Muireann.
Ireland.
1907.
The sea wind lashes my face as I sit on the rock, waiting for the one I call mine to blow the conch.
The ancestral conch.
The sacred bridge between land dwellers and sea dwellers.
My love, Lysander, is somewhere beyond the shore now, telling his family about us.
About our love.
About the peace that could exist between our worlds.
“Are you sure he should be trusted, sister?” Tane’s voice cuts through the crashing waves.
“He’s a land dweller.
And the stories say their words are as fickle as sea reeds…”
“He can be trusted.” I snap, though her warning chills me.
One I’ve ignored since the night Lysander asked me to become his wife.
“Marry me, Muireann.
Bring joy to this humble human and let’s unite our worlds.”
He’d said it beneath the moon, both of us breathless from our love making moments before.
His storm gray eyes had held no lies, only devotion.
I hesitated for a bit.
But eventually, my 18 year old heart yielded.
“Yes, Lysander.
I will marry you.
I will unite our hearts and our worlds.”
He had kissed me then.
Hot, desperate, claiming.
“I want to tell my family first.” He’d promised.
“I want them to accept you before I bring yours.”
So I’d summoned my ancestral conch and pressed it into his hands.
“Call me with this once they have agreed.
I’ll bring my kin to the surface.”
And now I wait.
The sun dips lower, the tide pulling harder, my hope fraying with every gust of wind that blows now.
I am my father’s first daughter and I know he would never deny me anything, least of all love.
For months, he and Mother have begged me to marry.
I refused every suitor, until Lysander.
I glance once more at the horizon.
Doubt gnaws deep.
When I finally turn to dive into the sea, the sound stops me cold.
The conch.
It’s faint, but certain.
My heart leaps.
“Did you hear?” I whisper, already smiling.
Tane’s eyes widen with joy.
“Come.
Let’s tell Father and Mother.
Lysander has done it!
They have accepted us!”
We dive together, our tails slicing through the darkening sea as we swim to tell our parents.
My heart leaping with joy.
***
Night.
Hours later, we are escorted into Faghorn Castle.
Ancestral home of the Daorheches.
The air is thick with the scent of iron and fire.
Our family sits in the great hall.
Father, Mother, Tane, our clan.
Our tails replaced by legs.
Cursed, fragile limbs we only bear in moments of dire need.
Servants watch us with curiosity, fear, maybe disgust.
I sit tall beside my parents, dressed in silk spun from seaweed and pearls.
But my heart beats fast, uncertain.
Father’s jaw is tight.
Mother’s hand rests on his.
They look as though they already regret coming here.
Their love for me has brought them to this cursed place.
To the surface, to the humans who doubted our existence.
I remember the storm in Father’s eyes hours ago when I told him what I’d done.
“You dare love a human, Muireann?” He’d thundered.
“You gave him your ancestral conch?!”
Tears had filled my eyes.
“I love him, Father.
I saved him and his crew from a storm months ago.
He wants peace.
He wants us to live without fear.”
Father’s fury cracked then, just a little.
Mother had touched his arm, her voice soft.
“Amran… we cannot defy the sound of the conch.
Perhaps this is fate.
Perhaps love will bridge our worlds.”
Hope bloomed in me like dawnlight.
Now, here we sit, waiting.
Waiting for the man I love.
The doors burst open now and suddenly there’s a silver flash.
Instantly followed by a loud scream.
Mother’s body jerks.
A blade buried in her heart.
“Mother!” I scream, rushing forward.
Her blood spills across the marble.
Tane’s cries echo mine.
Father’s roar fills the hall, but before I can reach her, hands seize me.
I’m yanked into the air, thrashing.
All around, my kin are restrained by the hands of armed men.
“No!” I scream, as father is forced to his knees, his tears streaking down his face.
Servants move among us, each holding glass bowls.
“What are you doing?” I choke, fighting their grip.
One servant kneels before Father, holding the bowl beneath his face.
Tears drip into it.
When they reach me, I realize that they’re collecting our tears.
“Is it done?”
A voice slices through the chaos.
I turn just in time as a woman enters the hall, flanked by five men.
My gaze finds him among them.
Lysander.
“Yes, Lady Faghorn.” One servant replies.
“We have collected their tears.”
My pulse stutters.
“Tears?
What do you mean?”
Father’s voice shakes.
“What do you want with our tears?”
Lady Faghorn steps forward, smiling with a serpent’s grace.
Her presence fills the room.
Commanding and cruel.
“I needed the tears of your kind for the longevity of our bloodline,” she says smoothly.
Confusion ripples through our kin.
My own confusion freezes into dread.
“You see.” She continues, pacing with calm authority, “My family’s power runs on old magic…what your kind and other humans might call dark.
For centuries we have sought the tears of merrows, mercreatures to preserve our youth and strengthen our souls.”
Her eyes find mine.
They gleam.
“So when my son told us he’d been saved by a merrow, I was… delighted.
I told him to earn her trust.
Woo her.
Make her fall in love.”
The room stills.
My heart cracking in two.
“Mother…please,” Lysander whispers.
His face is pale, guilty.
Lady Faghorn ignores him.
“And poor, foolish creature.” She purrs, “She did.
She gave him her conch, her heart, her tears.
And now, our family will live for generations.”
Her laughter slashes through me like a blade.
“You vile witch!” Father roars.
“How could you?”
“Don’t blame me,” she says with a careless shrug.
“Blame your daughter for loving my handsome son.”
Then, to her guards, she says coldly.
“Kill them all.
We have what we need.”
The hall erupts in screams.
Steel flashes.
Blood paints the air, as my kin is killed.
Father falls first.
Then Tane.
Then the rest of my kin.
I’m frozen in horror, disbelief.
Grief twisting through me.
The man holding me raises his sword.
But the blow never lands, because a wail rips from my throat.
Raw, primal, born from agony deeper than the sea.
Glass shatters around us.
The air crackles.
Power surges through me, wild and ancient.
My body lifts, suspended in a whirl of salty sea and rage.
My vision burns white.
“You have committed a grave sin against our kind, Daorheches.” My voice booms, layered.
Echoing with the voices of my ancestors.
“And that sin shall be paid in blood.”
They all fall back in terror.
My gaze finds Lysander.
His face streaked with tears, his eyes wide with regret.
“For every firstborn son of your bloodline.” I declare, my voice trembling with fury, “I will return when he reaches his twenty ninth year.
I will take his life.
Blood for blood.”
I glide toward Lysander.
The sea is my cloak.
His lips part in a soundless plea.
“And to begin,” I whisper, “I take yours.”
His parents scream as I seize him, my tail coiling around his body.
His hands grasp for mine, begging.
But I am beyond mercy.
I crash through the castle walls, dragging him with me into the depths of the nearby sea.
The sea closes around us, cold and endless.
His struggles weaken.
Then stops.
Lysander’s body goes still in my arms, swallowed by the dark.
A blood debt paid.
And the beginning of a curse that will never end.