Being an Earth native accustomed to strictly dry-land living in the suburbs, Erin found Coyrifan’s tale both incomprehensible and chilling. The fact that her own appearance had struck the merling with such mortal terror gave her quite the cold snap.

“I… I’m sorry,” she’d said, at a complete loss for suitable words.

“Oh, no need for that,” was Coy’s offhanded response. His voice carried the airy cadence that suggested that, wherever he was in the ocean just then, he might be physically waving the very idea away. He then proceeded to describe his use of his father’s moonstone to silence Erin’s, and then the strange, heroic vision he’d had afterward.

The girl’s eyes went wide as she realized something. “You actually saw me appear?”

“I did. In a bolt of lightning, no less.”

“So you know—“ She paused, debating whether to finish that sentence. He might think she was from some other area of Emerrane, or she could admit where she was really from. Confessing the truth might feel amazing, but…

“Mm? Know what?”

“Nothing.”

Yeah, no. Not ready for that yet.

“Don’t you see it, Erin? It’s destiny, a bond ordained between land and sea. You were brought to Nilvar for a reason, and I was sent to help you.”

Erin wasn’t sure what to think about that. She would have considered herself casually religious back on Earth, certainly believing that there was a powerful being who occasionally answered her prayers, but this was a little too fantastic for her to wholly accept in the moment.

“It sounds like a prophecy or something,” she half-muttered, still trying to process it. It was the kind of thing that authors cooked up in books about wizard schools or halflings with magic rings, plus a dash of werewolf for seasoning. She couldn’t deny that she felt strongly attracted to Coyrifan, especially when she’d seen him in his human-like form in the caves, but it wasn’t exactly in the same sense as that last example.

When her whole body suddenly started shivering mid-thought, Erin checked her fingernails, which had turned blue and pretty grossly wrinkled as well. Clearly, she’d been in the water a bit too long. She waded to the bank and got out, sitting cross-legged in the grass and squeezing out as much water from her pantlegs as she could while Imyra bobbed back and forth a few feet away, still enthusiastically translating Coyrifan’s thoughts.

“—also destiny that I met your Queen, and that she knew our mutual friend Prince Koben. All of it to help her reclaim her lost moonstone.”

“Wait—her moonstone? The Medelapura is a moonstone?”

“Yes. A very special moonstone.”

That was when it all clicked.

“You told us that your chief has the Medelapura. Your father is the chief. It’s the necklace he wears all the time!” She grabbed her heart-shaped moonstone and stared at it as if expecting to see Coyrifan looking back at her. “How the heck are you going to get it again? What if you can’t, and Koben just keeps Imyra hostage forever?”

The merling’s voice returned in a grim chuckle. “That was largely the point of our exchange, I’m afraid. We each have equal leverage over the other. Half of my heart against the Queen’s mission, so no matter what happens, both will either continue on or end together.”

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“I don’t like this at all,” Erin muttered, slouching and dropping both hands into her lap. She straightened again a moment later as her eyes fell on Imyra and something else occurred to her. “If my moonstone is one of those Howler things, why isn’t Imyra afraid of me? And how did you get so close to us in the caves? You didn’t have the Medelapura then.”

“Things happened very quickly after you appeared. I’m afraid it never occurred to me to awaken the Howlith again until long after I’d given you into Koben’s care. It was a bit too late at that point.”

Halfway through a comforting wave of hindsight in which Erin was beginning to believe that she was never in any true danger of merling attacks in all the troubled moments at sea on Koben’s ship and later his rowboat, she froze, gritting her teeth. Coy just had to go and spoil it. Sigh.

“Erin, our shift is just about ov—“

The girl flinched so hard that she yanked the necklace clear off of her own neck. The pop of the breaking chain was lost in the sound of Imyra’s splash as she dove underwater and vanished, cutting off communication with Coyrifan. Erin shoved the broken necklace into her pocket as she jumped to her feet and whirled on Leslyn. “What were you doing, spying on me like that?” she snapped.

“I was just coming to tell you that our shift is over. I thought you’d be happy about that, after sitting around doing nothing all afternoon.” His startled stare shifted slightly as he noticed something about Erin’s face. “Your lips are blue. Why didn’t you get out of the water sooner?”

She frowned and covered her mouth with a hand. “Who asked you?”

“What is it, Erin?

“What is what, Leslyn?”

Leslyn’s brows furrowed with pained confusion at her sarcastic pronunciation of his name. “Something’s wrong. You’ve been… well, off, for a while now. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Leave me alone and mind your own business, you rotten, snooping busybody.” Before he could say anything else, Erin hurried off toward the landing area where the two old griffins Sheffa and Brighteyes waited to take the Renegades back to the Aerie.

Stomping along in her anger, Erin attempted to go around Kaleit further along the shore of the pond, but he’d planted himself right in the walkable path between the water and a patch of brambles. As she passed by him, he curled his lip and sneered, “What’s wrong? Did you and your ‘uncle’ just break up?”

“Eat griffin crap,” she snarled, and kept right on walking. Leslyn totally deserved everything he just got. Oh, sure, he was nice about it during the “letdown” about not being Desmond, but that’s exactly what it felt like—a breakup, of sorts. He was way, way too invested in Erin’s affairs now after pushing her away like that.

Erin took a deep breath as she finally reached the griffins. Soon now, they would be back home, where she could go about her business in peace. Arlis was already up on Bright Eyes, so the girl was quick to clamber up behind him. Let Kaleit and Leslyn suffer for sharing the same animal, for once.

Before she was fully settled, Arlis had turned and was looking at her with that same concerned expression she was getting real tired of seeing on everyone else’s faces. “I’m fine,” she said firmly.

The boy pinched his lips together and faced forward again. Erin sighed.

Later, when they were in the air above the endless Nilvaran pastures, the wind whipping through her hair, her thoughts returned to her conversation with Coyrifan. The merling had been convinced there was some big prophecy or destiny thing involved. Technically, wasn’t Queen Katharesa’s mission sort of prophetic, too? From what little she’d gleaned from Kaleit, Erin knew that the Queen had appeared many times over the years and failed to gather her knights for whatever task they had to do. That was because the merlings stopped her from traveling far enough to find them.

Somehow, her own mother’s moonstone, and thus Erin herself, was mixed up in it this time.

It frightened her to think that Koben, with all his secrecy, might already know that Erin’s moonstone was a Howler. He might already have a plan to commandeer it, when he thought the time was right.

What if he finally got the Medelapura, but used the two stones to hurt Coyrifan or Imyra in the end instead of keeping his end of the bargain? Humans and merfolk were at war in this world. He might see such a move as totally justified.

Glancing about at the three boys who flew with her, Arlis just in front of her and Kaleit and Leslyn on the other griffin, Erin wondered if there was really anyone at all whom she could trust anymore. It seemed like everyone else had an agenda, but she wasn’t part of it—except possibly for this apparently magical thing she possessed. If not for her status as a recruit for the Guard, was that really her only value in Nilvar?

Maybe there really was something to this “bond” Coyrifan had insisted was present between himself and Erin.

Maybe the truth of it was that she’d been brought to Emerrane to help him instead of Koben or the Queen or whoever else.

The way things were going lately, that option was beginning to look better and better…