Page 5

5

Kai

W here was I? And why did my throat feel like it was stuffed with sand? I shifted and— whoa . Okay, nope. No more moving for me.

My bones hurt . And not like they had when my legs first formed on land. That discomfort had been brief, but this was a pain that started deep in my spine, radiating down my?—

“My back,” I croaked, but my throat and lips were both so dry, barely more than a raspy breath came out. I could still feel the sting where metal tips had lodged in my spine. How had I forgotten that a cecaelia had driven a pole into my back? They’d aimed their weapon at Claira, tossing it through the rocks at an alarming speed. I was beyond grateful my tail proved fast enough to move me over her in time.

I’d felt the blow of the piercing metal, but it had been Claira’s eyes, wide with heart-wrenching terror as I wrapped around her, that had told me the wound would be fatal.

But I wasn’t afraid. Not of pain or my own death. Now that I’d lost Freechia, I knew what death meant, and I would rather die than live through losing someone again. Honestly, I was more afraid of the look Claira had on her face right before she’d let go of me than anything else. Like she’d somehow felt the same stab of metal that had pierced me, too. Like maybe she would carry that wound, that hurt, long after I was gone, just as I carried the pain of losing my sister. So although I felt my heart slowing, my arms numbing, I’d smiled for her. So she would know I had no regrets.

… So this was the end, huh? I had to admit, dying wasn’t quite what I’d expected.

If the stories were true, I should have been living my death up right now, swirling in the great eternal sea. But I wasn’t, was I? My eyes ached as I stared at the long stretch of gray before me. Man, was it wrong that I’d expected a little more fanfare? Where was the welcome party for newly departed souls? And this sure didn’t feel like the sea. My body was too stiff, my legs too dry.

Wait, legs? I tried to move them, but they were so achy that I settled for wiggling my toes instead.

Dude, this definitely wasn’t the sea. Did that mean Poseidon’s Deep was just a myth? Gosh, I’d wasted so much time reading over the glyphs in the ruins that depicted how the afterlife would be. The grand party, the singing, the games . Okay, maybe the ruins hadn’t explicitly mentioned games in their sacred scripts, but what kind of party would it be without them?

I stared some more at the big, gray void. So… there wasn’t going to be a party. But why this gray void, why these human legs? Could it be that our magic was only ever borrowed from Poseidon and in the end, the afterlife saw us as human?

My lips cracked and stung as I broke into a smile. Being treated like a human… That was a nice thought.

Sure, humans didn’t have magic, but I’d gladly give up my magic to be able to actually feel what humans felt. Humans had warmth. They had freedom. How many times had I disobeyed my father’s orders and watched them at a distance, wishing I could join their carefree lives on land?

If death treated us like humans, then I’d have loved to see my father’s face when his time came. There wasn’t much he hated more—except maybe upholding the Pacific’s timeworn treaties with the Atlantic—so he never let us go on land. But that hadn’t stopped me from hoping to one day walk on legs.

In the end, was I truly a human all along? I wiggled my toes again.

I hadn’t told anyone about my dream of walking on land. No Pacific mer could ever set tail on dry sand, and although it wasn’t a Law of the Ocean, my father had made it a law in his ocean, and he had ways of making sure we obeyed it. Then the curse happened, and I’d gotten my heart’s wish. But it came at a price I would have never willingly paid had I known what the freedom to walk on legs would cost me.

Freechia .

If she was in the afterlife, too, then maybe I could finally see her again. I could tell her how sorry I was for not finding her sooner and how I should have been smarter. Done more to protect her.

The bones in my neck pulsed with pain as I shook my head, choking back my emotions. Darn it, was death supposed to hurt?

A warm puff of air tickled my cheek, distracting me from my thoughts. I turned my head to the warmth of more steady breaths fanning over my face. Someone was beside me?

Waves of hair flowed like a cascade of water next to me—wild, unruly hair that desperately needed to be combed and styled—and my chest ached like my heart had been gripped and squeezed. Could she really be here?

“Freechia?” I went to reach out to her, but something was wrapped over my hand, holding it and my arm down. I flexed my fingers and found warm, delicate fingers woven in between them. Whoa, this wasn’t Freechia. The grip of the hand holding mine tightened, giving me a squeeze, and my entire arm went rigid underneath it.

I ignored the pain in my back and shifted onto my side. Using my free hand, I brushed a wave of hair back so I could see the face hidden underneath it.

“Claira?” I gasped. No—she couldn’t be here with me. She couldn’t be dead .

I’d made it over her in time to take the blow. Barren and Leander would have taken her back to land. It was the last thing I remembered them doing before I’d shut my eyes. Unless?—

Had the metal pierced me all the way through and made it to her?

I clutched at my chest, then down my stomach, checking for exit wounds. There were no holes, but my belly plunged when I realized there were neither ocean silks nor a human shirt covering my skin. Were there no clothes in the afterlife? My eyes jumped up to Claira.

At least she had on a shirt—a familiar one I’d picked out because the buttons looked like someone had carved them from a nautilus shell.

Wait—she was wearing my shirt?

I moved closer, fascinated. It hung from her shoulder, nearly falling off her, the top two buttons carelessly left undone. Shadows did little to hide the smooth skin of her collarbone, and my hard swallow at the sight was like attempting to force down sea glass.

Her chest lifted with each breath. A gentle inhale, then exhale. It was the most beautiful vision I’d ever seen.

A blanket sloped over her hips. I wondered why she’d decided to curl up next to me, her hand tangled up with mine. Then I recognized the crisp feel of the blanket and realized where we were. But how had I made it back to my rented bedchamber?

I brushed more of Claira’s hair back to get a better look at her face. The room was so quiet, it almost felt like we were the only two souls left in the world. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so at peace. Was this some final sweet dream before death, or was Claira really sleeping next to me?

Her eyebrows tensed, and I found myself stroking the edge of my thumb over her bottom lip. She was so close. Too close, and yet, somehow, it wasn’t enough.

My thumb froze over her lip.

It wasn’t enough? What was wrong with me? What more could anyone want than this? Gosh, even though I wasn’t wearing a shirt, my body had grown so hot.

I didn’t know why, but I suddenly wished she was awake. “Claira?” I didn’t want this to just be a dream. I wanted this to be real . “Claira?” I repeated, then held my breath as I waited to see if her eyelashes would flutter open.

Then they did, and here I was, holding my breath some more.

Blinking awake, her eyes focused on me. As she stared, her eyebrows furrowed like she wasn’t sure where she was or what to think of me being next to her, either. Then her mouth eased open, but before she’d even gotten one word out, tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “You’re… you’re awake.”

She was crying? “Hey, hey—it’s okay,” I whispered, my voice straining as I drew an arm around her shoulder. I wasn’t sure of the best way to comfort her, so I squeezed her hand like she’d done to mine, hoping it would help. A tear spilled over, and I brushed it away with the back of my fingers before it could make it down her cheek. “I’m okay. I’m awake now, see?”

“But you weren’t okay, Kai. You—you almost died .” She sat up, studying me like she was trying to decide for herself if I truly was okay. Only, the longer her eyes were on me, the more my skin heated. Our stare was broken when she suddenly gasped. “A shirt! I should get you a shirt!”

That’s right—my chest was totally bare. Reflexes had me going for the blanket, but I stopped myself before I’d pulled it halfway up my chest.

It was weird, but I… I didn’t want her to get me a shirt.

But what did I want? For her to keep looking at me?

A flush of heat moved down my face and neck. That was exactly what I wanted. Gosh, something must have been really wrong with my head.

“No, that’s—that’s okay,” I said. She’d mentioned once before that she wouldn’t mind looking at my chest. The thought was mortifying—I wasn’t built like Leander or Barren—but maybe… maybe she would still like what she saw. Summoning my courage, I squared my shoulders and drew the blanket back down to my waist until cool air beat against the burning skin of my chest, down to my hips. “It’s kind of hot in here, don’t you think?” I asked, nervous. I was about to give her a smile when she shot off the bed.

“It’s pretty hot in here, yeah,” she said, hurrying over to the counter. “So water? Uh, that sounds good when you’re hot, right?” She turned her head over her shoulder to glance at me for only a split second, but then focused back on her task as she cleared her throat. “I’ll get us some water.”

Plastic rustled as she crouched behind the counter, and my heart sank. Had my bare chest really made her so uncomfortable?

I waited for her to pop back up, a bottle of water in each hand, before asking, “Did I do something wrong?” I reached for the blanket, but hesitated before pulling it up. “Do you… not like what you see?”

One of the bottles dropped straight from her hand and hit the floor with a loud thunk . “No—I, uh—I mean, I do like it,” she stammered, looking like I’d somehow cornered her from all the way across the room. “It’s a very nice erection.”