Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  I was still the daughter of Miranda, Princess of the Deep.

  Even Helene shook her head. “Sister Anne is a novice from the monastery; a freewoman who agreed to her position, though she might not tell you that. She has taken a vow of silence.”

  Erys laughed, a sound so familiar and welcoming I heard waves hitting the sand and smelled salt in the air. His voice brought me home. “Why did you do that? Seems taking a vow of talking would have been better, more challenging for you.”

  Helene gasped. “Do not mock her vow.”

  I mocked my so-called vow. On the inside. My feet moved a few steps of their own accord, taking their place in line with the princess and closer to the prince.

  “Erys, is there a problem?” came the booming voice of Erys’s father. The Sun King, Emperor of Solis. Though wrinkles weathered his olive skin, he had the large frame and decorative scars of a man from my storybook.

  This man could very well have fought a lion and won.

  I stopped in my tracks, wishing the princess was ahead of me again.

  Erys shook his head. “Don’t worry. I said you would be safe here and I meant it.” He briefly turned to include his father and the rest of the men waiting. “Ari saved my life. She’s the young woman from the island that I told you of, Father.”

  I smiled, relishing the murmured voices and the shock on the princess’s and all the handmaidens’ faces. Titera was wrong; Erys wanted me here. His kindness couldn’t have been an act, now or before. He was exactly as I remembered him.

  He would throw out the usurper to my mother’s crown, and we would be wed at once.

  He took my hand, meeting my eyes with earnestness. “I’m glad you came and that you’re a freewoman. I would have declared you one if you weren’t and risked upsetting my new bride.” He shared his smile with the young woman beside me.

  I stiffened in his hand. His new bride? He still planned to marry Helene. How could he? Didn’t he just tell the whole court how much I still mattered to him? And why was he still smiling at the both of us like he hadn’t done a thing that could possibly upset me?

  “So, do you want to be called Sister Anne or Princess Arianna?” He teased me with his eyes, prodding me to rise to his bait and yell.

  It might have worked. If I had any way to break my vow, I certainly would. I would scream in his face for confusing me so. I would repeat every word I heard my mother speak over the years, cursing the character of men. Did he want me or not? How could he reject me and tease me and continue to smile and hold my hand all at the same time?

  I opened my mouth, then closed it.

  Helene recovered enough to speak for me again. The dreaded interloper had my prince and now she claimed to be my voice as well. “Her proper name is Anne, even if it was Ari before. Lots of people take on different names when they join the monastery.”

  “But she hasn’t really joined the monastery, right?” Erys asked. “Why don’t we let her pick? She is a freewoman, and her name shouldn’t make any difference to anyone else.”

  “Yes, but how? She won’t speak.”

  I was sure my eyes showed the same question. It was hopeless, and really, I only had myself to blame. The prince’s marriage was arranged before he met me. I never gave him any hint that I wanted him to change it. I never declared my love for him before, and I couldn’t now. I couldn’t form the words to say I wanted to be anything but Anne the novice, Anne the handmaiden.

  I wanted my name back almost as much as I wanted my voice. Even more.

  He squeezed my hand and then let go as if sending another silent message. “Like this. Anne.” He wiggled his left fist. “Ari.” He wiggled the right.

  My name! I grabbed his right arm and pulled Erys forward another step.

  “Well, there’s one thing. She used to jump ten feet when I tried to touch her before.” He laughed as my face went warm at my own eagerness. “Ari it is.”

  My heart soared. I had my name back. I knew I liked him. And perhaps, given time I could find a way to tell him that I liked him without my voice.

  Loved him.

  That was sure to make a difference.

  Helene frowned at me as if reading all my scheming thoughts. “If you wanted to go by Ari, why didn’t you tell the nuns?”

  I blinked and shook my head. There was a great deal I had wished to tell the nuns and never could.

  Helene shifted back a step, recognizing the foolishness of her words. “I mean, before you took the vow. When you first came to the monastery.” She looked from me back to Erys. “She wasn’t dumb before then, was she?”

  Well, maybe that was a better question than the one she had before, but I still couldn’t answer it. Freewoman or not, I was still a mute handmaiden.

  “Now, don’t mock her vow, Helene. I’m sure she is very serious about it.” Erys’s smile was for me, but when he held out his hand, it was for her.

  I wanted his smile and his hand. How was I to claim ownership of both without speaking?

  13

  The inside of the seaside palace seemed another city with its own gardens in the open atrium and separated buildings rising two or three stories. Marble columns, sphinxes, and statues that shared features with the prince and the emperor filled up every spare inch.

  The princess got to walk with Erys to explore every piece of it.

  I had to go with the other handmaidens to prepare the princess’s rooms. But after hauling up the same trunks we had hauled all through the city, there wasn’t much else to do. The house slaves at the palace had “prepared” the room, so I just had to unpack a few of the princess’s items and listen to all the girls share gossip. The other handmaidens were anxious to know how to fit their routines to the schedule here. I couldn’t have cared less.

  I stared at the door knowing my future lay beyond it. My fate would be determined by the unknown words shared between my prince and the usurper of my mother’s throne.

  The princess finally returned with a dramatic sway to her step. She collapsed on a cushion on the ground, eating up the attention as the other handmaidens gathered around.

  “Well, don’t leave us in suspense, milady. What do you think of your betrothed?” the senior handmaiden asked.

  Helene frowned down at her hands, thoughtful before forming the words. “He’s quiet.”

  Quiet? I had been waiting for something profound to help me gauge how much of a challenge their relationship would be, but she couldn’t be talking about Erys at all. Did she walk with the right prince or follow another man on accident?

  “But I think he might be sweet.”

  Well, of course he was. I waited for Helene to reveal anything else, but she didn’t. Was that really all she had gotten out of the hour-long interlude I had missed out on?

  Either way, I was soon called on to perform my duties as a proper handmaiden—helping the princess take a bath and then waiting through the line of handmaidens before washing up myself. The water was brought into the bathing room by a series of pipes—aqueducts—but still seemed little better than a pool of mud when it reached my turn.

  As a newly confirmed freewoman, I might have been able to ask for some deference and better treatment, but as a mute I couldn’t ask for anything at all.

  Of all the rotten luck. Though I had a run of sisters, I never thought much of how it was to compete for male attention. My mother’s words came taunting, laughing in my head.

  Men only cared for looks.

  I had doubted my mother’s words before, but without my voice, what other measurement could I expect Erys to go by? Any man—or any person—would want to be in the company of the girl who smelled the best, the one who could wear finer clothes and keep her hair free from dirt.

  Not to mention that the two or three years Helene had on Erys, she also had on me. I had some curves, but she was a full woman, and I looked like a skinny twig beside her.

  I still did the best I could and just finished when a knock sounded on the door.

 
“May I come in?”

  It was the prince’s voice. All the handmaidens instantly started giggling.

  Helene waved us back and ran her hands down her stola. “Yes.”

  The door opened. “There is a banquet. I am to escort you downstairs.” He turned and smiled over at me. “And you are coming too, Ari? All the freemen and women of the palace will be there.”

  I smiled back and some warmth filled my breast, chasing away any lingering doubts. I was just as good as any other princess and I was invited too.

  But he offered his hand to Helene again even while talking to me. “And Father asked if he could thank you publicly for your services to Solis. I’m his only heir, you see. People notice if I go missing.” He winked.

  Heat brushed my cheeks as I remembered our parting on the beach, when I said he might be sold to a ship captain. No wonder he thought me so ignorant—there was no chance of anything like that happening. His face was everywhere, even idolized statues that only left a fig leaf to the imagination. Everyone knew him. It was one thing to know I was born royal; it was another to have a whole empire acknowledge it. He had a whole palace watching him, but he didn’t quiver under anyone’s gaze. He carried his small frame with such confidence now that if I hadn’t seen him as the floundering, washed-up boy on my island, I would have feared him just as much as any other man.

  If he knew I loved him, and he loved me too, would that truly be enough for him to denounce any vow he made to the usurper of my mother’s throne? Any vow that was made for him?

  I hoped so. Finding a way to silently declare my love and be sure the prince shared it seemed high enough of a challenge with Helene around.

  Erys bowed for us to walk in front of him. I glided out first then froze when I saw the dark silhouette of another man in the hallway. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. What was Naman doing here?

  He bowed his head. “Welcome, Lady Arianna.”

  Forget that. I grabbed the knife, still bound to my back, and swung my arm.

  He caught it and broke my knife from my hand without much effort. “Come now, do you really want to expose us both? There are several things I could say about you, and I promise he will only hear my side of the story.”

  He knew I was mute. Well, I suppose that wasn’t a secret. Everyone in the palace was sure to know before the night was out.

  Erys and Helene came out of the room after me, looking between us.

  Naman had stowed my knife and moved his hand so it would look like our arms were only clasped in greeting. I let him do it. If he wasn’t going to give me away and I couldn’t give him away, I didn’t want to seem a fool in front of the prince—more than a fool who took some vow and refused to speak.

  Erys smiled as he joined us. “Do you know Naman? From the ship? He’s one of the chief palace guards. Can you believe that he survived too?”

  No. Nor could I believe that he was still here posing as the prince’s friend or guard or whatever he was supposed to be. But I dropped my head and let the moment pass.

  I would have to plan a way to expose Naman, something that couldn’t be ignored or misinterpreted. Something that would not expose my own motives. Something that would allow me to speak my own truth—that I intended to be the bride and protector of the prince when my mother retook her throne. I would just have to hope that the reason Naman had sought our help in the first place was because he couldn’t kill Erys in the palace unnoticed.

  “Are you coming?” Erys reached for Helene again.

  Looking from Naman to Helene for a moment, I couldn’t decide who was the larger threat.

  Mother would have to kill Naman for me when she came, but for that to happen, I had to win the heart of the prince and prepare the way for her coming. She had claimed that giving up my voice would help me in my task, but I had yet to see how. Even she would have approved of making the seemingly resurrected Naman dead again.

  And where was that blasted imp when I needed her?

  The banquet hall was full. It seemed all the people in the street had come into one room and now were yelling at each other. For once, I was glad for the excuse to hide behind the prince and princess as nothing but a handmaiden.

  “There they are!” a large man shouted. He stood from the front table, and I recognized the gray-haired, clean-shaven man as the emperor even without his armor or laurels.

  Helene bobbed her head. “Honorable Augustus.”

  He chuckled, closing the distance between us in two large strides. “Save that for outside. This is to be a celebration! I’m going to be your dear old dad.” He gave her a tight hug that might have broken her ribs. “Too bad really, but at least the grandkids will be lookers, and you’ll know where to find me if the boy doesn’t keep you happy.” He swatted Helene’s backside before she moved away.

  Helene jumped, looking at Erys with both eyebrows raised.

  “He’s joking. And he’s drunk.” The prince moved to shield Helene, leaving me exposed. The crowd of people in the room cast glances at us from long tables while Naman and the rest of the guards stayed by the doors like they were glad not to be included in the wild revelry.

  “Of course I am.” The emperor waved to the goblets the men had been drinking without shame. “You left me alone with the wine. We’ve been waiting the feast so you could get your women.” He turned to Helene like sharing a secret—a loud secret everyone could hear. “He’s always been so runty. I thought he might end up too soft and sweet like his mother, but the boy still has excellent priorities, just like his dad. I’m so proud. And there is Ari!” the man shouted, undeterred.

  I had two seconds to watch my death gallop toward me.

  Thick arms squeezed and lifted me upward. I was in the air, spinning to a blur of color and sound. I didn’t have my knife anymore! My mouth opened in a silent scream. My thoughts rolled like thunder. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to—

  “Father! No.”

  I came down with a plop. But I still heard thunder. As my breath lightened, I noticed others looking to the windows, peering at a few clouds that had formed in the formerly clear sky.

  “I was just making the girl feel welcome.” The man’s voice boomed in my still ringing head. If by welcome he meant for me to feel as though I would be happy to leap through the open window and retreat with the sudden gale to escape, he had done that.

  Erys pushed his father aside and hovered over me. I tried to focus on the concern in his rich brown eyes. “Are you all right?”

  I didn’t know. The room was still spinning, the air much too thick.

  “I swear, he’s loud, but he’s not going to hurt you. He’s been stressed, but now that everything is going through with the wedding, and the war is ending—he’s celebrating. We all are.”

  “Yes,” Helene said. “Do you think we could . . . bring it down a bit? For Ari’s sake? I don’t think she is used to so many people.” She was using me as an excuse and shield again, just as much as I used her. She had to hate the emperor’s crudeness as much as I did, but it didn’t matter.

  I needed it to stop no matter how it was achieved.

  “Right.” The emperor nodded with a sigh. “Sorry. I forgot what it was like having real ladies in the court.” He turned. “Where are the mistrals? The servers? We’ll clear out the fat and make this a proper banquet.” He clapped his hands, and the slaves appeared to fulfill his request.

  I watched the emperor strut around, repeating Erys’s words in my head just to get my heart to stop beating so hard. The emperor was just a man. He was just loud. He was just like the priest’s boarhound who licked, jumped on, and even humped the leg of whomever he saw but could be corrected with one sharp look.

  And really, it seemed to be true. The emperor slapped men’s shoulders, and his voice stayed the same volume as a thunderstorm, but he was smiling and laughing the whole time. And most people smiled with him as he reordered the feast.

  Under a mosaic of a nearly nude man spearing a mant
icore, the main table stretched across the front of the room. The middle part jutted closer to the wall, making another head where the emperor sat. Erys went to his father’s side, and the princess next to the prince, but I had no idea where I was supposed to be.

  “Come and sit by me, Ari.” The emperor pulled out the chair on his left side. “Erys can’t keep both of you to himself all night.”

  I hesitated, but only for a moment. Even if it did put me next to that giant of a man, it also put me across from the prince, a better seat than behind the princess’s skirt if I wanted Erys to see me.

  The emperor raised his goblet and winked as I sat down. He introduced a few of the palace senators and magi at the table, then waved me closer. “So, how did you pull my son from the sea? Don’t tell me the Galathians returned me with less of a man than I left them.”

  Erys shook his head. “She can’t speak, Father. I told you.”

  So? I couldn’t speak, but it should be easy enough to see what had happened. They had to all know we were on the ship together. I reached past my empty plate and grabbed Erys’s arm, yanking it across the tabletop like I had when he was falling off the board.

  That was what I had done to save the unconscious prince and all there was to it.

  The emperor frowned at the movement before he laughed, turning back to his son and shielding his mouth with his drink. “I do believe she is challenging you.”

  I blinked and looked at my arm again. I suppose it could look like that—like I was attempting to wrestle arms over the table. Along with asking how I had saved Erys, the emperor had implied that I might be stronger than his son. They thought I was trying to prove it.

  The emperor slapped Erys on the back. “Have at it. Formal banquet or not, the food isn’t out yet and we could use some entertainment.”