Fire (The Mermaid Legacy - Book 2) (7 page)

The only way out of the decision was to escape from Ferengren. If I could somehow get away, I was pretty certain Neith would keep Merrick alive as bait, knowing I would come back for him at some point. The problem was, I was helpless in the net, which drastically reduced the chances of me escaping, but I also knew that I wasn’t going to be able to watch Merrick being tortured again without compromising my plan to peacefully save the Oceanids.

I knew they wouldn’t kill Merrick, not yet. Once tonight was over they would heal him and then they would erase the love I felt for him from my memory and in its place plant seeds of hatred and murder.

I toyed with the idea of agreeing to help Neith, throwing up a façade and then attacking him once we were free. I knew Merrick would see it as complete betrayal but if it enabled his freedom, surely his anger and disappointment in me would be worth it? But could I fool Neith?

I was still dithering about what to do when the door to my cell flew open. I pushed myself into an upright and protective position as a figure tumbled into the room and smashed into the opposite wall as the door slid shut behind him.

“Merrick!”

I hurled myself into his arms, relishing the strength of him as he curled around me and pressed my body along the length of his before pushing myself free to examine his face and chest and arms

“Are youOK?” I cried, tears bleeding from my eyes as I looked for any physical sign of the torture he’d just endured. There wasn’t a single mark on him, but the evidence of it was visible in the slight pallor of his normally ruddy skin and the exhaustion in his eyes.

He smiled gently at me, his eyebrow quirking upwards at my dramatic response.

“I am…physically,” he replied before. burying his hands in my hair, tilting my face up to his and kissing me through the netting that covered my head.

“I’m so sorry” I cried between kisses.

He shook his head and continued to cover my face in kisses. “This is not your fault, Alexa,” he murmured against my lips.

“I shouldn’t have come here alone, now Neith will hurt you until I give in.”

His eyes were anciently sad as he gazed into my face. He didn’t try to argue with me.

“You must stay strong, Alexa, millions of lives depend on you. They won’t kill me, my love…not yet.”

“Merrick, I can’t watch you being tortured again, I’m not strong enough.” Panic rose in my throat.

He shook his head. “Alex you have always been stronger than you think you are, you
can
do this.”

I was shaking my head even as he was speaking, tears melting into the salt water around me. “Could you do it if it was me?” I asked him.

His eyes were desperately sad and denied the words he spoke. “If it meant saving millions of other lives…I…” He sighed and shook his head, pulling me into his arms and burying his face in my hair as it swirled around us.

“No, Alex, I couldn’t. You must know that I can endure the physical pain as long as I know Neith isn’t changing you, as long as I know you can withstand his attempt to turn you into a murderer.”

“I can’t guarantee that, Merrick,” I whispered before telling him of the awful thoughts that had squirmed their way unwelcome into my mind.

“The only way I can think of beating Neith at this is to pretend to join him and then find a way to get us out of here.”

Merrick shook his head. “You’re not going to be able to just say things to Neith to get him to believe you. He’ll want to…test you.”

“You mean I’ll have to kill someone?”

Merrick nodded. “So far every Oceanid that has come into Ferengren has had to prove their loyalty to Neith by destroying humans.”

I felt sick at the magnitude of the evil we faced.

“You have to get out of here Alex.”

“I know, that’s what I’ve been thinking too, if we can escape we’ll be fine…but how?”

“Neith sent me in here to remind you of how much you love me, but if you use your powers, we can escape the Miengu. Neith knows I’m not strong enough to do it alone, but you could…”

I shook my head and explained my helplessness in the net.

Merrick was horrified. He took my netted hand in his, gripping the fine mesh with his fingernails and pulling until blood oozed as his nails began to tear loose from his flesh.

“Stop,” I gasped in horror. For all his efforts he’d made no progress at all other than to hurt himself.

He made a guttural low scream of frustration, winding his hands into his hair and clenching his fists until the whites of his knuckles showed before he let them drop to his sides, his eyes clenched tight for a few minutes.

When he opened them again they’d hardened with resolve.

“Alex, you have to stop Neith.”

“I agree with you, Merrick, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m kind of helpless here.”

He shook his head. “You can’t afford to think like that any more, my love, you are the fortieth generation Gurrer, you are the only hope humans and Oceanids have of peace. You’ve seen how fanatical Neith is, he’ll stop at nothing.”

“Exactly, Merrick, he’ll stop at nothing including killing you.”

Merrick shook his head. “He wants your power, Alex, with you he is completely assured of victory, without you…he’s not as confident.”

“So how does that keep you alive?”

“I think he thinks that you will do whatever it takes to free me, and therein lies our only tactical advantage.”

“Meaning?”

“Neith is expecting you to behave like any other Oceanid, to be unable to deny your genes, to be unable to resist the pull I have on you.”

“Merrick, I don’t want to leave you,” I replied, having already guessed where he was going with his thinking.

He didn’t reply.

“It’s our only chance isn’t it?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“If you leave me, you will remove his only hold over you.”

“But then he might think that I don’t love you, that you have no hold over me, and then you become useless to him...”

Merrick was quiet for a while. “It’s a risk we have to take, Alex.”

I shook my head, beginning to cry again.

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me very softly at first, his mouth growing more urgent and desperate before he pulled me into a tight hug. When he released me there was a settled determination in his eyes.

“OK, this is what we’re going to do. When the guards come back to fetch me I’ll attack them and you swim as hard and as fast as you can. Head for land, it’s close and they can’t track you as easily there. Once on land you can move around and re-enter the ocean somewhere else.”

“What about you?”

He kissed me fiercely, the pain in his eyes a clear answer. He wouldn’t be coming with me.

“I can’t leave you to be tortured like that.”

His muscles tensed as he listened to something my ears were unable to pick up.

“We’re out of time, my love, they’re coming.”

I tried to protest again, but he took me by the shoulders and shook me gently. “Alex, this is the only way. I know you’ll be back for me and then…then we will get rid of Neith for good...together.”

He pushed me against the wall of the tiny cell closest to the doorway, his body shielding me from the Miengu who entered it.

Merrick attacked him with a ferocity and hatred I’d never seen in him before. The Miengu was unprepared and in the few moments before his instincts kicked in I slipped out of the door and swam, arcing with the curve of the passage and desperately looking for a way into the dark terrifying water beyond.

I swam past it at first, having to double back just as a group of Oceanids approached the entrance. I pressed myself into the ceiling and watched as they swam into Ferengren. As I was about to slip out into the open water, in that moment just before I turned, five little arms stretched out to me from a cell. Flashes of brilliant colour registered briefly before I shot into the dark cold water and swam with all my might.

I’d swum through the night and day and now the ocean was darkening with the setting sun but I kept swimming, pushing my body beyond its limits. Merrick had managed to get me only a few minutes’ head start, just enough time to get out of Ferengren and into the blue. The further I swam from Merrick the harder it got, every cell in my body screaming that I should be with him, that I was a monster, an unfeeling monster to have left him in Neith’s awful clutches, but then I’d remember the intensity in Merrick’s eyes as he’d earnestly reminded me of the hope I carried in my veins. I was the fortieth generation Gurrer, whether I felt like it or not. Merrick believed I could defeat Neith and he’d already shown me how I could do it. I needed to learn everything I could about Oceanid culture and particularly Oceanid war culture and then break every rule I could. I needed to become a complete wild card, prove to Neith that there was nothing predictable about me. I needed to behave so far out of the timid character he’d pegged me as so as to foil his every move.

I smiled grimly as I swam, wondering if Neith understood this element of human psyche. He’d pushed me too far. Neith not only threatened the man I loved, but every other person I loved too. He thought me weak, for loving and in a way I was, I loved Merrick with all of my heart and it was the threat of that love that had pushed me into a place where I would come out swinging.

I ran through different scenarios in my mind as I pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of, swimming with every current and focusing intently on losing those that hunted me.

I was so focused on my internal world that I only noticed how shallow the water had become when the pink tinge and golden warmth of another rising sun filtered onto my skin. A sharply barnacled rock brushed across my thigh leaving a score of scratches.

I hadn’t known exactly where Ferengren was in relation to any shore, and I could have swum for weeks without ever finding land, yet somehow I was here, my instincts had picked the right currents and taken me exactly where I wanted to be. The thought was a little comforting, that somehow my body knew more about the ocean than I did, that subconsciously I was already behaving like I belonged in the sea.

I allowed the waves to spill me onto a softly sanded deserted beach where I lay for a few minutes, resting as the water lapped in cool swathes across my bare legs.

Breathing on land again was an active task that sapped a disproportionate amount of my strength as I allowed the early morning sun to warm me. Once I’d regained a little energy I stumbled along the tide line until I found the washed up remnants of mussel shells, sharp enough to cut through the netting that still encased me. As soon as the net was off my talents returned in a rush, their absence only truly realised when they returned.

I walked inland – South – and as I walked the scenarios I’d been running through continued to flow as I imagined how I could rescue Merrick and stop Neith. I knew I couldn’t do it alone, that much had been made abundantly clear. My talents weren’t as reliable as I’d initially believed them to be, which meant I would need an army to help me, and finding one would be my first challenge. Qinn had instructed me on how to reach the other Oceanids from the cave; if I could find a point of reference as to where I was, I was sure I could navigate my way back to them.

The beach was frustratingly devoid of sentient life. It ran in a white ribbon as far as I could see, encased on one side by the blue of the ocean and on the other by a flat scrubby landscape lit with daisies in exuberant tones of yellow, orange, pink and white.

It took me most of the day to find the first remnants of humans, and my hideout for the night. I’d grown more and more anxious as I’d walked, painfully aware of how much danger Merrick was in and desperate to put my impossible rescue plan into action.

As I rested in the shelter of an abandoned and rusting ship that had been beached years ago, huge holes in its side and an eerie whistling of wind making me shiver as the waves flung themselves at it in a mist of spray, I ran our last conversation through my mind continuously. Merrick believed in me enough to have stayed at Ferengren, knowing the torture he’d face. I refused to entertain any thoughts that betrayed that trust.

The breeze that had grown persistently stronger throughout the day and had succeeded in blowing in dark clouds that mushroomed upwards and obscured the sun. Suddenly the sky erupted with a crack of lightning and a roll of thunder that rippled over the turbulent sea as rain began to pelt the beach.

The temperature dropped suddenly and hail pounded from the sky, bouncing off any exposed skin and skittering along the beach. I watched it sweep across the empty expanse of the beach in a curtain of needled ice.

I discovered that most of the old oil tanker had disintegrated with the neverending pounding of salt and sun and wind as I searched its skeleton for a more substantial hiding place. Eventually I managed to crawl into a space that was partially buried in the soft white sand that entombed the ship but was still covered by some of the remaining structure.

The hail pummelled the iron deck and sides of the ship, increasing in tempo as it competed with the roar of the ocean.

I was huddled in a ball, trying to keep as much of my skin away from the needled storm when something fluttered starkly against the dark rust red of the ship. My heart stuttered in fright and my senses became instantly alert..

I’d almost dismissed it as sand lashed up by the wind, when movement on the other side of the hull had me focusing every ounce of energy into sight.

It was hair, long, white hair that was quickly swept away with a trembling bony hand.

I moved into a crouched position, narrowing my eyes as I tried to work out if the person was human or Oceanid, friend or foe.

“I know you’re there,” I called as I reached out and tapped the hull of the ship. It echoed a little, the sound quickly whisked away in the scourge of forceful wind.

Long old fingers ending in talon-like translucent nails, curled around the edge of the ship as he slid into the shelter. He wore the long flared trousers of the Oceanids, faded a dirty grey. The cloak that covered his chest had wide sleeves and fell in a tumble of folds to his knees. The hair I’d seen whipped around the side of the ship was long and very white and clung to his skull in the pounding rain. He watched me carefully with piercing, knowing, blue eyes that scudded quickly over my bedraggled, shivering form. Even pressed into the slight shelter the ship provided he stood with an air of dignity, his shoulders pulled back and his head held high.