Page 118 of Cathmoir's Sons

That’s really pretty, actually. “I’ll be calling her Zura.”

“Call her anything you want. I can’t wait to meet our little mermaid.”

He’s just as broody as Law. “How many kids do you see us having?”

He shrugs again. “Dozens. I got lots of names. Nerea. Ondine. Sirena. Pearla?—”

I swat him.

Five of usswim out to the anticline: Rhodes in the lead, me following, Gabe leading Arch and Val. Three tritones are waiting for us near the sea cave on the anticline. I don’t know why I expected them to look alike. Humans are highly individuated.

So are tritones, it turns out.

One, the pearly shark, is cut along what I consider to be classic “merperson” lines: a long, fishy tail, smooth-skinned chest, human head, shoulders, and arms. The pearly shark is covered with scales that reflect the colors of the ocean: blues from powder to ultramarine that shade into emerald and deepest indigo with flashes of white, pink, and vibrant orange. Some of the scales are etched with runes I don’t recognize. I stare at them, perhaps too intently, trying to memorize them so I can draw them for Luca. The tritones’ head is smooth with a black crest that flares as we approach.

The tritones beside the pearly shark looks like a lionfish, with fluttering fins in brown and muted gold that obscure anything but a vague oval shape with huge eyes peering out between the waving fins.

The third tritones is as sleek as its companion is frilly, but instead of a tail, this tritones’ lower body splits into eighttentacles that shade from dark orange near its torso to bright pink, the tips gently curling in the current.

The pearly shark extends its trident toward me. Fronds of yellow-green seaweed are impaled on the trident’s sharp tips.

The pearly shark mimes taking a piece of seaweed and eating it.

With a faint roll of my stomach, I tug a piece of seaweed off the trident and stuff it in my mouth, getting an unavoidable mouthful of seawater as well, which I try to siphon out through my teeth as I chew the seaweed.

The seaweed has a licorice taste that isn’t terrible, but I’m happy when I finally swallow it down. I’m happier when it stays down. Val visibly regurgitates it and has to chew and swallow a second time. Arch glowers and glares but eats the seaweed. I guess he didn’t like being excluded from the conversation last time.

The tritones’ thoughts slip into my mind as gently as the last time.

Agati and Despina, Elders of our Accetus, welcome you and your friends.

I focus on my appreciation that the tritones have greeted us with acceptance rather than hostility.

We have no quarrel with the Children of Maia except when they disturb our Accetus. Father Ocean welcomes all. Agati and Despina bid you abandon your search for the Devourer’s secrets. You and your friends will find nothing but death delving into her Breast.

I push my thanks for the warning to the front of my thoughts and follow it with the knot of my feelings for Carrie and her instruction that I should go after Ulune’s Daughter.

The pearly shark bows his head over his trident.

You must honor your mentor-mother’s wishes as best you can. We will not stop you, only wish you success where all before you have failed.

Well, that’s not chilling or anything. I glance at Rhodes who swims closer to me and bumps my shoulder in silent support. I assume he’s hearing the pearly shark in his head, too, but I can’t tell from his expression.

I wonder if there’s anything the tritones can tell us about what we might face diving the anticline.

There are three guardians who guard the entrance to the Devourer’s throat: the Shadow Sisters. They will require something you don’t wish to give. Only one of our kind has returned from meeting them and he killed himself not long after, broken in heart and mind. Whether others have passed them or have been killed by them, we cannot say.

I let my thanks flow to the tritones in a steady current.

The tentacled tritones, Despina, moves toward me, her tentacles tap-tapping over my wetsuit. One wraps around my wrist and her thoughts pulse through my mind with a gentle thrumming, like a heartbeat or the lap of waves.

Whatever you seek from the Devourer, it is not worth your life or the lives of your consorts, Queen of Crows.

I project my thanks for her warning and when her thoughts ruffle through my memories of finding the Magi of the Mists, I feel her surprise.

You are a teacher. We are also the teachers of our people. Teachers are precious. Do not waste what you have to give by throwing your life down the Devourer’s maw.

I push Teddy and Gabe and Charlie to the front of my thoughts to show Despina that there are several teachers among us. I follow that with a reassurance that I have no intention of wasting my life. I have more to teach, and much, much more loveto give my consorts and our growing family, before I return to the Mother’s bosom.

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