Page 47

I go under too fast to gasp. The lake floods my nose. The water muffles the king’s cursing up there. Through the ripples, Ezra drops out of the sky beside him and yells. “Aya!”

I reach up for him, but I’m already too far down. The surface shrinks to a bright little circle until I lose sight of it.

I kick at the Mer and pry at her fingers while my wolf howls. She’s stronger than she has any right to be. The pressure in my ears builds the deeper she pulls me. I don’t know which way is up anymore. I have no idea how much longer my breath will last, or if I can shift fast enough to⁠—

You are House of Zorah. A voice is talking inside my head. My wolf cuts off her howl to listen. I stop fighting and stare at the Mer female. She holds my gaze without moving her lips.

I can smell you. My lungs burn, and all I manage is a nod.

House of Zorah has always been kind to my pod. She tightens her grip on my arm. I must take you to my father. He will listen to you.

She drags me down into the dark. I claw at the water with no air left. Black spots crowd in around her face. She’s calm as anything while she drowns me.

Then she yanks me against her and presses her lips to mine. Cool air pushes into my mouth and down into my lungs until the burn quits. She tastes of the lake. Is she KISSING me? I’m too shocked to shove her off and too busy gulping her air to care.

Her lips never move, but her voice fills my mind again. I am giving you air. Do not fight me.

She eases back with her hand still around my arm. My lungs are full, and I’m not dead. I gawk at her with my cheeks puffed out and my mouth clamped shut. I have no idea if this works in reverse, but I yell the question in my mind as loud as I can. Who are you?

She stares back with her big black eyes. I am Sirena. Her tail sweeps under us as she tows me deeper. Come. My father waits.

The cold gets meaner the farther down we go. It bites through my leggings and ripped shirt while weeds slide over my bare feet. My ears throb with every stroke of her tail. A fish shoots out of a puff of silt and zips past my face. Up top, it was bright and pretty. Down here, the light goes murky brown and then gives out until I can’t make out my own hand. My wolf hates every inch of this and wants solid ground and open sky. Wolves belong in the trees, and here I am getting dragged along the bottom of a lake by a fish lady.

Shapes move up ahead and turn into more Mer hanging beside a pile of rocks with their scales still shining this far down. Males flash blue, silver, and green as they circle us.

My brothers, Sirena tells me. She pulls me up in front of the biggest Mer of all. And my father.

He’s got shoulders on him that his sons haven’t grown into yet. He smells of deep water with nothing friendly in it. He swims a circle around me to sniff at my braid. The blue brother hangs back, staring. The green one is as nosy as I am and drifts in to bump his nose against my shoulder. My wolf growls low as I keep my hands up where they can see them. It worked on Ezra.

They talk, or I think they do. Sirena keeps jabbing a finger my way. Her father’s tail lashes back and forth, but I can’t hear a word of it. They’re fighting about me, and not knowing what they’re saying is killing me.

Sirena turns back to me as her voice comes through again. She is House of Zorah, Father. Smell her. She nudges me toward him. See her eyes. She is the daughter of Levi.

He swims in close, peering into my face until the sharp lines around his mouth ease up. His voice rolls through my mind deeper than hers. Levi has a daughter.

That’s my dad, I think at him, and I can’t help how proud it comes out.

It has been centuries since we swam with House of Zorah. His tail curls under him as he studies me. We were not certain the wolves remembered us.

I have to know. What are you doing in our lake?

Our queen sent us ahead to test these waters, he answers. Ours is a small pod. The rest wait with her.

Test them for what? I push.

Sirena’s grip on my arm gets harder. For a home. The humans you call radicals hunt us in every sea, and their attacks grow worse. Her fins flare. Our queen is skeptical of surface dwellers. She did not believe Wintermoon would welcome Mer. But we are desperate for a safe place to live.

Uncle Amir wasn’t exaggerating up on the shore. I grab Sirena’s wrist and squeeze. House of Zorah will help you, I tell them. My dad will. Come up and meet him.

Her father glances up toward the surface and thinks it over. We will shift and step onto your land, he decides.

My wolf yips. Ocran is going to be so jealous when he hears about this.

I’m still picturing my cousin’s face when my skin prickles from my scalp to my toes. The old spot over my heart where Ezra zapped me stings. Thunder booms down through the water and rattles me. Lightning strikes the lake above us, and the depths flash white.

I can see all of it now. The weeds sway over the rocks, silt hangs in clouds, and Sirena’s brothers float frozen with their tails flared. Her father bares his teeth at the sky. My wolf knows this storm and goes on alert. Water and electricity, Ezra? Really?

Sirena jerks me close and buries her nose in my neck. No shower could wash Ezra off me after last night. Her fins clamp flat. The dragon on her skin, she tells her father. He is Stormscale.