Chapter 8
The weeks that followed became a ritual.
Each dawn, Damien returned to the cliffshore. Sometimes he shouted my name until the sun set. Sometimes he staggered into the water, feigning drowning, so that my kin would surface and save him. And every time they pulled him out, he clutched at them with desperate hands.
“Where is Seraphina? Tell me where she is. I’ll give anything–anything–to see her again!”
But they knew the truth of what he had done. No one would lead him to me.
Still, his persistence drew whispers among the clan. One day, a young mermaid swam to me, hesitant.
“Seraphina… that human who cries for you every day… he looks near death.”
I paused, fingers tangled in the coral.
“He carries mermaid blood within him,” she explained softly. “The curse is turning. He will not live more than three days. Do you truly wish to let him die without a final word?”
I tilted my face upward. Through the shifting waters, the moon spilled shards of light that fractured against the sand.
After a long silence, I shook my head. “It has nothing to do with me.”
But even as I spoke, the coral beneath my fingers pulsed with light. My breath caught as the glow brightened, and before my eyes, a miracle unfurled.
A small figure emerged from the light–my daughter.
“Mother.”
Her voice was small and sweet, and it shattered the stillness within me. My arms trembled as I clutched her to me. Liora. She had
returned.
A realization washed over me–the scale she had left behind pulsed with a familiar, vital energy. It was no ordinary fragment; it was her very Heartscale. My ceaseless mourning, my songs of grief, had watered it until her soul revived.
Her body was slight, her brow furrowed as she whispered in her sleep.
“Father… pain.”
The words pierced me. Then, understanding dawned.
Of course. Damien carried my blood within him. The curse was eating at him, but the bond between him and Liora tied their pain together.
He was her father still.
On the final night, I swam with Liora to the shallows.
Damien lay sprawled across the rocks, his skin pale, veins darkening in scales of bruised blue. His breath was shallow.
The splash of water stirred him. His eyes fluttered open. For a moment, life sparked in his gaze.
“Seraphina… you came.”
He tried to lift his hand toward me, but a cough wracked his chest, spilling black blood onto the stone. Still, he smiled faintly, as if death itself could not rob him of relief.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me die without seeing you.”
Moonlight gilded the waves. I rose above the surface, cradling Liora in my arms. My face was calm, my heart unmoved.
Chapter 8
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“I cannot save you. Once the curse takes hold, there is no escape.”
He accepted my words with eerie peace. Yet tears, laced with blood, slipped from his eyes as he gazed at me.
“I know the truth now. Amelia–my sister–she was killed by Isolde. You tried to save her. It was I who mistook everything. It was I who killed our daughter. I cannot ask for forgiveness. I only wanted to see you one last time.”
His voice faltered. The waves hissed against the stones.
“Then you have seen me,” I said coldly. “I will go.”
He stared at me, desperate, searching for any remnant of love. But my eyes gave him nothing.
His body sagged, and a bitter laugh escaped him. “So be it. I wronged you, Seraphina. I wronged you beyond redemption. Let me die. Let the sea take me as punishment.”
Then his gaze shifted–and he saw the child in my arms.
“Liora…” His voice cracked. He tried to crawl toward us, his body convulsing. “Our daughter…”
“You are not her father.” My tail lashed the waves, sending salt spray across his ruined skin. He flinched but crawled still, inch by inch.
“Kill me, Seraphina,” he begged. His bloody hand groped for a razor–sharp fragment of shell, thrusting it toward me. His face twisted with a smile that was both anguish and relief. “I destroyed her life. Take mine in exchange.”
The sea stilled.
I stared at the shard, memory clawing at me–of him once handing me scissors, forcing me to butcher my own fin.
“Death would be mercy,” I whispered. “And you do not deserve mercy from my hand.”
I turned, diving into the deep. Behind me, his voice broke in a final scream.
Moments later came the heavy splash of a body falling into the sea. The water heaved, then stilled once more.
I did not look back. I only held Liora tighter, swimming toward the dark where no moonlight reached.
Her small hand brushed away the tears I had not realized were falling.
“Don’t cry, Mama.”
I smiled faintly and shook my head.
A mermaid’s blood tears had already been spent. I would never cry again.
Chapter 8
