The Salt Grows Heavy

A mermaid walks through a snow-covered forest with no voice. The prince she was bound to cut out her tongue, and the kingdom he ruled is now a ruin, devoured and burned by her own daughters. She has fled it, and she is not the gentle figure of the Disney film.

She is not alone on the road. A melancholy plague doctor travels beside her, running from a past he has not shaken. Together they reach a village where the children never age.

Three self-styled surgeon-saints run the place. They are convinced they have discovered how to rebuild a body and live forever. As the village's secrets surface, the two outsiders must depend on each other to get out alive.

The book is a short, standalone gothic horror novella and a dark retelling of the mermaid fairy tale. The gore is graphic and splatterpunk in manner, though a tender heart runs under it. Tor Nightfire released it in 2023, and the prequel short story And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice is included.