“I can’t believe the size of this place.”
“Bermuda is the largest outpost in this region of the Atlantic Ocean.” His chest puffed out with pride.
She swallowed the dryness in her throat. “How did you recognize who I was? Did someone send out an oceanwide bulletin? ‘Beware: lost princess, soon to drop by your neck of the sea’?”
Noro had a warm chuckle that crinkled his eyes and deepened the laugh lines around his mouth. “No, Your Highness, I’d recognize you anywhere. You resemble your mother.”
Her birth mother. She’d known for years that she’d been taken in by her foster mother at a young age, but she couldn’t remember the time before she’d come into the Queen family.
When she wasn’t fucking petrified, the irony would be hilarious.
“Certainly, the princess would like to stretch her legs for a while. The journey from Texas must have been long indeed.”
Manu frowned. “We’re only here for a energy cell. She—”
“Yes, she would,” Kai cut in. “The princess hasn’t eaten in hours, has been planted in the same seat just as long, and she lacks a bladder made of iron. It’s about to burst. What can you do to remedy those problems, Lieutenant Noro?”
The man laughed. “I’ll take our princess for a tour. Someone will see to your coral glider, Commander.”
“Pardon me, Lieutenant, but—”
Noro stepped up to Manu and said something to him in another language, voice in the low and confidential tone of someone sharing a secret. Their tongue also struck Kai as familiar, the words invoking a sense of melancholy that she could no longer understand their speech. Whatever was said, Manu stiffened straighter than a metal beam.
He replied. Something told her the response was something like, “Did he?” because Noro nodded soon after.
Funny. A nod was the same in any language and culture.
“I leave you in Lieutenant Noro’s care, Princess.” He bowed to her, spun on his heels, and left.
“What was that about?” Kai asked.
“Nothing worthy of your concern, Your Highness. Please. You must be exhausted from your travel and in need of rest and…” He glanced over her bikini and ripped cover-up, gaze too brief to feel lascivious, but long enough to set in her mind that her attire stood out. “Proper garments. We have quite a bit to show you, but first, allow me to take you to the royal chambers.”
5
Port Bermuda
Proper garments turned out to be tight-fitting leggings and a thigh-length, fitted tunic sewn from sharkskin leather. The boots reached her calves, lacked heels, and were lighter than they looked but attractive in both form and function.
He’d given her green and violet, the latter the same shade as her hair.
Kai admired her reflection for a while longer in what had to be the equivalent of a bathroom. She’d been concerned for a while, wondering how people who dwelled under the sea used the facilities, disturbed by bad memories of having to evacuate pools as a child.
Thank the gods for small miracles. The people had actual bathrooms: commodes, sinks, and running water that didn’t taste like salt. Later, she knew the scientist in her would need to learn everything she could about their society. For now, she let the magic of it all carry her away, too exhausted to fight it or ask a million questions.
Kai emerged from the restroom to find a young woman with a waist-length, cotton candy-pink braid, kneeling on the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Awaiting your commands, Your Highness.”
“Down there?”
She didn’t raise her head. “Such is the proper way to greet royalty. I’m your handmaiden.”
Oh no. “Please stand up.”
“But—”
“Let’s pretend I ordered you to stand. Please get up. I can’t do this right now.”
The bewildered woman stood, blinking at her. “Please, if I’ve done something to offend, I beg your forgiveness. Whatever mistake I made—”
“You haven’t made any mistakes. It’s just…” Kai inhaled a deep breath, letting it fill her lungs. In and out, counts of three and five. Focus. Staying calm was the only way to get through it, because losing her shit like a psycho wasn’t going to change that everything she’d ever known had turned around overnight. Adaptation was her only option.
“I only found out today that I’m a princess,” she said in a quiet voice, infusing all the patience she could muster into her tone. “This is all very new to me. I don’t want to be bowed at and knelt to or whatever else you were told to do. I just…want to have something to eat and lie down to rest. Please.”
“Oh.”
“And I want to know your name, too.”
The maid tucked her chin. “Amerin.”
“Call me Kai.”
Fair brows knit together in obvious confusion. “Kai? But you’re—”
“Please. All of my friends call me Kai, and it would really help me a lot right now.”
Amerin tucked her chin. “Princess Kai it is then.”
Kai sighed. Better than nothing.
“I am to take you to the dining hall. Commander Manu and Lieutenant Noro await your company there.”
“I’d rather not—” She cut herself off, wondering about the mysterious message relayed to Manu that had turned his features rigid with fury. There was a story there, and focusing on someone else’s business meant a distraction from her worries. “Lead the way.”
Amerin led her along a corridor chiseled from the rock and down a flight of stairs decorated with a scarlet strip of carpet down its center. Lanterns with glowing, pale-yellow orbs shone all around them, spaced at equal intervals. Standing near one felt like sunlight had been captured and imbued into a glass jar.
“This is beautiful,” Kai said, passing beneath a sea glass chandelier hanging within a grand passageway decorated by silk tapestries depicting Grecian mythology and marble busts in lantern-lit alcoves.
“Bermuda Post pales when compared to Atlantis, Your Highness. You will not be disappointed once Commander Manu takes you home.”
Kai’s home was a two-story beach house on Galveston’s coast where a twenty-one-year-old nursing student and a sixty-three-year-old sculptor waited for her. By now, they would have called the police to report her missing, especially if any signs of a struggle remained on the beach bordering their rear yard. She wondered if the police were dragging the ocean right now for her body, her family fearing the worst.
Their path continued into a grand dining hall where each of the long, polished stone tables seated a dozen armored warriors beneath a curved glass ceiling revealing the ocean above them. Silence fell over the chamber when they saw her.
To say she was intimidated would be an understatement as she stood before over a hundred armored men. And every set of eyes in the room was on her. Dining stopped, and two-pronged tines were lowered to plates.
A table at the head of the chamber seated Noro and Manu opposite two other decorated men and a lone woman. All five rose from their chairs when Amerin guided Kai to the empty seat at the table’s head. She didn’t leave after that, kneeling on a pillow beside Kai’s chair with her eyes downcast. When the sole woman among them didn’t react to Amerin’s submissive behavior, Kai tried to shake off the strange feeling burning through her gut.
“Your Highness,” five voices greeted in unison, complete with identical ninety-degree bows.
“It is an honor,” Noro said, pulling out her seat, “to host you at our table this eve.”
“An honor,” another man echoed. This one was older than Noro, with a healthy sprinkle of silver hair, but his features retained their youth.
“Thank you for having me,” she murmured, positive she’d humiliate herself or break decorum before the dinner ended. Then again, eating like a savage surface-lander was the least of her concerns.
“We are blessed to have you among us again, Princess Zephyrine,” said the only female officer.
Kai didn’t
bother to correct the lieutenant, though she wondered how long it would take for the name Zepyrhine to feel like hers.
“I am Lieutenant Vaissa,” she said.
“And I am Lieutenant Akamu,” said a black-haired man with massive biceps tattooed with images of sea turtles and manta rays, competing with Manu for largest dude at the table.
One by one, the remaining officers gave their names and bowed again. After Kai sat, they retook their chairs. They kept her entertained with small talk about the port, asking what she thought of her chambers and the glider ride from Texas. A few minutes passed before a young man arrived carrying an enormous silver platter covered in an array of colorful slivers in unusual shapes and several dipping dishes with black, inky liquid.
No one moved, all eyes on her. Kai also froze.
Catching on, Noro chuckled first. “Etiquette states we wait for you to take the first bite, Your Highness.”
“Oh.” At least they hadn’t expected Amerin to take the first bite as her poison taster. She followed their lead and speared a piece, dipped it, and placed it in her mouth.
Don’t ask what it is. Don’t ask what it is. The tender morsel filled her mouth with salt and sweetness from the inky dip and released a creamy, succulent center when she chewed. She pretended she was dining with Hannibal Lecter, reminding herself if she knew what it was, she’d likely not want it. When they were down to the final sliver of meat, all forks retreated to their linen napkins.
Kai took the hint that this, too, the last piece, was meant for her. When she claimed it, Noro nodded in approval.
Afterward, a leafy green seaweed salad arrived for each of them, not looking too different from an appetizer at her favorite Japanese grill. Maybe it was because she was starved and hadn’t eaten in a day, but she choked it all down in record time.
“Did you not find it necessary to feed our future queen, Commander Manu?” Vaissa asked. Her gray eyes twinkled with mirth, and though she appeared to be the youngest of the officers at the table, her hair gleamed silver with lavender streaks. It had been bound in several plaits and pinned with starfish no larger than Kai’s thumb.
“She slept during most of the journey,” Manu muttered. “As she had been injured by a Gloombeast, I thought it prudent to let her rest.”
“Good fortune led you to her at the onset of the attack,” Lieutenant Akamu said. “Tell us, Your Highness, of your time spent on the surface. Many of us have never visited dry land.”
“Ah, I wouldn’t know where to begin.” She reached for her drink and reluctantly sipped her wine. It tasted no different from surface wine, full-bodied and sweet in her mouth.
“What occupied you? Were the humans kind?” he persisted.
“You must have made a difference there,” Vaissa said, eyes alight with curiosity.
A difference? Her thoughts turned to Clear Shores: the whales saved over the years, the slaughters they’d stopped, and the abrupt but grisly end of their fight against the callous poachers.
Had she made a difference?
She liked to think she did.
“Sometimes they weren’t,” she replied. “And sometimes I did.”
While she had their rapt attention, she told them a little of her surface life in the U.S. Navy, her time at school, and the three years she’d worked with Clear Shores protecting the whales. It wasn’t until she reached the end of her tale that she realized another hush had fallen over the entire dining hall, and that the eyes of every single Atlantian were watching her and listening to the tale with obvious reverence in their eyes and unconcealed curiosity. In this strange room, her voice carried and magnified.
Hunger, and a dire need to fill her stomach, made it easier to ignore the staring when the next course arrived. They ate seared fish, and crisp grilled vegetables that crunched when she chewed them. She didn’t recognize a single thing, not even the fish they dined on. By the time some unusual, unrecognizable desserts of dried fruits came out that melted like candy in her mouth, she could barely stuff in another bite.
“I am sure Princess Zephyrine would appreciate a moment of rest,” Noro said, rising when she lowered her fork. Shit. Had she signaled the end of the meal? Everyone else lowered their forks too. “Amerin, please guide Her Highness back to the royal suite.”
“With pleasure, Commander Noro.”
A round of farewells preceded her departure, and minutes later Amerin delivered her back to the spacious room where she would sleep that night.
Too exhausted to strip out of her suit, she sprawled across a fluffy, hanging bed, and knew nothing else.
The next morning, or night—or whatever hour it was when Kai finally stirred after falling comatose in the world’s most comfortable bed—Amerin arrived to show her how to dress as a proper Atlantian lady. What she received to wear under the suit was barely a thong. Of all the things taken from her, she hadn’t thought her Fruit of the Loom bikini briefs and T-shirt bras would be yet another sacrifice.
Between her frustration with the undergarments, lingering exhaustion, and too many years of communal showers in the military, all her modesty had been stripped away and she allowed the young maid to dress her.
“Thank you. This is lovely,” Kai said when Amerin finished taming her tangled hair into neat braids and pinning them with tiny white starfish. “But can I ask you a question?”
Amerin paused. “You may ask me anything you desire, Your Highness. Serving you is my only purpose.”
Kai frowned. “Why is it your only purpose? What did you do prior to my return? Were you the servant of another person?”
“No. Never. I was born to be your maid. Your uncle, the acting regent, sent me here days ago to await your arrival. He knew Commander Manu would deliver you to this post once you were found.”
Another one of those awkward, deafening silences passed between them. Kai wondered how long it would be before she grew accustomed to the changes. “Surely you don’t mean that in the literal sense?”
“Oh, but I do. You are forty-six years old, and I am forty-four. My parents conceived me to serve as your lady’s maid and gifted me to the royal family once I left infancy.”
Slowly, Kai turned to face Amerin. There were so many things wrong with every part of the woman’s statement, but the one that stood out the most, were the words “forty-six.” Forty-six.
No, she couldn’t be that old. Unless Atlantians calculated their math differently, nothing about that age made sense to her. She’d seen photographs of herself shortly after a social worker delivered her to Sunshine’s door as a ward of the state needing foster care, a confused child no older than eight; nine at the most. They’d taken a guess at her age, and those days were cloudy, a hazy memory she could barely recall. It hadn’t been much later, when all efforts failed to find her parents, that Sunshine adopted her.
“Please repeat that,” she spoke in a quiet voice, barely holding it together. “I’m how old?”
Amerin repeated herself, blinking in bewilderment. “Is something the matter, Your Highness?”
“I…thought I was no older than thirty-three. I’ve been told my entire life strangers found me on the beach at the age of eight or nine. I don’t understand.”
“We of Atlantis age differently than humans, Your Highness. We do not reach adulthood until our thirtieth year, and from that point forward, age much slower. You were an adolescent of twenty-one at the time of your parents’ death.”
No. Everything she’d ever known came crashing down around her, her life a flimsy house of cards built from unintentional lies. The world around her swam in and out of focus. It couldn’t be possible, and yet, a magical outpost in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle should have been equally impossible. Her shoulders shook, and the tears she’d been tenaciously holding at bay since the previous evening came streaming down her cheeks in hot trails.
Suddenly lightheaded, Kai stumbled toward a nearby chair. She didn’t make it. When the floor rushed up to meet her face, Amerin caught her ins
tead with surprisingly strong hands and held her upright in her arms. It was then Kai realized her lady’s maid stood only two inches shorter.
Amerin guided her to the same chair, left the room, and returned quickly with a cup of green-tinged tea that smelled like grass.
Kai held the warm vessel on her lap until her hands steadied, then she sipped it. It tasted like sweet memories, though she couldn’t place why.
“Please rest a moment. This has been a difficult day for you, Princess Kai.”
“Difficult is an understatement. There are…so many things I do not understand. How do you understand me? Do all Atlantians know English?”
“Atlantians know every language,” she replied.
“I don’t, but I’m supposedly one of you.”
“You’ve forgotten the magic and how to be one of us, but it will come back in time. You need only remember who you are, I’m sure.”
Kai’s shoulders shook with a peal of hysterical laughter. “Magic. Now you’re telling me I know magic?”
“We all do to some degree, though some of us better than others. You are a high mer, and your ability surpasses any amount of sorcery I could ever perform.”
“What’s…what’s a high mer? If you’re not a high mer, what are you?”
“The rest of us commoners are descended from the Oceanids and their trysts with humans, but high mer were crafted in the sea goddess’s image, her creations who weren’t born of her, but made. Designed to lead the city.”
“And me?”
Amerin’s smile widened. “You are born from the direct descendants of Thalassa and Pontus, the goddess and god of the seas. And you are the fifth in their royal line.”
Return to Atlantis: a Fantasy Romance (Kingdom in the Sea Book 1) Page 4