Page 39

Chapter Thirty-Four

MER

Mer snapped the book shut and set the heavy medical tome on the table. She rested her elbows on the desk and massaged her temples. “There has to be something more.”

“There isn’t,” Joiakim answered gravely, running a hand through his long pale lavender hair. His gaze flicked to the books scattered across the table in front of Mer. “Do you really think those human texts are going to offer us any help?”

Mer ran her left hand over the weathered cover of the nearest book. Levay had sent it to them in the hopes it might help. It hadn’t but Mer was looking for a clue. They were all desperate.

“Perhaps the Methians missed something,” she mused.

Joiakim tossed his head, his face a mask of annoyance. “After thirty years of searching for a cure, I doubt it.” She narrowed her gaze at his snotty tone. He flinched and immediately dropped his head in apology. “Excuse me for speaking so informally, my queen.”

Mer waved a hand at him before pushing back the old rickety chair and getting to her feet.

Everything about the village council room was old but clean.

She sighed, running a hand down her face.

The loss of life was getting to them all.

While the Sirenidae were masters at healing, their people hadn’t suffered a deadly sickness in hundreds of years.

“We’re all under a tremendous amount of pressure,” she said softly, glancing at the other three Sirenidae healers.

“We need to think outside the box.” Mer rested her palms on the table, eyes burning from the lack of sleep.

“Yes, the Mirror Plague has been around for three decades, but the new strain started here in the village. What does that tell you?”

Avalon, the youngest of the Sirenidae, twirled a piece of coral hair around her finger, biting her bottom lip. “That it mutated here. Something about this village changed the sickness.”

“But what?” Reef cut in. He pushed away from the doorway and crossed his arms, standing next to his younger sister.

The siblings could have been twins from their coloring.

No one would know that there was over twenty years difference between the brother and sister.

“From my inquiries, nothing has changed in this village. Their food and water sources have been checked and nothing seems to be contaminated.” He grimaced.

“I swam as far as I could in the ocean before my body gave out. No pollutants ever filtered through my gills.”

“I agree that it’s not the water. I’ve noticed the same things in my swims,” Mer added.

Silence greeted her statement and she lifted her gaze to Alanis who seemed to speak loudly while saying nothing at all. The woman’s jaw was clenched tight and her eyes seemed to burn.

“Do you have something to add?” Mer drawled, uncoiling to her full height.

By law Mer shouldn’t be entering the ocean at all. She was a banished one, fated to be parted from the loving embrace of the sea.

Alanis unclenched her jaw and spoke. “If you wish for frankness, I will give it to you. I hate that you were branded as a traitor. You are a hero to our people.”

Mer’s jaw dropped. That was not what she was expecting from the gruff healer. “You are not upset that I’m disobeying the sea king?”

Alanis snorted. “No, my queen. I’m old enough to know when an old man’s pride is wounded and he’s taking his frustration out on everyone else.

” Avalon gasped but the older healer ignored it.

“From my point of view, you’ve always tried to help others to the best of your ability. You should not be punished for that.”

Mer’s eyes were suspiciously hot. “Thank you for your honesty,” she choked out.

Avalon dropped the lock of hair she fiddled with and gave Mer a blinding smile—one that spoke of hope and innocence. Had Mer ever looked like that? Had she ever been that innocent?

The answer scared her.

“We love you, my lady,” Avalon said brightly.

Mer smiled back at the sweet healer. They needed more Avalon’s in the world.

Slapping a hand against the table, Mer resumed her pacing, determined as ever to get to the bottom of their conundrum. She wasn’t a healer but she was very good at figuring out problems. Mer laced her fingers behind her back. What were they missing?

“The village is dwindling day by day,” Joiakim said. “We must find a cure now or we will all die… just like Pearl.”

Avalon sucked in a sharp breath and Reef wrapped an arm around his sister’s slim shoulders.

Alanis teetered her head back and forth. “Have any of you noticed how the disease transmutes?”

Mer paused her pacing and focused on the oldest healer. “What do you mean? It’s spread through the air, right?”

“Perhaps, but I know for a fact that a young girl coughed right into Reef’s face three days ago. There was blood and mucus. It got into his mouth too because he was not wearing a face covering.” She squinted at the male.

Reef winced. “A mistake I will not be making again.”

“But that’s my point,” Alanis said. “That was over three days ago and yet you are still showing no symptoms.”

“I assumed it was because my immune system is better than others.”

Alanis walked to the table, messing with a corner of one of the books, brows furrowed in deep thought. “Right. We’ve been operating under that assumption, but what if it was something different?”

Joiakim arched a brow and yanked out a chair. “Like what?” he asked tiredly, sitting down.

“Like the fact it’s not passed through the air or through blood and mucus.” Joiakim scoffed at Alanis, but she continued, undeterred. “Most diseases are, but what if it’s not a disease.”

Mer blinked slowly, trying to follow the conversation. “What do you mean it’s not a disease? We’re watching people get sick and die daily.”

Alanis nodded, her gaze sharp. “True, it’s spreading, but not how it should if it was a disease.”

Reef bounced from foot to foot, rubbing his chin. “So you’re proposing the Mirror Plague isn’t a disease and this isn’t a new strain? That seems hard to believe since it’s been plaguing their kingdom for over thirty years!”

“Exactly,” Alana said. “ Thirty years. That is a long time for an illness to stay trapped in Methi. Sickness has a way of spreading no matter how careful a person is. But consider this, Methi has managed it for three decades. Merchants have had to come in and out and yet most have not contracted the plague nor spread it to the other five kingdoms. Something isn’t adding up. ”

“So, what are you saying?” Joiakim asked, glancing out the open door toward the pyres.

“That something else is going on.”

Mer studied the older healer, running her mind over what Alanis had said. The impossibility of keeping the disease contained. How the disease spread from person to person. The fact that none of their herbs were helping whatsoever. If it wasn’t a disease, what was the culprit?

Avalon gasped, her eyes growing wide. Her attention snapped to Alanis. “Surely you don’t mean…” she trailed off.

The older healer nodded her head once. “It fits the symptoms.”

“Please share with the rest of us,” Joiakim grouched. “We must get back to caring for the people.”

“Poison,” Avalon whispered.

Poison.

It was a far-fetched idea.

“Do you even hear yourself?” Joiakim snapped.

Mer leaned heavily against the bookcase behind her and stared at the four Sirenidae as they all turned over Alanis’s idea.

“Poisoning a whole kingdom?” Mer shook her head. “How would that even work? A shared water source?”

Reef shook his head no. “We’ve tested the water sources all around the village. There’s nothing in them.”

“That you can find,” Avalon said softly. “Not all poisons are detectable.” She pursed her lips. “The plague doesn’t present like any poison I know.”

“For that I’m glad,” Alanis said to the younger healer. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you come across things you wish you could wipe from your mind. Poisons aren’t straightforward. They present in different ways.”

Mer caught movement to her left and she spotted Coven—the skittery young woman who always seemed to be helping with odd jobs around the village. The girl’s hat was just barely visible above the frame of the open window.

Odd. What was she doing out there? Was there word from Isla?

Perhaps she didn’t want to disturb them.

Maybe the young woman was curious about what they spoke about, but why hide? It wasn’t as if what they were speaking about was a secret.

She’s shy. Stop being so suspicious.

“Okay.” Reef held his hands up. “Let’s say for argument’s sake that it is a poison. If it isn’t in the water source, then what do the people have in common across the kingdom?”

“A food source? Maybe a household item?” Mer offered, dismissing the girl.

Joiakim sighed. “I’ll play your game.” He laced his fingers and rested them on his chest. “Surely if it was poison the Methians would have discovered it.”

“Not if it came from the ocean,” Mer said, the damning words falling from her lips.

The room fell silent and tension filled the air.

“Are you suggesting that our king has been poisoning the Methians for over the last thirty years?” Joiakim hissed. “It’s treason to even think such things, let alone speak them aloud.”

“No, my grandfather does not care for the lives of land dwellers. He never has and he never will. Methi has basically been cut off from the five kingdoms for the last thirty years. Aermia struggles with disease and civil war. Nagali is a wasteland full of minstrels and pirates. Scythia has been consumed with lust for power. But none of the other kingdoms have been able to penetrate the security of Methi’s borders. ”

“What of ships?” Joiakim asked.

“They would have been noticed.”

“Scythia could have done this,” Alanis darkly muttered. “Their depravity knows no bounds.”

“But as you said, this is a new strain,” Mer pointed out. “Blaise is now queen. From what I’ve heard, she has an iron control over her court.”

“And yet…” Joiakim sighed. “It’s easy to plot behind a ruler’s back. Haven’t you successfully done so yourself?”

Mer swallowed down her retort. The healer had been close to Pearl and was taking out his grief on everyone around him.

She could extend some grace to him. “True, but it wouldn’t be an easy thing.

A year hasn’t even passed since the Warlord’s War.

Everyone is still walking on pins and needles.

I don’t think someone would do this now. ”

“We’ve cleared everyone,” Avalon said. “That leaves no one and we’re back to a disease.”

“But what if it did come from the sea?” Mer said softly, as she moved to the table and pushed around the books until she found the one she was looking for.

She stabbed a finger at the myth about sea demons she’d found.

“I heard a bard sing stories about these creatures. He’d even studied about them in his travels.

I’ve spoken with Isla. The whole village believes them to exist. They believe them to be Sirenidae. ”

Reef burst out laughing and then choked it back when he realized everyone else was quiet. He threw his hands up in the air. “That’s preposterous.” He waved a hand toward the ocean. “That water kills Sirenidae. We cannot survive in the cold. It’s just old ghost stories.”

“While you’re not wrong,” she admitted, “all myth is rooted in truth.” She licked her lips and continued, despite the way her heart raced in her chest. “What if there was another possibility?”

“Like what?” Avalon asked.

“What if we’re not the only ones in the ocean?” Once the idea had taken root, she couldn’t let it go. “Think about it.” Mer began to pace back and forth. “We can’t survive the cold so when have we ever explored the North Sea? What if there are sea people of the north?”

“Then why would they not have made themselves known to us?” Alanis asked.

“Because of their physical limitations. We cannot handle the depths and the cold. They cannot handle the reefs and the warmth.”

Joiakim scoffed. “What proof do you have? Just the words of a bard and the pretty words of a fairytale?”

Her experience with the kraken rose to the forefront of her mind. She had sworn that day she had heard someone else calling—a haunting tune in the water but she’d brushed it off. And then again in the Bay of Laos had she not also heard another song? She’d dismissed it as her mind longing for home.

Tell them.

“I’ve experienced the call twice,” she whispered.

Joiakim bolted upright. “What do you mean the call?”

“Two separate times I heard someone call to me.”

Four pairs of Sirenidae eyes stared at her.

“The first time I was trying to soothe a kraken.”

Reef spluttered. “You mean it wasn’t you who kept it from making our vessel a snack?”

“I tried but when I stopped singing another tune swirled through the water. I believe I helped but the other song definitely called the kraken away.”

Joiakim cursed and sprang to his feet. “If what you say is true, then the other entity can control the beasts of the deep.” His expression settled into deep worry. “Do you know what this means for us?”

Mer knew exactly where his mind was going. “We’ll be blamed.”

“Why?” Avalon cried. “We’re helping the people here.”

“And this newest outbreak coincides with our arrival,” Alanis surmised. “If a poison from the sea is discovered, they’ll take our lives.”

“I won’t allow that,” Mer promised them.

Reef hugged Avalon to his side. “How will you do that? You’re just a foreign queen.”

Mer crossed her arms. “One way or another I’ll discover the truth. I’ll protect you myself. I promise.”

“Do it quickly,” Alanis said. “Because we have little time before everyone in this village is dead. Including you.”