The Locket's Revenge: Chronicles of the Undersea Realm, #2

He answered and said, But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.

DANIEL 3:25

The silver chain glides through her fingers, link by link, metal brushing the raised scars, which are invisible to most eyes, sending exquisite jolts of pain slithering up her nerves. But she does not flinch. Life is pain now.

She had thought the pain would kill her once.

As she lay on the rocky bottom of that lake, pain singing through every nerve. Unable to cry out, as the skin of her face dripped from her cranial bones like molten metal. Watching the dark shape of her worst nightmare soaring above her through the water, bellowing for escape . . . she had been certain death was moments away. She had prayed it would come—begged the Wave Master to send her relief.

But, like the man she had loved, death did not come for her.

And after that first endless night of torment, she had never prayed again.

She had saved herself.

The tunnel through which every small creature from Loch Ness escaped led to Loch an Ordain. There had been moments when she was sure she would die there, rocks digging into every inch of her mutilated body, claustrophobia clawing welts of terror into her psyche.

But, at last, she had reached Loch an Ordain.

And there she had found her.

Morrigan.

The closest thing to a mother she would ever have. The woman who had given her rebirth. Who had nursed her back to health. Who had trained her in the ancient arts of dark magic. Who had promised her that she would one day be the greatest enchantress under the sea if she could do two things.

Regain her voice.

And kill the man who had betrayed her.

Her thumb caresses the catch of the locket. It releases and the two halves separate, falling open in her palm. There is a split second of silence.

Then the voice fills her cave. The voice of another betrayer.

Images swirl in the water.

The Surface.

Trees.

Golden light.

Vibrant flowers like nothing seen under the sea.

A hairy, four-legged creature racing across sand, barking like a sea lion.

And a man crouched at the edge of the surf.

If you come out of the water, we can be together. Forever, Llyra. I promise you.

The locket’s hinge bites into her palm as her fingers clench convulsively. A line of scarlet appears and spreads, drifting over the silver, as she whispers a dark incantation.

And the voice changes.

New images fill the water around her.

A man’s face, mouth gaping wide in a scream of terror.

The monster’s dark form and glowing eyes, more colossal and correspondingly more ghastly than her nightmares.

Fiery waves of desolation, exploding through the water.

And even as the man shrieks in pain, begging for help, for her to save him, his face begins to melt, skin sliding from bone to expose red muscle and purple nerve, stripping away every defense.

With a movement so small it is almost lazy, her index finger and thumb shift, sliding the two halves back together, closing the bauble in her hand. Silence fills the cave, pulsing with restrained power.

A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

Morrigan was right.

His agony would be her healing.

Only when she had siphoned every drop of her pain into him, watching it tear him apart from the inside out, could she claim the promise her foster mother had given her.

The promise of true greatness.

And an immortal name under the sea.

I laugh. Not my normal laugh—all bubbles and mirth—but a high, strained cackle that erupts from my lips like a geyser from a whale’s spout. I grip Darin’s forearms, warmth whispering up my fingers from the feel of him, using him to hold myself up in the water as unaccountable weakness sweeps through me.

That’s funny, I say as the horrible sound of my laughter dies away in the still water. That’s really funny, Darin.

For some reason, I can’t look at any of the others, but stare into the golden eyes above me, willing his face to break into a smile, his shoulders to shake with mirth, before he pulls me into his arms. I allow his nearness to wash away the pain of losing him, my fear that I would never see him again, my guilt for leaving him.

After a moment, he does smile, but it is all wrong. It is the polite, strained smile you would offer to a stranger you accidentally bumped into in the square. His eyes slide away from mine. Have we met? Orwell tells me I recently suffered some memory loss.

The water solidifies around me—I can’t get enough into my lungs. My fingernails bite into Darin’s forearms and he flinches, pulling away from me, but I hang on.

No, I say, and my voice echoes around the valley. No, I say again, shaking him. You know me, Darin. You know me.

He is still trying to pull away, and the look in his eyes, like a lost seal pup confronted with an aggressive shark, is a stonefish spine directly through my heart.

Darin, please. I’m gasping now, fighting to drag water into my lungs. Please. It’s Locklyn, Darin. You held me the day I was born. You taught me to fight. You gave me this! I release him, reaching down automatically. As my hands meet smooth, hard scales and a fleshy fin, my heart plummets. Where’s my anklet? I spin in the water, eyes roving the seafloor.

Locklyn. A voice tries to pierce my consciousness, but my fevered brain is impervious, repelling every thought except the one reality that is tearing my world to shreds.

You brought it back from that wreck! The one that started everything. I can’t believe I lost it! You told me to make all the other Mermaids jealous!

I can see how crazy I sound in his wide, golden eyes. I-I’m sorry . . . he starts, and for some reason, the words cause something inside me to snap, sending rage flooding through me.

My hands clamp onto his arms again, and I shake him so hard his teeth click together with a sharp snap. You’re not sorry! I yell. "You can’t be sorry, because you don’t even know what you’re sorry for! I’m your best friend! How can you look me in the face and say you don’t know me? How can you?"

He opens his mouth, eyes wide and frightened, and the sight shatters the sliver of my heart that remains intact into a million shards. Darin wasn’t afraid of anything. Least of all a little, blue-haired Mermaid. He’s gone. He’s not dead. But he might as well be.

A hand closes around my arm, dragging me away from Darin. Locklyn, stop. It’s Conway’s voice that finally pushes through the haze of anger and pain. It’s not his fault, Locklyn. The words are soft, tinged with something I can’t identify, and I break. Sobs wrack my body and I crumple into Conway’s arms, heaving silently into his shoulder as hot, green, acidic tears pour down my cheeks.

From a long way off, I hear Ginevra’s voice, higher and colder than I’ve ever heard it before. How did this happen?

Orwell’s voice comes next, but he doesn’t answer Ginevra’s question. There, there, son. His tone is gentle and soothing, like someone speaking to a merchild. The rest of the herd is back now. I could use your help getting them settled in the stable.

The sobs shaking my body redouble, and Conway’s arms tighten around me, his hands rhythmically stroking my hair. Movement flurries around us, punctuated by sporadic chittering from the dolphins. After a long moment of silence, Ginevra speaks again, lower this time.

I don’t understand, how . . . Her words trail away into a gasp. Conway. He must have followed us. To the lair. And he didn’t know about . . .

Circe.

I push out of Conway’s arms so hard that he staggers in the water. Then, I am flying back the way we came, up the rocky mountain path. Voices ring out behind me.

Locklyn, what are you doing?

Come back!

Are you crazy?

Locklyn!

I think I hear someone start to follow me, but emotion is coursing through my veins like liquid strength, and with my new tail, I don’t think even Darin could have caught me.

I will find her. I will make her give Darin back his memories.

And, if she won’t, I will, for the first time in my life, kill another Merperson.

Gladly.

The shaking in his hands is finally beginning to subside. He strokes the smooth, silvery nose of the dolphin butting against him, still feeling the sharp prick of the little blue-haired Mermaid’s nails biting into his biceps. The memory of her eyes, light blue and alight with joyful recognition, fading into black, laced with a pain he does not understand, makes his heart flutter against his ribs like a trapped manta ray.

Guilt attacks as he remembers her frenzy, her desperation.

You know me, Darin. You. Know. Me.

Bubbles whoosh out of his mouth in a sigh as he drops his head into his hands. The dolphin’s nose pokes at the side of his face, but Darin ignores her.

I don’t know anything.

One day ago I didn’t know my own name.

And Darin might not even be my real name. Everyone around me could be lying to me and I wouldn’t know.

I would never know.

His first memory is of a beautiful, golden-haired Mermaid offering him a drink. It must have put him to sleep, because his next memory is waking up on the edge of a shining, iridescent kelp forest. For several long moments, he lay there, his mind grasping for something, anything, to latch onto. But there was nothing, and the more his mental struggles proved fruitless, the more powerless he became to check the swimming emotions building inside.

Darin’s fingers clawed a rock from the path beneath him, and he clenched it so hard that beads of blood welled up along his palm, staining the rock’s edge red. At least the blood was real. The stinging pain was real. But the blankness in his mind remained, and no matter how Darin pushed at the walls trapping him inside the tiny, empty box that was his consciousness now, he could not break out. Claustrophobia gripped him, coating his tongue with the taste of despair.

Who am I?

Who am I?

Who am I?

With a shout of frustration, Darin flung himself off the path, hurling the blood-stained rock with all his might at the passage wall. Then he began to swim, churning the water into billows of foam with every sweep of his muscular tail, using every thrashing movement to lash out at the helplessness encroaching on his mind.

After a day and a half of swimming, he found the valley. Hearing someone moving about in the stable, he slipped quietly up to the doorway and peered in. A giant Merman with white hair and a beard reaching nearly to his scarlet tail hovered inside with his back to Darin, scooping posidonia into dolphin pens with a trident. As Darin watched him, his frame suddenly stilled, the trident in his hands flicking into the upright position of a weapon.

Who’s there? His deep, gravelly voice was not loud, but was menacing nonetheless.

Darin’s inability to answer this very simple question, the one that had been pulsing at the edges of his consciousness for nearly two days, made him reckless.

What right have you to ask?

The right of every owner to know the identity of those who trespass on his property. The Merman still had not moved.

That right is only as good as the ability of the owner to enforce it, Darin said derisively, turning to continue swimming.

He felt, rather than saw, the trident leave the other’s hand. Hurling himself forward, Darin barely managed to keep the teeth of the trident from skimming along the flesh of his back. Rolling over in the water, he dove for the sand below, his fingers latching onto the handle of the weapon.

Something slammed into his back with impressive force and he spun forward, barely managing to keep his hold on the trident. Righting himself, Darin whirled around just in time to see the scarlet tail whipping toward him again. His body flipped horizontally in the water so that the tail sailed beneath him, and Darin jabbed downward with the trident, hearing a satisfying grunt of pain as the prongs connected with the giant’s shoulder. Seconds later, the weapon jerked in his hands, and Darin barely managed to hang on as the Merman darted forward, dragging him through the water in an attempt to wrest the trident from Darin’s hands. Something in his brain clicked into place, and he began to work his way, hand over hand, along the trident’s shaft until he was close enough to bring his tail crashing into the other’s midsection.

The Merman gave another grunt, but then yanked with astonishing strength, causing Darin to shoot through the water as the Merman released his hold on the weapon to close his hands around Darin’s throat instead. As blackness swirled at the edges of his vision, Darin fought blindly, lashing out with both the trident and his tail, but the giant’s hold on his throat did not ease, and the haze clouding his vision morphed into utter darkness.

When Darin awoke, he found himself sitting at the foot of a long, mahogany table, bound to a chair with kelp rope. As the haze over his vision cleared, he saw the giant sitting across the table, tucking into an enormous plate of food. The Merman’s gaze flickered up to meet Darin’s, then back down to the plate in front of him.

Hungry? he asked lightly.

Do you plan to feed me? Darin retorted. Because, in my current state, getting food from my plate to my mouth is going to be difficult.

My plan is for you to tell me who you are and what your purpose in coming here is, at which point I will determine whether to untie you or slit your throat.

Darin opened his mouth, the helplessness rising inside again as his mind thrashed for something to form an identity out of. But there was only blankness. There was nothing for him to tell this giant. Because, at this point, he had no identity. He was no one.

Why don’t you tell me who you are? he countered. It seems only fair after you tried to kill me.

The other threw back his head and roared, causing the entire table to jiggle as his torso shook with mirth. "Believe me, son, I don’t try to kill people. If I had wanted you dead, you would be on your way to the Wave Master’s kingdom, not here speaking to me. Still chuckling, he settled back in his throne-like chair, folding his hands across his chiseled abdomen. But as your host, it does seem only fair that I introduce myself first. I am Lief Orwell."

Darin stared, waiting for him to continue. The giant’s eyebrows rose. I must admit, that is not the reaction I normally receive when I introduce myself. You have never heard of me?

Jellyfish began to squirm in Darin’s gut. Apparently, he should know who this was. But he had no idea. Not even an inkling.

Not a whisper, he replied.

Orwell’s forehead creased for a moment before he smiled. Clearly, I have an aggrandized view of my own renown under the sea. Something about the humility of his self-deprecation eased the desperation choking Darin’s mind. Once, I was a Schatzi who roamed the sea seeking wealth and adventure. Now I am but a gatekeeper, who has pledged the remainder of his days to the Wave Master’s service.

A gatekeeper?

I guard what you seek, Orwell said quietly.

I am seeking nothing, Darin rejoined, his defenses rising.

Merpeople do not enter the Rayan Mountains seeking nothing. I have acceded to your demand to know my identity. Now it is your turn. And be warned, lies will not advance your quest. Not here.

Is it possible to lie if you have no idea what the truth is?

Orwell’s eyes narrowed as he studied Darin for a long moment. Then, with a suddenness that caused Darin to leap against his bonds, Orwell slapped the tabletop.

Of course.

Of course what? he responded guardedly.

Orwell’s eyes were filled with a pain Darin did not understand. You don’t know.

Darin looked at the giant Merman, confused.

Orwell leaned forward. Tell me, he said softly. Did you wake up next to an iridescent blue kelp forest about a day’s journey from here?

Darin stared at him. How does he know?

Did a beautiful, golden-haired Merwoman offer you a drink at any time in the past few days?

Darin’s heart picked up speed. How do you know?

Orwell’s eyelids flickered shut for a moment, then opened. The beautiful Merwoman you met is called Circe. She is the most renowned enchantress under the sea. And the drink she gave you has erased every memory of your life up until this point. His eyes looked directly into Darin’s. That is why you do not know who you are.

But why would she give me a potion to make me forget my life? Am I her enemy? Darin’s breaths were shallow, salt water brushing in and out over his tongue.

Bubbles whooshed from between Orwell’s lips in a long sigh. It seems that every being under the sea is Circe’s enemy. She needs no cause for cruelty.

Is there no way to reverse the enchantment? Can this Circe undo the spell? Cause my memories to return?

I have no doubt that she could, Orwell replied. But I have never known her to do so.

Anger was beginning to simmer again. You expect me to sit back and accept this condition as my new identity? To build a life from nothing at, what—he glanced down at his bound body—twenty-five? Thirty years old? What if I have a family? A wife? Children? His voice faltered. I have to remember. It was almost a plea. I have to.

Orwell nodded. And I will do all that is in my power to help you, only on one condition.

Darin eyed the Merman warily. And what is that?

The giant leaned toward him, the aged lines of his face more pronounced than ever. Live, Orwell said, and the bubbles from that single, exhaled word flew down the table, dissolving seconds before tickling Darin’s face. Confusion must have been evident in his expression, because the other leaned back in his chair with a laugh. It will be better for you to build a new life for yourself now than to spend the rest of the years the Wave Master has granted you in pursuit of a past you can never reclaim.

Darin comes back to himself in the barn, his hands absently stroking the head of the dolphin nestled into his side, humming contentedly with her eyes closed. With what feels like enormous effort, he drags a mouthful of water into his lungs.

Whoever I was, this is not who I want to be.

On the verge of senseless anger that explodes like a geyser over anyone unfortunate enough to be in my vicinity.

He blows out a stream of bubbles, and the dolphin squirms as they brush her sleek head. Ticklish, eh? he asks, before blowing on her scalp again so that she wriggles and lets out a series of guttural chirps uncannily similar to chuckling. The corners of his mouth lift as a tendril of warmth uncurls tentatively inside his chest.

I’m alive. Even though I know nothing about myself, at least I’m alive.

Darin? He turns around at the sound of the voice and sees the dark-skinned mermaid with the pearl-white tail leaning languidly against the door jamb. Nerves swell inside his chest and he tenses unconsciously, meeting her cool, black eyes. Locklyn’s gone, the Mermaid says. Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, and Darin knows that this would mean something to the Merman he used to be.

"The little blue-haired Mermaid?