Ulla fell backward, fighting the urge to cry out as the blaze in her gut tore through her, up through her own lungs, her throat. Something was horribly wrong. Or was this the pain that creation required? Her eyes rolled back in her head and Signy reached for her, then cringed backward, as flames seemed to flicker beneath Ulla’s skin, traveling her arms, lighting her up like a paper lantern. Ulla smelled burning and knew her hair had caught fire.
She released a wail and it became a part of the song as flames poured from her throat and into the silver vessel. Signy was weeping. Roffe had his bloody hands clenched before him.
Ulla could not stop screaming. She could not stop the song. She seized Signy’s arm, pleading, and Signy reached forward to slam the silver lantern shut.
Silence. Ulla crumpled to the floor.
She heard Signy cry her name and tried to answer, but the pain was too great. Her lips were blistered; her throat still felt as if it was burning. Her whole body shook and convulsed.
Roffe held the silver lantern in his hands, the shape of his family’s triton glowing with golden light.
“Roffe,” said Signy. “Go to the ballroom. Get the others. We need to sing healing. My voice won’t be enough.”
But the prince wasn’t listening. He walked to the dressing table and upended the basin, dousing the lantern. The flame did not even sputter.
Ulla moaned.
“Roffe!” Signy snapped, and some part of Ulla’s heart returned at the anger in her friend’s voice. “We need help.”
The clock began to chime the half hour. Roffe seemed to return to himself.
“It’s time to go home,” he said.
“She’s too weak,” said Signy. “She won’t be able to sing the transformation.”
“That’s true,” Roffe said slowly, and the regret in his words set Ulla alive with fear.
“Roffe.” Ulla gasped his name. Her voice was a shattered thing, barely a rasp. What have I done? she thought wildly. What have I done?
“I’m sorry,” he said. Are there any words so cursed? “The lantern must be my gift only.”
Despite the pain, Ulla wanted to laugh. “No one … will believe … you worked … that song.”
“Signy will be my witness.”
“I will not,” Signy spat.
“We will tell them you and I forged the song together. That the lantern is a sign of our love. That I am a worthy king and you are a worthy queen.”
“You took a human life …” Ulla gasped. “You spilled human blood.”
“Did I?” Roffe said, and from his cloak he drew Ulla’s sykurn knife. He’d wiped it mostly clean, but the wet remnants of blood still gleamed on its blade. “You took a boy’s life, an innocent page who caught you working blood magic.”
Innocent. Ulla shook her head, and fresh pain flared in her throat. “No,” she moaned. “No.”
“You said he was a criminal,” cried Signy. “A murderer!”
“You knew,” said Roffe. “Both of you knew. You were as eager as I, as hungry. You just wouldn’t look your ambition in the eye.”
Signy shook her head. But Ulla wondered. Had either of them bothered to look closely at the boy’s soft hands? At his clean face? Or had they simply wanted this enough that they’d been willing to leave the ugly work to Roffe?
Roffe dropped the blade at Ulla’s feet. “She cannot return now. The blade is sacred. It can touch nothing human or be corrupted. It’s useless.”
Signy was sobbing. “You cannot do this. You cannot do this, Roffe.”
He knelt, and the flame of the lantern caught the gold of his hair, the deep ocean of his eyes. “Signy, it is done.”
That was when Ulla understood. It was Signy who had asked her to unlock her chest to make her a gown.
“Why?” she rasped. “Why?”
“He said he needed the knife to secure your loyalty.” Signy wept. “In case you changed your mind about the spell.”
Oh, Signy, Ulla thought as her eyes filled with fresh tears. My loyalty never wavered, and it was never his.
“It is done,” Roffe repeated. “Stay with Ulla and live in exile, pay the price with her when the humans discover her crime. Or…”—he shrugged—“return to the sea as my bride. It is cruel. I know it is. But kings must sometimes be cruel. And to be my queen you must be cruel now too.”
“Signy,” Ulla managed. Her name hurt more to speak than any other word. “Please.”
Signy’s tears fell harder, splashed over the knife. She touched her fingers to its ruined blade.
“Ulla,” she sobbed. “I cannot lose everything.”
“Not everything. Not everything.”
Signy shook her head. “I am not strong enough for this fight.”
“You are,” Ulla rasped past the tortured flesh of her throat. “We are. Together. As we have always been.”
Signy brushed her cool knuckles over Ulla’s cheek. “Ulla. My fierce Ulla. You know I was never strong.”
My fierce Ulla. She saw then what she had been to Signy all along—a shelter, a defense. Ulla had been the only rock to cling to, so Signy had held on, but now the seas had calmed and she was slipping away to seek other shelter. She was letting go.
Ulla found that she was tired. The pain had devoured her strength. Rest, said a voice inside her. Her mother? Or the witch mother she’d never known? The mother who had left her to the mercy of the waves. If Signy could leave her behind so easily too, maybe it was best not to try to hold on.
Ulla had made a vow to protect Signy, and she’d done it. That had to mean something. She released her friend’s hand, a final kindness. After all, she was the strong one.
“Leave the knife,” Ulla croaked in her broken speech, and prayed that death would close over her like water.
But Signy did not pick up the knife. Instead she turned her eyes to Roffe—and in the end, this was the thing that doomed all of S?ndermane. Ulla could forgive betrayal, another abandonment, even her own death. But not this moment, when after all her sacrifice, she begged for mercy and Signy sought a prince’s permission to grant it.
Roffe nodded. “Let it be our gift to her.”
Only then did Signy place the blade in Ulla’s hand.
Roffe took up the lantern, and without another word, they were gone.
Ulla lay in the dark, the sykurn knife clutched in her fingers. She felt the stillness of the room, the cold grate, the chill presence of the hollowed corpse on the bed. She could end her life now. Simply, cleanly. No one would ever know what had happened. She would be buried in the ground or burned. Whatever they did to criminals here. But bright behind her eyelids she saw Signy’s face as she turned to Roffe, seeking the approval of her prince. She could not stop seeing it. Ulla felt hate bloom in her heart.
What gave her strength then? We cannot know for sure. That contrary thing inside her? The hard stone of rage that all lonely girls possess?