After the Walls

Chapter 22

I cough, spitting water and saliva onto the pebble beach, shoving my hair out of my face. Water drips from my ears and clothes as I sit up and regard the surrounding scenery, waiting for the memories to flood me. When they do, I shoot Hera, the siren, a fiery glare.

"You really dropped a bomb on me and then knocked me out," I snap, picking myself to my feet.

The wind lashes at my hair, howling and wailing like a thousand lamenting ghosts. A bitter cloud of swirling misty air coats the sky, making my red hair bright and striking, like a flame in the night.

"Were you going to finish your story about my mother?" I ask, pulling out my dagger. "How do you know she took the shadowteeth blood?"

Hera grabbed the wooden boat, jerking it from the pebbles and into the lapping water. "I will tell you aboard."

My eyes narrow, and I let out a groan, traipsing up to the small waves. The frigid water bites at my ankles like yapping dogs. Hera grabs the oar, and with surprising strength, pushes out into the depths with one stroke. My curls fly around my hair like a mane as I examine her. Her hooked nose, so like my own, sends a strange feeling into my chest, like I'm looking at a mirror. She only wants to protect her family and her home. Have I not always wanted the same?

Her dark, tight-knit curls flutter around her face too, as she peers down into the navy sheet below us, searching for the shadowteeth. "I gave your mother shadowteeth blood when she was pregnant with you," she says, a small smile forming on her sharp face. "I remember spotting her from the river in the kingdom, hand in hand with your sister, who was tiny. Sweet little redheaded girl. She was on the farms, trying to barter with a farmer to give her some Concave food. Her face was pale. I could see her ribs. It looked like she was only days away from death. She needed food to get through the pregnancy, to stay for you and your sister. So, I snuck into the farms, blending in as a farmer myself. I offered her the shadowteeth blood and a single potato. She must have known I was from beyond the walls, that I was not human. Because she accepted it. Anything for my children, she said to me."

A lump forms in my throat, and I press my lips together to stop the quiver.

"So, you could say you owe me for saving you and your mother's life," Hera says, baring her teeth and pointing her chin.

The shadowteeth groans somewhere below and the water ripples. "I understand. Thank you for saving her." My heart aches at the thought of my sister being motherless at such a young age. Without me, I wonder if she would have survived. I bite my lip as the wave of grief hits me and I try not to let out a cynical laugh at the irony of my own thoughts. She is still dead. Probably would have survived without me.

She tosses me a jar for the shadowteeth blood. "Ready to see her?"

I fight the urge to roll my eyes as I spin my dagger. "The shadowteeth blood must have flowed into me when my mother was pregnant with me. It has healing abilities. Maybe this is why I was immune all this time?"

Hera shrugs. "That's the story our ancestors have passed on for generations since the initial outbreak in the old world. Now, please make haste. We don't have all day. I have a long to-do list today."

I heave a sigh and grab the oar, slapping it on the surface of the water until the shadowteeth roars and the boat rocks. My heart hammers as I ready myself on the edge of the boat. Her violet tentacles fling from the water, which drops on us like a river down rocks. I smack my lips at the salty taste of the water in my mouth. Her head, large as a wagon, rises from the velvety darkness and I leap, swinging my arms, propelling myself forward.

I grunt as I land on her thick, scaled flesh. Her eight arms flail about and her roar bores into my bone marrow like a disease. Hera screams as a limb swings around, almost knocking her clean from the boat. The icy water claws at my skin, burrowing into the flesh would on my shoulder, and my clothes cling to me like a second skin as I spin the knife and jab the shadowteeth's skin, gripping her scales as she writhes in pain, howling with the power of a hundred lions. Her shimmering blood oozes out and I catch it in the jar. It smells of algae and fish at the same time. I release another grunt as I jump off the shadowteeth, sinking into the icy water. For a moment, the world around me stills. The shadowteeth groan falls silent and distant. Only memories of my childhood flash across my senses. My sister and I giggling and chasing one another. The rich smell of my mother's baking bread and my father's deep belly laugh as he told us scary stories of the forest and beyond the walls. How on earth did my life get to this point?