Tightly gripping the vial as the warriors lifted their weapons, I shifted into my human form for the first time. The nearest human, a boy who could not have been older than his teens judging by his lanky frame and acne-scarred cheeks, flushed red. A few others let out loud exclamations. Some turned away and muttered.
“Shit, lass,” said a grizzled bear of a man to my left. “These boys don’t need to be thinking about that in their bunks. None of us will get any sleep.”
Ragna let out a shriek of pure delight that silenced the rest of the crew. Freezing air kissed my scale-less body and I nearly cried out from its intensity. I lifted a slender leg and marveled at its elegant line, at the markless perfection of my new skin, not boring at all despite the lack of ink and scales. Ragna removed her heavy fur cloak and wrapped it around me. It was impossibly soft against my newborn skin and stopped the cold from blistering me.
In the water, Havamal laughed. It was a genuine laugh, deep and full. Then I heard a splash, and his head disappeared under the waves. I didn’t notice I was smiling until a gust of wind stung my exposed teeth. Dizzy giddiness made my knees weak and my head light.
“Witchery,” murmured one of the crew’s older men. “Damn witchery. I knew this placed was cursed.”
“Is she the sea goddess?” The teenager demanded.
“No thousand-year-old sea goddess looks like that, dunderwit.”
“We should push her overboard.”
“I want to push her into my bunk.”
“Can all krakens do that?”
All the men around us began speculating at once. I shrank closer to Ragna, not yet sure what to make of all these humans.
Ignoring her crew, Ragna pulled me into a small shelter that was enclosed on three sides. The wooden shack blocked some of the wind, but I couldn’t stop shivering. Even with Ragna’s fur shielding my nakedness, I felt a deeper cold than I had ever known, a chill that radiated right down to my bones. The men turned on their benches, straining to catch our words.
Her silver hook glinted in the sun. I lifted her maimed arm. She flinched and her nose curled in distaste as she tried to pull it away from me.
“What happened?” I asked, feeling both the heaviness of what she had lost and relief that I was not the only one who had changed, whose body betrayed the truth of past horrors. She had a ship now, and men who answered to her. I couldn’t help the pang of longing that ran through me. While I’d been trapped in Loki’s game, she’d forged a new future for herself.
She shrugged, raising her dark brown eyes to mine. “I got my revenge, but this was the price. I found the man who wanted to take me and I killed him.” Gesturing at my legs with a sly half-smile, she asked, “What happened? And what was with the kraken moves earlier?”
I bit my lip, wondering how much to tell her now. Eventually, I would tell her all about Loki, about what I’d done and the months I’d spent trying to fix it. Her eyes were bright, and I didn’t want sadness to dim them, not yet, so I whispered, “I got my freedom. That was the price.”
We just stared at each other, trying to imagine and understand. Then Ragna crouched and flipped open a hatch beneath our feet. “Let’s get out of the wind,” she said. Gesturing at the crew, she rolled her eyes. “And somewhere these idiots aren’t hanging on our every word.”
She stepped onto a ladder, motioning for me to follow her. I hesitated before descending into the dark behind her. My new human legs wobbled on each rung. Moving in the air without the support of the water made me feel awkward and heavy, as though an invisible weight hung from each arm and an ice block rested on my back. Once her feet were squarely on the floor, Ragna put her good hand on my waist to brace me. The strength and warmth in her fingers made me tremble.
“I can’t believe you came back,” I said, carefully stepping onto a lower rung. It was slippery with seawater and spores of a green and white plant that smelled too musky to be algae. “So much has happened. I don’t even know how many days it’s been.”
“Eighty-seven,” she breathed. “And a half. I’d have come back sooner… but I couldn’t come alone.”
When I reached the bottom, I turned to her. It was warmer in the ship’s belly, but the air was still crisp. Our bodies pressed together, and the rough fabric of her overcoat almost made me yelp as it brushed tender new skin. Ragna’s hand moved from my waist to my hips and slid under the fur she’d given me. Her other arm slipped around my back. I let the fur fall from my shoulders and embraced the cold air.
Ragna pushed me back, then tossed her coat and sword to the side. Unable to keep my balance on my new legs, I stumbled into a pile of sacks and soft material. I barely had time to look up before she pounced on top of me.
She straddled my hips, pinning me in place like an artic fox holding its prey. Smiling with sly cunning, she raised her hooked hand to her throat. Slicing a perfect line from clavicle to navel, she sliced the tunic down the middle. I caught my first glimpse of the blue-tattooed flesh beneath. Then she peeled the ruined shirt from her form and tossed it across the floor. My jaw went slack. Even when we’d struggled to stay warm together under her makeshift boat, I had never seen so much of her.
Her skin was pale and translucent around her collarbones. The tattoos ran across her breasts and stomach; the lines on her torso were more delicate than the continents on her arms. A circular compass was etched above her heart; the inky needle quivered.
When I was in my mermaid form, my scales protected me, keeping my vital organs safe from attack. I looked at my own fragile body, then up into Ragna’s feral eyes. Despite their wildness, a sun-warm kindness lit their depths, a tenderness that seemed at odds with the scars on her arms and the sharp hook that had taken the place of her once-gentle hand.
I trusted her with this vulnerable body: maybe it was the animal’s instincts that had come with my monstrous form, but something inside me knew that I was safe. She’d saved me from the polar bear and she’d come back, unwilling to leave me to whatever fate she’d imagined that I would suffer.
She looked into my eyes. I wrapped my arms around her back and pulled her to me.
“How did you know where to find me?” I whispered against her neck.
She grinned and glanced at the dancing lines twisting across her naked body. “I can always find what I want.”
Ragna lowered her head to my neck. The edges of her teeth grazed my skin, not hard enough to break through the fragile boundary, but I felt the pressure, the controlled sharpness. She brushed her lips across mine, and I strained to kiss her. I remembered the addictive taste of her. But she just laughed, pushed me back, and grinned as she pinned me with an elbow.
Kissing and nibbling, her lips moved down my new body. A soft tangle of matted, sea-blasted hair trailed across my skin behind her kisses.