Note: This story contains content that some readers may find triggering, including blood, murder/suicide, a dead body, and off-page torture. Please exercise caution.

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The pale, lifeless body of a young woman washes ashore in the early morning tide. It’s the third one this week. The skin is already graying, deprived of oxygen for too long. The once muscular belly now rotund with gas.

 

When the sun rises one tick higher, the children will come. A group of four will stumble upon the corpse. They’ll take turns poking and kicking before stabbing the swollen flesh with blunt sticks. 

 

One more tick and a crabber will arrive.  The children will scurry away at the sight of him. He’ll check two traps before he notices the rotting carcass on the sand. The seaman will disrespectfully flip the dead woman onto her back before checking her wrists and neck for a pulse that has long since subsided. Satisfied that she is truly dead, he will go back to his work.

 

Another tick higher and the clammers will arrive. It’s only then, at the sight of the men walking the long pier toward the sand, that he will alert them of the body. I watch this pattern from behind the large rocks that adorn the sandbar. The water is deep here, allowing me to slip below the waves and out of sight at a moment’s notice. 

 

Unlike the dead women, I belong in the sea. My lungs were created by the Goddess to breathe the salty water. The fishlike tail and the silk-like skin that webs the space between my fingers allows me to cut through the currents with speeds that put the sailfish to shame. 

 

These women call themselves seafarers, but they’re no more than rotten pirates who want only to claim the sea and her treasures. They do not understand that she can’t be tamed and that will be their downfall. That and the Arcana - my elite group of female mer-warriors trained to track and hunt the thieves. 

 

My mother led the Arcana before me, and her mother before her. Generations of merwomen committed only to protecting our oceans from pilfering pirate scum. Year after year we fight relentlessly, dragging more and more bipedal corpses to their watery grave. We’ve long since lost the origins of our war - only treacherous acts and blood fueling its narrative now. The pirates steal from us and so we steal from them in a never ending circle of thievery and murder. Despite the pirates’ best efforts, no Arcana has ever let our most sacred artifact be taken. Not until me. 

 

More moons ago than our records can recall, the Goddess blessed her most beloved creation with seven pearls -  each one entrusted to a merclan in one of her oceans, each one powerful enough to sustain life in her depths no matter the conditions. Without our pearl, the creatures of our sea are beginning to die. The damage is still small - a school of fish here, a pod of dolphins there - but the priestess foretells only a few moons until the mer begin to die off too. 

 

It was my great-great grandmother’s idea to hide Celadon’s sacred pearl within the statue of the Goddess. The statue had stood guard outside Celadon’s castle gates for centuries then, and continued to do so until the night the pirates struck a deal with the sea witch. No one knows what they traded Nerina, but the product of their bargain was the beginning of our demise: the ability to breathe below long enough to steal the Goddess statue. 

In a fit of rage, I too made a bargain with the sorceress - a map inked across my forearm with blinking beacons to the pirate crew locations. The Arcana left our queendom to track down the plunderers two moons ago, the bodies washing up on the human’s shore the evidence of our continued hunt. 

 

Six ships we have found, six ships we have conquered, but still the pearl evades us. We stalked the last ship for two nights before breaching her under the cover of darkness. My warriors killed most of the pirates on sight, but we kept three alive for … questioning. Torture more like, but nothing the heathens haven’t done to us, to me. 

 

Ultimately, their bodies were weaker than their resolve. None revealing the location of the statue before they fell victim to their injuries. That is why I watch the tides every day, to see if their queen will come to claim her fallen sisters. 

 

The loud noise of children playing alerts me that the first phase of discovery has begun - still no queen in sight. Content to leave them to their ritual, I slip quietly below the surface. My clan is waiting. 

 

Dorea rests atop the broken hull of a long sunk ship, her blonde hair floating in water around her. There’s a brief flash of hope on her face that quickly fades when she sees my solemn expression.  “Where now?” she asks. 

 

I run my fingers across the inky picture on my forearm. The tattoo is eerily still now - a reminder of my continued failure.  There’s only one place she, and the statue, can be hiding. I trace the raised flesh across my wrist, the mangled scar a permanent souvenir from the pirate queen herself. The only place on my skin where the magical ink cannot penetrate. 

 

“It’s almost poetic,” my second begins, “that Laena would …”

 

“Do not finish that sentence.” 

 

It was nearly two years ago that I was captured during a failed raid. The barbarians kept me in no more than a bucket for days while they tortured me. When they were finished with me, a young woman would come in and tend to my wounds, ensuring my survival for another day. She was kind, and despite my best efforts, I began to open up to her. I’ve replayed the conversations over and over in my head these past two moons and I am certain I never divulged our secret. But I gave away something greater. 

 

When they were finally done with me, I was thrust bound and bleeding upon the deck of the ship. It was then that the young woman revealed herself. Laena, the new pirate queen, had been prying information from me through much crueler means - manipulation in the form of love. The jagged blade of her knife sliced through my wrists before she kicked me through the hatch and into the water - leaving behind the scar where she chooses to hide now. 

 

“What did you trade, Darya?”

“Nothing of any importance.”

 

Dorea is skeptical of my answer, but she does not push further, instead leaving me alone at the wreckage to gather the Arcana. Today we will find the pearl. Today I will save Celadon. 

 

All day we swim. The 21 mer grow restless at our continued mission, even bloodlust failing to satiate their gnawing hunger to return home. They blame me, as is their right. If I’m wrong and the pearl isn’t here, all this will have been for nothing. 

 

The sun is slipping below the horizon when Dorea finally spots the pirate queen’s ship. It’s hidden amongst the rocks in a secluded cove, visible only momentarily when the sun’s rays reflect the golden, headless mermaid that adorns the bow. There, on her uppermost deck sits the Goddess statue. A bold taunt from a heartless monarch. 

 

As the moon rises, so does our fury. The twins, Daeva and Daena, strike first. Coordinated spear attacks to take down the pirates on watch. The women fall into the sea easily, Della swiftly moving to ensure they never resurface. The Arcana splits in half to attack. Eleven embracing our Godess-given magic to shed their tails and storm the boat on foot - the other half staying ocean-bound to begin hacking away at the ship’s hull. 

 

But the guards were just a decoy - two easy kills to inflate our egos. The rest of the queen’s soldiers are expecting us. Pirates stream from the open hatches as battle cries from both clans echo through the cove. Grunts and wails soon join the cacophony as soldiers on both sides begin to bleed. 

 

With a fierce determination, I tap into our magic and join the Arcana on the ship. This is my fight. My clan is here because of me - and I will not let them die alone. My blade slides easily through the flesh of several pirates before I toss them over the deck to my sisters waiting in the inky waters below. Alternating between blocking and slashing, I cut through the horde easily, my sights set only on the queen. 

 

It’s there, atop the Goddess statue, long legs dangling over the pearl-encrusted crown, that I spot Laena. 

 

The fighting becomes a muffled blur around me when her seaglass eyes meet mine. Time slows as I begin the climb, my unnatural feet searching for purchase on the slippery marble. I expect her to attack, to force me down before I can scale the statue, but she doesn’t. It’s not until I sit on the Goddess’ shoulder that she speaks. 

 

“Took you long enough to find me.”

 

“Why this?” Anger laces my every word. I didn’t come here to talk. 

 

“There are many treasures that I could’ve pilfered from the sea, but only one would draw you out of hiding.”

 

Laena kicks her heels against the crown, dislodging a single, large pearl. I watch as our sacred artifact falls to the ground and rolls toward the edge. Dorea catches my eye and I wordlessly signal for her to nudge it into the waves. The pearl needs only to submerge in the ocean for its magic to spread. I must distract the queen.

 

“The sea heals all wounds.”  Wounds of the body and the heart, both at Laena’s hand.

 

The fighting reaches a crescendo below us. There are more pirates here than we anticipated and it’s clear that the Arcana are struggling. More mer rise from the waters to reinforce their sisters, but will they be enough? My eyes absentmindedly fall to the tattoo on my arm. Could we have missed a second a crew?

 

“It seems I am not the only one who made a bargain.”

 

A loud blast sounds from below sending both mer and pirates flying across the deck. Spiraling shadows swirl around a dark figure - the outline of a woman floating above the bloody boards. 

 

“Who was that?” I know the answer as soon as the question leaves my lips. Nerina.

 

“The executer comes to hold me to my bargain,” Laena starts, shifting her focus to me, braids of the darkest black swinging as she turns. “I did not understand the terms until it was too late, Darya.”

 

My stomach clenches at the sound of my name on her lips, the world stilling for a moment before another thunderous blast knocks us from the statue. The force of the fall causes my magic to falter - my legs transforming back into a piscatorial tail. A shadow hand grips my throat, hauling us both up above the deck. Futilely, I swipe at the figure with my sword again and again. 

 

“Your sword is meant for another, dearie,” the sea witch’s maniacal voice booms through the now quiet cove, all fighting halted by the caliginous creature. “It’s tragically beautiful, your hatred for one another. Both of you so eagerly bargained away your hearts. Tell me, did you know then that the other held it?”

 

Powerful magic commands my arm, lifting my sword higher and higher until the point is pressed against Laena’s beating heart. One breath and her blade mimics mine. Nerina’s laughter sounds again as she commands us to do the one thing we’ve never been capable of - taking the other’s life. 

 

Crimson blood oozes from our chests as we lock eyes. We shed no tears as fate finally ends what was never meant to be. Screams reverberate around us, but the last sound I hear as I take my final breath is the gentle splash of the sacred pearl returning where I will never go again: home.