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Ellery knew it was a mistake to have brought the men to his sanctuary. It could be another way of drawing the Mer to him. And amidst all of this, he was no closer to finding Nara. There was no hint as to where in the village she might be or where they might have taken her.
The unconscious man remained in Ellery’s bed. He was yet to learn the man’s name, although he did not want to become more involved than he already was. Despite a change of clothes and the warm sun on his skin, Ellery was cold. Cold to his very bones, as though he would never be warm again. For the first time while knowing that Nara was alive in the world, he longed for the fire tree. The comfortable warmth, the crackle of the leaves, the constant light.
“You are thinking of her,” Manning accused, slamming the door closed behind him as he joined Ellery on the veranda.
“Not of your Mer, have no fear of that.”
“She was not what you claim her to be.”
“You do not understand what we are facing here,” Ellery said. “You saw what they did to your friend.”
Manning shook his head as though he did not believe it was possible. “There was one woman, one lost and lonely woman.” He sounded very different to the man Ellery had first met in the courtyard.
“There were at least four Mer,” Ellery clarified, frustrated at himself that there appeared to be just as many as there had been before. Had he not managed to kill one of them? “The others are not what they seem to be.”
“Others?” Manning asked, as though confused. “What others?”
It appeared that Ellery was the only one to have seen what was truly attacking them in the courtyard.
“Why is it not dry here?” Manning asked, sitting beside Ellery and allowing his legs to dangle down.
Ellery shrugged. He had no idea anymore of what he was doing or what the Mer were trying to do. They could be anywhere, do anything, and appear at any time. He remembered the river running from his gate. It was certain they knew he was here. They knew what Nara and he were trying to do, and yet they continued to play with them. Where was she?
Not dead, he was sure of that. He would have found her sword, would have found something of her. And yet when she died, she disappeared so completely. He choked down the fear building in his chest that he might remain here waiting for her and she would never return—could never return to him.
He tried to refocus on what they had hoped to discover by going their separate ways. Glancing at Manning, Ellery understood that he could not trust what he saw in this man.
“What monsters have you hunted?” Ellery asked.
“Many,” Manning said without lifting his focus from the ground before them.
“Name some,” Ellery demanded.
Manning raised angry eyes to him, as though Ellery had no right to question him. He certainly did not appear to have any knowledge of what might be out there or the danger they could be in.
“Do you carry a charm?” Ellery asked.
“I am not some weak woman,” Manning snarled.
Ellery laughed at the idea. Nara could take this man down as easily as the Mer were about to. He might not be a woman, but he was certainly no monster hunter.
“How did you know they were here?” Ellery asked, although that was not quite the question he needed to ask. The man had no idea what he was facing.
“Who?” Manning asked.
“The Mer,” Ellery said slowly.
“A town with strange rain usually indicates something unnatural is occurring,” Manning said. There was a confidence to his voice that Ellery thought had led the others to follow him. One of whom was now dead, the other injured.
“No one leaves here,” Ellery said. Something in him understood that he too would be one of those dying here. He could only hope that Nara was with him at the end.
“Someone did,” Manning muttered. “How else would I have heard the stories?”
“Mmm,” Ellery murmured. “How exactly?”
“Some man in a tavern. I was hunting something else, something in a forest killing livestock. I came across a small tavern on the road. Several old men lined up against the bar, muttering stories about what they had seen. I heard the stories of the rain there.”
“How many men?” Ellery asked.
“Three,” Manning said with a shrug, as though he did not quite remember or it did not quite matter. Someone had pointed him towards the Mer. “How did you hear about it?”
Ellery shook his head. It was different for him. It was a call to action. It did not have the clarity of Nara’s stones, but he had been led to many creatures and people thinking they would die at the hands of some monster that had preyed on people for generations. He followed the call to where he knew he needed to be.
“How?”
Ellery shook his head again. He could not explain, for it made no real sense. It was just as it was. “I need to find someone,” he said, sliding off the veranda and landing softly on the grass.
“She is mine,” Manning growled, the song still strong in his mind.
“I do not want your Mer.”
“Then what are you looking for?” Manning called as Ellery put his hand to the gate.
“Sunshine,” he replied and, without turning back, he was out the gate and working his way through the rough pathway onto the main street.
It appeared just as it always had. He drew his sword and turned it slowly. Perhaps it had been a trick of the light when it had appeared to spark. He might be looking for something that did not exist.
“So where do we start looking for the sunshine?” Manning asked behind him, and Ellery tried not to groan. He had not heard the man approach at all, and he wondered if there might be some hint of truth to his hunting history.
Perhaps Ellery could use the man as fodder if required. He instantly chastised himself for such a thought. Had he allowed his life to become something so different in an attempt to hold on to what he’d had in his first life? He had led men into certain danger, knowing many would die, to protect whatever it was the old man wanted next. And yet, he had tried to protect them. Tried to keep them safe, knowing that he could not.
In many ways, he could keep this man safe now by getting him to take his friend far away or remaining in the sanctuary that Ellery’s cottage had become. In the end, it would not matter—none of them were safe here.
“Ellery?” the man asked. Ellery turned and looked at him, taking in the difference in his voice and the calm acceptance on his face.
“What was the creature you were hunting when you came across the tavern?”
“Likely a large cat. Villagers tend to blow out the idea of what it is they are facing and what is simply a large cat becomes a mighty monster.”
“Large cats can still be dangerous,” Ellery said. He had seen monsters that were far from large cats, but it was what they might have started out as.
“Why are you searching for the sunshine?” Manning asked, looking up into the clear sky.
Ellery wondered just how long it would last. It had felt like forever since he had seen Nara, but he was sure it had been the morning before. But then, this village twisted around him. It might have been moments; it might have been weeks.
“Because the world is better when the sun shines,” he said, heading off in the direction he thought they had found Marina, towards where they had taken Nara and hidden her away, where they possibly had again.
“You are a strange man,” Manning murmured.
“You can stay with your friend,” Ellery suggested.
When there was no answer, he turned to find Manning glancing back and forth across the road, his sword still sheathed. There was nothing but tall walls and closed gates. He might be trying to lull Ellery into a false sense of camaraderie while waiting for an opportunity to slide his sword between Ellery’s ribs. The change in demeanour was as off-putting as the first time Ellery had seen him.
“Here,” Ellery said, stopping at a gate. It appeared as all the others, although there was no hint that he had knocked through a wall and into the street. It was just as it had always been, but with a scratch across the faded red paint of the gate. He wondered at the colour then. The town was almost disappearing into the red dirt of the desert it sat in, and yet it was far from what he would connect with the Mer. Far from the colours of the sea. Again, he wondered at the origins of the place and how the Mer came to be here. And how three old men in a tavern far away were aware that it existed.
The gate swung open easily, almost too easily. He stared at the tree in the middle of the courtyard before he stepped over the threshold, wondering whether it was really there and would remain there when he entered. Manning pushed past him and into the silent space.
“This is bigger than the other houses we have seen,” he said, although his voice echoed around the courtyard. Ellery nodded as he looked over the large house with shuttered windows. His boots on the gravel, he glanced up, waiting for the rain.
He put his hand to the tree. He had a sense of Nara here, although he could not say why that was. He was looking for her everywhere. He felt her everywhere. Had he done that while waiting for her to return? Likely he had. Just when he thought she would not appear and he would die and meet her in the next life, she had stood before him. He could only hope that she had not died after leaving him standing at the gate to the cottage, hope that he would not have to wait again. He did not think he could.
Something white moved in his periphery, and Manning ran across the courtyard into the house before Ellery could stop him. There needed to be a way to end this, to send the Mer back to where they belonged or destroy them here, and then find a way to make this the last hunt they were on.
Something nudged at his senses, a pull like the one that had brought him to this place. He paused, watching the other man disappear inside the house. He should go after him—he knew that—and yet in only moments, Manning appeared at the doorway again, alone.
“Nothing here,” he called across the space, his voice echoing as though there were no one there to hear them.
Just as Manning went to step down from the house, a woman in white appeared behind him. Ellery almost jumped, for it was as though she had appeared from nowhere. She reached out as though to grab Manning, but he stepped down from the house, and the woman’s hand seemed to move through him. She was not able to touch him.
The idea of spectres pulled at Ellery, and yet he knew it was not right. This was not what they were. “What do you want?” Ellery called out, and she turned her dark beady eyes to him, almost lost beneath the dark hair across her face. For a moment he thought she would cry out rather than answer him.
Manning turned at the bottom of the steps, looking up into the house, but Ellery could not tell if he saw her or not. Maybe the child had been some sort of messenger, gauging what the men needed, what they would see when presented with the Mer. This was not Mer—at least he did not think so, unless they changed their appearance. He had seen both together, and they tended to herald the rain. He had seen the hints of Mer through their clothing, beneath the façade, but again he could not be sure if that was because they needed him to see that or if it was what they were.
“Help me,” she whispered. It was a strange, strangled sound, as though her voice would not work with her.
“Where is the sunshine?” Manning demanded, although Ellery didn’t think he understood what he was asking for, and he had no idea if the man could see the woman at the top of the steps.
“Help,” she called again, but it was a strange plea. It was a different pull, a different feeling to the danger that usually drew him in. The man at the bottom of the steps looked in the same direction, but Ellery could not tell what he could see.
She might very well have found a way to draw Ellery in, a way for the Mer to reach him, although so far it was still dry. No matter what she might be, he could not move his feet far from the tree.
“You know where she is,” he said, and Manning turned to him with confusion.
The figure nodded and then shook her head as though she could not tell, or maybe she only knew part of where Nara might be. He sighed and stepped forward then, frustration outweighing the danger he knew lay before him.
“What do you see?” Manning asked as he came up to stand beside Ellery. The woman remained unmoving in the doorway.
“Trouble,” Ellery said, taking a step forward.
She reached out for Ellery then, and although he held his sword in his hand, he allowed it to fall down at his side, the tip just resting on the ground. She breathed out slowly, an almost hissing sound, as though she found it frustrating that he would do such a thing. He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Should I end it here for you?” he asked. There had been one or two monsters over the years that had begged for an end of some kind, allowing him to end it, allowing an easy kill by running into his blade rather than away from it.
“Who is she?” Manning asked, and Ellery felt some relief that he could see her.
She remained in the doorway, unmoving, and yet she appeared to become more solid as he watched her. As though she had not been there before, and now she was fully present in this world. “Help,” she wheezed.
“How can I help you?” Ellery asked, remaining stock-still. Killing these creatures, whatever they might be, was not going to bring his Sunshine back. Nor would it do anything to help him find a solution to the Mer, creatures who were stronger now that they had fed. And they had reserves in waiting, he thought, glancing at the man still standing beside him.
“What did you do?” a soft voice asked, moving through the courtyard like a breeze rather than the harsh echo Manning had made earlier.
The woman before him hissed and disappeared. He turned slowly to face Marina, and Manning also turned, although he took a slight step backwards as though he was not sure of what she might be. At least Ellery knew that he could see her. The overconfidence he had seen before seemed to have disappeared from the man, although there was the niggling feeling that he could not be trusted. That was because he had heard the Mer, been turned by the Mer, and at any moment could become another tool they were using to try and end Ellery.
“Lost control of your... What are they exactly?” Ellery asked Marina.
“I am not the controller you think I am.” She smiled and he sighed, looking down at the sword before him and hoping it would give some shimmer of magic with which to put this woman in her place.
“You are far more than you appear,” he said, his focus on the pendant hanging freely from the fine silver chain around her neck.
“A new friend,” she said, looking at Manning.
Manning looked at her but appeared unsure what to say. Again the confidence, the determination to save what did not need saving by him, was gone.
“Oh,” Marina said, turning her smile back on Ellery, “you are using him to lure them in.”
“I do not need to lure them. The Mer already hunt.”
“That is not what you seek.”
“You know exactly what I’m looking for,” Ellery growled, which only made her grin all the more.
“Sunshine,” Manning said, and Marina raised her eyebrows as she turned to him.
“Do you know where the sunshine has gone?” she asked him.
Manning closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as though searching for a memory Ellery did not consider the man might have. But then, he might have been given some information when he was under the spell of the Mer. Ellery had not fully considered how they might use others.
“No,” Manning eventually said. “White.”
“Yes,” Marina sighed, “they took her far from here.”
“Where?” Ellery demanded.
“If I knew such a thing, I would not need to ask,” Marina growled.
“I thought you were their master. You certainly seem to know what you need and why we are here.”
“I know far more, Haven Ellery, but at this stage it is not helping me. Your Sunshine is missing, and I need her here. Now.”
“Why?” he asked, thinking it might be best for Nara to be far away, somewhere distant and safe. If that was in fact the case.
“Because she is promised to another, and he wants her.”
Ellery stepped up quickly to the woman, although she didn’t seem afraid of him, even when he grabbed her arm, searching for the fins hidden beneath the long sleeves of her dress. “She belongs to no one but me,” he growled, surprised for a moment at the depth of his anger, that he might snap this woman before him for just thinking such a thing. It was then he realised that his sword was pressed against her belly.
“You cannot harm me,” she whispered, leaning forward. He pressed forward with the sword to test the idea, and she smiled. “I am not,” she crooned.
“Not what?” he snapped.
“Anything,” she replied. “And everything.”
Ellery moved quickly to grab the pendant around her neck, and for the first time he saw real fear.
“No,” she breathed.
“How can this hurt you?” he asked, calm and collected, the earlier fear for Nara stepping back as he realised he had some control. “Salt,” he said, and Manning moved forward as though to look. “Mer,” he growled.
“I am better than Mer now, stronger than any other.”
He looked her over—the lack of claws, the smile not right, as though her mouth was too big. But he doubted he would see rows of sharp teeth if he were to look.
“They would outswim you in a heartbeat,” he said.
“I do not need to swim.”
“A Mer who cannot swim?” Ellery laughed, the sound echoing around the courtyard. Something moved in the tree, and he was tempted to turn to look at it properly. “You are no good on land,” he continued.
She nodded, although he still had hold of the pendant. Without wondering if it was a good idea or if he might lose the connection to whoever it was that laid claim to Nara, he pulled the chain. It snapped, the pendant instantly dissolving to salt in his hand.
He held it away from her as she staggered back and sat heavily in the gravel. He blew the salt away. The simple silver chain was all that remained, and he allowed it to slip to the ground.
“You will never find her,” Marina said, although her hand clutched at her throat, her voice more a wheeze than the threat she had intended.
“We always find each other,” Ellery said.
“Not this time,” Marina breathed, and then she lay back in the gravel.
Ellery was tempted to leave her there, whether she was dead or not. But Manning was leaning over her, feeling at her wrist. Then he dropped her hand and sat back.
“What is she?” he asked, and Ellery could see the hint of green scales that had been hidden before. Marina was Mer just like the others, only she wanted to be something different. He looked back towards the house then, wondering just who had taken Nara and whether they were handing her over to someone else or trying to find a way to keep her from them as well.
“Mer,” Ellery muttered.
“I don’t...”
“No,” Ellery sighed. “Why are you here?”
“Old men...”
“Don’t give me that story again—I do not believe it. Tell my why you are here, how you learnt of this place, and what you think you will gain.”
“In the tavern, I did meet those men as I told you. But they were telling stories of beautiful women who lived in the sea, or on islands in the sea, and occasionally lucky fishermen found them and could claim them as wives.”
“They are not as beautiful as you imagined,” Ellery muttered.
“She is very beautiful,” he said, looking at Marina, although his brow furrowed as though he doubted what he saw before him. “They said there were stories of such beautiful women living on land. Not the same sea creatures, and yet the same beauties that could be claimed. All you had to do was save one, prove you were a strong man and worthy, and you could keep her.”
“And if she did not want to be your wife?” Ellery asked, remembering Nara’s pain and fear when he had first met her at the idea of marrying the old lord.
“Why would she not?” Manning said, as though the idea had never occurred. Ellery wondered then at the idea of Manning standing between him and a Mer, trying to protect what did not need protecting and thinking she would be his wife. And yet, he had not comprehended the death of his companion.
“The others?” Ellery asked. “Did they follow for the chance at a wife?”
“I told them we were hunting monsters, that we would return home heroes, and that any woman would want us. We have hunted before.”
“You did not tell them they could claim a wife here.”
“She is mine,” Manning whispered.
“She is your death,” Ellery said, walking away and then stopping. He stood level with the tree and then turned, looked at the woman lying prone on the ground. He put his hand to the tree again. It was alive, deep down somewhere, waiting for a chance to return. He wondered then at the salt the other men had felt, tasted, or sensed. Was that a link to the ocean, or was it something else? “Can you smell the salt, taste the salt?” he asked Manning.
Manning looked up at him and shrugged.
“Try,” Ellery demanded.