle couldn’t see Poe anymore.
They were too far down the canal.
“Please, let me die in the sea …”
“Poe,” Arelle begged, “Poe, stop!”
Even above the shrieks of her sister, her own cries, and the woman’s pleas, Arelle realized she could hear something else through the water.
Something outside of the water.
“Anthia!”
Footsteps pounding against earth accompanied the painful calls.
“Mother!”
• • •
Eryx
“Mother!”
The water bubbled and swirled in the canal, bursting with rising purple streaks that almost seemed to glow with electricity when it reached the surface.
Blood, he knew.
But did it belong to his mother, or one of the mermaids?
He couldn’t be sure.
And that fucking killed Eryx.
But then the bubbles began to swirl, and through the murky water of the canals, he could see shimmering scales moving. Twisting and circling, making water kick up near the surface, although that was about as much as he could discern.
His heart thumped hard in his throat, his fingernails digging deep into the soft earth of the side of the embankment. More than anything, he wanted to get in that water, but the skies raged overhead, water dumping harder than ever, and he wasn’t nearly as strong as a mermaid was in the water.
That much, he knew.
It would be like throwing himself to the fucking wolves. Had they been on land … if only he had a sword in his hands … But he had none of that. He was the weak one here.
The water shifted again, changing and spreading with more purple. The shimmering a few feet below moved, and it was only his desire to find or see his mother that sent Eryx rushing to his feet. It probably wasn’t the smart thing to do, and the sea was most dangerous when the storms raged overhead, but he pushed to his feet and followed the bubbling, swirling water.
Where was she?
Why had she attacked the merwoman when he had been seconds away from turning the situation around?
Oh, he knew …
Of course, she’d want to protect him. His entire life had been about her protecting him. Like an instinct his mother couldn’t ignore, and one he shouldn’t expect her to.
Eryx shouted for his mother over and over, chasing the moving water in the canal all the way down the orchard. He ducked the swinging branches, cold wind and icy water slapping against his bare chest even as he tried to keep from stumbling over muddy earth and the roots of the trees that stuck up everywhere.
He was failing again.
He would never be able to help her.
“Mother!”
He couldn’t keep up with the movement in the water, and by the time he reached the end, the purple streaks of blood began to spread farther out into the sea. Overhead, the clouds screamed with their rage, tunneling dangerously with what he knew would soon touch the ground and devastate everything.
Him included.
And yet, he still slid down the end of the embankment, his ripped pants and ruined shoes doing nothing to protect him from the cold water. Except he barely felt it at all. His own blood tasted tangy on his lips, the scratches against his chest from where his shirt had been torn off stinging against the saltwater and heavy rain. Even as the waves came higher, the water turning choppier than ever, he moved farther into it all.
Closer to danger.
To his mother.
He called for her again.
The skies answered back with its own cry.
A warning, maybe.
It could take him under. If the current hit him just right, or a wave … he’d be entirely fucked, drawn out to sea and unable to swim back. Not when he couldn’t breathe under the water.
The realization was painful.
She wouldn’t be able to breathe, either. Despite being born and raised in the sea, in her current circumstance, she wouldn’t even be able to save herself.
Her collar … impossible to take off.
Eryx couldn’t move.
He just called for her—begged for his mother again. His words disappeared into treacherous water and blackened skies. His soul went with it. What remained of him that had any good left was lost with every call for his mother that went unanswered.
Vanished like his pleas.
As did his sanity.
All of it.
Gone.
FOUR
Arelle
“WE HAVE TO go back!”
Poe kept swimming ahead of Arelle. She acted as though she hadn’t heard her sister’s shout under the raging water, but Arelle knew better.
“Poe, we have to go back for Coral!”
Poe’s tail beat hard in the water, her fin slicing back and forth so fast that she made a slipstream for Arelle to follow. That didn’t change the fact that her sister still wasn’t answering her.
“Poe—”
Faster than Arelle could blink, her sister spun around. She nearly ran right into Poe, both of them straightening up as the dark water around them moved so harshly that it rocked them both on the spot. She barely noticed it at all, however, because she was more focused on the way her sister was looking at her.
So mad.
Teeth grinding.
Violet eyes narrowed.
Streaked with the purple of their kind, the blood an electric shade under the dark water. Like this, it glowed. She could reach out and try to wipe the blood off her sister’s face, but it wouldn’t do her any good. In water, their blood became almost sticky. It would take more than a swipe of a hand to wash it away.
Another sign of their wrongs.
A reminder that wouldn’t leave.
“What?” Poe snapped.
Her sister’s red hair, the same shade as her own, haloed around her shoulders in the water. It made Poe look more like the warrior her mate was than the princess she was supposed to be. After seeing what her sister had done back at the water orchard, Arelle had a right to be hesitant now.
How easily Poe struck out with violence.
It was shocking.
“We have to go back for Coral,” Arelle whispered.
Poe’s stare cut to somewhere over Arelle’s shoulder. Into the depth of the now-black sea and the water that churned dangerously even beneath the surface. It was no wonder why this time of the year scared the humans into hunkering down within buildings where the strong winds and cutting rains couldn’t touch them. If she had not grown up in these seasons, the storms might very well terrify her into seclusion as well.