Eden's stomach dropped when the front line of prisoners began to move, led by the guard whom Deagan had put in charge.
He led them to the end of the corridor, to the wall that marked the border of the dungeon, but kept going. Eden peeked around the prisoners in front of her, confused. All she could see was the smooth surface of the stone wall.
But wait-- directly in front of them, there was a hole chiseled into the wall, large enough for one prisoner at a time to swim through.
"It's a tunnel," whispered Aela from behind.
Eden nodded in response. "Where does it lead?" she whispered over her shoulder.
Aela sighed. "To the moonstone fields."
The line moved slowly forward as person after person swam through the hole in the wall. Soon, the prisoner in front of Eden passed through and disappeared into the darkness.
There were no flickering blue balls of fire lining this tunnel, like in the corridor behind them. She hesitated.
"Go on," Colin murmured.
Eden took a deep breath, swallowing whatever amount of fear she felt. She kicked her tail and ducked her head, and disappeared through the hole in the stone.
The tunnel dipped downward. Almost immediately, Eden noticed a change in temperature. It was growing warmer and warmer, the farther down they went. She followed the line of prisoners before her, relying on the tug of the blackweed rope to guide her.
Hints of blue light began to flutter against the tunnel walls, revealing that there was indeed an end to the darkness.
The tunnel curved, and the light before them grew. Before long, they had reached the end. A gate opened above them like a trap door. One by one, the prisoners swam upward through the open gate and gathered together outside as if they were familiar with this routine.
They were just outside the city, which was bordered by the tail ends of a winding mountain range. The castle glowed softly, and Eden could see now that it was built into the mountain.
Eden turned away from the city and stared in awe at the hauntingly beautiful sight before her. The world was much wilder on this side of the tunnel. Small, spiny rock formations scattered the dark ocean floor like a range of slender, miniature mountains. The tallest ones spouted clouds of black steam. Like the tunnel that had led them underground, the water was warmer here. With surprise, Eden realized that the blue light she had seen in the tunnel was coming from the rocks. Specks of glowing blue stone sprinkled everything in sight.
Eden marveled at the sight before her. "What is this place?"
"The Moonstone Fields," said Colin. His voice held a hint of eagerness, as if his melancholy mood from minutes before was washing away with the slight current that drifted through the valley.
"Why are we here?" Eden asked, turning to Aela.
"Because no one else wants to do the job."
"Whatever the job is, it sounds like he wants to do it," Eden nodded at Colin, who was gazing at the rocky moonstone formations with awe and wonder.
Aela snorted and rolled her eyes. "He's like a child when it comes to moonstone."
On either side of them, the other prisoners were picking up tools that had been lying on the ground.
"Quick," said Aela. "Grab a hand tool before they're all gone. And a draw-string sack -- you'll need that too."
Eden found that the paralysis that had frightened her earlier was fading. Her fingers felt heavy, but she could move them. It was different than when Captain Deagan had paralyzed nearly her whole body. This paralysis was weaker and shorter, somehow.
Quickly, she lowered herself to the muddy seabed and closed her fingers around one of the strange-looking tools that everyone else was claiming. Next to the tool was a dark, cloth bag tied with a string and Eden picked it up.
The last merrow to come through was the one Deagan had put in charge. He faced the prisoners with a scowl. "You know how this works. But, starting today, your work is doubled."
The other prisoners groaned, but Aela flinched at his voice, and Colin tensed.
The guard continued. "There will be no talking or complaining, or your workload will be increased further. Get to work."
The crowd of prisoners started moving.
"Wait -- how does this work? What do I do?" Eden whispered to Aela, lifting the tool in her hand.
"Just do what I do," she answered, moving toward one of the miniature geysers.
Colin took in a breath like he wanted to say something, but when Eden looked at him, his mouth had clamped shut and his eyes had averted, sweeping the landscape beyond them. What he was watching for, Eden could only guess.
Aela paused. "Don't tell me you aren't jumping at an opportunity to explain how moonstone works."
"Well--" Colin turned back to Aela with a hard look, but there was no malice behind it. He huffed as if the effort it would take to defend himself would distract him from the superior purpose of enlightening Eden of the inner workings of moonstone. He looked back at Eden, ignoring Aela as she smirked in his direction.
"It's an incredible feat of nature," he said. The constant tension surrounding him momentarily dispersed. This time, even though he whispered, there was no doubting the eagerness in his voice. "Magma heats the moonstone found deep beneath the seabed. The heat causes the moonstone to leak through the sediment in liquid form, and once it hits the cooler water, it hardens back into rocks and settles on the ocean floor, forming these little mounds and chimneys that you see --"
Aela snapped her fingers, and energy zipped through the rope, zapping Eden and then Colin. It felt only like a pinch on Eden's wrists, but it got Colin's attention.
"Yes, yes," Aela mumbled. "Science. When you put it that way, it sounds utterly delightful." She turned to Eden. "What he means is that you and I will be getting hot and tired, chipping away at the rock all day. And then we get to haul it all back to the castle furnaces, where we will become even more hot and tired."
Colin grimaced apologetically.
"Why do we need to mine for this stuff?" Eden continued. If he was going to keep answering her questions, she would keep asking them. "What is it?"
The apology that was written across Colin's face vanished, and disbelief took its place. "What is it?"
Eden hesitated, her eyes flicking back and forth between Colin and Aela.
Does Colin know I'm not from here? Is it okay if he knows? What do I say?
Colin continued before she could come up with an answer.
"I don't know how anyone could not know about moonstone -- it's only the source of all magic! The lifeblood of Ársa!"
"No talking," the lead guard said. Eden looked up and caught the guard glaring at Colin, who, rather than cower and stutter like he did when Captain Deagan spoke to him, glared back. The guard's sneer held an undercurrent of laughter that was not mirrored in Colin's eyes. He turned back to the other prisoners, and that's when Eden noticed that the fingers on Colin's right hand were frosted in ice, and a sudden cool radiated from him.
Colin shook his head and muttered something Eden couldn't hear, though she did catch the name, "Cormac."
He refocused on Eden, shaking his hand out beside him. The thin layer of ice melted and dispersed, and the water around him warmed.
"What?" he asked, pausing.
Eden realized that her mouth was hanging open. "Your hand -- the water --"
She stopped. He was staring at her through narrowed eyes.
She cleared her throat and glanced at Aela, and Colin followed her gaze. Aela smiled.
"You can tell him." She didn't meet Colin's eyes. "He's safe."
"Tell me what?" he asked, slowly -- if not reluctantly-- tearing his attention away from Aela.
Eden screwed her lips to the side and decided two things at that moment: to trust Aela, and to trust Aela's faith in Colin. With a deep breath, she turned to the merrow soldier.
"I'm not from Muir," she said in a whisper. "I'm not even a real merrow. But my mother is, and she's been missing for years. Somehow, I got this tail, and I came here to find her. I have no idea what I'm doing, or what moonstone is. I just need to get that book back from the captain and get out of here so I can start looking for my mum."
Colin gaped at her.
"You mean, you weren't outside the Geata to lure human men to their deaths, or...to anything else?"
"Absolutely not!" Eden shouted in a whisper. "Captain Deagan found me just as I had left my home."
Her eyes stung as thoughts of Aidan pricked her mind.
"And you didn't steal that book from the king?"
Eden shook her head, her eyes pleading for Colin to believe her.
Colin gave a close-mouthed sigh, the muscles in his jaw tense. "Say I believe you. You're a prisoner now. How do you expect to get out of here? You've been accused of thieving from the king. That requires a trial, where the king will decide your fate. And his judgment is to be carried out swiftly."
Eden bit her lip and shrugged, willing stress-induced tears to stay deep down in the well of her heart. His question was only one of the many questions she didn't know the answer to.
"I don't have a plan to get out," Eden murmured. "I just know that my mother's fate is depending on it."
The other guard, Cormac, was making rounds to supervise the prisoners. Aela sighed and began chipping away at the chimney. A piece of glowing moonstone freed itself from the chimney and she caught it in her hand.
Eden turned to face the rock chimney in front of her and followed Aela's example.
"I'll do what I can. But for now, it's best to just do as they say," Colin mumbled. "Try not to ask any more questions."
"Thank you," she whispered. She expected Colin to peruse the area like Cormac, but he never moved more than a stone's toss away from them.
More like he won't move away from Aela, Eden thought, noticing the way his eyes kept sweeping the moonstone fields and then darting back to her. Like he's protecting her from something.
It was hot, so close to the chimneys. A light current was keeping her relatively cool and swept the plumes of steam away, for which Eden was thankful. Strike after strike, her collection of moonstone was growing, but it was still a very small collection. Eden looked into her draw-string bag and huffed. She didn't know how many hours had passed, but she had a gut feeling that her measly number of moonstone shards would not please Deagan.
Eden struck angrily at the chimney and a large chunk of rock fell away, revealing the largest slice of moonstone she had yet come across. Distracted by the sheer size of it, she chipped away at the corners, trying to free the glowing mineral without breaking it. At last, it broke away. It was a thin piece of moonstone, and the edges were sharp. Amid the bluish glow, flashes of pink and green and purple reflected off her hands where the rock brushed her fingertips.
She squinted. She had seen this before. In the lighthouse, of course, where the sliver that Fredric kept there allowed him to peer into Ársa through the telescope. But even before that...
"The source of all magic..." Eden whispered.
Her eyes widened as memories pricked her mind.
The closet under the stairs at home. The armoire, the dresses, the jewelry box...
The barrette.
Moonstone didn't glow, back home, but there was no doubting it was the same rock.
Nothing bizarre had happened to her until she'd discovered the Leabhar with the image of the Scáth. But she'd been wearing the barrette when she opened the book.
Eden squeezed her eyes shut and strained to remember the other moments she had felt the strange sensation of magic flowing through her.
In the Manor Store, she'd adjusted the barrette while she stood in line with her groceries, right before she had caused the aquarium glass to shatter. It had been snagged in her wild curls when she ran down the dock and sent a wave crashing toward her peers. She used it to pin her hair back on the day of the picnic lunch down by the old ruins -- she remembered that detail because she'd been wondering if Aidan would notice the difference. That was the day her blood turned blue.
She looked back down at the moonstone.
Is it the reason I have a tail right now?
It couldn't be. That would mean...
If I had gone straight to bed instead of reading a book, I never would have gone into that closet for a blanket. I never would have picked up the barrette. I never would have discovered the Leabhar. I would have two feet. I would be home.
A chill chased down her spine.
But I would still believe lies about my mum.
Eden breathed deeply, pressing one palm against her forehead.
Was it worth it? To know the truth?
Unease settled in her stomach. Her mum was still out there, somewhere. But Eden was no closer to finding her than she'd been before her feet were swapped for a tail.
Maybe I can get away, Eden thought, lifting her eyes from the moonstone shard in her hand to the empty expanse of water beyond the field of moonstone chimneys.
"You, thief!" Deagan's voice shouted from afar.
Eden startled and glanced over her shoulder. Deagan had come through the tunnel gate and was approaching her with a glare.
"It's time for you to come with me."
Her breathing quickened. Had it already been long enough for Deagan to arrange a trial before the king?
She slipped the piece of moonstone into the folds of her clothing, hoping that the faint glow wouldn't give her away.
Aela turned her head, her eyes wide with realization. "Eden," she said urgently, "Remember what Colin said. An accusation of theft from the king requires a trial so that the king can decide your punishment. Use that to your advantage," she said. "Plead your case. If you're right about Caitlin, they'll listen."
Deagan was getting closer.
"What do you mean, 'they'll listen'? And -- how do you know my mum, again?"
Deagan was too close, now, to talk.
Aela glanced behind her. "Trust me," she whispered. "They'll listen."
Deagan took hold of Eden's arm and roughly turned her to face him.
"It's time for the king to decide your fate." He pulled a knife from his belt and cut the rope that attached her to Aela and another prisoner. Colin caught the ends of the rope and held them together in his fist, and the rope once again bound itself back together.
As Deagan pulled Eden away from the chimney, she glanced up and saw Colin watching with a somber expression. He offered a solemn nod, as if in farewell.
Eden's heart raced. Colin knew how things worked here. If he was saying goodbye, then Eden should greatly fear coming face to face with the king. And if his eyes were the clearest indication of what he was thinking, then Colin was looking at her like she was already dead.
* * * * *
Deagan pushed Eden through the gate and back into the pitch-black tunnel. She said nothing and instead allowed her thoughts to run in her mind like a wind-up toy. Each thought of home was a twist in her gut. Had she fled her home and the people she loved only to be caught and killed for a crime she didn't commit? What would become of her mother, and her father? What would become of Aidan?
Her chest tightened.
What if they gave up on her?
When she could bear to think no more, all the built-up fear of the unknown and regret over things left unsaid exploded in raw emotion. But Deagan didn't even notice her inner turmoil. She was eerily still in the midst of her heart's storm. There were no tears, no outbursts of sorrow, no pleading for mercy. Only dread, anger, and remorse. If Deagan hadn't been guiding her, she would have sunk to the ground and never moved again.
The change in temperature jarred Eden's warm body when they reached the mouth of the tunnel and swept through the hole in the dungeon wall. A deep breath refreshed her, and she closed her eyes momentarily. She was grateful for the cooler water that brushed against her skin and rippled through her loosely braided hair.
Eden forced herself to breathe evenly and hold her head high. She would not cower in the face of death if it was, in fact, her fate.
Deagan pushed her forward, steering her up the winding corridor that led to the castle. This time, Eden paid close attention to her surroundings, her gaze lingering on every detail in sight. She wanted to memorize everything, if this was going to be her last moment in her mother's world—or in any world, for that matter. Light eased through the round, tunnel-like walls of opaque sea glass and bounced off the natural ruts and indentions in the walls, as if the water was dancing with the light. It created a soft glow of blues and greens and hints of purple, like the inside of a geode. The soft light mocked her as the fear that held her heart captive tightened its grip the further Deagan pushed her forward.
They reached a set of doors--thick, heavy doors of sea glass. In contrast to the rough texture of the walls, the doors were polished and smooth, etched with designs that looked like what must have been scenes of merrow history, important moments to the people of Muir. There were carvings of people on thrones and wars being fought, cities being built, and words Eden couldn't read from so far away.
Deagan pulled Eden around in front of him. "Just be truthful, and this will all be over soon."
Before Eden could spit out a retort, a sack was pulled over her head and darkness covered her. The fabric was dense and heavy, and she could not see through it. Panic tingled down her spine and she shivered.
She heard the sound of the doors opening, and cool water from the throne room washed over her as Deagan pushed her forward.
Her heart raced.
Plead your case, Aela had said. They'll listen.
Eden still didn't know what she would say to the king. Why would he listen? What responsibility would he feel for a foreigner in his kingdom?
They stopped in what Eden assumed was the center of the throne room. She could tell that this room was much bigger than any she had been in. Voices whispered around the edges of the room. She looked down through her eyelashes and could see past the bottom edge of the sack over her head. More of the glimmering sea glass made up the floor, but the floor was curved as if the whole room was a sphere.
"Captain," said the king in clipped greeting. At his deep voice, Eden straightened herself, stiff with uncertainty.
"Your Majesty," Deagan replied. His weight shifted as he bowed, pulling Eden downward. He rose and spoke again. "We found another Outlier."
There was a pause.
"You are in charge of the program we have in place for criminals like these," the king said. His voice teemed with annoyance. "I have called the nobles for a trial on faith that you had caught a criminal worth my while. Why do you bring her to me?"
Deagan shrugged Eden's backpack off of his shoulder and caught it in the crook of his elbow. "Because she had on her person something bearing the mark of your House, Your Majesty." He opened the flap and pulled out the Leabhar.
It was silent in the throne room. Eden knew the king was examining the book from across the throne room.
The mark of the king's house?
Eden's face contorted in confusion. The rough fabric over her head scratched her nose at the movement.
"Hm," the king murmured after an agonizing silence. "Remove her head covering. I want to look this thief in the eye."
The sack was torn off of her head, taking a few strands of her hair in the process.
Eden lifted her head and glared at Deagan, who hovered in front of her, smirking smugly. But what quickly caught her eye was the throne room and the merpeople who filled it. Like the hallway that had brought them from the dungeon, the walls were glimmering sea glass that reflected the natural light to create a brilliant glow about the room. At eye level, rows of seats lined the wall. But these chairs were unusual and looked more like rocks sticking out of the wall. Merpeople perched individually on the rocks, some watching Eden, and some looking forward at the king.
Eden followed their gaze and found herself staring at a pair of thrones more beautiful and odd than she could have ever imagined. Like the spectators' seats, the thrones were more like large slabs of rock. Instead of protruding from the wall like theirs, however, the thrones rested on a platform that covered a large portion of the room. The throne slabs rose out of the platform at an angle, and pearls dotted the sides. Shells and undulating seagrass created an armrest on the outer sides of each throne.
They were thrones meant to be lounged on, to support royals who would carry the weight of the world for no one.
Eden's eyes then focused on the one who wore the crown. It rested on brows furrowed in disbelief. The king rose from his throne. His lips were parted in shock, his deep green eyes searching. His hands, forgetting their strength, hung at his sides, where a golden sash rested on his hips.
Rising from the throne next to him was a woman, surprise riddling her mature but beautiful features. One hand covered her lips, and the other rested on her chest. Her graying hair was tied elegantly at the nape of her neck, but a few thin wisps of silver hair teased her widened eyes.
"Caitlin," the king murmured.
"Yes," Eden choked, confused. "Yes! She's my mother, and I--"
"Deagan, release her at once," the king said, his voice echoing throughout the room. His eyes never strayed from Eden's face. The merpeople watching them gasped and began to whisper among themselves.
Eden couldn't believe what she was hearing. Why would the king release her?
Deagan sputtered in surprise. "But, Your Majesty--"
"I said, release her, you fool." The king sprung from his place on the dais and swam forward, stopping before Eden. His movement stirred the water, and she felt coolness swirl around her and brush loose strands of hair from her face as she stared, bewildered, into the delighted face of the king.
Deagan released Eden from her bonds of blackweed and backed away, confused. Eden mirrored his perplexity on her own face. Would it really be this easy?
The king took Eden's hands in his. Joy brightened his deep green eyes. "There will be much celebrating tonight," the king said, "for my daughter's daughter has come home."