The moment she was fully submerged, she felt the change happen. Without looking to check, she flicked her tail, propelling herself toward the center of the lagoon. She pulled in a mouthful of water, her muscles relaxing as the hot, parched feeling at the back of her throat disappeared. She wondered if humans ever felt that way, or if it was just a feature of being a mermaid out of water.
She remembered Heath commenting sometimes that it was hot. A stab of bittersweet emotion passed through her at the thought of her only human acquaintance. It had been almost four weeks since that stormy day, but the horror of watching the life fade from his eyes as she dragged him out of the water was still fresh. The rain had long since washed it away, but sometimes, alone on her island under a setting sun, she thought she could still see his blood staining the sand.
She felt a surge of anger at Ileana’s malice, the fiery emotion sitting more comfortably in her roiling stomach. It made her feel less helpless, although she knew it wasn’t logical. There was nothing she could do to make Ileana pay for attacking Heath, or for spurring the other guards on to do the same.
A spear to the side. A spear to the leg.
Merletta let herself float upward, her throat opening to allow her to breathe air as she lay on her back on the surface of the water.
Were such injuries survivable for a human? She had no idea. She was fairly certain he’d been alive when Reka had lifted him from the beach, but had that still been true by the time he’d reached his own kingdom?
No, a despairing voice whispered inside her head. Because if he was alive, he’d be here.
Maybe not, she argued with herself. It was equally possible that he had survived, but had recognized that returning to her was too dangerous, given the merpeople’s evident hostility.
She sighed, swimming back toward the edge of the lagoon with sure strokes. She would just have to choose to believe that was the case. As much as it ached, she would much rather believe he had decided not to continue their friendship under such circumstances than that he had died from his wounds. Whatever the case, there was nothing to be gained from giving in to her despair or her guilt. The dragon had certainly seemed to think it was worth carrying Heath away with all speed. Surely that meant he had hope for Heath’s recovery.
All right, she told herself. That’s enough of a break. Instructor Agner might not be here to train her in this new skill, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t push herself hard. She placed her hands on the rocks, pulling herself up until her tail was only half in the water. She took a deep breath before continuing, still nervous despite having done this so many times now. The memory of the prickling heat of the first time she’d dried out, and the terror that had accompanied what she had thought was her death, created an almost physical resistance to getting out of the water. She no longer had to fight the instinct with everything in her, but it still made her pause.
She pushed her hesitation aside, pulling herself up and twisting her tail around in a motion that had become practiced. At once, a prickling heat passed over her body, no longer anywhere near as painful as it had been that first time. At most, she would have called it a discomfort.
Instantly, her tail split into two, smooth skin appearing in place of purple scales. Her fins disappeared altogether, as did the scales on the lower half of her legs. But the top half of her legs remained covered, as always. Like a sea snake shedding its skin, the scales forming the upper half of her tail remained intact, sitting around her hips. They were no longer attached to her body—she could pull them loose if she so desired. But if she left them in place, they formed a short covering of sorts.
It was nothing like any covering she’d ever seen Heath wear, but she liked it. The purple-green sheen of it was comfortingly familiar, like her tail wasn’t missing, just hidden inside her human form.
She stooped, almost falling onto the rocks as she picked up Heath’s discarded boots. For a moment she just stared at them, another rush of emotion sweeping over her. She was both glad and regretful that he’d left them behind. It was foolish, of course—boots were hardly a sentimental item. But the painful memories they evoked were worth having a physical reminder of him. It made him feel more real, like surely he must be alive somewhere.
She wished for the hundredth time that he was there. She had so many new questions to ask, since the dramatic change in her…circumstances. She began the slow and measured walk back to the beach, breathing a sigh of relief when her spear came back into view, buried point down in the sand. It made her feel vulnerable to be without her weapon, but she wasn’t yet coordinated enough to carry it while upright.
She sat next to it on the sand, looping her arms around her knees in the way she’d seen Heath do many times. The water lapped at her feet, like a familiar friend. The waves weren’t venturing far enough up the shore to trigger the change from legs to tail. With weeks of experimenting, she was pretty familiar with the limits now.
Her stomach gave a rumble, and she turned her eyes to the ocean. She’d need to submerge herself soon, to find some food. She’d barely eaten all day. She thought wistfully of the times Heath had brought her food from his world to try. Her eyes glazed over as she lost herself in memory. She had accepted the fact that she would probably never see Heath again, but it was hard to just move forward and put him from her mind without knowing whether he had survived. The uncertainty ate at her, no matter how she tried not to dwell on it.
Her vision was suddenly filled with the silent pleading in his blue eyes when he’d told her to leave him, to stop risking her own life in her attempt to save him.
I don’t want you to die, he’d said. How desperately she wished she could tell him that she hadn’t died. Quite the reverse.
Her cheek tingled, and she raised a hand to touch the place where his fingers had rested. Sometimes she could swear she still felt the pressure of his hand.
She knew she was being foolishly sentimental, but she couldn’t help it. For someone who’d been orphaned as an infant, and raised in the harsh environment of a charity home, such a gentle gesture was unprecedented. Given her upbringing, and the year she’d spent fighting for a place in the Center of Culture surrounded mainly by merpeople who didn’t want her there, was it any wonder that the warmth in Heath’s eyes as they rested on her had been intoxicating from the beginning?
And a hundred times more potent had been the moment when he’d come out of his deathlike stupor to brush her hair from her face and lay his hand on her cheek. The memory was almost too overwhelming to handle. She couldn’t remember ever experiencing that kind of gentle touch before.
He was the first—and probably only—one to ever look at her like that. And she had most likely gotten him killed.
She shook her head, trying to physically flick off these thoughts. Neither daydreaming nor wallowing in guilt would help her survive, stranded and alone. If she intended to remain alone, that was.
She wiggled her toes deeper into the sand as her gaze drifted southwest, toward the underwater world of the triple kingdoms. Her tangled thoughts took on an edge of panic as she saw the sun beginning to set on another day. She was running out of time, and she still couldn’t decide what to do.
No matter how good she was getting with her new legs, it was hard to imagine actually staying here on the island alone forever. But the thought of returning to the world of her own people was terrifying. Could she even return? Or would she be killed on sight?
It was the question she’d been asking herself for almost four weeks. At first, she hadn’t even considered returning. On the contrary, she’d spent the first few days after her initial transformation hiding in the jungle, sure that someone would appear from the triple kingdoms to finish her off. After all, she’d been aware that someone from the Center wanted her dead, even before Ileana abandoned her to die on Vazula’s beach.
But at that thought, her forehead creased in a frown. Did Ileana abandon her to die? Merletta had been sure when she locked eyes with Ileana, as she began to dry out, that her rival was satisfied that Merletta was about to die. But she hadn’t died. Did that mean she’d misunderstood Ileana’s expression? The older mermaid had made it to the end of her third year in the Center of Culture’s four year training program before failing and dropping out to join the guards. Merletta knew for a fact that Ileana was privy to information which she, as a recent graduate of first year, didn’t know. Not that Merletta could be blamed for her ignorance. She’d learned the hard way that the instructors not only withheld things from younger trainees, but actively taught them false information.
But how much did Ileana know? She had known that humans were real, no doubt about it. But she hadn’t seemed to know about the location of Vazula, so close to the triple kingdoms, which were supposedly built far from any land.
Did she know the truth about drying out?