He adjusted his hood, tucking it as low as it would go. Too many people lingered nearby. Farmers who’d climbed up from the valley and soldiers off-duty from the dam’s watchtowers. With his scars healing, his hair growing back, and his true face now peeking through the dark, lacy shadows, Merik couldn’t risk being seen.
He needed the world to think him dead. Not merely so he could hunt for Kullen in peace, but also because the world didn’t need him in it. Vivia didn’t need him in it either, and Merik knew her life would be easier without him around.
One for the sake of many.
It was, while Ryber and Cam were joining Merik on the shore of the Timetz, where the hoof-carved trail they sought cut into the trees, that Cam began humming a familiar tune.
Instantly, Merik’s hackles rose. He walked faster. Trees soared up around him, birch and maple and pine. “Not that song, please.”
“Why?” Ryber asked. She lengthened her stride to join Merik as well. Her boots rolled in the grooves of the path. “That rhyme has a happy ending.”
Then, before Merik could stop her, she sang.
“Blind brother Daret, with senses so keen,
smelled danger lurking ahead.
So he called to the Queen, I am bigger than he!
Release him and eat me instead!
“Her maw then swept open, and Filip raced out,
to where Daret waited nearby.
Then fin-in-fin the two brothers fled,
leaving Queen Crab far behind.
“Said fool brother Filip to blind brother Daret,
once they were free of the cave,
I was wrong to leave you and hurry ahead.
My brother, my friend, you are brave!
“So forgive me, dear Daret, for now I can see
that I was the one who was blind.
I do not need riches nor gold nor a crown,
as long as I’ve you by my side.”
“See? A happy ending.” She grinned, and two gold-backed cards slipped from her sleeve. She flipped them Merik’s way, revealing the Nine of Hounds and the Fool. They fluttered on the breeze, not entirely natural.
Merik halted. His sack dropped to the ground with a whoomf. Then he doubled over to plant his hands on his knees.
His heart pounded against his lungs. The mud and scree blurred, streaks of red and gray that wavered in time to his quickening pulse, his quickening winds.
So forgive me, dear Daret, for now I can see
that I was the one who was blind.
Merik was the fool brother. He had been all along—it was so clear now. He’d wanted something that wasn’t real, something he could never have, and he’d wanted it for all the wrong reasons.
Seeing what he’d wanted to see.
His story, though, just like the two brothers’, had a happy ending. He was still here, wasn’t he? And Kullen was still out there too—and maybe, just maybe, both he and Kullen could still be saved.
Ryber had told Merik she knew how to heal him. How to stop this strange, half-cleaving that had taken hold. She’d said the answer waited in the Sirmayans, and since Merik had nothing to lose—and everything to gain—by trusting her, he’d packed up his supplies and set out.
Cam, of course, had refused to be left behind.
At the memory of Cam’s stubborn jaw and pursed lips, Merik’s shoulders unwound. His breath loosened.
He straightened, listening to the dusk around him. Crickets, owls, nightjars—they drifted into his ears. The sounds that he and Kullen had grown up with. The sounds they would listen to again one day soon.
“Sir?” Cam murmured, approaching. Her … no his dark eyes shone with worry—so familiar and yet so unknown. He’d forgiven Cam for hiding the truth of Garren and the Nines.
But this is the secret of Queen Crab’s long reign:
she knows what all fishes want.
The lure of the shiny, the power of more,
the hunger we all feel for love.
Merik had forgiven Ryber too, for leaving him in the Nihar Cove. For keeping her secrets, and even for claiming Kullen’s heart, Kullen’s time, Kullen’s love.
After all, both Cam and Ryber had come back for Merik when no one else had.
Well, no one but Vivia.
He smiled at them then. He couldn’t help it.
“Come,” he said, slinging his bag onto his back. For the first time in weeks, he felt alive. “We’ve a long way to go, and the sun will be gone soon.”
Then Merik Nihar set off, content with no riches, no gold, and no crown, as long as he had friends by his side.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They say it takes a village, and never was it more true than with this book. I simply could not have written it without the support of so many incredible people.
First and foremost, I must thank my editor, Whitney Ross. This book is as much hers as it is mine, and she went above and beyond. Thank you, Whitney. Fighting!
Dear, dear Sébastien, thank you for your patience, for your love, and for your unflappable good nature. Je t’aime.
Joanna Volpe and the rest of the New Leaf gang: I could not function without you. Thank you for all you do, day in and day out.
For my incredible team at Tor: you’re the hidden stagehands working tirelessly behind the scenes to turn my drivel into something real. Thank you, thank you. There would be no Windwitch without you.