Page 18 of The Merman’s Betrothal (Outcast Hearts #2)

Rory followed Fionn out into the drizzle and climbed over the rail until he was hanging off the side of the Star with only the Minch beneath him. Fionn dropped in first, not even registering a gasp as he entered the freezing water. He held out his arms and beckoned for Rory to follow.

Rory’s instincts froze. All at once he recalled old stories about mermaids luring sailors to their deaths and for a foggy instant wondered if Fionn had been playing a very long game. The waves sloshed below, dark and unwelcoming.

‘I will not let go of you,’ Fionn called up to him. His eyes were as grey as the clouds overhead, but bright with sincerity.

Rory sucked in a deep breath and jumped from the Star .

* * *

Crushing, swirling, roaring water. Eyes squeezed tight. Lungs straining.

Fionn’s arms cinched across his back. Head tucked under a strong chin, skin warmed through by the heat of Fionn’s body. And an other-worldly, water-muffled melody that seemed to carry him as much as the water.

Rory counted the seconds in his head. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two—

He was thrown upward, face hitting sky. The splash from the choppy waves was somehow worse than having his whole head underwater, but Rory gulped down a relieved breath anyway.

Fionn clung onto him, keeping him from being ripped toward the jagged shoreline.

Sharp rocks peeked out of the roiling surf, leading to a sheer cliff face ahead.

‘You did very well,’ Fionn remarked, studying him. ‘Even strong Minchmen often throw up during their first time riding the currents.’

Rory was glad he was already quite red from holding his breath for so long. He didn’t like the way his body reacted to compliments from Fionn. ‘What the hell was that?’

It felt like he’d just been shot like a bullet through an underwater tunnel.

‘I can sing the ocean to speed us on our way,’ Fionn said as though it were simple. ‘It is a skill that requires years of practice to feel where the currents are most pliable. But, of course, I have mastered it.’

‘Of course you have.’ Rory scanned the imposing wall of land. He was treading water, but kept one arm hooked on Fionn. ‘Where do we go from here?’

Rory jolted as slippery fur grazed his arm, and then relaxed as Acha’s nose poked out of the water next to him. He dared to hold out a palm in greeting. She nuzzled into it briefly, her long whiskers tickling his wrist.

Then, as quick as she’d appeared, she deftly twisted away and skimmed under the water towards the shore.

‘Hold onto me,’ Fionn instructed, and Rory found himself obeying the sureness of his voice. Despite Rory’s weight Fionn swam easily while following Acha’s path around the jutting rocks.

If Rory had been given a moment to think critically, beyond his fixation with the feeling of Fionn’s skin against his fingertips, he might have noticed that he wasn’t even slightly cold. His body itched a little, but otherwise the ought-to-be-freezing sea was an oddly comfortable temperature.

After navigating around an outcrop of stone, a narrow sliver of beach became visible at the foot of the cliffs. Rory could just make out a heap of something lying in the dark sand.

Swimming in Acha’s wake, they hit the shallows cautiously.

Rory kept hold of Fionn’s arm for support while wading onto the beach.

The surf was thick with seaweed and… detritus.

Silver crisp packets and orange bottle tops and scraps of blue mesh.

The waves foamed yellow with a sour smell as they rolled over the sand.

How sick, Rory thought, that even a place as wild and uninhabited as this stretch of brutal shoreline wasn’t left untouched by human rubbish.

Likely some combination of currents and weather patterns had brought it all here; this little beach had simply drawn the bullet in a game of environmental roulette.

There was even more scattered over the sand where the tide had retreated. The thing they were walking towards looked like a giant heap of rubbish until Rory looked more closely.

‘No,’ he gasped

By his side, Fionn muttered in agreement. ‘She is a sorry sight, indeed.’

Collapsed under the weight of garbage wrapped around her limbs, a giant leatherback sea turtle lay stranded at the foot of the cliffs.

Under different circumstances, Rory would have marvelled at her.

If he’d lain down next to her, he was sure she’d nearly match his height.

Her body, what could be seen of it, was a dark slate-grey, dotted with white speckles that were more pronounced over her rounded face.

The turtle opened her eyes, two shining beads of ebony that drooped with fatigue as she tried to look back at Rory.

He knelt by her side. Instinctively began to pat down the debris she was caught in.

It was such a mess. Some fishing net here.

Twists of indistinguishable plastic there.

Fluttering white carrier bags and rags of cloth.

It was all matted and tangled, choking three of her flippers and forming a massive hump over her carapace.

‘This must have been collecting for ages,’ Rory said, searching for a place to start unravelling. He hadn’t brought any tools. There was a pocket knife on the boat. He could really use something sharp…

‘Try this.’ Fionn crouched next to him and passed over a polished clam shell. A knife, like the one he’d gifted Rory.

‘Thanks.’

Fionn pulled another item out of his harness, a leaf shaped cutting stone that put Rory in mind of Neolithic tools. Together, they worked in silence to slice away the detritus.

The leatherback grunted occasionally, flinching when they accidentally caused a cord to strangle her more tightly, and also when it finally released, freeing a flipper with a trickle of bright red blood from the lacerations it had left in her flesh.

It was painstaking work. Acha watched from a nearby rock, sensibly avoiding the polluted surf. The drizzling rain cleared up and pale sunlight soon penetrated the hanging clouds. When Rory realised he was feeling thirsty, he recognised the leatherback must be suffering even more.

‘We need to work faster,’ he said, moving around to the other side of her body. ‘She’ll dehydrate if she’s here for too long.’

‘I know,’ Fionn answered quietly. He hadn’t looked up once from his work, but now he did in order to fix Rory with a calm stare. ‘She will be all right, Rory. I promise.’

Rory found himself trying to speak around a lump in his throat. ‘She’s fucking torn to shreds.’

‘She will be looked after once she is in the water. I shall arrange an escort.’

Rory shook his head, forcing out an incredulous laugh simply to hide the tears in his eyes. ‘You can do that? Perks of being a prince. You really ought to put an end to all of us, you know.’

The last part just slipped out, dark and bitter. He’d been thinking it the whole time. How disgusting humans were. How careless. How fucking worthless, just like him.

Without warning, Fionn’s hand shot out to grasp Rory’s. His voice was low and intense. ‘This is not your fault, Rory.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Rory blinked back grief and fury.

‘What have I done to stop this? I can recycle and buy my fruit without packaging and treasure my stupid fucking bag for life all I want, but deep down we all know it’s a scam.

I still throw my rubbish in the bin like everyone else.

I still eat instant meals and fish that have been caught fucking oceans away.

I still throw carbon into the air like its fucking confetti. ’

From the confused and vaguely distressed look on Fionn’s face, he knew the merman was struggling to keep up. Even Rory wasn’t sure where his rant was going, but he continued anyway, letting the words and the anger pour out of him like poison from a wound.

‘No, I’m out here talking about sustainable lobster populations as if that’ll do shit for the wider ocean climate. This turtle shouldn’t even be here. She should be out in the Atlantic—’

‘They come here for the jellyfish,’ Fionn tried to interject.

‘It’s not jellyfish season until the summer,’ Rory railed back.

‘It shouldn’t be warm enough yet, but it is!

I’ll bet she’s been fooled into coming here early.

Marine temperatures are fucked . The whole ecosystem’s in danger of collapsing.

The ecosystem that humans rely on, by the way—not that you’d know it, by the way we treat it!

And here I am wasting my time laying creels just so an old man doesn’t look at me like I’m worth even less than what he already sees… ’

He came to a stuttering stop, drawing in a deep breath.

It’s him, Rory thought, trying not to look Fionn in the eye. It’s being alone with him between the sky and the waves. It opens me somehow.

‘We should get back to work,’ he said.

Wisely, Fionn didn’t argue. But after letting a few minutes of silence pass, he did say, ‘I feel I can perhaps relate to your sense of needing to do more. That there are more important duties out there than the one I find ascribed to me.’

Fuck. Rory wasn’t in the mood to have some kind of touchy-feely talk. Definitely nothing that threatened to bring his dad into the conversation. So he just nodded and kept his eyes down.

Within the next hour, they finished extricating the exhausted turtle. Her carapace was criss-crossed with cuts and abrasions from the garbage. Rory hoped she would survive the trauma. Shock could be just as dangerous to her as any snarled fishing nets.

He wondered how they would get her back into the ocean. He guessed she must weigh at least half a ton.

To Fionn, this was a non-issue. He slid his arms underneath the turtle and then—admittedly with a grunt of effort—simply picked her up.

Rory tried not to gawk as he watched Fionn wade into the waves with his precious cargo. A few moments later he returned for Rory.

‘Acha will stay with her until I return,’ Fionn told him. ‘Now I will take you back to your boat.’