Sea Witch Rising

“Child—”

“Runa. Use my name. You’re not my oma.”

This nearly makes me smile—her oma I am definitely not. “Runa, I already know what your father will do because he’s come and done it. And because of that, I cannot help you.”

Behind my back, I can practically feel Anna’s soundless judgment—the knife is safe and ready to use. Though it was not plain in Alia’s bargain, surely this girl knows her history—the magic will accept the boy’s blood if her sister fails at love. I could give the knife to her now. But magic always takes an exchange, and I have done the work without promise of payment until now.

“You cannot … ,” the girl starts, sputtering despite her clear strength. The weakness in her voice signals a sob rising, high and hard. “It’s like you’ve torn my arm from my body. She’s my twin sister. My other half. Please …”

“Your father depleted me of my magic. I want to help you, but your request alone is not enough, Runa.”

The girl smacks the cauldron in frustration, and the metal rings out around my polypi trees, clanging to the surface, up to the sun that barely shines here. “You changed her—endangered her—for one stupid boy who doesn’t even know her name. It should be more than enough that her twin sister wants her back. I shouldn’t need anything else. I should be enough.”

I level my gaze at her and smile, which irritates her more. “Ah, but you have what I need.”

The girl’s brows pull together, but she doesn’t ask, waiting instead for me to plainly state what she must do.

“You see, I know about you, Runa. Famed gardener, are you not? Little Runa and her special flowers. Alia, yes, she’s known for the beautiful things she can make,” I say, gesturing to the red flowers the little mermaid offered me before I took her voice. “But she can’t do what her twin can do. Runa, the last-born daughter by a minute, the one who keeps her father strong with all the ríkifjor he can stomach?”

Something in the girl’s eyes hardens—honey frozen on a winter’s day. “They’re guarded. Even I can’t go there unsupervised. I can’t—”

“Then I can’t help you.” Runa’s jaw sets as I continue. “Your father came to me, frustrated that he doesn’t have the power to bring Alia back, and drunk on ríkifjor, attacked me. He attacked my power—undermining the only person alive who can save Alia. To have the power to save her, I need to build my strength back up. Surely thirty of those flowers would do.”

“I can’t bring you thirty flowers. Maybe one, but thirty? They’re protected both by magic and by armed guards. There’s no way—”

“Seeds, then.”

“But—”

“Runa,” I say, wrapping a tentacle around her waist, drawing her in. To her credit, the girl gives me no reaction—not a blink, no curl of revulsion, no tremble of fear. Her face is blank, hard, determined. “I cannot change my price. It is up to you to figure it out. If you want your sister to live, bring me the flowers and we will deal. Then you will have what you need.”

5

Runa

A WAVE OF DREAD SWEEPS OVER ME AS I LEAVE THE SEA witch’s lair. Was I really so naive as to think this creature, this slithering monster, would give me any relief?

The whole thing almost felt rehearsed, like she had been expecting me and was prepared. She stuck to her script as the actors do in our monthly moon plays, asking for impossible things in the name of love. Alia never missed a chance to show off her dramatic skills on stage, but now, what will she do with no voice?

No voice. No more plays. I shake my head. These are the least of Alia’s problems.

Though I’m away from the witch’s murky waters and back in the cool blue of the open sea, I’m not any more confident that I’ll get my other half back alive. Loss already weighs heavy on my shoulders, and I fear I will carry this forever if I fail.

No, I will fix it. I will get the antidote. I will save Alia. I won’t lose her.

I swim on, yet I have a major problem. Father counts those flowers like he’d count gold if he were any other type of king. But to my father, gold isn’t power—magic is.

And my flowers are magic.

Yes, Witch, I’m the gardener. “Little Runa and her flowers”—the witch knows the common refrain. For all the beauty Alia can produce, I’m the one who can make the tough things grow. The important things. But I was telling the truth when I said that even I’m not allowed to go into the ríkifjor garden without supervision. The ríkifjor can’t be touched, not by me or anyone else, unless Father’s security—both physical and magical—deems it so on a very specific schedule.

Though I hate losing time, if I’m to get them, I won’t be successful in the middle of the day—I need to wait for nightfall for any chance to sneak in. In fact, I won’t be successful at all if Father realizes I’ve been gone too long.

I swim straight from the sea witch’s lair to the castle grounds. The sea kingdom can be seen from miles around, shining a brilliant cerulean blue. I sweep through the front gate and into the winding hallways as if nothing is amiss. I smile at all the right people and make proper small talk. I go about my day pretending it’s completely normal that Alia is not at my side.

The afternoon brings my lessons—singing, dancing, the human arts—with my sisters. Alia’s absence hangs in the water between us, each drop swelling with our growing anxiety. And yet we stay silent. If Father heard us talking, it would only make it worse.

After lessons and supper, where I looked everywhere but Alia’s empty seat, a plan begins to take shape in the shambles of my distracted mind. It’s perhaps the only way to get the witch her flowers, secure the antidote, and deliver it, though it won’t be easy. But what choice do I have? I can’t just let Alia stay there and die, even if she doesn’t want to come with me. Living with a broken heart is better than dissolving into sea foam. It has to be.

I go to bed early, feigning illness, but none of my sisters buy it. When the castle is dark and quiet, Eydis spells on the light, but I’m already wide awake, going over the scenarios in my mind, eyes glued to the vaulted ceiling of our chambers. My other sisters—Ola and Signy—converge upon my bed, taking space among the blankets.

Dark blue and near black—the color of the deepest part of the ocean on the cloudiest days—Eydis’s eyes fall to mine. She’s usually covered in diamond dust from brow bone to chin, but barefaced in the night, she looks more serious than she’s ever been in her life. “She went above, didn’t she? For that Øldenburg?”

I sit up, and that’s enough of a confirmation. The sob that sat deep in my throat this morning is welling up again, fat and misshapen.

Signy, the closest in age to Alia and me, already has it figured out, arms crossed tightly over her chest, the tips of her ink-dyed hair dusting the goose bumps on her arms. “And the sea witch did it, didn’t she?”

I nod. Ola’s eyes grow wider as she adds another question. I may be Alia’s twin, but Ola looks the most like her—blond and ethereal in the way most humans expect mermaids to be. “Is there anything we can do?” Both her hands snag one of mine and squeeze. “Tell me what we can do. There must be something.”

I swallow down that sob. I didn’t want to include them, because the more of us who are involved, the easier it will be for Father to know.

Yet now I can’t leave them out of it. “There is an antidote. But Father visited the witch and weakened her enough that she can’t make it. I have to bring her something first.” The way they watch me confirms they know exactly what I must bring.

“But Father—”

“How? It’s guarded—”

“He’ll be so angry—”

“I know!” The sob squeezes out, making my voice too loud. I close my eyes to reset. “I know,” I say again, quieter and more controlled this time. “But we all know what his wrath is like—it’s not difficult for any of us to imagine what he did to her. She needs the flower to be powerful enough to help Alia.”

“No, no, no,” Ola says, emphatic. “We need to tell Father. If we go behind his back, it will only be worse for us.” She rises from the bed and heads for the door that leads from our chambers into the family wing.

“No!” I snap, jumping from bed and physically cutting her off. “We can’t tell him. He’s already assaulted the witch. If he finds out that she’s willing to help us and not him, he won’t be pleased.”

“Are you kidding?” Ola says, crossing her arms over her chest, one brow cocked. Her voice is still too loud. “He’ll reward us.”

Eydis sweeps forward and places her hands on either side of our sister’s cheeks, forcing Ola to look her in the eye. “Ola, the last thing Father is interested in is positive reinforcement. He’s not going to start now.”

Ola doesn’t answer her, looking to me instead. “How do you know he assaulted her? How do you know she’s not lying? We all know the tales—she’s powerful enough to ruin the sea as soon as save it. Why would she rescue Alia after sending her to her death? Maybe she just wants ríkifjor to become more powerful. She nearly destroyed us once. What could she do with the power of those flowers?”

All of it could be true. But we have to try.

I believed the witch when she said that Father stormed in, angry that he couldn’t get Alia back himself. That seems exactly like something he would do—our whole lives he’s been paranoid, what with the disaster that almost befell us with Annemette. The ríkifjor augments his power, which makes him feel more in control, but it also makes him volatile. He’s not the king he was the first hundred years of his reign.

“Ola, you have to trust me,” I say. “I met the witch, and I believe her. I have to try.”

“I want to try with you,” Eydis says. “Signy?”

Behind us, she nods. Then all our eyes turn to Ola. She shoves a stray curl behind her ear. “Fine.”

Eydis looks to me. “What’s the plan, Ru?”

“To get the flowers, I need to go alone. The four of us can’t travel in a pack through the castle. Even in the dead of night—Father will sense it.”

The three of them nod as one. Then Eydis speaks. “Signy and Ola will come with me. The ríkifjor will buy us the witch’s strength, but it won’t get us the antidote. She’ll want more.” Eydis says this with certainty. At nineteen, she believes she knows more than all of us combined, and maybe she does. She touches their shoulders. “Together we will meet the sea witch’s price—there’s always a price for these things.”

Then she looks to me. “How did Alia pay?”

“With her voice and most likely her life.”

“Not if we can help it,” Eydis says, and checks the night clock’s swirling dial in our shared chambers. A quarter till midnight. “Let’s get going. Meet us by the canyon in an hour, Ru, and we’ll go with you to wake the witch. Alia can’t wait much longer.”

“The canyon?” I ask. It’s a strange place for a meeting, this crag that runs across the strait like an old wound, cool reams of water whispering from its depths. It’s also in the opposite direction from the sea witch’s murky lair.

My oldest sister nods, the ends of her diamond-dusted hair sparkling like the snow the winter brings above. “By the red coral. You know the one that looks like a hammerhead on a pike?”

“Yes, I know the one, but why—?”

“Because that’s where I keep what the witch will want. Where do you think I get my diamond dust from? I have a treasure trove, Ru.” I always figured Father gave her the dust she loves so much, eager to marry off the next in his brood, what with all the suitors Eydis sees on a regular basis. A shiny prize for the king’s second-wave eldest. “My diamonds and pearls can be replaced. If the witch demands a payment for Urda, she can have my treasures, but no one is taking my voice.”

The family gardens ring the grounds, a patch for each of the sisters from the king’s two wives—Queen Mette, gone in the tide long ago, and Queen Bodil, my mother, who’s young enough to be the same age as our older half sisters. My patch sweeps the long way around the royal chambers, where Father and Mother’s patio bleeds into the soft turquoise sand. It’s the largest garden, the final connection in the ring, swinging around for the ten sisters like a short-handed clock.

My garden is nearly all ríkifjor now, blanketing the sands in their ghostly way. The only other flowers are roses with exaggerated points edging the borders, sharp enough to scare away any curious fingers on sight alone. The guards are there, even in the dead of night, planted three around, spaced like slices of pie. The public believes the security is because of the garden’s proximity to the royal chambers, and that is a very good cover story indeed.

I stick to any shadow I can find, careful not to draw the guards’ attention, and careful to not to disturb the aura of magic surrounding the ríkifjor—an extra security measure. My heart thuds tightly in my chest, and my swim stroke falters for just a moment.

There are so many ways my plan could crumble. The guards. The magic. The possibility that I don’t know Alia as well as I think I do. Still, I push forward. Shadow to shadow, I wind my way through the serpentine layout of garden plots, thankful when I arrive at the edge of Alia’s garden.

Though I’ve seen it a million times, my heart drops at the life there. So much life, in every color: ruby red, yellow as bright as the spring sun above, velvet purple, cloud-white. All as shiny as a new day, they’re every bit as bright as she is. As romantic as she is. As full of hope and promise and sunshine as she is.

They’ll die without her. If not now, soon.

There, in the middle of it all is the massive statue she acquired after rescuing the boy this summer. Like his father, brothers, and the rest of the ship, it sank to the sea floor and lodged itself in the sand. Until a day later when she returned to the scene of it all and wedged it out, using the very limits of her magic to move the thing all the way from the wreck site to this garden.

The statue is as bold as the fact that she brought it here, thumbing her nose at what anyone thought—even Father, who likely only allowed it because it shows exactly how ridiculous the Øldenburgs are. The statue was meant to make a statement on land—Look at this would-be king! Standing tall on a ship’s prow, one foot hiked up as he looks out, eyes searching for new lands to pillage!—and it does so here as well. It’s a trumpet-blast declaration of what Alia did.

I slink into the shadow of the statue and look up at him.

“I hate you,” I whisper to his stupid, handsome face.

The statue stonily accepts my words, but there’s so much more I want to say to him. That he’s already broken my sister’s heart and he’s nearly broken mine, which is hanging on by the thread that I can save her with these seeds and the sea witch’s help. That he doesn’t know how lucky he is that Alia was already in love with him when she rescued him or he’d be bones like his father and brothers—one more Øldenburg fed to the sea.

That he never deserved her and never will.

Looking around just to confirm yet again that I’m indeed alone, I crouch below the statue and dig, the crux of my plan hinging on the next few moments.

Although Alia could cultivate the most gorgeous blooms, they weren’t what she really wanted to grow. Not once she realized Father’s penchant for ríkifjor. And so I gave her a chance to try, squirreling away seeds for her to plant. Yet, as I had suspected, nothing ever came of them. I only hope she’s left the remainder where she hid them for safekeeping.

It takes several handfuls of soil pushed to the side before I feel the heat of them like the dull burn of the sun’s rays at the surface, warm but distant. Suddenly, my fingers seem to know exactly where to go, and they should—they handle the magic of the ríkifjor every day. Before breakfast each morning, I tend the garden and pull the plants for Father’s daily use—a shot of nectar before he begins his day. It’s the only reason I was able to get above this morning—I’d prepared the ríkifjor before leaving.

Relief washes over me as the warmth of the seeds grows stronger, my fingers burning to reach them. They’re here.

My sister’s heart holds on to everything too long—love, dreams, hope, and things, lots of them. Her trunks are stuffed full of items, found, bought, or otherwise loved. I knew, as sure the sand in the soil, that she kept the seeds I gave her. Just like I knew where she’d be. What she’d done.

My fingernails scrape canvas. I tug at it and sand spills out, dribbling over the base of the statue, which, of course, has his whole ridiculous name and previous title on it: Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Øldenburg V. And there in my hand is more than what I need. I release the strings of the sack and peek inside. Another sigh of relief shakes my body. She kept almost fifty dormant ríkifjor seeds.

Thank Urda.

Although Alia always played an excellent damsel in the castle moon plays, for once this damsel may not need her king after all. “You very well may have just rescued yourself, Alia,” I whisper to the seeds.

“So Alia does need rescuing, then.”

I nearly drop the bag and whirl around at the sound of another voice. I’d been sure I was alone, but there, right in front of me, is Oma Ragn—Queen Mother Ragnhildr—my grandmother. The woman who taught me everything I know while singing sailor shanties about mermaids and their vengeance.

Her smile is quick and conspiratorial as she swims forward. These days, her eyes are a blue so crystal clear they’re nearly as white as her hair, but she never misses a thing. Not when it comes to her son, not when it comes to me, not when it comes to anything.

“Believe me, darling Runa, if your father can sense she’s left the water without even checking her bed, I know it too. When magic leaves the water, those of us who’ve been here long enough feel it.” She says it all like she’s seen what I’ve seen above—Alia, the boy, her hopeless chance. Then her eyes flicker to the bag. “Is this how you plan to get her back?”

She doesn’t have to open the bag to know what’s in my hand. Oma Ragn was the one who started me off planting ríkifjor. She can sense the seeds’ power just as well as I. The only one better is Father and that’s because he has so much of it running through his veins, he’d likely fall over dead without it.

I wouldn’t lie to Oma Ragn, and there’s no use in it anyway. Not with her. “To get Alia the antidote, I need to bring these to the sea witch.”

“I should’ve guessed that old squid would be behind this,” she says with a tart turn to her mouth. Oma Ragn is two hundred years old and counting, and that time has only served to make her more direct. “She was powerful enough to perform the changing spell but isn’t powerful enough to get her back without the ríkifjor?”

Her voice is too loud, and I glance around, looking to every corner and around the overdeveloped thighs of the massive statue.

Oma chuckles, her voice almost louder when she speaks again. “Ru, calm yourself. I’ve distracted the guards.”

She says this with such cool confidence. It reminds me of how she used to promise to spell away all the monsters in our dreams if they should appear in daylight. I can still see me and Alia standing at her bedside in the dead of night, nightmares fresh behind our eyes. She’d pull us close, and once our hearts had calmed, she’d sing three stanzas of “The Mermaid’s Revenge” to send us back to sleep.

But no song is going to ease my nerves now. “Not exactly,” I say, answering her question. Oma Ragn is critical of Father in ways no one else can be—especially in the years since Annemette’s change—but I’m not about to offer up what the witch said he did to her. “Oma, I have to go. Please don’t say anything to Father. I’ll get Alia back.”

“I won’t and you will.” Oma Ragn shoos me with a wave of her long fingers. “Go. Visit the witch. I’ll be in my bed, praying to Urda that she doesn’t turn you into a talking crab.”

Despite myself, I smile. Oma Ragn has a way of bringing humor to even the direst situation. “If she turns me into a talking crab, do me a favor and make sure she changes me back before Father tries to fillet her for it. We need her to get Alia home.”

Oma allows me a quick grin that reaches the tide-break white of her eyes. “It’s a deal, Ru.” She makes a move to return to her quarters, or maybe to the route of whatever midnight swim she was on when she found me, but then she stops and wraps my wrist in her knotted fingers. “Good luck, my dear. You and your sister will need it for all to turn out right.”

I press a quick kiss to her cheek and leave, seed bag in hand, for the witch’s lair.

6

Runa

“YOU CAME HERE alone?” EYDIS ASKS, A HEAVY NOTE OF big-sister protectiveness ringing out as the first strange trees surrounding the sea witch’s lair come into view.

I don’t blame her—it’s the last place any of us would ever willingly go.

“Yes,” I say, adjusting my grip on the bag in my hand—inside is Eydis’s stash of shipwreck jewels, and it’s heavy enough that both of us are carrying it. “Alia went in alone. I owed it to her to do the same.”

Actually, I was just so angry that I didn’t have the capacity to worry about swimming straight into an ancient Viking horror story.

“Is it just her in there?” Ola asks, nerves shaking her usually confident voice.

Signy rolls her eyes. “Of course it is. Didn’t you ever listen to Oma’s stories? Witches like that always live alone.”

“Ladies,” Eydis snaps, half whirling around, and my hold on the bag slips as she wrenches me with it. “It doesn’t matter if she’s lonely or popular; all that matters is that she gives us the antidote. For all the poundage in this thing”—she hoists up her end of the bag for a moment—“she can buy herself some friends.”

That shuts up everyone, all our energy focused on making it through the trees. As we draw closer, the anxiety that’s been swirling within me all day lessens and is replaced by a shifting tide of confidence. We’re here. We’re going to get what we want. We’re going to make this happen.

I speed up, swimming into the expanse of pewter sand that surrounds the witch’s lair. Gamely, Eydis increases her pace to match mine, determination set in her face. We haven’t worked it out, but I’m the one who will be doing the talking.

Despite my middle sisters’ loud jabber, the sea witch doesn’t greet us immediately when we arrive. My blood pressure spikes when I realize she’s not waiting on pins and needles, antidote in hand as she should be. This is her mess. This is our fight for the life she put at stake. She should at least have the heart to show up.

I hand Eydis my corner of the bounty and move in front of my sisters. Signy and Ola move in line with Eydis.

“Sea Witch,” I start, and my voice is clear of any trembling, that confidence that rose in my belly setting the tone. I am the baby of the family, but I’m not to be taken lightly. The sea witch will learn that too. “I’ve returned with the ríkifjor. I’ve brought my sisters as well. The antidote, please, and we’ll be on our way.”

There’s movement at the mouth of the cave, and behind me, my sisters stiffen.

But I’m not scared of the old squid.

My sisters may grow tense as she wakes, but I grow stronger, arms crossed—not protectively but with malice—my body one unwavering line, jaw cut.

The witch appears, slinking from her cave, tentacles a giant plume of liquid onyx. Her face is placid, and I know my sisters are immediately fascinated by her appearance—Eydis, her bare-moon complexion; Ola, her dramatic curls; Signy, the whole steely spectrum of her—because it’s true: she’s striking.

“Little Runa, where are your flowers?” the witch asks.