Relief washes over me as the warmth of the seeds grows stronger, my fingers burning to reach them. They’re here.
My sister’s heart holds on to everything too long—love, dreams, hope, and things, lots of them. Her trunks are stuffed full of items, found, bought, or otherwise loved. I knew, as sure the sand in the soil, that she kept the seeds I gave her. Just like I knew where she’d be. What she’d done.
My fingernails scrape canvas. I tug at it and sand spills out, dribbling over the base of the statue, which, of course, has his whole ridiculous name and previous title on it: Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf Øldenburg V. And there in my hand is more than what I need. I release the strings of the sack and peek inside. Another sigh of relief shakes my body. She kept almost fifty dormant ríkifjor seeds.
Thank Urda.
Although Alia always played an excellent damsel in the castle moon plays, for once this damsel may not need her king after all. “You very well may have just rescued yourself, Alia,” I whisper to the seeds.
“So Alia does need rescuing, then.”
I nearly drop the bag and whirl around at the sound of another voice. I’d been sure I was alone, but there, right in front of me, is Oma Ragn—Queen Mother Ragnhildr—my grandmother. The woman who taught me everything I know while singing sailor shanties about mermaids and their vengeance.
Her smile is quick and conspiratorial as she swims forward. These days, her eyes are a blue so crystal clear they’re nearly as white as her hair, but she never misses a thing. Not when it comes to her son, not when it comes to me, not when it comes to anything.
“Believe me, darling Runa, if your father can sense she’s left the water without even checking her bed, I know it too. When magic leaves the water, those of us who’ve been here long enough feel it.” She says it all like she’s seen what I’ve seen above—Alia, the boy, her hopeless chance. Then her eyes flicker to the bag. “Is this how you plan to get her back?”
She doesn’t have to open the bag to know what’s in my hand. Oma Ragn was the one who started me off planting ríkifjor. She can sense the seeds’ power just as well as I. The only one better is Father and that’s because he has so much of it running through his veins, he’d likely fall over dead without it.
I wouldn’t lie to Oma Ragn, and there’s no use in it anyway. Not with her. “To get Alia the antidote, I need to bring these to the sea witch.”
“I should’ve guessed that old squid would be behind this,” she says with a tart turn to her mouth. Oma Ragn is two hundred years old and counting, and that time has only served to make her more direct. “She was powerful enough to perform the changing spell but isn’t powerful enough to get her back without the ríkifjor?”
Her voice is too loud, and I glance around, looking to every corner and around the overdeveloped thighs of the massive statue.
Oma chuckles, her voice almost louder when she speaks again. “Ru, calm yourself. I’ve distracted the guards.”
She says this with such cool confidence. It reminds me of how she used to promise to spell away all the monsters in our dreams if they should appear in daylight. I can still see me and Alia standing at her bedside in the dead of night, nightmares fresh behind our eyes. She’d pull us close, and once our hearts had calmed, she’d sing three stanzas of “The Mermaid’s Revenge” to send us back to sleep.
But no song is going to ease my nerves now. “Not exactly,” I say, answering her question. Oma Ragn is critical of Father in ways no one else can be—especially in the years since Annemette’s change—but I’m not about to offer up what the witch said he did to her. “Oma, I have to go. Please don’t say anything to Father. I’ll get Alia back.”
“I won’t and you will.” Oma Ragn shoos me with a wave of her long fingers. “Go. Visit the witch. I’ll be in my bed, praying to Urda that she doesn’t turn you into a talking crab.”
Despite myself, I smile. Oma Ragn has a way of bringing humor to even the direst situation. “If she turns me into a talking crab, do me a favor and make sure she changes me back before Father tries to fillet her for it. We need her to get Alia home.”
Oma allows me a quick grin that reaches the tide-break white of her eyes. “It’s a deal, Ru.” She makes a move to return to her quarters, or maybe to the route of whatever midnight swim she was on when she found me, but then she stops and wraps my wrist in her knotted fingers. “Good luck, my dear. You and your sister will need it for all to turn out right.”
I press a quick kiss to her cheek and leave, seed bag in hand, for the witch’s lair.
“YOU CAME HERE alone?” EYDIS ASKS, A HEAVY NOTE OF big-sister protectiveness ringing out as the first strange trees surrounding the sea witch’s lair come into view.
I don’t blame her—it’s the last place any of us would ever willingly go.
“Yes,” I say, adjusting my grip on the bag in my hand—inside is Eydis’s stash of shipwreck jewels, and it’s heavy enough that both of us are carrying it. “Alia went in alone. I owed it to her to do the same.”
Actually, I was just so angry that I didn’t have the capacity to worry about swimming straight into an ancient Viking horror story.
“Is it just her in there?” Ola asks, nerves shaking her usually confident voice.
Signy rolls her eyes. “Of course it is. Didn’t you ever listen to Oma’s stories? Witches like that always live alone.”
“Ladies,” Eydis snaps, half whirling around, and my hold on the bag slips as she wrenches me with it. “It doesn’t matter if she’s lonely or popular; all that matters is that she gives us the antidote. For all the poundage in this thing”—she hoists up her end of the bag for a moment—“she can buy herself some friends.”
That shuts up everyone, all our energy focused on making it through the trees. As we draw closer, the anxiety that’s been swirling within me all day lessens and is replaced by a shifting tide of confidence. We’re here. We’re going to get what we want. We’re going to make this happen.
I speed up, swimming into the expanse of pewter sand that surrounds the witch’s lair. Gamely, Eydis increases her pace to match mine, determination set in her face. We haven’t worked it out, but I’m the one who will be doing the talking.
Despite my middle sisters’ loud jabber, the sea witch doesn’t greet us immediately when we arrive. My blood pressure spikes when I realize she’s not waiting on pins and needles, antidote in hand as she should be. This is her mess. This is our fight for the life she put at stake. She should at least have the heart to show up.
I hand Eydis my corner of the bounty and move in front of my sisters. Signy and Ola move in line with Eydis.
“Sea Witch,” I start, and my voice is clear of any trembling, that confidence that rose in my belly setting the tone. I am the baby of the family, but I’m not to be taken lightly. The sea witch will learn that too. “I’ve returned with the ríkifjor. I’ve brought my sisters as well. The antidote, please, and we’ll be on our way.”
There’s movement at the mouth of the cave, and behind me, my sisters stiffen.
But I’m not scared of the old squid.
My