A mermaid hunter must be aggressive, bold, and, more importantly, nimble on her feet—because her feet are the only advantage she has over a mermaid.

That, and her iron crossbow.

“Again,” I said, wiping an arm across my sweaty forehead. I cranked the lever, dropped an iron bolt against the shaft, and hitched the crossbow up to my shoulder with practiced speed.

Annith braced herself against her knees, her frizzy hair plastered to her face. “Can we catch our breath for a second?”

I gritted my teeth. No, we could not catch our breath. Not when at this time the next day I could be taking my last one, sprawled on the red-stained deck of our ship and watching a demon eat my insides.

Annith must have read my expression, because she straightened up for another round.

Five years had passed since my training began. Along with nineteen other girls, they’d pulled me from my education before I had a chance to go to high school. I spent every day of those five years—days that should’ve consisted of math, science, and literature—learning to sail, survive, and murder.

For those five years, we’d mourned our losses as twenty men were sent out each spring and never came back. Now it was my turn. And things were going to be different.

It was our final day of the training program and I ran drills with Annith on The Enticer, a warship that’d been rotting in the forest for longer than anyone could remember. It was the most famous landmark on the island, if you could call any part of Eriana Kwai famous. Whoever built it put painstaking effort into the carvings on the helm, and it had obviously been a beautiful ship in its time. When the Massacres had begun nearly thirty years ago, they’d patched up the decaying parts and used the ship as a place dubbed the Safe Training Base.

Only fifth-year warriors, those who were eighteen, got to use The Enticer. The younger years trained on the rest of the old campground, which had been built around the landmark ship. Cabins had been converted to classrooms for first aid, survival skills, and sailing and combat theory. The dining hall had been cleared for hand-to-hand combat. A glade once used for campfires and games had been systematically destroyed for fitness drills. The archery pit proved convenient for dagger and crossbow practice. The pool was meant for swimming lessons, though that was optimistic, since if anyone was in the water she was probably about to become lunch.

Annith hurled beanbags at me as I shot the mermaid-shaped slats of wood erected across the deck. I hit five in the heart and dodged just as many beanbags when Anyo, the training master, called my name.

“Your report card, Meela.”

I heard Annith’s sigh of relief.

“You’re totally ready,” she said between breaths. “Don’t tire yourself out before tomorrow.”

My strained nerves wouldn’t let me agree as we hopped off the deck—a short drop to the spongy forest floor. I shook loose my sweaty ponytail, attempting to comb out the chocolate-brown mats before piling it back atop my head.

Anyo handed us each a flimsy piece of paper. The first year we’d gotten them, I thought they must have been a sick joke. How could they give us report cards? Wasn’t it enough to send us out to sea, knowing that if we failed to learn, we would fail to survive?

I skimmed the page. I’d achieved an A in nearly everything. My only B was in First Aid. B, for Barely Ready. Every time we talked about lacerations or broken bones, the thought of so much blood made me squeamish and light-headed.

“We’ll make a good team,” said Annith, peering at my report card. “I got an A in First Aid, but only a C in Rigging.”

C, for Clinging to Survival.

I glanced at the bottom of my card and saw an A+ next to Rigging. What did that tell me? I could work the ship, but so help me if I sliced myself open in the process.

A loud voice cut across the glade. “I got a hundred percent in Combat!”

I had no doubt Dani spoke extra loudly to ensure everyone heard. She flipped her sleek mane of hair over her shoulder and stood taller, as if ready to pose for a photo of her shining moment.

“Paper proof that you’re terrifying with sharp objects,” I said under my breath.

Annith turned away from Dani. “I’m so not surprised she got that mark. I hated being her partner. I thought she was going to finish me off for real.”

“Bet she would’ve if Anyo wasn’t watching.”

“What’d you get, Meela?” yelled Dani, fixing me with narrowed eyes. “For your parents’ sake, I hope you at least passed everything. I’d hate for them to lose another one.”

I shot her a glare. “Eat—”

“Meela!” said Annith. “Ignore her.”

“Does she not realise I’m holding a crossbow?” I looked down and noticed my knuckles had tightened over the grip.

Dani set her pouty lips, looking satisfied. She turned back to Shaena, Texas, and Akirra—the handful of toadies she liked to call friends—and gushed about how she couldn’t wait to apply combat to ‘real prey’.

Texas—nicknamed because her father tended the island cattle, and she was the only girl on the island who could rope a cow from the back of a horse—asked Dani if she’d practiced with the iron daggers.

“You have to stab forwards like this,” said Dani loudly, jabbing towards Shaena’s stomach. “My father taught me this years ago. He says if you can get it right into their gut  . . .” She mimicked gripping the invisible dagger in Shaena’s stomach with two fists. “. . . and twist it, it’ll split them right open.”

She rotated her hands as though grinding an actual dagger through bone, her teeth gritted. Annith and I exchanged looks of repulsion as Shaena tried the same thing on Texas.

“All right, girls,” said Anyo, breaking up the invisible carnage. “Line up for your badges.”

I was about to hang up my training crossbow for the last time when something caught my eye. A fat rabbit emerged from the bushes, sniffing the ground.

“Move,” I whispered to Annith.

She obeyed.

I notched a bolt and raised the crossbow. The bow steadied as I exhaled. I squeezed the trigger slightly, but not enough to plunge the iron bolt into the rabbit’s furry ribcage.

Turn it off, I ordered myself, just as the training master had been telling me since I was thirteen.

I imagined black tar melting over my heart to seal in any emotion.

Jaw clenched, I pulled the trigger. The rabbit didn’t have time to spring forwards before it fell over dead, a bolt thick as its front leg buried in its side.

Lowering my crossbow, I turned to Annith and smiled. “Dinner.”

“Well done, Meela!” said Anyo, no doubt delighted with the girl who couldn’t so much as squish a spider five years prior.

Eyrin, a frail girl who hadn’t said more than a few words in all the years I’d known her, was standing in front of Anyo and looked like she couldn’t decide whether to be appalled or impressed by my kill.

The correct response would have been to feel excited and inspired. Turning my face away from the group, I picked the rabbit up by its back feet. I couldn’t look directly at it. The black tar over my heart started to drip away.

“Does your family need some?” I said to Annith, holding up the rabbit.

“No. My father caught a deer like, three days ago, so we’re good for a while.”

“Oh,” I said, impressed and slightly jealous. I much preferred deer meat to rabbit.

I hung my crossbow on the rack, hovering for a moment. I wondered how the brand new weapons would feel in comparison. I wondered, too, how it would feel to battle on the wooden slats of a new ship, rather than on the familiar but uneven model beached on the ancient forest floor.

We lined up to get our badges.

“I’ve never had this much confidence in a group of warriors,” said the training master. “I thank the gods every day for the privilege of training you.”

I knew the committee wanted to sack him after the strategy he’d tried a few years prior. But his stubbornness was the reason he survived his own Massacre, and he refused to back down.

“As women, you have an edge the opposition won’t expect,” he said. “Without the power of allure, a mermaid’s prowess is limited to her skill in combat. And from what you’ve shown me, your skill falls nothing short of remarkable.”

“Do you think they’ll send their men when they realise we’re girls?” said Annith.

Texas scoffed. “Obviously not. Demons don’t train their men for battle.”

Anyo nodded. “As far as we know, that’s correct. Mermen don’t possess the same allure—or the drive to hunt.”

“They’re like lions,” said Shaena. “The girls do all the work. All the guys do is eat and make babies.”

A wave of laughter passed over us.

Anyo flushed. “Right. Well, review your notes tonight before you go to sleep. Throw a knife against a target to make sure your motor skills are sharp. Don’t forget to wear your badge tomorrow over your uniform. And eat a big breakfast.”

“Then it’s time to spill some mermaid guts!” said Shaena.