Without my scepter, I don’t know what to do but watch the silver mermaid wield the Trident of the Seas.

Her exterior changes. She looks taller, her hair as white as the lightning that courses through her body. She stares straight into the eclipse, and in turn, we all stare at her. I don’t want to. But she’s a force of nature, wild and fierce. Her arms look like they’re holding up the sky.

The waves around Toliss are so tall that I can see the white surf rising high.

“Today we take back our oceans,” she says.

Kurt lifts his head to look at me, his eyes glowing. He doesn’t have to say it. No matter what, Nieve can’t win. Even if it means our lives.

Merrows flood out of the court and into the sea. Terrible moans and roars mingle with the whipping winds. The giants crest with the waves. The sea horse stretches its forelegs, its slick mane shimmering in the starlight. Then it dives back in, its tail a prism of colors. Sea dragons screech above us, ready to sink their talons back in our flesh. They fly a careful distance from the giant tentacles that curl and stretch toward the sky. The only creature I can’t see is the turtle with the spiked shell, but when a long angry noise rips through the sky, I know that it’s close by.

“Hey, Leomaris!” I call out to him. “How does it feel to kiss the feet of the mermaid who murdered your kid?”

Nieve snaps her head at me. She’s drunk on power and she smiles with her shark teeth. “Don’t listen to the half-breed. He was there. He could have saved Adaro and he chose not to.”

I get on one knee and face them. Then I stand, my hands still tied behind my back.

“Do you know how I found him?” I ask.

He doesn’t want to hear it. It’s cruel of me to do this to someone’s dad. But he has to know. “Adaro was on his ship, writhing in pain.”

Nieve hisses at me. She sends a threatening bolt at my head, but I throw myself to the side.

“Archer’s knife was stuck through his chest so he’d die slowly, and for as long as he held on, he told me not to cower to her. But here you are. Because you’re weak. You disgrace the memory of your own son.”

Leomaris lunges at me. He unties my bindings and pulls me up because he wants me to fight back. I jab and cross. His jaw doesn’t even snap to the side. I kick forward but he doesn’t budge.

“You’re pretty solid for an old guy,” I say, readying my fists.

Rowdy cheers egg us on. Beneath the noise, I can hear Gwen.

“Mother,” Gwen says, “do something.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t kill him,” Nieve answers coldly. “And I’m not the one doing the killing. Not yet, at least.”

I find the nearest rock and throw it at him. I miss and double over when his knee hits me in the gut. I’ve lost Kurt from my sight. I hope he’s gotten free.

Then I see it—the ripples in the great lake. They’re distorted, like something is wading out of there. Tiger eyes appear in thin air. In her translucent phase, Yara carefully makes her way onto the bank.

“Mother…”

Yara nocks her arrow.

Leomaris raises his sword over his head, thinking I’m too weak to get up. “It should have been you.”

I roll out of the way, listening for the snap of the bow. The onyx arrowhead breaks through his shoulder and he cries out. Leomaris’s sword cleaves two inches into the ground, and I’d hate to think that if I’d been slower, that could have been me.

He tries to yank it out but it won’t give. I uppercut him in the jaw and, as he staggers back, kick him square in the chest. He moves back so quickly that he falls into the pool and doesn’t resurface.

Adrenaline thumps in my ears, and I can’t make out the commotion. Yara lands beside me. I can see through her like glass. The river tribe emerges from the water undetected. The merrows are confused, attacking enemies they cannot see.

Nieve fires away with her trident, but she risks hitting her children. Yara is as fast as lightning, a whirlwind of her own. Beside her is Karel with his axes, cleaving heads and rib cages until he’s covered in black blood down to his elbows.

“You’re late to the party,” I tell him when he runs past me. I’ve never been so happy to see him.

He grumbles, but I catch a smile as he throws a dagger my way.

“Kurt!” A hulking merrow is ambling toward him.

I don’t think it. I just do. The dagger in my hand spins in the air and hits its target between the eyes. As he decomposes, I see Gwen’s face standing behind him. She’s seen me do this before and had to hide her displeasure at killing merrows. Now, she takes up a sword and holds it at my face. The tip follows me as I stand, retrieving the dagger from the stinking pile of black flesh.

“You can’t trust him, Gwenivere,” Nieve says, her voice slithering between the fighting bodies.

And then Gwen, who patched up my wounds and begged for my life, lunges at me with the sword. Sparks fly when our metals meet, the sharp sound of blades slicing against each other.

“Your heart isn’t in this,” I tell her.

“You don’t know what’s in my heart.”

I tap her solar plexus with the ball of my palm and she staggers back.

“I’ll show you,” I say, getting on my knees and holding my arms out. My whole self is exposed to her. “Do it.”

She looks horrified and takes a few steps back.

“Your mother might love you,” I say, “but as long as that trident is in her hands, she’ll love it even more.”

Gwen shakes her head.

“Do you remember how beautiful this place was?” I say, motioning to the screams and bloodshed. “You say you don’t have a home but you’ve always found yourself here in this place. Now look at it. Look what she’s done.”

“Gwenivere, if you don’t do it, I swear I will. Do it!”

And then Gwen steps aside like I knew she would.

“I don’t know what kind of future I can give you,” I say, “but I wouldn’t use you.”

“Mother, I won’t.”

Nieve pushes her daughter aside with a wave of her hand. I lunge for my sword, but a force grips me and squeezes the wind out of my body.

“You don’t deserve your scales. You don’t deserve the blood of kings that runs through your veins.”

Even as I choke, I say, “Tough luck, Grandma.”

She blasts me with the trident. I catch the current with my dagger until it’s so hot that I have to drop it and my fingertips are black.

There is so much fury in Nieve’s eyes that they’re stark white. She throws the trident at me. I try to move out of the way, but a dark force holds me in place. My feet become a tail. She’s pulling it out of me in the most painful way. It’s like I’m cooking from the inside out, stretched out in midair.

You know, when you’re about to die, things really do go in slow motion. My heart races like the pulse of thunder in my throat. My name is shouted from so many different voices I can’t tell who is who. All I know is that they say it, over and over.

Tristan.

Tristan.

Tristan.

There’s the blow of a conch shell followed by the warrior cry of an army of strays.

I want to close my eyes but I can’t. They’re trained on the three prongs of the trident coming at me like a harpoon.

Gwen jumps in front of me. Her magic crackles around her like a shield. Her lips are open, and a thin line of black blood drips from the corner of her mouth. The trident is stronger than her shield and rips through her body. She looks down at the golden prongs covered in her own blood, then at me. Her eyes wide as full moons, black tendrils spreading from the wound in her chest.

A cry starts at the bottom of my heart and can’t get out.

No, no, no, no.

She holds out her hand to me, the dark veins spreading beneath her porcelain skin. Black blood pools out of her mouth. Tristan. She closes her eyes and then is gone.

A jolt runs through me like a cord wound so tight it snaps.

When Nieve screams, the heavens rip open.