Each council member takes his or her turn, saying “Guilty” one by one.
Nor shakes his head in disgust, and my stomach seizes. I fight down the sick but cannot hold back my panic. I cry out in disbelief at this monstrous injustice.
“She never had a chance,” Bex says, stunned.
“You have heard the council. What have you decided, my prime?” the high minister says.
“I give her death. May the Great Abyss take her in his loving arms,” he says, then unleashes a string of high-pitched giggles.
“No!” I cry as Selkie guards push Bex and me aside and clamp their enormous hands on my mother’s arms.
“I claim my right to combat!” my mother shouts.
The crowd roars happily. They’re going to get their blood after all.
“Name your challenger,” the prime says.
My mother crosses the sand and stands face-to-face with him. “I challenge you, Your Majesty.”
The prime smiles. “My son will do his duty.”
“No!” I shout, and turn to Fathom. “You can’t fight my mother. You can’t!”
He lowers his head to avoid my eyes. He’s really going to do it. I won’t let him. I’ll kill him first. What I feel for him won’t stop me from protecting my mother.
“I will fight for her!” I shout.
“Lyric, no!” my mother cries.
“Am I right that the Alpha allow their offspring to fight their parents’ battles?”
“Yes,” the high minister says. “That is true.”
“Lyric, I know what you’re trying to do, and I won’t allow it,” my mother says.
“Yeah, this is kinda dumb, Walker,” Bex says.
“I am Alpha, half Alpha, but enough, and I am my mother’s daughter, which makes me a Daughter of Sirena. I will fight for her.”
The prime laughs. “So be it!”
The guards drag my mother from the circle and thrust a spear in my hand. It’s heavy, almost impossible to hold with one hand, and made from something I’m sure was alive once. I can barely keep it level. What are you doing, Lyric? This is crazy.
Fathom approaches. Surprise is my only advantage, so I stab at him, not hard, but enough for him to know that I will hurt him if I have to. He needs to understand I am fighting for my mother’s life, but he swats my attack aside and charges at me. Instinctively I fall back, retreating into the crowd, but their hands push me forward and I fall onto the sand again. Fathom stands over me and he’s smiling, toying with me, cruelly making me suffer until he lets loose his blades and finally fulfills his father’s expectations.
So I kick him in the groin. He hunches over and groans. I grab my weapon and stand.
“I hope it hurts!” I shout, and raise my spear over his head, but I can’t do it. I can’t kill anyone, especially not him. Fathom senses my hesitation and swats the spear out of my hands. I watch it fly through the air and land ten yards away. I run to retrieve it, but he’s too fast and blocks my path.
“This will all be over soon,” he says.
I look up into his face, surprised by what I see. It’s not full of murder. In fact, what I see looks a lot like hope.
“What?”
Before I get my answer, he throws me across the sand and into the crowd, knocking the wind out of me. Robbed of breath, I free myself from their arms. Just as I get away, I feel something at my fingers. I look down and see Ghost slipping a golden gauntlet on my hand. It’s like the one he and Arcade wear, and when it snaps shut, it glows a milky green.
“What is this?”
“Testing a theory,” he says as he presses a button on the palm. I can feel a tiny engine rumbling under the metal. “I hope Arcade is right. If not, Fathom’s going to have to kill you.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “What is this thing?” He pushes the button on top, there’s a roar in my ears, and suddenly I am a bubble, effervescent and charged, growing, expanding from something small and insignificant into a massive circle of energy, pulsating and flashing like an infant galaxy. My feet take root in the sand and my head is a balloon with a string that rises into the air to taste the clouds. Everything speaks to me, and I speak to it; the wind is a chatterbox of thoughts and ideas, sunbeams sing silly songs, and the water—the water is in love with the shore. It has a voice and it whispers to me, “What would you have us do, Lyric Walker?”