Page 40 of I Summon the Sea

It’s black, decorated with gold swirls, a tall pole in its middle carrying a banner with the king’s crest and two more banners I don’t recognize. The temple’s banners, probably, the designs stitched in golden thread depicting serpents and eagles and unfamiliar symbols.

The telchin follows us onboard, going to stand at the stern, two guards taking their places on either side of him to protect him from us.

But the humans don’t make any move toward him. I think we’ve all accepted our fate.

Many stumble and fall on the deck as the barge is pushed off the dock. I help those I can get back on their feet so they don’t get trampled or thrown about. I can’t see Athdara, though he normally towers over the humans.

Then again, I’m surrounded by men and women taller than me. I’m not that short for a human, but let’s just say I wouldn’t win any fruit-gathering contests, either.

At least I can see Lynn on the island, watching us, and I hope Tru and Arkin will help her get back home. I’m not sure why I have such high hopes—they were nice to me, but that doesn’t mean they’re knights in shining armor helping everyone.

Yet I can’t spare any more thoughts for her. Our barge moves toward the arena as if by magic, no oarsmen or sail visible anywhere onboard, and the doubts return to sink their teeth into my gut.

I was supposed to play the role of a robbed lady, use the pearls to prove it and enter the palace, then be the magical weapon to bring down the fae king. Entering the games was only a contingency plan.

But it’s too late now for doubts. There is no going back.

No going back to shore, no going back to safety and sorrow. I’m here to fight, and I won’t back up.

May the best woman win.

The ceremonial barge glides around the islets demarcating the arena, and I finally get a good look at it from up close. It seems to be filled with water, as expected, but the level is much lower than the sea, the walls built between the islets keeping the ocean at bay.

In its center, large objects are floating. Rafts? Pontoons? Hard to see clearly from here.

The arena is huge, resembling a lake, rocks edging it where it abuts the Palace Island, and mist wreathing the islets and walls around it. Even so, I think I see dark shapes moving in the water.

We’re awaited, anticipated. The sea is hungry, demanding its dues, and right now, I’m as vulnerable as these mortal humans while the spell annuls my magic.

I try to see Athdara but fail again. He has no advantage, either, does he? No dragons, no shadows to deploy.

But wait. I’m wrong. He has the advantage of his strength, his experience with fighting and battles. And who’s to say his powers of magic won’t serve him while he’s not submerged in the water?

Why would he join the games?

Why would they let him join? It seems that they really had no choice once he offered himself, like I did.

The barge is heading to the far side of the arena, directly across from the palace, on the exact opposite side of the circle. There isn’t any place to dock there. My guess is that they will throw us into the arena and leave.

I grab the hem of my bedraggled white gown, find the seam, and tear it open. Then I tear a wide swath all around, turning my gown into a short dress. My feet may still burn and my leg muscles feel weak, but that only means one thing: I need any boon I can get, and I’ll need as much freedom of movement as possible once I’m inside that arena.

Some of the humans are dragging their fingers over their brows and noses, praying to the goddess of springs, rivers and death, Persephona. It’s ironic if you think that she was the one who ushered in the last Reversal, although, truth be told, myths say it wasn’t her doing. That the Pillar causes such Reversals every thousand years. That it’s the natural order of things.

Nobody is certain why, or what the real cause of the Reversals is, except that change is the requisite for living, andaside from death, a Reversal is about as big a change as you can get.

“Look,” a woman behind me says, “oh, goddess, look! That looks like a nokke. And that! Isn’t that a group of tritons?”

Tritons are mermen, but of a monstrous type, enormous, green-skinned, and fanged. I glance at the arena and decide she isn’t wrong. I see them now. It wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.

“They say watersprights are born from eggs. Eldritch, they are,” the woman goes on. “And half-mad.”

“Not all merfolk creatures are born,” another replies, voice hushed. “Some are made.”

I bow my head, busying myself with braiding my long hair and tying it back with the strip of fabric I got off my dress.

“They say the Great Dara were men once, too,” a man says. “That the Eosphors and the dara are akin, dead souls returning for revenge.”

“I don’t believe that shit,” the first woman snaps. “And not even the Great Dara can help us now.”

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