It was warm. It was electric. It felt alive.
And every time a mermaid was swept toward me, the lightning would arc out of me, out of my hands, out of my chest, my eyes and mouth and throat and heart. It snapped into the sandstorm, electrifying the sand and solidifying it as the lightning traveled through it. It smashed into the heads and chests and tails of the mermaids.
Lightning had a curious effect on sand. I’d seen it once on a beach near the Port after a great storm had rolled through the coast. There were several strikes along the beach, each leaving scorched holes in the sand. When they dug around the holes, there were glass-lined hollow tubes that branched off into the ground. Petrified lightning, Morgan had said it was called.
And that was what I created now.
The mermaids screeched and rocked their heads back as they were electrocuted, clawed fingers flexed and stiff at their sides, eyes open, their gaping maws pointing up into the sandstorm around them. The swirling sand fused into their skin, hardening until it cracked into place. Electricity poured from their mouths, colliding with the sand, lining their insides with solid crystal that grew out of them in ominous shapes.
And it was as this storm raged around me, as it froze these creatures into glass, that I searched for my loves. I pushed through the sand, the lightning so hot at points that it didn’t solidify so much as it vaporized the sand away from me. There was electricity at my feet, and with every step I took, the sand became solid and supported my weight, creating a staircase through the roiling sea.
One of the mermaids caught some kind of draft and hurtled toward me, claws reaching to tear my throat out, but the moment before it touched me, the moment before hooks sank into soft skin, I pushed toward it, and it exploded in a bright flash.
I found Tiggy first, caught in the storm. He was spinning in a slow circle with the remains of several mermaids floating by, the pieces of them reflecting the lightning as it swirled around him. He reached out, a look of awe on his face as he pushed one of the pieces, watching it twist in place, electricity crawling along the surface, little sparks trailing where he had pressed against it.
His great brow furrowed when he saw me. He cocked his head. “Sam?”
I nodded, unable to speak, unable to do anything but find them, keep them safe, keep anything from hurting them.
“You do this?” he asked.
I nodded again.
He smiled at me as thunder rolled above. “Sam magic is strong magic,” he said, reaching a hand out for me. He trusted me completely. He knew I could never hurt him.
I put my hand in his and we went away, away, away.
There weren’t as many of them now. The mermaids. Most had been frozen or shattered. But now, instead of coming for us, they tried to get away. A brief thought pierced through the haze of magic, like sunlight through clouds, that I should let them go, that I should leave them be, but then the clouds took away that sunlit thought, and they too went the way of their sisters.
We found Ryan cocooned in a swirl of sand and pieces of glass, like some enchanted prince from a story of old. His eyes were closed, sword hanging loosely in his hand, which rose in front of his face. Another sunlit moment pierced the magic, and I remembered the vision my grandmother had shown me, of my beloved resting upon a stone dais, sword lying atop him, handle on his chest, blade pointed toward his feet. This moment burned, and I was filled with such an overwhelming sense of grief that I thought I would shatter from it. I would blow away, the petrified pieces of me caught in the swirling storm. I was lightning-struck, yes, but I too could break so easily.
I said, “Ryan.”
My voice broke.
He opened his eyes.
And the sunlight went away again. I reached for him, and he reached for me, and the moment our hands touched, the moment his fingers met mine, I felt a great and terrible rage that something like this could be taken from me, that they had tried to take this from me. I knew, deep down, there was a price to pay for the magic used, but all I could think about was tearing everything apart until there was nothing left but my family.
I walked through the storm.
They drifted after me.
They spoke, I heard their voices, but I didn’t hear what they said.
I was too entrenched in magic, too far underneath whatever the storm had done to me. It wasn’t until we stood upon the stone path again that I felt Ryan tugging against me. I tried to pull away, trying to find more of them, trying to get rid of them while I still had the chance, but he wouldn’t let me. And since I could never hurt him, I went. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close. I tucked my face against his neck and held on for dear life. A moment later, I felt Tiggy gather us both against his chest, rumbling in a deep and soothing fashion, hand against the back of my head.
And then Ryan Foxheart tilted his head, his lips near my ear, and said, “Sam. Oh, Sam. It’s okay to let go now. It’s okay to let go.”
And I cried out against the skin of his neck, my magic exploding out of me. I put everything into that cry I could, the last weeks, the revelations, the sense of loss, the secrets kept, the anger I felt. The fact that I’d almost lost Tiggy and Ryan. Everything.
Lightning struck. Thunder cracked.
A moment later, everything fell quiet.
And a moment after that, I felt the sun on my skin again, burning bright and hot.
I took in a breath. And then another. And another.