For the first time since Gele set out from Galu, swarming loneliness tugged at him. Creeping through the brush, with each step he grew more and more tempted to shout her name. If she had been there, he would have followed Coan into battle, but without Sawyer, he could not risk it. His gills quivered, sometimes gasping. Cut them out. His rushing thoughts begged him to be done with it. They squirmed in his lungs, and each time he was close to dry heaving. The scales too were viciously itchy, begging him to return to the sea. If ever met Sonia, skeleton or otherwise, he’d scream his lungs out with all the anger a single man could hold. And for Sawyer, he’d ask her how she chose the detestable ritual three times knowing the discomfort would drive her insane. She did know, he remembered, and somehow he missed her more. And that subsequent realization made the weight of his nerves only heavier. Arnold was at the temple. His stomach twisted. The stress and the toiling made it clear, was he really going to kill him?
Breaking through the clouds, the Merrow swatted at the sky with long bony fingers. Each minute it grew, shifting from the murky cloud in the Second Sea to something made of bone and flesh. It’s made of clay too. Gele stopped to see it after every few minutes of running. At one point he saw a purple glow with it, but he was not so sure now. Was it really like the Siren? It was hard to search Sawyer’s memories without her there. It was like sorting through his own head really. But neither of them had seen the Merrow, a creature whose shape made no sense to him. The waters of the Second Sea, how far did they really go? Fish, whales, and mermaids too. Those were animals of both worlds, but how could a human stranded on islands fathom a shapeless being from a galaxy of water and souls? Were souls even well matched for the environment of the Second Sea? They only could only reach so far, and what if the Merrow was as small as Gele was in the eyes of something greater?
Such questions would bring raw panic to his already nervous heart. Clutching his scarf, Gele begged there to be a way to erase the prophetic thing that infested the horizon and blotted out the morning sun. Stop thinking of it. Try to stop if you can, but you’ve come too far to be worried. Again he tugged on the scarf. Emned’s gift was lost when he fell into the sea, and this was no good substitute. Every step forward meant the loss of something dear. That’s what it was to endure. Shuran, Melaopel, Mysk, Mapsokas, everyone, even those who knew Sawyer, if you’re watching me now, know that I will not stop. The Beckoning taught me well.
“Taught us well,” a voice bounced with the frenzied bats and hysteric cats. The animals were sheltered together in the underbrush, their eyes not locked on Gele but on the figure sitting in the branches above.
“Sawyer, where did you go?” Gele felt himself reverting to the moment they first met. “The Merrow, the battle, we need to get to the dead tree, to Arnold!” His hand leaped to his sword, grasping the handle. “We need to kill him,” he said in a tone that sounded desperate, with all the bravery gone. “Coan, Nimereen, and all the other members of the House went to war. Even Niall and Kipper went with them. And here I am, wondering if I’ll see them again.”
“I’m sorry,” her eyes went wide as she floated down from the tree tops. Her hair was flustered, with feathers creeping out from under her bandana. Her shirt and coat were tied around her waist. Her gills gasped. And then the wings, outstretched, nearly untwisted themselves, but still crooked and grotesque. The wind danced around them, causing them to flutter in the wicked storm. There was no reason to hide them though. Gele ran to her, wrapping his arms around her. She looked different than she had before, dressed as a chimera rather than a pirate, just like him. “I was standing there Gele, atop the Second Sea. I was finally there after all this time. But the spirits, they would not let me in, and I saw the Merrow up close. I saw Arnold hammer in the brass rods. I met the spirits of Vall. I was flying Gele! I–” She paused. “I’m sorry. Are the others okay? Coan, where is she?”
“Fighting with the House, I said I would sneak around the pirates. I said that I would kill Arnold.” Doubt swirled in his hands when he looked at them. His hair used to be longer. His nose was crooked, and scales crept up his face. I survived the sea, I’ve completed the Beckoning, I’ve done so much. But can I kill a man?
“You’re not alone,” Sawyer grabbed his hand. “You’ve seen my past. How often have I trekked into the unknown by myself? If you need me to, I can lead the way. We’re together. Remember that.”
“You lead. I’ll fight.” His fingers brushed against his gills. “And the souls of the world will watch.”
Sawyer nodded and waved her hand. With the wild gales, only a simple breeze came to her call. The snow and ice bit at his feet as Gele followed. Lightning swatted at the island as thunder trumpeted, heralding the downpour of falling fish.
Gele was not at his strongest. Each breath invited cold air to bite at his throat and chest. And every step made him lurch closer to the brink of exhaustion. But this was the closest had come to that euphoria he felt during the Beckoning, where one can do nothing but advance, with the world surrounding them melting away until only the path remained. It was a pitiful path, one that left him different from who he was when he started, but he was not walking alone. Gele and Sawyer leaped over the stream, refused to slip on the thickening ice, and stayed firm against the earthquakes. The island is sick. Is this really some kind of fever? Maybe it was wrong to compare flesh to souls. In the shadow of the Merrow, below the Second Sea, even below the trees and the vines, Gele was among the ants and the bugs, but he was still there.
Could they see the Merrow from Galu? Gele thought as he caught a glimpse of the temple. Even when pierced by brass rods on all sides, it shined with a flurry of astounding color. Ice clung to the bark, culling the fungi that once populated it. And in deep gashes, runes tore across the dead wood. “Annihilate Allecros,” Gele silently read to himself. With his sword in hand, he approached the temple walking on the tips of his feet. A ring of copper wire and brass poles circled the roots, feeding into the bark and spot where the brass sword had been driven into the bark. Around the handle, the amulet with the rotten eye twitched and bounced. Sawyer had seen this before, nothing’s changed since. Maybe we can still send the Merrow back.
Arnold sat on his knees. His fingers clawed at the soil, tearing up the grass. His breaths were too quick. Panicking, the old man crawled towards the amulet, whispering something. His coat flailed in the wind. Gele paused, watching from afar. A pistol on his belt? There was. The same jade gun brought a quiver to his stomach. Creeping, Gele took it slow, approaching Arnold from behind. End it. End it. End it.
“It’s too small,” the old man sobbed. His neck craned up, staring at the Merrow with despair choking him. “I failed. It’s too small,” he blubbered to the eye at the end of the silver chain.
Gele raised his sword. End it. His heart was pounding. Kill him. He knew if he hesitated, if he questioned the man’s last swords, this chance would be lost. How much knowledge would be lost if I killed him? What does he know about the Allecros and the magic there?
Gele clenched his teeth and swung the sword with all his might, letting out a hushed grunt. Droplets of water sprinkled off the blade as he aimed for the pirate’s neck. And a bronze hammer swung to intercept the execution. Sawyer shouted something, but Gele only heard her thoughts. A memory was fed to him, a parry the chimera at his side performed a hundred times before. The steel slid through the chilled air faster than the bronze, and the two metals clashed. There was no contest, the hammer was thrown out of Arnold’s grasp. Maintaining the momentum, Gele advanced, aiming for the pirate’s neck. Though his attention and dedication to the attack wavered once his eyes caught the glint of jade . . .
. . . Sawyer was on him in a second, her eyes wide with fury. Before the pistol could be aimed at Gele’s head, the spirit leaped forward, wings unfurling just enough to carry her. She flew as if shot from a cannon. The wings—bent but strong enough—thrashed as Sawyer wrapped her hands around Arnold’s throat. Ice formed on her fingertips as she squeezed, transforming them into cold-laced talons. Frostbite took hold of the captain's skin, and the zephyrs swept the air away from his lips. The rage was fuming in Sawyer’s glare, teeth grinding together, light crackling inside her seawater skin. Arnold flicked the gun to the side, resisting the urge to die. The barrel stared Gele in the face. Brazen and terrified, Gele went through with his strike, knowing it was too late to back away.
Struggling to breathe, Arnold let out only a guttural cough. The pistol landed a few feet away with his finger still reaching for the trigger, the hand hacked off at the wrist. Gele had done it in one clean swipe. Do I end it now? What if there’s something I could learn from him about Allecros? Gele swung his leg in a wide crescent kick, slamming his heel into Arnold’s skull. The pirate slumped over, the spirit falling with her. Sawyer kept hold like a frenzied hawk, still trying to strangle him. Her wings spasmed whilst trying to free themselves from their own mangled construction. Nearly tearing themselves, they unbound and opened. The tattered feathers looked as if they were made from seafoam, and Gele sliced right through them as he delivered mercy to Arnold. Sawyer lay unphased as the sword phased through her and only marveled as Arnold’s face, flushed with blue, slumped back. The blade pierced through Arnold’s stomach, and Gele tore it out and turned away from the sight.
“It’s done,” Gele whispered. And how he got here and what he knows is lost.
“Slash the copper wires,” Sawyer said, calming. As if to punish her, the wings folded back into their twisted form. And the light that emanated off her dimmed, overwhelmed by the glimmer of the dead tree. “I’ve only blundered rituals, never stopped them,” she tried to force a smile, “I need your help for this.”
One cut was all that was needed to break the circuit. And Gele uprooted one of the brass rods before running towards the temple. The wood had fused with the brass, the amulet, and the brass sword, forging a connection far harder to sever. Gele first tried to remove the poles, but the rain had made the metal too slick. And in the polished reflection, he watched the Merrow’s hand hover over him. The creature had covered Vall, shielding it from the view of the Second Sea. So close to smothering the island, it crept and unwinded itself towards the hegemony of souls beneath Gele’s feet.
“The eye!” Sawyer shouted. “Take the eye out!”
The ground shook, compromising Gele’s balance. Sawyer caught him as he slipped on the ice and hard soil. Reaching for it, Gele tried to tear the trinket from the bark. But when he tugged on it, the eye shuddered and the brass sword screamed.
“No!” Gele howled when he found himself inside a vision. He had ventured too far into memories too many times. The ethereal taste and goosebumps on imaginary skin haunted him with a dreaded familiarness. “Wake up!” He panicked, looking for an escape among the buildings of Wilkin’s Port. Am I doomed? Gulw’s great pyramid stood adjacent to brine-stained lighthouses and the House blocked the city streets. The limestone bastion of Chorrlow rested half-buried in the brick-paved roads, the tomb peeking out like a poorly hidden blemish. And a transparent milky stream of liquid souls flooded the mess of deserted places. A flurry of languages invaded his mind, all swirling as Gele tried to exit the vision. Their pleas grappled him, pulling him under. Even if he could breathe below the pool, he could not silence them. Some spoke absent-mindedly, accepting their state. Others shared a dour gloom. But then the sorrowful and the angry, the blissful celebrators, and those who had just one more thing to do, assaulted Gele at all sides, rushing at him like frenzied sharks.
“Keep pulling, Gele!” He was not alone. Sawyer’s voice sliced through the fear as his body was torn apart.
Through her eyes, he saw the tree again and the hands reaching out from below the soil. In the same orange hue as the sap and the amber, bodies climbed out of the ground, helping each other rise. Naked figures wandered out from the cavern below the tree. Those with torn or broken bodies emerged from the roots, walking hand-in-hand. Rising, the spirits marched from the trees into the jungle from all directions, fanning out in waves of staggering light. In their wake, the grass froze and died, and in its place, new purple grass sprung up, more vibrant and taller than what remained before. Though, some of the spirits, the souls of infants, children, and those missing their heads, wandered with no direction or no plan. There the grass grew and died over and over, the spirits entirely unaware. Rather, it was already a part of their bodies, and they could already feel the blades of grass dry and wither and the new seeds sprout.
“Gele!” Sawyer was tugging on the amulet too. The spirits of Vall left the temple and spread out amongst the island. But she stayed, trying to pull the eye from the tree. The silver chain was gradually freed from the ensnaring bark bit by bit. All the while, the eye stared at the sky, shivering. “They’re running, or maybe fracturing from the amber below. Maybe I’m wrong.” Sawyer whispered as she struggled. “Like a school of fish scattering when a shark swims by.”
Gele tried to say something, but the words were only thoughts. Trudging through the rivers of souls, he tried to find a way out of the dream. With him were the bodies of warriors and weavers, dead mermaids, and corpses floating on their backs. But there were more ghosts here than he expected. Leering over the ocean of open graves, Sonia perched herself atop Gulw’s pyramid. The mermaid had her attention taken away by something in the distance, something beyond the landmarks of Gele’s known world.
Once Gele climbed onto the dry steps, he sprinted up the pyramid, exhausting himself so much that he was begging for breath from both his gills and his lungs, the sensation causing him to gag in disgust. But he reached the peak nonetheless. And while standing beside the mermaid, Gele became a second witness. The two chimeras saw the ground crack open, the cobbled-together cities collapsed like shattered glass, and the lake of souls dipped below the earth. No. The earth was breaking too. The horizon crumbled as the mountains sank. The ocean drained towards the sky and down into fresh ravines. “The spawning grounds,” Sonia said in dismay. Her eyes were glossy with held-back tears, and her scales paled to a bleached blue.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“This is what the Merrow wants?” Gele asked.
“No,” Sonia shook her head, but then she was gone. The two-thousand-year-old ghost dissipated into nothingness and a woman consumed by fungi sprouted up to take her place. The infestation was so thick she could not walk as the stalks, spores, and mushrooms grew from every patch of skin. A portion of her face was spared, however, and from half a mouth, she spoke. “Not the Merrow. Allecros.”
Gulw, Wilkin’s Port, Vall, Chorrlow, and perhaps a hundred more places he could point to on a map but have never seen fell into the depths of the earth, where the steel chains caught the houses like spider silk and buckets of molten iron collected the screeching souls. As the pyramid, step by step fell into a factory forge, Gele tried to understand what it was. The mushroom woman did not cry out when she fell, tumbling with the stone into the pool of red-hot liquid. And Gele held onto the eroded statues of Galu’s forgotten, staring right into what dwelled under the forge as that too collapsed.
A sanctum unfurled across the bottom of the crevice as the world collapsed into itself. Everything became fodder for a garden of purple trees and vines. Though, the plants were constrained by copper wires, feeding into a pool at the center. There, a pale figure bathed in a spring surrounded by monsters, drinking the souls quietly with a brass spoon. When Gele met eyes with them, the figure stood up and put a golden flute to their lips. Plummeting, Gele listened to the song of the Merrow played through the pipes. The monsters, plump things with wires wrapped around them, danced and twirled in the pool, and when Gele fell in, they ate him alive.
Boom! Something grabbed him and pushed him to the ground. Snow and slush splashed in his eyes, waking him from the dream. Sawyer held him, shielding him. Arnold stood on shaking legs, blood dripping down from his open stomach. In his hand, the jade pistol coughed a plume of black smoke. “Mother, I’m sorry,” he gasped. The bullet had obliterated the amulet, turning the eye into a mess of rot buried in shattered silver. But Gele could still see it, the sight of the world breaking shackled him as he freed himself from the spirit’s arms.
“What was that?” Gele whispered, too scared to say what he thought it was. Allecros, that’s what it is.
Arnold only cracked a feeble smirk, validated by Gele’s shock. His own ghosts vanished now under the liberating weight of failure. And from behind his shadow, there was the slight crunch of footsteps on frost. Arnold’s face twisted to a calmness beset by fatigue. Dropping the pistol, the wizard glanced back and welcomed Coan with a blank stare. With no more wants in this world, Arnold let the warlord drive her broadsword through his heart, sending him on his way to the Second Sea.
It can never be over, a sourness swept over Gele’s tongue. Did he cross twenty thousand miles of water for this? Like the fish escaping the Second Sea to their doom down below. The Siren was just a creature, and the Merrow the same, so what does that make the thing under Allecros, and what does that make me? Gele clenched his teeth and turned back to the tree. “Coan help me! Help me pull out the sword!” The circumstances granted him no more time. The hand hovered over the canopy, and the song the fingers played became a sweet whisper in Gele’s ear. The spirits surrounded them, melding into a single void of light where thousands amassed together as one. And Vall was overtaken by cold, the leaves freezing and the water from the Second Sea dripping down as icicles.
Sawyer placed her hands—now gloves of ice—around the amber handle first, then Coan, and finally Gele. “Pull!” Coan yelled. A sheen of ice coated the blade, sealing it to the bark. Taking his own sword, Gele attempted to bash steel against brass. Over and over, he drove the weapon into the temple, the colors splashing off the metal like wildfire. The creature inside screamed, and Coan jumped back. “We’re doing this wrong. I know we’re doing it wrong.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Gele did not stop. Anxiously, he scrambled to get the blade free.
“This has happened before. Vall knows it. Why else would the spirits awaken like this?” Coan pointed to the flood of ghosts around her. “They’re aimless. No, they need a command. The murals and the markings on the temple say it clearly. I need to lead my people. Those buried in the tombs, I need to lead the island itself. I walked through the spirits, they are lost without a leader. That creature above sent them into a frenzy. The sword it's one of the monsters, captured from a previous age, where this happened before. It's Vall too, it's our history. It’s Coan’s Sword.” She grasped the brass sword, her fingers trying to smother the creature trapped inside the amble handle. “The ritual that gave you gills, the pirate’s magic, use it on me, send me into the temple to halt the annihilation of my home, help me.”
“You don’t know how wicked it is,” Gele hesitated. He’d rather hack down the tree itself than let her go down the same path as him. But when he looked at her, he saw her brother laying dead on his back. Mysk tried to save me, I cannot let her die too.
“What choice does she have? And what right do you have to make it for her?” Sawyer snapped. “She’s drowning, just like you were. The Merrow is too close to reverse the call for it. Just like before, we have no options left!”
“Please, Gele, as my friend, please,” Coan pleaded, ignorant of what Sawyer had said. “I saw the ghosts, I saw my mother. We are marching to a dark place, no matter where we go.”
“Then go carefully, Coan.” The warlord and the admiral, maybe there were no better friends to stand with on the precipice of annihilation. Gele plucked the bronze hammer from the frozen grass. It was heavy for his tired hands. But this dull-looking tool would soon earn the prestige of cleansing the sky and forging the midday sun.
“Metal has always been used against monsters,” Sawyer remarked, guiding him to the severed copper wire. It took no time to remake the circuit, but Gele certainly struggled with shaking hands.
“What will this do to her? What will it do to Vall?” Gele had to know.
“No clue, I only know what it did to me, but we must try something.” Sawyer sighed. “Her soul is not fused to the island like we’re stuck together. Gills were passed on from me to you. For her? This is the same fog I went into the first time I tried to fly.”
“What do I use the hammer for, and what do I write with the runes?”
“The hammer connects the circuit, the Anima did that for us last time. And for the runes, the basic command captures what the mind vaguely wants. The rest is up to her.”
“Coan, are you ready?” Gele‘s heart was thrashing inside his chest. Everything has a toll you need to pay. You cannot advance unhindered. He slashed through Arnold’s runes with his steel sword, and again and again, he hacked at them until they were illegible. And with the blade, he hovered the weapon an inch away from Coan’s back. The ground was paved over with thick ice. And desecrated runes already populated the dead tree’s bark. Bare skin was the only spot for runes. If there was another way, Gele wished he had the time to search for one. He looked to his own scar, a desperate plea scrawled across his chest. “What do you want the runes to say? What will you do?”
“Vall is my home. I want it to prosper,” Coan said, clenching her teeth and bearing the pain. Her hands held onto the amber handle with an iron-tight grip. “If the spirits would follow, I’d take them all to the ashfield and fill the land with life. I would purify the water and I’d bring back the dead. The Merrow is an invader, like all the others. Even you, Gele, cannot save us from extinction. That is all I can do. Mysk, Mapsokas, Zassamurr, my mother, I cannot name everyone who I watched die.” Her voice cracked, dipping into a sudden sorrow. “What will I do? I will give my people peace.”
Just as the Allecrean words were passed on from Sawyer to him, Gele knew the mermaid runes by heart. Ever so lightly, he carved the command onto his friend’s skin. Peace. Guilt swarmed him as he tore away her armor and her stolen clothes and watched the blood trickle down to the ground, painting the snow. But Coan remained steadfast, holding the sword and waiting to fight. The Merrow hovered over them, growing closer. Only the decadent glow of the dead tree and the spirit at his side held back the ensuing shadow.
Allecros will come for us anyways. The earth will crumble no matter what we do. Dropping the sword, Gele sprinted to the edge of the circuit. With the bronze hammer, he slammed down on the brass rods. Boom! Sparks flew and Coan screamed. The spirits turned, marching back to the temple. Like the retracting tide, they moved as a single sea, washing over the forest as their forms melted back into an orange inferno and slipped into the earth. Boom! Gele swung the hammer again, smashing it against the rod. Each time he could see the Salt Wench’s sacrifices. He stared them in the face, watching them succumb to the maws of magic. The nothingness took them thereafter. Boom! The spirits of Vall crowded around Coan as she wailed. Her voice crumbled into a hacking cough and soon morphed into an inhuman cry as the light encapsulated all in the shadow of the Merrow.
Blind, Gele stubbled away from the temple. Guided by Sawyer, he took refuge in the jungle. The ground still shook, and ice only climbed higher in the trees. The Merrow’s fingertips were so close to brushing the canopy. And Gele had just sent his friend to fight off something mankind could possibly never triumph against. No. The creature inside the amber sword still screamed. Its voice matched the Merrow’s song. The world had survived this before. Vall has survived this before. We are not doomed! It was then he realized how tired he was. His legs ached, and he was gasping for air. But he survived. Arnold was dead. A fragment of pride could be pilfered from the victory. There was nothing he could do, it was all up to Coan now. Sawyer sat nestled next to him. And Gele could see what she saw whilst standing on the Second Sea and how it haunted her. Even if it was full of monsters, heaven had no room for Sawyer Jean. Gele held her tight, trying to barricade his thoughts from the nightmare Sonia showed him. “We survived,” he whispered as he looked up upon the Merrow.
The song it sang unraveled to a million harmonic voices. The fingers split into two, then into three, again and again. Creatures climbed from the skin. These little sprites struggled for the chance to be the first to collide with the world. None ever made it, struck down by the hurricane. Eagerness clouded the mass colony moving as one, shrouding them from the counteroffensive emerging from the festering swarm of souls below.
From the base of the catacombs, the warlord began her charge. Wielding the wind and the rain, the indomitable light commandeered the cyclones. The spirits of Vall swirled with the gales, climbing up from the earth and into the air. It took the rain and the snow, building hail to defend the treetops. And from the dead tree, a geyser of light erupted, reaching up as a beacon toward the storm. Legions of souls intertwined and clashed with the Merrow directly, piercing it like a burning pike. The song ruptured, dying as a frenzied screech. And the amber inferno split and warriors from a thousand different eras emerged to race up into the sky, shattering the storm and slicing the Merrow. At the front was a single figure, the only one wearing a mask. Coan slashed at the invaders with swords forged from clouds and ice. Her commands boomed over the thunder as spears of lightning crackled and crashed. Identical to the mural in Coan’s Cave, the soldiers fought the monsters who rained down too, killing them before they splattered down below. Even then, the Merrow was provided no mercy. Sprites sprouted from the arm—just like minuscule mermaids, half-water and half-flesh—and were cut down in an instant.
The Merrow’s face, still smiling inside the Second Sea quivered, sending wild waves to siege the surface. A leviathan horde was thrust from the water, all in an effort to halt the warlord’s charge. But every beast could be overwhelmed. Gutting a serpent as it plummeted, Coan climbed to the Second Sea. Alongside a hundred other phantoms, she severed the Merrow’s arm and slashed at the water itself. The Merrow’s face and the school of collective sprites who built it dispersed into the depths of the Second Sea, fleeing from the earth’s wrath. And the arm itself was the last invader to fall. Toppling like a feeble tree, its plummet eclipsed the light of the spirits once more. Gele froze, his heart nearly jumping out of his chest. The scale of the Merrow only became larger and larger as it came closer and closer. Looking down the gun barrel never felt so safe! The whole limb spanned the length of the island, aiming to cleave a chasm across the jungle. Even now, pieces of the Merrow’s flesh leaped off, the sprites desperate to leave the collective and crawl back up to the Second Sea. Gele tried to snap himself from the sudden fear, a primordial sense of awe that smothered the brevity of triumph. Yet, he was far too small. The Merrow’s arm crashed into Vall, the shine of the spirits still chasing it down. Its hand made impact first, crushing the dead tree—failing at the last moment to grab what it had been reaching for.
Bark, ice, and a plume of color burst out from the temple as sudden shrapnel. “Gele!” Sawyer screamed, pulling him away. Together the two took cover as the creature flattened the forest. She sent wild winds whirling out, trying to protect Gele from the island collapsing around them. Tremors and earthquakes gave Vall no mercy. Fissures crawled along the crackling floor. Stone statues keeled over, falling one by one to the carnage of history relived. All the while, the hurricane raged on. Rogue lightning struck at the gutted jungle, only adding to the fires. Bunkered in the spirit’s arms, Gele watched a downpour of heavy rain replace the unwelcome hail and sleet. Distant echoes of breaking trees and snapping bones continued to ring out. Even louder than cannonfire, the noise did not fade until the light from the sky did too, receding back to the earth. And finally, nature calmed.
“Damn thing built a road from one side of the island to the other,” Sawyer muttered as she waved for Gele to follow. Her wings outstretched, trying to unfold themselves. “And the spirits, did they go back underground? I can’t feel them anymore.”
“Coan, is she alive?” Gele preemptively asked, fearing the worst. She’s a chimera now, like me, like Sawyer. But when he saw her, she had no scales or feathers, no wings or gills. Only the same scars, her mask, and the bleeding rune on her back.
Laying on a bed of melted snow, Coan basked in the shade of the Merrow’s many bleached fingers. The hand, now more like a system of slender roots, pointed up at the Second Sea. Its scales shined palely in the morning sun, built from the dead little mermaid sprites that stayed together until the end. Somehow the collective colony scored some droplets of victory, looming over the remains of the temple. Splintered wood had sprayed across the field. The entrance of the tombs had grown wider, now stuck between two bony knuckles. And the vibrant colors danced across the corpse as if nothing had changed. Either by mercy or by accident, the Merrow had joined the jungles of Vall.
“Coan?” Gele called out, still unsure if she was alive.
“I saw it,” Coan whispered with a snort. “I saw the Second Sea. I saw the Merrow and what it was told to do. I saw Allecros.” Rising, she gazed at Gele. Behind the mask, he could not tell if she was smiling or horrified. But her eyes had been paved over with a fractured orange shine as if embers burned inside them—too much like Arnold’s eyes. The gold stare flicked to Sawyer, “I saw Chorrlow, pirate. I can see you now. I can hear you too. Tell me, when will they come again?”