Chapter 3

THREE

Merrick

The horizon merged with the sea as the sun disappeared, night falling. The balmy water gave way to inky cold the deeper I went, but it only warmed my chest. The cold meant home.

Home wasn’t too far below the surface, but it was deep enough that the humans wouldn’t bother us. Our clan kept ourselves in a deep valley just off shore, away from the boats and loud machines the humans used. My palms skirted over the dancing red algae, tickling my skin. I made a mental note to grab some for my cave sometime. I wanted to experiment with grinding the algae up to see if I could make a red dye of some sort. Red was a bright color loved by mers, but hard to come by unless it was a weed of some sort or the scales of my fellow mers.

And understandably, they were quite attached to those.

I dove down into the inky depths, my eyes adjusting as bioluminescent lights lined our homes to guide us. Not that I needed it. My house was one of the largest, since Father was the chief. I swam inside, prepared to be chastised.

“Ah, he wasn’t lost after all.” My father paused, his eyes landing on me grumpily. My stomach flipped as thirty or so mers looked up and stared at me. Our home wasn’t large by any means; it wasn’t much larger than any of the other ones, constructed by stacking stones and plugging the holes with dead coral and using seaweed to cover the cracks. Even now, my eyes scanned the ceiling, thinking of a dozen different materials that could be used to make the houses more visually appealing–mother of pearl, conches … but alas. Father once told me this village was supposed to be temporary, but hundreds of years later, we were still here.

None of those musings help the fact that I was late; really, really late.

The mers gathered around the large shell table turned and stared. Father rose from the single stone chair toward the back, frowning at me. His dark hair flowed behind him, long and loose today.

“Cutting it close, don’t you think?”

My cousin Barrett’s grin was a bit too malicious for my tastes.

“Shut up,” I hissed, smacking him in the shoulder.

“You’re in trouble.…” Barrett lilted in a sing-song voice, not bothering to keep his voice down. He was forty compared to my thirty-five, but I swear he acted like a guppy most days.

At eighty, my father was not so easily amused. “Boys,” he grunted.

We both straightened and focused on the meeting. Other clan heads were present, announcing this as a serious venture. There was my father, head of the Sunfish clan. Bright eyes marked our males, as well as the gold kissed edges on our scales, fins, and tail. My father stood in front of a chair of decorative coral and bone—a chair that I’d fashioned for him—and glared imperiously at the others. His dark hair was a complete contrast to mine, held away from his face with a thong made haphazardly of seaweed and shells. I’d offered to make him a proper one for a few of the squids that their territory is famous for, but he refused.

His loss.

Across from him paced the head of the Bluefish clan, his son Aris close by his side. Their waists were covered in the spines of a dead fish, fluttering gently with every sharp turn as the chief paced. Everything about them was tinted blue, from their scales to their tails. Even their skin carried the hue, which made it more difficult for their males to hunt for a breeding partner. They hadn’t had a birth in nearly one hundred years.

But if Barrett annoyed me, Aris was a pain in my ass.

Also in attendance were the Kingfish clan—rumored to be descendants of Poseidon himself, as well as the Spadefish and the Jackfish clans. Their silver spots flashed at me with every small movement. It was irritating.

“The birth rates are declining, even as low as they are,” spat the Bluefish chief.

My father’s lips thinned. “I understand your concerns, but we don’t have the resources to support all of your males coming here to hunt year round. The humans may get suspicious. If the beaches get shut down and they cancel their festival rite, we will all be out of luck.”

Ah, the festival rite. The time of the year when many young humans, both male and female, flocked to our shores. We weren’t sure what they were celebrating, but it was a large, loud celebration. They would stay for six or seven nights, drinking and dancing on the sand in tiny clothes that barely covered their bodies. Then they would leave, and not return for a year’s time.

It was prime hunting season for us.

“We aren’t asking for you to house them indefinitely,” argued the Kingfish chief, “just for the week of the festival. Our males will bring with them goods as payment for their presence. Our shores never have the gathering that yours do. We are all in this together.”

My father sighed, his hair a dark halo as it floated around him.

“I am not convinced our shores are the best hunting grounds,” he replied. “No suitable females have been found in decades, just like your shores.”

My blood froze, remembering my female. I realized I didn’t even know her name. That was all right. I didn’t need it; I’d be able to scent her out, anyway. I was sure of it.

Barnacles.

“It’s a numbers’ game, Tride,” said the chief of the Spadefish clan. Black scales snaked down his face and tail in distinctive stripes. “Your shores have the largest group of females gathered for their rite. Therefore, the highest likelihood of success. If any of our males do find a partner, we have all agreed to pay you handsomely for your patience. My youngest male is fifty-five!” The chief gestured to his son, whose cheeks reddened with embarrassment. He didn’t look much older than me, despite the twenty years of difference. Such was the way with our blood. We outlived humans easily though the elders claimed we lived longer when the sirens still roamed the oceans with us.

“Fine,” my father capitulated, his fingers digging into his temples. “I will allow the males to gather in our village for the seven nights of the festival only.” He paused as hope flared in the eyes of the other chiefs. “However, I must insist they take care and not draw attention. If any of your males cause trouble, they will leave with no questions asked. I have final say.”

The chiefs all nodded, obviously eager to have the deal sealed.

“Very well.” My father pushed off from his seat, his powerful tail disrupting the sand nearby. The swirls settled back onto the ocean floor and he directed the others, “Please retire for refreshments. I would speak with my son alone.”

The other chiefs drifted quickly from the room. Barrett rolled his eyes and gave me a look, following them out. As a cousin to the chief, he was given a lot of leeway in most things. Most of the time I was wildly envious of him. Perhaps he’d like to switch places?

Aris sneered at me before he followed his father out, his blue tail flipping at me in a sign of disrespect. I ignored him.

“Merrick!” Father called.

I swam closer, unease filling my gut like it usually did when my father wanted to have a talk. “Yes, Father. I am here.”

His dark eyebrows rose. “ Now you are here. Am I to expect you to be so dedicated in your pursuit to find a female that you lost track of the sun’s position?”

I winced, unable to hide my reaction from his sarcastic tone. He knew I wasn’t going to the surface to look for a female. We both knew, just as he knew the last thing I wanted was to become chief. It was a silent wound that festered between us, never spoken about, but never able to heal, either.I’d go days sometimes without seeing my father. He was so busy managing the clan and keeping us all safe that he didn’t do anything else. I knew the day I became king, I’d never again have time to work on my art.

I liked to build sculptures using materials I found in the seabed. It seemed silly and pointless to some, but it was the one thing I had absolute control over in my life. I could create whatever I wished: replicas of the fish who frequented our waters or even crude portraits of my friends or the sigils of the different clans. A few of them had even traveled to purchase a few of my works, so I must not be too terrible at it. Father thought it was all nonsense, but certainly hadn’t turned his nose at what the others had brought to barter with, proving that the art had value.

To some, if not him. My opinion didn’t matter, of course.

It was tempting to tell him I had found one, but bragging was for guppies.

“It appears there will be more competition,” I offered instead, meeting the green and blue eyes that were identical to mine.

My father drifted back down to his chair, his chin falling into his hands. “Merrick, I know you don’t agree with what we must do.”

My lip curled. “You mean seducing human females, getting them pregnant, then abandoning them?”

His face twisted. “It is preferable to kidnapping them, which our predecessors tried, Merrick, with disastrous consequences. Would you rather we kill the females? They cannot survive down here with us. We cannot survive up there with them.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but said nothing. My stomach soured like it always did when we argued about this.

“I simply think there must be a better way. One we haven’t explored yet,” I insisted, refusing to raise my voice.

He glared at me from under his heavy brow. “Do share if you come up with anything.” His fingers flicked at me; a clear dismissal.

I pushed down the growl in my chest and turned, swimming away as fast as I could without seeming disrespectful.

For hundreds of years, it was how we’d survived as a race. The last of the sirens died out a few hundred years ago, though we still didn’t know how or why. Some historians blamed human contamination in our oceans, while others went a different route and argued that the females chose to forsake the sea and live among humans, mating with human men and diluting the bloodline until they simply didn’t exist anymore.

It was a ludicrous theory, but they had all seemingly vanished at once.

Others said it was dark magick.

Either way, it left us with few options other than to find human females with traces of that lineage in their blood, and mate with them, praying they had a male child.

Then we returned to the ocean, waiting for the birth.

If it was a female, nothing further happened. Female children were raised as humans; indistinguishable despite the small amount of siren blood in their veins.

But the males?

The males born of a siren lineage were always mers, and immediately stolen and brought back to the ocean to join our clan. The celebrations usually lasted for weeks.

Yet there hadn’t been one for decades.

I disagreed with the practice. It didn’t sit right with me—abandoning human females like that. Privately I wondered if such treatment and attitudes were why the sirens disappeared in the first place.

My father said it was our instincts from long ago creeping in, that the urge to protect and provide was what made the act so distasteful to me. He even agreed with me it was not preferable, but argued we had no choice. If we didn’t do this, our species would die out completely.

Just like the sirens.

Some days, I wondered if that was a bad thing. With pollution and the dying reefs, who knew how long we’d last? The behavior patterns of sharks and other marine life were constantly changing because of the environmental crisis. Was our way of life even sustainable? What would it be like to migrate onto land, and live as a human? Would it be so terrible?

It sounded a little exciting.

This was why I preferred building shell sculptures to debating siren policy. It was better than trying to solve all the world’s problems.

As I left my home, my nemesis Aris lay in wait for me. Aris puffed his chest out confidently, his lackey clan mates surrounding him and clapping him on the shoulder, laughing. “Merrick! Ready to go hunting next week? I bet I will bring back a female before all of you.”

I turned away, fully intent on ignoring him and getting a few hours to myself. It was only a matter of time before the other clans sent for their males and I would be forced to entertain them all as the chief’s only son.

“Hey. Art boy. I’m talking to you.”

I stopped, shoulders hunched, as Aris sneered at my back. He knew I couldn’t be too rude; I was the host prince, after all.

“You’re pathetic,” he continued. “All those females on your shores year after year, and I hear you don’t even hunt them. You hunt for rocks !”

His lackeys all laughed loudly, the sound grating my ears. I bunched my hands into fists, the gold in my scales gleaming. I didn’t react otherwise.

Your female.

Fear shot through my blood, and suddenly I couldn’t get my female’s face out of my head. If I didn’t find her, then the others would first. Aris could find her.

Their guffaws faded as I swam away.

“Hey! Stop!”

I paused my tail as I recognized Barrett’s voice.

“They’re assholes. Ignore them,” Barrett sniffed, coming up and laying a heavy hand on my shoulder. He held out a drink with the other, shoving it toward me.

I studied one of my father's preferred fish bone cups. As with all our drinks underwater, it was contained in a gelatin bubble composed of seaweed. To drink, you would puncture the outside sac with your fangs, and draw it into your mouth. The cup was decorative and showed status. Most mers didn’t bother with them at all, and simply carried the sacks, but I made all of my father's cups myself.

I accepted it on reflex and rolled my eyes, shoving him away.

“Like I ignore you? I’ve seen how well that works.”

I pumped my tail twice, putting a good bit of distance between us.

He snorted and propelled himself toward me, arms arching over his head as he blocked my path, hanging upside down in front of me. “Come on, everyone’s just excited. We’ll probably get to hunt in packs this time. That will be fun, won’t it?”

I tried to muster up a weak grin, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t excited about the hunt. I didn’t want all these extra males around me consuming my time and energy. I thought of my female at the mercy of Aris, or any of the other brutish males who would have no qualms about taking what they needed from her physically and emotionally. Of leaving her there on the shore, possibly hurt and confused.

The cup in my hand shattered as I squeezed it too hard.

Barrett’s dark eyebrows bunching into a frown above his eyes. “You good?”

The turn of phrase made my blood run cold, reminding me of my female. I spun around to face him, fire in my eyes.

“You go up to the surface much more often than I do. Don’t you?” I asked intently, my fangs elongating and poking through my lips in my fervor.

Barrett flipped in the water, alarmed by my vehemence. “Well … I don’t know about that. But yeah, I’m up there pretty often. I even walk around and talk to a few. My grasp on the language is probably the best. The point is to find a female. Gotta talk to them to do that.” He laughed.

I blinked. I hadn’t realized my only friend was so … worldly.

“You seem tense. Something going on you haven’t mentioned?” Barrett inquired, floating so there was a little distance between us. Unlike most of the other males, Barrett knew I’d inherited my father’s temper. Even though I kept it under lock and key most of the time, he was one of the few who’d ever seen it.

“I’m ... fine,” I muttered darkly.

With the sudden attention on the shore and influx of rowdy young males, there was only one solution left I could think of.

I’d have to keep a close eye on my female and make sure none of the others found her.