Mama covered her mouth and shook her head. “It’s one of your year-mates… That girl with the coral fins. Vigdis? Her mother went to visit her and found a strange merman in her chambers. She said he was handsome, beautiful even … with golden starlight fins and skin the color of midnight.” Mama paused for breath. “She found them kissing, but when she arrived, they fled. She was happy for Vigdis, goodness knows the girl was miserable after the ceremony results… but when they swam away, Croa said, the merman trailed a green mist, and when she looked into it, he appeared like something else, something monstrous.”
“Is she sure of what she saw?” I took a deep, ragged breath. “She must be under a lot of stress, too, after what the mage found out about Vigdis…”
Mama shrugged. “Croa has a good head on her shoulders. She wouldn’t invent. She was sure.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I had to ask. “What does she think she saw?”
“A creature with tusks like an elephant seal, with hooves for hands and a tail with a thousand eyes for scales.” Mama’s voice shook as she repeated what she’d heard.
My hand went to my throat and a creeping burn spread up it. My stomach heaved, and I vomited into the water. The orange mush drifted past me, and Mama moved aside to let it pass into the ocean.
Loki’s tricks and my stupidity had punished Vigdis twofold—as if losing her voice wasn’t sacrifice enough. A mate. My stomach churned. Maybe threefold. What if there was another punishment planted inside her, growing with every passing minute? The thought made me retch again. I coughed and heaved up pure bile. I was responsible for this.
“Do you have a fever, Erie?” Mama swam beside me and stroked my hair. Her fingers began combing through the knots, as she’d done a thousand times. Misery clogged my throat. I shut my eyes as hollowness bore through me, as if a thousand sand crabs carved out their dens inside me all at once.
“No,” I stammered. “It’s just … the news.”
“I know, it’s sickening,” Mama said, her voice gentle. “But it’ll be okay. The King’s Guard will find her and bring in this merman for questioning, whoever he is. She’ll be safe soon. We can’t be too careful when it comes to shapeshifters … it’s haustr and all of Loki’s monsters prowl.”
When I didn’t reply, her eyes traveled down the netted kelp blanket. “Why are you all covered up?”
I didn’t have time to respond.
Chest heaving, Havamal swam into the center of my cave. “Ersel?” he asked, voice thick with concern. Once upon a time, his concern would have made me blush with glee. Now it made me feel sicker. “I heard you scream? Did you see something?” His eyes darted around the enclosed cave. “Did you see that thing? The shapeshifter Vigdis followed? We’re looking for them now … Gods, I only hope her mother didn’t see what she thought she did.”
Cold rage made me unwind the kelp from around my new legs so he could see what he’d driven me to do. Free from their bondage, the tentacles pawed at the air without me guiding them. The mouths puckered and kissed the open water, looking for something solid to attach themselves to.
Mama went rigid and then started to shake. Havamal just stared.
“What…?” Mama’s voice trailed off.
All the color had drained from Havamal’s handsome face. Good. He should feel shame. But Vigdis… Havamal wasn’t responsible for what I’d done to her.
“It’s all my fault,” I whimpered, breaking at last when I reached for Mama’s hand, and she cringed away. I yanked the kelp back over my body, but the tentacles pushed it aside. “I made the deal. It’s all my fault.”
Three of the king’s other guards burst into the ice cave. Doubtless they had heard my screaming as well, but as soon as their eyes fell on my tentacles and beheld what I’d become, they pounced on me. My new legs flared out against my will, striking at them and seeking something to grip.
“Stop it!” Havamal protested weakly, but he didn’t move to stop them. His hand had found Mama’s, and he clung to her. I hated him all the more, even if he was defending me. How dare he touch my mother after what he’d done? “She needs help. Don’t hurt her.”
A blue-tailed guard shook his head. “Look at her. It’s obvious she’s part of whatever has happened here today. Maybe she’s in league with whatever beast stole the coral girl.”
My tentacles splayed, catching the guard across the face so hard he staggered.
“Don’t resist them, Ersel,” Mama wept. “You’ll make it look worse. You can explain it to the king. You were here the whole time; how could you have kidnapped that girl? It’ll all be a misunderstanding. As soon as they find Vigdis, everything will be all right.” She had retreated into the corner of the room and folded in on herself. For the first time in my life, she looked small.
“I’m not trying to!” I protested but my new body had a mind of its own. I felt like a toy, limp and controllable, caught in Loki’s unpredictable hands.
One of the waiting guards ran at me and circled my legs in his powerful arms. I broke his grasp as if it were nothing, with a miniscule flex. Growling, the guard pulled a sharpened rock from his side satchel. He slashed it through the air, cutting into one of my tentacles. Even though the new legs didn’t feel as though they belonged to me, the pain made me yelp. My legs stilled.
Working together, the guards dragged me down the hall, past the food stores, and down through the locked and enclosed brooding chambers. My lungs constricted, and I gasped for air even though my gills functioned as well as ever, just as I’d stipulated in the bargain. After everything I’d done, I was being dragged to a prison darker than the one I’d sought to avoid. Somewhere off in Asgard, Loki would laugh at the irony.
We swam farther and deeper into the heart of the glacier. The light from above dwindled, and the world became an abyss of cold black. Finally, we stopped. The guard holding my legs released me. The others flung me into a room I could not see. Then they pulled something heavy across the entrance and sealed me in the deep.
*
I don’t know how long I lay pressed against the back wall of the tiny cell. In the dark, time passed erratically. The slick coldness of the wall chilled me to the core in minutes, but I needed something solid against me. When they first threw me in the cave, I’d scrambled with my arms and tentacles outstretched. I couldn’t hear or see anything, and the panic had made my bowels release.
Under most circumstances, the court wouldn’t be allowed to keep me in a place like this when I hadn’t begun my trial or questioning, but I supposed the sight of my uncontrolled new legs made them frightened enough to forgo the rules. Furthermore, until Vigdis was found, everyone would be on edge. Shapeshifters were rooted in our legends, and no one doubted their existence, but we all knew they were capricious creatures, compelled by the trickster’s whim and every bit as volatile as the god themself.
By the time one of my tentacles slapped against the far back wall, I was hyperventilating and close to fainting. Shivering, I nuzzled against the wall, trying to imagine that this was all a dream and soon the daylight would wake me on my resting shelf.