Freja was clearly impressed, but Merletta just wished she could perform similarly when it came to descending into the drop off. Not only did her skin crawl in the blackness with the feeling of being watched by many invisible eyes, but her strength seemed to flee. The pressure weighed so heavily on her that, despite many attempts, she couldn’t successfully carry a boulder down and back up again. Her arms, straining with tension, always dropped it before she could begin the ascent, and it sank into the darkness below. There was no sound of it hitting the ocean floor. Merletta wondered, with a shiver, just how deep the drop off went. She was fervently grateful that Freja had prohibited her from taking her spear down with her. She would almost certainly have lost it.
Felix, more experienced in acclimatization exercises, was allowed to carry his weapon. On one of their descents, it became clear that he was under instructions to defend the unarmed trainee if necessary. They had stopped for a rest, surrounded by darkness and out of sight of the rest of the group above, when a flash of movement near Merletta’s shoulder caused her to turn quickly.
Felix sprang into action, thrusting forward with his spear almost before Merletta had recognized the creature in front of her. Merletta gave a cry, reaching out to grab the wooden handle of the weapon as it shot past her. Clutching it, she yanked it back.
It grazed the guard’s side, and he let out a grunt of pain.
“I’m so sorry!” Merletta gasped, horrorstruck. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s nothing,” said Felix, examining the skin carefully. “No blood.”
They both relaxed visibly. The last thing they wanted was to attract sharks to the group. Merletta’s eyes darted behind the guard, watching the startled ray gliding rapidly away, its fins rippling gracefully in the water.
“What were you thinking, though?” Felix demanded. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to grab a spear mid-lunge like that?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I know you were just trying to defend me. But I was closer, so I could see that it was only a ray. I didn’t want it to get speared because of me.”
“Only a ray?” the guard demanded. “Rays are incredibly dangerous. That stinger could kill you if it got you in the wrong place.”
“Well, it could,” said Merletta slowly. “But it wouldn’t, would it? Not unless provoked. They’re gentle creatures, generally speaking.” She realized that the guard was staring at her in utter bemusement, and she hastened to add, “From what I’ve read, anyway.”
“I have no idea where you read that,” he said emphatically. “Because what I was taught in my guard training is that they’re deadly. Just like most of the animals out here past our boundaries. Why do you think they’re among the creatures that can’t get through the barrier on their own?”
Merletta frowned. She hadn’t, of course, read any such thing. No doubt any records held by the Center regarding rays would align with what Felix had been taught. She was speaking from her own experience of the creatures. She knew they could be dangerous—as her companion said, that was why the magical barrier kept them out. But that didn’t mean that they were always dangerous, and it certainly didn’t mean they needed to be speared on sight.
Worried that she was already giving herself away too much, she remained silent. But the deception continued to wear on her. Felix seemed well-intentioned and reasonable. She would so much like to tell him what she knew, educate him about how to navigate the open ocean without the constant fear he’d been drilled in.
Her head was aching furiously by that time, and instead of descending further as intended, she was forced to admit that she needed to rise. Still, undaunted by her continued failures, she didn’t stop her forays into the drop off until Freja insisted on it. And that was only after Merletta had grown so faint on her deepest descent yet that Felix had to half drag her back up to where the harvesters were working.
When they returned to the triple kingdoms Merletta was exhausted, but filled with an obsessive determination to master this new skill.
“When will you return to that spot?” she asked Freja eagerly, as they swam back through the oyster farm.
The older mermaid chuckled. “Eager, aren’t you? I’m impressed. You’ve got the greatest natural aptitude I’ve seen yet. Most trainees would rest on that, but I see you combine it with a drive to improve. That’s an unstoppable combination.”
“So you’ll take me back?” Merletta pressed.
Freja chuckled again. “We won’t be going back there for six months, most likely. But you can practice in the drop off surrounding the Center.”
Merletta deflated. “That’s not nearly as deep.”
“No, but it’s a good place to start,” said the guard calmly.
Merletta gave an absent nod, her thoughts far away. She knew of a number of deeper drop offs than the Center’s one, they just weren’t within the triple kingdoms. She’d have to make a detour the next time she left the barrier clandestinely.
The group had just re-entered the Center when a pair of young mermen caught Merletta’s eye. She glanced over at them, floating together outside the recruit-master’s office. It wasn’t hard to see why her eyes had picked them out. With expressions hovering somewhere between trepidation and awe, they looked very out of place.
She had almost passed them when one of them caught sight of her, and he nudged the other excitedly.
“That’s her!” he whispered.
The other merman’s head whipped around, and the two of them raised their hands in clumsy salutes. Merletta just blinked at them, totally unsure how to respond. The guards didn’t stop, and she continued along in their midst, still feeling bemused.
“I wonder who they were,” she said, half to herself.
“Applicants for the program, I imagine,” said a guard right behind her. “That was the recruit-master’s office.”
“He won’t be happy,” said another guard, and the first one grunted.