Wrapping her arms around her body, she tried not to think about her tail’s slow, natural movement as it kept her at the surface. She tried not to think about the darkness or the creatures in the deep. If Yuval didn’t come, she needed to form a plan on her own. In time. For now, all she could do was rock forward and back.
“Asaria?” The shocked, accented tone tore her from her thoughts, and her eyes snapped open on Yuval’s pale face, then filled with tears. He moved forward, light gaze gleaming in the moonlight as it took her in. “Asaria, what happened? How did you get out here?”
“You came,” she choked, tears trickling down her already-wet cheeks to drip into the ocean. “I-I don’t know what to do. Can you help me?” Shivers shook her, and she cupped a hand over her mouth.
“Hey . . .” His arms curled around her shoulders, pulling her close, then her tail brushed his leg, and he went still. A shaking breath vibrated in his chest before it cooled her neck. “Shh,” he murmured after a few moments. “Everything will be fine. I know how to fix this.”
Relief poured through her, and she looked up into his gentle gaze.
He tilted her chin and brushed a stray wet strand of hair behind her ear. “Let’s get you to Ocea, and you can tell me what happened, all right?”
Asaria nodded, his nearness settling her nerves some. He’d come for her. And she’d seen him do magic once before. If magic had transformed her, he’d have a way to undo it. Everything would be fine. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, then cringed, waiting to be corrected. Of all things, she should be thanking him for helping her, but apologies came much easier. They always did.
Displaying sharp teeth, he smiled, his strange, webbed hand curling around her fingers and squeezing lightly. “Don’t be. I’m happy to spend time with you, wai lily.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Wai lily?”
Eyes sparkling, he said, “Water lilies; they’re pink like your hair.”
Absently, her free hand ran back through the twisted strands.
“Ready to go?” he asked, and she nodded again. The sooner, the better. “All right,” he started, “don’t be afraid to breathe or trust me.” Before she could respond, he plunged into the murky darkness, pulling her along beside him. She couldn’t gauge their speed or the twists and turns he made with her in tow, but she clung to his hand and did as he’d said—breathe and trust him.
Several minutes passed before a flicker of light cut the darkness in the distance. Little larger than her hand, it hovered above the ground, casting dim rays against the sand, and Yuval pointed at it, its glow outlining his smile.
She had expected something different. An Atlantis gate flecked in gold. Not a single luminescent ball amidst an underwater wasteland.
When they approached, he dove toward the sand, taking her with him, and she clamped her eyes shut to ready for the impact. It never came. The water around her lightened, making breathing as easy as it was in air. The constricting hug vanished, melting into a caressing presence. She cracked an eyelid, and Yuval laughed, the sound traveling to her as though they weren’t underwater anymore.
But—her eyes widened upon the scene—they had to be.
Dozens of rainbow-colored fish brightened the seafoam greens and sky blues of the haven before her. Soft stone homes decorated with corals and shells rose from the sand, towers of every shape and style. White lights rained over the clusters, like stars, and she peered up to find a network of roots all entwined with small, bright orbs high above. Everywhere she looked, something new and wonderful stood out. She almost forgot she was a long way from home and had acquired a tail.
Yuval released her hand, folding his arms as though no water pressure obstructed his actions. “What do you think of Ocea?” he asked, his voice laced only by his accent.
She blinked, watching how his hair floated to reveal slim fins in place of ears. “We’re still underwater, right?”
He glanced around. “It’s a little different here than the water you’re used to, but I can’t imagine living in your ocean all the time, can you?”
She had wished to more than once. “I-I suppose not.” Turning, she found a grove of trees with seaweed instead of leaves waving in the gentle current. Every piece appeared bursting with life as it all moved in pace. “We came from there?”
“Magic.” He shrugged a single shoulder when she looked back at him. “What are you going to do, right?”
Her eyes remained wide while her lips remained parted. It all seemed so . . . impossible. But it wasn’t. Her fingers traced down her scales, and her eyes closed.
“I’m sure you’re exhausted.” Yuval’s tender voice pulled her from the mire. “We can talk things over in the morning; for now, I think I know of a place you can sleep.”
If she could sleep.
Asaria drifted beside him while he walked at a normal pace through the streets of the town. She couldn’t wrap her mind around how light the water was or how easily it allowed her to move. It was there, and she could push through it, but it caressed her efforts instead of pushing back, so she melded into it, letting it rock her body and free her.
“You’re a natural.”
Asaria stopped mid-twirl to look at Yuval. Her short pink hair floated past her eyes then lifted when she sank back to his side on the path; she wasn’t certain quite when she’d moved away. “I spend a lot of time in the water.”
“With a tail?” His brow quirked.
She looked down at the foreign appendage, and her back tightened. “Maybe not. The closest fins have been to being a part of me is being a part of my surfboard.”
Curiosity crossed his expression. “I’m not familiar with the term.”
He turned down a street, and she followed, lying against the water and floating along backwards. “My buoy.”
“Oh.” He laughed, and the sound calmed her. It sounded like everything would be all right. She’d be normal again and back to surfing soon. But she’d also be back to wondering how she’d traverse the upcoming changes in her life when it stopped being hers—if it ever had been.
This world already felt kind to her. Peace saturated the water, and Yuval looked at her with eyes that displayed the same freedom she’d always found from drifting in the ocean. It was as though he saw her, nothing more, nothing less, and he accepted everything at face value.
“You’re easy to talk to,” she said before she realized, but he responded without batting an eye.
“So are you.” He caught her wrist, halting her movement just before she bumped into the house he stopped in front of. “This is it.” After she’d twisted, he set his hand on the door handle and pushed inside without knocking. When Asaria hesitated outside, he offered her a shy grin. “My friend’s a heavy sleeper. You can wait here while I push her out of bed, okay?”
Nodding, Asaria entered, closing the door behind her. When Yuval had floated into a hole in the wall positioned a story or two off the ground, she glanced around the living space. A table with four chairs sat in the center of the homey area that stretched farther up than it did out. Shells and photos decorated the walls, and she took a moment to examine the images. Two women who looked like twins smiled at her, their large eyes and scaled faces framed with finned ears like Yuval’s.
Other mermaids?
Asaria’s hand jolted to her head and traced her rounded ear before a sigh left her lips. The tail was enough for now if anyone asked her. Still . . . the women were beautiful, and this place was too. All her problems—sans tail—remained festering in another world.
With the light from outside streaming in and a moment of privacy, Asaria took a second to look at her tail. The smooth, light blue scales shone with every movement, muted rainbows shimmering in each. Her fins moved like silk instead of plastic, flowing with the water instead of cutting through it, but that hadn’t hindered her actions. With how flexible it felt, she wondered if it were flesh and bone or purely muscle.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” a woman’s voice startled her fr
om her thoughts, and she spun. One of the women from the pictures smiled at her, hints of mischief in her eyes. “Nice to meet you. My name’s Seora.”
“Asaria Layre,” she replied.
“I know. Yuval tells me you need a place to stay tonight.”
Dumbly, Asaria nodded, glancing at Yuval who stood behind Seora. They both had legs. Their hands might be webbed and their skin scaled, but neither seemed particularly like merfolk, or at least not like the ones she knew. Was. Her eyes flicked down to her tail again.
Seora’s delicate, webbed hand motioned to a circle hole high in the wall across from the other. “My sister moved a while back, so you can rest in her room for now, and don’t worry. We’ll handle everything in the morning.”
Asaria caught Yuval’s smile, and ease flowed through her with its assurance. Before an apology at the inconvenience spilled from her mouth, she said, “Thank you so much.”
“It’s no trouble.” The woman’s lips stretched more toward mischief than grace as she side-eyed Yuval. “No trouble at all. I promise.”
6
Curse
“I told her I could fix it.” Yuval’s exasperated tone woke Asaria. She blinked at her surroundings, all the events of the night strangling her until she could force a deep breath.
“And you can, with some difficulty.” Seora chuckled. “Is it that you don’t want to?”
Asaria’s heart hammered as she floated off the sponge bed and swam to the hole, peering down at the living area. Yuval paced before the table while Seora sat at it. She motioned in front of her, colored water droplets following her fingers, mixing, and glowing.
Yuval frowned at the woman. “Of course I want to help her. It’s just that only Wyre could have done this to her, and he’s still somewhere.”
“I’ve told you once already. I can handle the search for him. Though, we should worry that she’s working for him, and this is a trap.”
Yuval’s hands slammed against the table, and Asaria tensed. His next words came out darker than she thought him capable of. “Watch what you say about her in front of me, Seora. None of this is her fault.”
Seora eyed him, her cheerful disposition having dropped toward disinterest. She flicked her hands up to correct the colored droplets’ pattern, then murmured, “My sister should have warned me not to so much as listen to you when she wrote about Silvan’s guardian’s chosen. Fate is almost as cruel as destiny when you approach either.”
Yuval’s shoulders dropped. “I apologize . . . I just . . .”
“It’s something you’ve already thought of.”
Pain tightened his lips and fist. “I would never have wanted it like this.”
Seeing Yuval’s inexplicable torment, and knowing what they spoke of involved her, Asaria inhaled deeply and pushed herself from the room. Yuval’s eyes turned to her first, sticking on her face before clinging to her tail, then dropping away along with the prior conversation.
“Morning.” Seora smiled cordially. “I hope you slept well, all things considered?”
Asaria chewed her lip, eyeing Yuval in her peripheral. “Better than I have in a while . . . all things considered.”
“Hmm, Beyond does offer a sense of comfort to her people, especially those who need it most. Ocea’s water offers it more fully too.” The woman fluttered her fingers, and the colored drops zipped into a clear vial, every shade distinct in the kaleidoscopic prism.
Trying not to glance at Yuval, Asaria rubbed her arm and kept her gaze down. “Is Beyond a deity?”
Chuckling, Seora settled her hands in her lap. “It’s the realm, but some consider her with that level of reverence.”
“Oh.”
Yuval’s eyes caught hers when he glanced her way. They stuck a moment longer than she thought natural, but then he sighed. “We should probably discuss what happened yesterday.”
Her hand clenched, and she let out a slow breath, remembering the cold vial against her palm. The fear of being at the storm’s mercy. “I went outside to get some air late at night, and the next thing I knew I was standing on the water in the middle of a storm.”
“A storm?” Seora’s eyes widened.
“It came out of nowhere after Yuval saved me from Wyre that afternoon.” She swallowed. “I’m so stupid. I should have known it had something to do with . . . everything.”
“You aren’t stupid. There’s no way you could have known, but a storm is a classic way to build energy for a spell.”
Yuval’s voice softened. “In this case, a curse.”
Asaria’s heart thudded. “I’m . . . cursed?”
“To put it gently, in this situation that’s a good thing.” Seora traced a mark on the table and smiled. “Curses can be broken, after all. The alternative way to change a human is irreversible as far as those in Ocea know.”
Asaria rubbed her hands and kept her breaths steady. “How do we break it, then?” She turned to Yuval. “You said you knew how to fix it.” With some difficulty. Seora’s words from earlier echoed in the back of her mind, and Asaria’s hands stilled. She had to remind herself this wasn’t her fault, but was it? She had willingly consumed the liquid—despite the only other option. If choosing this over dying at sea excused her, what excused going outside? But she couldn’t have known—
“Wai lily.” Yuval’s voice tugged her from her thoughts, his hand against her shoulder and his light gaze peering into her blue eyes. “Everything’s okay. I do know how to fix it. It’s just not as simple as a little magic spell.”
“How simple is it?”
“Not very.” Seora laughed to accompany the dark words. With a final flick of her finger, the marks she’d scribed on the table burned gold and projected a globe above them. “Any magic that changes a person’s appearance, save artificial cloaking and disguise, is strong. The answer to reverse it is equally powerful. And powerful or important things? Well, Beyond guards them, even from her children.” Seora’s eyes locked on Yuval’s faltering expression.
The globe zoomed in, diving beneath water and running past homes. The view sped through coral forests, glowing tunnels, volcanic plains, and stopped before a pitch black cavern.
“We need to get there,” Yuval murmured. “That’s where we’ll find what I need to reverse the curse, and that’s where my abilities will be strong enough to concoct the antidote.”
“That seemed far.” Asaria looked between them.
Seora grinned, untamed mischief glimmering to the surface. “It’s a few weeks swim. And dangerous. But aren’t those trips the most fun?”
Yuval frowned at the woman’s theatrics and waved a hand through the orb. “You’ll be perfectly safe with me, but the journey is probably longer than you’d prefer.”
Time away. In spite of rational thoughts, Asaria wanted to see more of Ocea, feel more of the calm that saturated the waters. She even wanted to explore every little girl’s dream of being a mermaid. True, being lost at sea and likely missing her sister’s graduation would incur a backlash she didn’t want to think about, but those problems were currently a world away.
Maybe just this once she could try living in the moment and quit planning ahead for problems she might not face.
“I think I may have needed a break.” Her heart skipped. But what about them? “I’m so sorry I caused this mess. I’m sure you both have more important things to do. I don’t mean to be trouble. I just—”
“Oh, you didn’t cause this mess,” Seora cut her off. “And I’m staying here. Someone has to watch over things in Yuval’s absence.”
“Seora is going to fill in for my place on the guard and use her magical expertise to take Wyre back into custody while we’re gone.”
Seora snickered. “He’s a slippery fellow, but I’m certain I can handle it.”
“We’ve already made the necessary arrangements.” Yuval folded his arms. “What happened to you was because a citizen of this world escaped. As that was this kingdom’s fault, it’s my duty as a royal guard to persona
lly correct the situation.”
Just the two of them? Even though he’d been kind so far, she didn’t know him that well. Being alone with him for an extended period of time heightened her anxiety on several levels. “But—”
“Trust me.” Seora eyed Yuval, her chin resting on her folded hands. “He doesn’t have anything better to do. Or there’s nothing he’d rather do more than see to you personally. As it is his duty as a ‘royal guard’.”
Yuval’s eyes narrowed, but he returned his attention to Asaria before he spoke. “She’s incorrigible. I apologize for her crudeness.”
“You both should leave before it gets too late.” Seora floated out of her seat. “Before the crowds start forming. An off-duty guard would attract so much attention, and I’m sure you don’t want that, Yuval.”
His glare lifted with a sigh. “She’s right that we should leave as soon as possible. If you’re ready, we’ll catch breakfast in the forest and get started.”
Asaria didn’t have much of a choice. She rubbed her arm and looked down. “I guess I’m as ready as I can be.”
“You aren’t.” Seora glided through the living area into the hole that was her bedroom and returned moments later with a top like the one she wore but in a light blue. Holding it up, Seora smiled. “It’s a little more sturdy for travel.”
And a lot more revealing. Asaria glanced down at her pajama top and pressed her lips together, blush spreading over her cheeks. Or perhaps not. In the events that led her here, she’d forgotten she was only wearing a thin camisole. “Thank you . . .” she murmured, barely looking at Yuval when she took the offered top and drifted up toward the room she’d slept in. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Diving into the room, she quickly slipped out of her cami and into the top. The fabric wasn’t as clingy as her cotton shirt, and the gauze below the bust drifted around her loosely, matching the fluid motions of her fins.
For the briefest moment, excitement, not panic, overwhelmed her, and she swam a loop in the room, feeling the gentle flutter of the lace against her stomach alongside the water’s caress against her tail and hair. Inhaling deeply, she closed her eyes and held the complete magical image in her mind. At least for now she wasn’t Asaria Layre, the weak disappointment who could never escape her sister’s shadow or her parents’ firm grip.
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