Seashells march across the limestone floor in whirling designs that change daily. Black squid ink stains several of them, as if they’ve suffered an oil spill. My gaze darts between them, counting, organizing, and still I can’t see the pattern.
When will the boats come next? Why are the landfolk hunting us?
The first black-stained shell is on the outer circle, close to being rotated out, though I doubt the king will let that happen. We’ll be given a larger room before we’re allowed to forget the queen’s disappearance. He’s certainly never forgotten. He refuses to look at me for the similarity of her features.
He’ll never forgive the landfolk for taking my mother and leaving me behind.
I count the shells again, focusing on the spaces between the abductions. There must be an order to them. First Mother, then a long stretch—so long, we thought she’d been taken by a shark. Then another disappearance, just before the stormy season. A couple more in close succession. A lull—all shells devoid of ink for an entire stormy and calm season. Then several so close it looks like someone murdered a squid over one calm season’s shells.
Now, they’re so irregular that I can’t discern a pattern.
I grab the last ink-stained shell and turn it over in my fingers. “Where are you, Clair? When will the landfolk hunt again?”
The shell that represents my sister’s abduction remains silent. The boats could come today, or the next stormy season. I have no answers for the merfolk.
Water pressure shifts as someone enters the room, and a long tail tipped in bright blue winds around my own. A green-scaled arm wraps around my waist and blue hair mingles with my magenta as Huron’s teeth nibble on the small scales below my gills.
A low chuckle escapes me. “How’d you get past Niku?”
“He’s at the surface, breathing.”
Every member of the royal family has a dolphin guard. Niku is mine.
“We could sneak out before he returns,” Huron says. “Go hunting.”
My stomach rumbles at the thought of fresh fish, even as my gaze picks out the darkened shells. Fear of the landfolk has kept us from hunting as much as we need to, and the fish we keep in the pens have been rationed.
“We should wait for Neek.”
“You know he won’t let you leave the Seadom. Besides”—Huron’s tail caresses mine—“I plan to do more than hunt.”
Hunting’s safer, and easier, with Niku, but he won’t turn a blind eye to my dalliances with Huron. If we want to have fun, we’ll have to leave before my guard returns.
I try one last, pathetic excuse. “I’m working.”
“The shells aren’t going anywhere.” Huron runs a finger down my dorsal fin and heat like a hydrothermal vent ignites at the base of my tail. All the worried thoughts about boats and ink-stained shells flee my mind, taking my voice with them. I swallow hard, then nod.
We swim through the back hallways to avoid Niku. Crustaceans and reef fish scuttle into their homes within the pocked limestone walls as we pass. It’s illegal to eat the fish and crabs within the Seadom, but everyone’s so hungry right now, it’s best they hide.
Corals ring a little-used side door, soaking up the light that reaches these depths. The Seadom comes into view—a vast city of limestone and hard coral, with bridges over dense cold-water streams and towers of polyps reaching toward the surface. Beyond the city, a meadow of deep-water corals stretches, all pinks and purples and yellows. The bright colors stop abruptly at the dark shadow of the petrified forest. Dead, leafless trees surround the Seadom, protecting our haven from storms . . . and the landfolk.
At the outer edge of the forest, Huron inches out to check for dolphin guards, then grabs my hand. We swim as fast as we can into the dark blue of the deep water.
My senses fill with clear water and distant fish. The Seadom is cramped and busy, and Niku never leaves me alone, but out here, I can get lost in the expanse and watch my reflection in the surface when it’s calm. My hair streams around me as I corkscrew through the water, feeling free for the first time since Clair was captured.
I stop as I think of her ink-stained shell and what must have happened to the missing ’folk. This is stupid, swimming in open water without Niku. Stupid and dangerous . . . but each kick of Huron’s tailfin brushes my stomach, making it clench. I tug on his hand, stopping him.
His blue eyes, when he turns to me, are full of the same hunger that’s burning in my core. My tail wraps around his. My hands slide down his back to caress his blue-tipped dorsal fin. He groans.
I run my nails through his hair—the bright blue of a juvenile emperor angelfish—and kiss him. He shudders and pulls me closer, his hands caressing the scales on my sides and stopping at my waist. His tongue slides between my lips, and I press against his lean body.
“Oh, Erie. It’s been too long.” One of his hands slides to my chest, and I lean back as he kisses my breasts.
It has been too long. I hum in contentment as his tail caresses mine. My stomach clenches again before I notice a change in the water. A low rumble has drowned out the constant noise of the ocean.
I unwind my tail and push away. “Do you hear that?”
“No.” Huron reaches for me again, but I grab his hands.
“Listen.”
The rumbling grows louder, until I can feel it in my scales. Huron’s eyes widen. “That’s a boat.”
I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from—the sound envelops me with terror. I kick toward home, Huron right behind me. A shockwave crashes into us as a net hits the surface.
Huron screams. “Swim, Erie! Hurry!”
The edge of the net slams into the back of my tail, knocking the breath out of me and bearing me down to the ocean floor. The weights hit first and send a plume of sediment up, choking the water and raking across my gills.
“No,” I gasp and dig my nails into the sand. My tailfin rips on the rough netting, but I manage to pull myself free.
“Erie!”
Huron’s trapped. The bottom of the net drags across the sand, cinching together, destroying any chance of escape. I grab the rope and pull, but I can’t stop its movement.
“Get help!” Huron says. His blue eyes are wide with fear.
I hesitate.
“Go! Before they throw another!”
That snaps me out of my panic. I flee. I’ll find a guard. Or a merfolk with a coral knife. They’ll cut Huron free before the landfolk can take him.
I know in my gut that we are too far out, but I have to try.
By the time the forest comes into view, too much time has passed to save Huron. The shadow of a dolphin guard appears from the gloom and relief rushes through my veins—until I see the familiar crisscross of white scars along his back. Niku. His eyes practically glow with fury.
Before he can say anything, I do. “They captured Huron.”
“Where?” The word is clipped.
I glance behind me at the water that looks forebodingly dark and murky now. My answer is barely more than a whisper. “Halfway to the reef.”
Niku’s eyes narrow as he takes in my torn fins. “You must have been confident the boats wouldn’t show up today.”
I drop my gaze and try to straighten a stray piece of fin, then flinch at the pain that shoots up my tail. “I . . . no. I haven’t discovered the pattern yet.”
“Perhaps staining today’s shell will enlighten you.”
My shoulders sag as I imagine the new arrangement, counting the shells between Huron’s abduction and Clair’s. I don’t bother telling Niku that it’s still too random to guess the landfolk’s movements.
When I don’t reply, Niku nudges me, the hardness gone from his voice. Only the disappointment remains. “Back to the Seadom, Princess. Before another boat arrives and someone else is given the duty of dyeing the shells.”
Two days later, ink stains my fingers black and I cannot tear my gaze away. I am marked—this abduction was my fault.
The shell that represents Huron sits in its place on the floor, exactly one hundred and twenty three spaces away from Clair’s. The image is already burned into my mind, so I stare at my fingertips instead.
Why now?
Niku clears his throat in the doorway, alerting me to someone’s presence. “Good afternoon, Dowager.”
I drop my hands as my grandmother enters. Her hair turned silvery well before I was born. Her scales have lost their color as well, but she’s still beautiful. The webbing between her fingers is so delicate, it’s transparent, and her eyes are the color of the sky. She adorns her silver hair with brightly colored seaweed and shells, and wears long strings of sea glass around her neck to make up for the lack of color elsewhere.
Clair used to tease me that, as the youngest of seven daughters, I would never inherit any of Grandmother’s priceless sea glass. I find the shell that represents my sister; now it’s Clair who’ll never own a piece of the precious stone.
Grandmother’s gaze flows over the room, landing on the oldest blackened shell. The corners of her mouth turn down. “You’re bound to stain another shell soon. The scouts report boats daily.”
“They just took Huron—why are they still hunting?” The landfolk have only taken a single merfolk for the past eight seasons. Did something happen to Huron already, that they need another so soon?
Grandmother’s shoulders lift in a graceful motion. “Your father’s landfolk advisor suspects it’s for ‘research.’”
A shiver crawls up my spine like a tiny crab. Whatever this “research” is, no one returns from it. Being caught is as good as a death sentence. I glance at my fingertips again, damning them for remembering the feel of Huron’s fins.
Grandmother combs her nails through my hair. “Have you heard the news?”
“No.” My gaze remains on my stained fingers. Who was taken this time?
“The king has declared a hunt.”
My head snaps up. “Now? While the landfolk are active?”
She nods. “The scouts have found an area with plenty of fish that the boats don’t visit. It’s a day’s swim from the Seadom, but we need to restock the pens. Your father has commanded all able-bodied merfolk and the dolphin pod to join.”
Able-bodied. My tail throbs where the net ripped it, but my empty stomach hurts more. “They’re sure the boats won’t be there?”
Grandmother braids the magenta strands caught in her nails, turning my hair into tiny waves. “You tell me.”
“I . . . can’t.” It’s hard to admit I’ve failed, but the scouts have a better idea of the landfolk movements than I do, despite my room full of carefully arranged shells. “What do you see?”
If anyone could know the schedule of the boats, it’s Grandmother. She taught me the tides and seasons, how to monitor the position of the moon and sun, how to move the shells to keep track of what will happen. One glance, and we know when the coral will spawn, or the lobster will begin their long trek to the depths to mate, or the algae in the northern waters will bloom and drive the fish into our territory. We know when the whales are migrating and the stormy season will start. But so far, not even Grandmother can predict the boats.
Her gaze lands again on the first black shell. “It’s impossible to say for sure, but the scouts have reported clear waters in that area since the landfolk began hunting us.”
I grab a white shell from the floor and turn it over in my stained fingers.
She tugs a lock of my hair. “Do not worry, little minnow. Niku will keep you safe on the hunt.”
My fingers curl around the shell and its edges bite into my palm. I will figure out the schedule of the boats before another of the ’folk can be taken. I will do whatever it takes to learn the landfolk’s secret.