I was equal, alive, free.
My eyes fluttered open at the sound of a single word: “Stop!”
Ragna’s lips were still locked against mine. Her hot breath tickled the hollow of my neck. How could I stop, when it felt so perfect?
“Stop!”
I spun around so quickly Ragna nearly fell over the boat’s edge into the sea. She scrambled to right herself in the boat as I turned to stare at the source of the commands.
Havamal treaded water an orca-length away. When our eyes met, he crossed the distance between us with a single kick of his muscular tail. His gaze flitted from me to Ragna. There was a heat in his eyes, a building pressure of rage and horror that pulsed behind the icy mask of his features like an undersea volcano. I’d never seen him look like that.
“What are you thinking?” he yelled, taking me by both shoulders and shaking me. “A human? You’re kissing a human?”
“It was nothing, just a kiss—” I tried to say, but was it? My mouth still tasted of her; my lips still burned. I wanted to kiss her again. I felt like myself with her, my real self. It wasn’t love, but it wasn’t nothing either.
Mocking laughter erupted from him. “Just a kiss? Just a kiss, she says. Oh, yeah, just casually kissing a bloody human. Where did you even find her, Ersel?” He shook his head. “Gods, was that your stupid plan for us? Go on an adventure and meet some humans? Maybe join their whaling parties? You seem to have forgotten: you have fins!”
Growling, he released my shoulders and pushed me away. He rounded on Ragna’s boat and shoved his full body weight into the side. The wood held fast, but the hull tipped almost enough to send Ragna into the sea. Panic seized me. We were too far from land. If she fell in the water here, she’d freeze. And if she survived the cold, would Havamal drown her?
As if in answer to my question, Havamal backed up to gather speed. Ragna fished a spear from under her feet and held it up. The metal glinted in the sun. Havamal just laughed. But it was a cruel laugh, without any humor, and the knot of fear inside me tightened. After seeing her fight the polar bear, I wasn’t sure who would win this battle. The water was Havamal’s domain, but Ragna was lightning made flesh. Worse, I wasn’t sure which of them I wanted to win.
I grabbed Havamal about the waist. “Don’t you dare,” I screamed, finding my voice at last.
“It’s my orders,” he said, trying to shake me off. “If we see a human, we’re to kill it. By order of King Calder.”
“Stop it!” I was unable to keep the plea from my voice. He was much bigger and stronger than I was, and there was only so long I could hold him back. “It was only a kiss. I just wanted to try it.” I said the words to placate him. When I glanced up at Ragna with her wild hair, her white fingers clutching at her spear, her lips still wet from my kiss, I felt as if I were the one he was drowning.
Some of the anger left him, and he stopped struggling. He turned to me and said in a flat voice, “Say that you’ll be my mate, and I’ll let her go.”
If I refused, he would drown her or die trying. I could see the resolve in the rigid set of his shoulders. Would he make me watch while he held her under? Or would he drag me away, leaving her to the mercy of the frozen sea? I thought of the bodies sinking into the abyss of the cold gray ocean after the shipwreck.
“Havamal, please,” I begged. Restrained tears and snot clogged my voice. “We were friends. Please. You know I don’t want that. You promised you’d never force me.”
“You promised me there was no one else,” he whispered, and for a second I thought his voice would break, but his eyes were hard as stone.
“Please.”
“No. Come or I knock her out of the boat.”
“All right.” I slumped. I’d always argued that Vigdis was wrong, that nothing inside me was frozen. But now defeat chilled me to the core, wrapping its fingers around my heart, turning it black. I could not watch him kill her. “I’ll do it. I’ll come with you.”
“Don’t you dare try to go back on it,” he warned. “Or I’ll tell everyone about the human. And they’ll believe me.”
They would. We both knew it. I kept to myself, and no one would support my word above his. If Havamal told the court that I had not only aided, but also befriended and… kissed… a human, the king would peel all the scales from my back and leave me to die on the ice shelf.
“I said I would do it.” I would try to plead later. There was no way my best friend had turned into someone so cruel. He was angry and hurt. It would pass and he’d change his mind.
Havamal nodded, then tugged on my arm. “Let’s go.”
“Let me say goodbye.”
He heaved a sigh and then sank under the waves. I could make out his shadow, lurking just below my tail fins. Ragna would think he had gone, that we were alone. But I wondered if this was just the beginning. Would he watch me day in, day out, until we went through the mating ceremony? I heaved, and bile rushed up from my stomach to burn my throat with acid.
No. He was angry. That was all.
As I swam to Ragna’s boat, my fins dragged as if someone had tied the anchor of a human ship to my tail. She knelt in the hull and peered into the water at me with her dazzlingly bright eyes. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to jump in the boat and let her row us away. I wanted to escape.
Instead, I grabbed the side of the tiny ship, pulled myself up, and whispered into her ear, “Row. You have to get away from here.”
“What if he comes back? He nearly tipped me.” Her lips pursed. “I’m not sure the boat is ready to go out on the open water. I took my food so the gulls wouldn’t get it but… what if I sink?”
I managed a watery smile. “You won’t. Mermaid luck, remember?”
She winced. “It doesn’t look like it’s brought you very much luck.”
“I don’t think the legend works like that.”
“I can’t just leave you here… what is he going to do to you?”
I shrugged, then tried to make my voice sound confident. “I’m not sure. But we used to be friends, so maybe it will be all right.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not, but he will drown you if you don’t leave now.”
Ragna managed a weak smile, then pressed the hunting horn back into my hands. I stared at the silver mouthpiece, imagining her lips wrapped around it. Then she said, “I will come back.”
“You shouldn’t,” I whispered, even as my stomach did a back flip.
Her hand squeezed mine. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? Until then?”
Every part of me wanted to shout “no!” but I nodded, dropped her hand, and said goodbye.
Eight