“Yes, I’m here.”
Heath looked around, frowning in confusion as he tried to figure out where “here” was. The pieces of his own room came together, and his breathing quickened as the full implications burst in on him. If Reka had carried him all the way home, how long had it been since they’d abandoned Merletta on the beach? Hours?
“How did you get here?” Heath asked stupidly, panic making his brain sluggish. “You weren’t here this morning, when I left for Bryford.”
Laura hesitated for a long moment before answering. “Edmund and I came as soon as we heard about your…injuries. You didn’t leave for Bryford this morning, Heath. It’s been three days since Reka carried you in, half dead. You were thrashing around, delirious, I think. The physician gave you something, to help you sleep. But he’s been worried. I don’t think he expected you to be out so long.”
Heath stared at her, frozen. Three days?
“No no no no no!” he gasped, attempting to sit upright. “Merletta!”
Pain assailed him at the movement, and Laura put out her hands to stop him, her expression alarmed.
“You can’t get up, Heath! Give yourself time.”
Heath fell back against the bed, cursing his own powerlessness as the horror of the situation washed over him.
“You…you said that name in your fever dreams,” Laura said, hesitantly. “Who is Merletta?”
Heath remained silent, not even looking his sister in the eye. His mind was running back over what had happened, trying to put the fragments together.
“What happened to you, Heath?” Laura tried again, her voice gentle. “We’ve all been beside ourselves with worry. Your leg, and your side…those injuries look like they were caused by weapons. And your back is covered with these deep scratches…Rekavidur wouldn’t tell us anything. He delivered you and left the moment you were taken inside.”
Rekavidur.
The name unleashed the dam of anger that had been building inside Heath. His fury bubbled up as he remembered the dragon’s refusal to go back and help Merletta. After months of unexplained silence, Reka had turned up just in time to take Heath to watch Merletta die. What had he said as he’d turned his back on the dying mermaid? It is for the best.
“REKA!” he shouted, the sudden volume startling Laura so much she jumped in her chair. “Reka, I know you can hear me! I’ll never forgive you for this! Never!”
The outburst was met by ringing silence, but Heath knew his friend had heard him. There could be no doubt.
After an awkward moment, Laura cleared her throat. “I was under the impression Rekavidur had saved your life. The physician says that your injuries are severe, that you lost a great deal of blood, and you’re extremely lucky to be alive.”
Heath turned his face away from her, toward the wall. “You don’t understand,” he said dully. “Please, I appreciate you coming, but I want to be alone. Just for…just for a little while.”
Laura hesitated for a moment, then he heard her rise to her feet. Heath drew a shuddering breath, his throat tight and his eyes stinging as the reality washed over him.
He could still see Merletta’s shrinking form in his mind’s eye. She’d been so close to the water, and yet it had been clear that, whether from exhaustion or pain, she was incapable of moving a muscle to get herself back to the ocean.
And that had been three days ago. There was no point in hoping. There was only one conclusion to reach. Merletta was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Merletta squinted into the rain, watching as the dragon and his human burden became smaller and smaller, disappearing altogether in an impossibly short time.
Her senses were awash with the fiery pain of drying out, but her breath caught in her throat as she thought of Heath’s injuries. She had no idea if he could survive them, and she couldn’t bear to remember the way his face had twisted in pain. Even in his distress, his eyes had been as warm as ever when he had said he didn’t want her to die.
Well, she didn’t want to die either. But with Reka’s arrival, Heath at least had a chance, and that was something. She knew she couldn’t have lived with it if she’d been the cause of his violent death. The hope that she hadn’t been made it marginally easier to let go, and sink into the darkness crowding her awareness.
The fire had spread to every inch of her now, most strongly in her tail. She could feel its brutal fingers piercing her very scales. She had let go of any thought of getting back to the water. She couldn’t move so much as a finger.
She felt a flash of irritation cutting through the pain, both at the thought of all the things she had wanted to do with her life, and at the indignity of her death. Just like her parents, she thought, with a stab of a different kind of agony. She pushed the thought aside, wincing as pain lanced down her fins. She wouldn’t have expected drying out to take so long.
A defiant anger passed over her at the realization that she would be robbed of the chance to prove to everyone that she could pass the program, and become a record holder. She had hoped to change things, to do something important.
A final surge of pain, stronger than all the others, shot from her midriff down to the tips of her fins, and her senses swam.
This is it, she thought. This is death.
But the pain peaked and faded, and still Merletta was lying on the wet sand. She moved a hand experimentally, and found that full control had returned. She opened her eyes, confused. She felt stiff and uncomfortable, but the pain was entirely gone, as was the sensation of prickling heat. Had she rolled back into the water somehow?
She pushed herself up on her hands, trying to identify what felt so different. She wriggled her fins, and her heart skipped a beat at the terrifying sensation that her tail had been split in two. She looked down at her purple scales, and gave an involuntary shout. The scales stopped much too soon, forming a short covering of sorts. Merletta touched it gingerly, and realized with an eerie thrill that it was no longer attached to her body. She pulled it away to get a better look at what was poking out from underneath it.
The sight that met her eyes caused a dozen emotions to wash over her with such overwhelming force that for a moment she thought she might pass out.
Her tail was gone. Completely gone. No gentle blending of skin to purple scales, no flashes of pearlescent green, no golden fins. In its place was something else entirely.
She had legs.