When the rusted door closed, Mama and I exchanged looks.
Wincing as if the metal burned my skin, I wrapped the chain of Loki’s gift around my wrist. I would think before I decided to destroy it. Whatever the vial contained was just as likely to curse me as bless me, but I was afraid of what Loki might do if they learned I had destroyed something so valuable.
“I’ll be back,” I said. “I want to check outside. I want to see…”
I didn’t finish my sentence, but Mama nodded, understanding my need to be alone and free after so much time bound to Loki’s whim. I’d find her later, and we would have all the time in the world to catch up and then plan what to do, now that we knew the rightful heir to our glacier’s throne was still alive.
I look around outside to make sure the god had truly vanished before pushing off the ship’s deck into the ocean. I didn’t want Mama to watch me try my two other “forms” in case this was another of Loki’s elaborate jokes—something they’d devised to give me temporary hope, just to see any shard of optimism in me dashed.
Once I was sure I’d gone far enough, I looked at the tentacles, bidding them goodbye. I shut my eyes and willed them to transform, but nothing happened. I expected a puff of green ink, or for something to swallow me up and spit me out in a new body. Even though the vial had been a gift and not something I’d earned, disappointment curled around my abdomen, squeezing as tightly as Loki’s sea serpent had done during our first meeting.
I still held the tiny vial. I looked at it and then turned it over with distaste. Loki had said it would tie me to them and activate my powers. I didn’t want any lingering bond with the sadistic god. Of course, Loki had known that when they gave me the new power. I clenched my fingers so tightly that I nearly shattered the little vial.
How would I activate it? Knowing the god’s ego, it probably involved a prayer or request to them. Loki would want to listen to me plead.
“I am not making a bargain with you.” I hissed into the open water. “With Odin as my witness, you gave this to me of your own volition.”
I sighed, hating myself as I whispered a soft invocation with my lips against the bottle. Even if I never used it again, I wanted my speed, my agility, and, if I was honest with myself, my beauty, to return.
Turquoise oil formed a perfumed cloud around me. It smelled sweet as baby kelp and sounded like the whisper of a summer ocean I could barely remember. When it diffused, I looked down and my heart leapt into my throat. My fins and tail were back, but they were different, enhanced. Before, my scales had been shades of royal blue, but now beautiful white and lilac scales were mixed among the palest shade of sky blue. My tail gleamed and shimmered like a pearl held to the light. Each fin was tapered and translucent and looked as delicate as the softest sea-silk. But I could feel the strength in them.
This tail would forever mark me as different, special. No one else under the ocean had such scales. Would that make me something to treasure or something to hunt?
Loki was bribing me, trying their hardest to make me feel gratitude, as if I could forget the horrors of the past months. I wouldn’t let myself be drawn into their snare again. I would take this gift and use it, but I would never agree to do anything for the trickster.
Wearing a smile that stretched my jaw, I flipped, pivoted, and spun, relishing the feeling of my nimble tail and streamlined fins. The storm above had cleared, and sunlight filtered through the water, making creatures from dancing light. The ocean stretched out around me, blue and endless.
Four
I swam for the surface, making my body streamlined as an elegant harpoon. My new fins burned as I pushed them to the limit of their speed. I knew I couldn’t go back to the glacier, and I hated the idea of going back to my lonely sea cabin. Leaping into the air, I let the sunlight kiss my scales. I landed backward in the water, whooping with delight at the way the light made the pearl white sections of my new tail gleam brighter than fresh snow.
“Wow,” said a soft voice from someone swimming up behind me. I whirled, faster than I’d ever been able to spin before. “Your Mama told me about Loki’s gift, but…”
Havamal offered me a shy half-smile that didn’t quite reach his tired eyes. Though his muscular chest was as broad as it had ever been, he looked smaller somehow, hunched. Deep exhaustion seemed to cling to his graying skin. My jubilant best friend was truly gone.
Whatever he had done to me, I wasn’t shielded from his misery. The pit of my stomach dropped. I had to find some way to move forward. Holding on to grudges would only bring both of us pain. I threw my arms around him. His body went rigid at the unexpected embrace; his arms hung limp against his sides. Then, he patted my back and lowered his head to rest atop mine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “Erie, you have to understand. I am so sorry.”
“I know. I’m not sure I will ever truly forgive you,” I said, squeezing him a little tighter. I looked up into his face and took his chin between my fingers. He looked away, averting his hurt eyes from mine. “But I’m willing to try to forget it. I can’t be your lover. Never. Not after what happened. But I can try to be your friend again.”
His muscles tensed, and he hugged me to his chest so tightly that he drove the air from my lungs. I sagged against him, letting him do the work of keeping us level in the water. “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”
I smiled at him. “From what Mama tells me, you’ve already started.”
Havamal released me and nodded gravely. “I’ve started talking to some of the others. You’re not alone in how you felt. I guess I never realized how afraid The Grading made all of you. We were always told the birthing area was peaceful, natural.” He shook his head and snorted with disgust. “I can’t believe I bought all of that. I should have known better than to believe the king.”
I looked around us, surveying the open ocean for any other listening ears. Sound could travel a long way beneath the sea, and kelp grew everywhere, providing natural places to hide. It was a risk to share secrets when it was hard to tell whether you were truly alone. In Havamal’s ear, I whispered, “Did my Mama tell you the rest of it? What I asked Loki?”
“No. She told me there was more, but she didn’t dare tell me inside the glacier,” he said quietly against my cheek. “And I have a secret for you as well.”
“The king’s sister is alive.”
Havamal let me go. We drifted apart minutely while he gaped at me. “Inkeri? The princess?”
I nodded. “He’s been keeping her in an iceberg off the north point all this time.”
He sucked in a breath. “What? How? How did he get away with it?”