9Lena awoke to the sound of her own cry filling her ears. She jolted upright and sucked in a breath. Her gaze jerked to the piled-up debris on either side of her, crates and wooden planks which had washed ashore while she slept.
The ship was gone. Broken by the storm, discarded by the sea.
Ahead, the water paled beneath the low, glowing globe of the moon. Lena tucked her tail against her chest and listened to the roar of the tide as it rustled over the stony beach. She tilted her chin to the dazzling, star-scattered sky, wanting desperately to marvel at the heavens of the human world. But her face was slack with sorrow, her lashes damp, her throat raw. She must have been crying in her sleep.
The merrow woman’s instructions echoed in her head. She moved her fingers to the queen’s shell a
