King of the Sea

by Elizabeth Frost

  Colored pencil clutched between her fingers, she pointed at him. “You came out of the sea.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No, it’s not. Your footprints come right out of the waves, even though some of them were washed away. How is that possible?”

  He shook his head again. “No, you’re mistaken, beautiful River. I walked down the beach just like you did.”

  She got onto her knees and turned toward him. He couldn’t lie to her. Not like this. Not when she was so close to figuring out what her mother was, and why both of them were shrouded with mystery.

  “Archer,” she started, licking her lips and hoping he would hear the sincerity in her voice. “You can tell me the truth.”

  He leaned back on his arms. His reclined pose made him look as though he didn’t have any care in the world, but she could see the tension in his shoulders. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Other humans. You showed up like you came out of nowhere. You speak differently than anyone I’ve ever met.” She scooted closer, shifting on her knees until she was so close she could have touched him. “You know something you aren’t telling me.”

  He stared into her eyes, as if he were searching for answers to his own questions. “Some secrets aren’t meant to be told.”

  No, that wasn’t fair. Everyone kept secrets from her and this one felt more important than any of the others. She needed to know who her mother was, and why she was so different.

  Maybe if she told him the truth. The truth that no one knew other than herself and her father. Maybe then he would understand that she was sincere and that she wouldn’t ever tell anyone else his secret.

  She let the story spill off her tongue. “Before I was born, my father said he met my mother because she came from the sea. He won’t tell me much about it, only that she was like the ocean itself. More than human. More than just webbed fingers and toes. She was different.”

  River searched his gaze, hoping he might understand what all this meant. Perhaps if he heard the story she was telling, then he could piece it together in a way she couldn’t.

  When he didn’t respond, she continued. “Then, when I was born, she disappeared. No one knew where she went but my father is adamant she’s not dead. She just left. And he said it was because the sea called her home. When I was little, I always thought he just meant she traveled across the sea to wherever she came from. But I’m not sure that’s the truth now.”

  Still, he didn’t respond. She watched the muscles in his shoulders bunch. He tensed, more with every word she said.

  He must know something. He wasn’t telling her the whole truth, just like her father. He knew what she was talking about.

  She shifted even closer, her knees pressed against his leg and her hands folded in her lap. “Please, Archer. I know you know something. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Your father should be the one to tell you,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I can only tell you what I think might have happened, and I could be very wrong.”

  “But what if you’re right?” Her words came out in a rushed gasp. “What if you tell me all the answers I’ve been looking for my entire life? What if I finally know who my mother is, and I can finally ask my father what happened? You could change everything.”

  He finally moved. Archer sat up from the sand and reached out for her hands. He took them in his own, squeezing them tight. “Are you sure you want everything to change?”

  No, she wasn’t sure of that. She liked her quaint little life, and the idea of it changing scared her more than any adventure. Her father and her had an enjoyable routine going for them.

  But if she had to suffer a moment more of the wanting for more information... River was certain it would kill her.

  She took a deep breath, held it, and nodded. “Yes, I want to know.”

  Archer squeezed her hands then released them. “I don’t know how to tell you this. It’s not an easy subject, and I don’t believe I’ve ever told a human before.”

  Human. There was the word again. Like a promise or a whispered prayer.

  “Human?” she repeated.

  He stared up into her eyes and it was like two oceans meeting between them. “Yes. Human. I don’t know if you are one, after all.”

  Not human? Well that didn’t make sense. She wasn’t special in any way other than webbed fingers, but maybe... Maybe that wasn’t her story.

  Breathing heavily now, she waved for him to continue. “So what are you then? Some kind of... alien?”

  He chuckled. “I guess you might think that. I’m a faerie, River.”

  Faerie. This time, the word ran through her like she’d touched the live end of an electrical cord. The word was familiar. It tasted right on her tongue, like bubblegum and Starburst candies.

  Faerie was right. That was what she was. What her mother was. It explained so much.

  She let out a long gust of air and slumped next to him on the sand. Staring at the seals, she shook her head. Not in denial, but disbelief. “A faerie. My mother was a faerie.”

  “Most likely.” He reached out and caught ahold of her hand. Archer threaded his fingers through hers, gently stroking the webbing. “These were my first clue.”

  “What was the second?” If there had been a first, he must have seen more. More of her mother? She wanted to know.

  “Your will,” he replied. “You don’t act like other humans. You’re scattered but you see things you shouldn’t see.”

  “Oh.” She drew out the word. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

  “It’s a very good thing!” He almost shouted the words, as if insulted she would suggest anything else.

  Archer reached for her sketchbook and pulled it out in front of her. He thumbed through the pages until he finally found the one she’d been working on. The colorful picture with the strange, mysterious man in the waves.

  He pointed to the man but stared into her eyes. “You saw me.”

  “No, that’s just a figment of my imagination. I wanted you to be here, that doesn’t mean I could see you.”

  “No,” he repeated her words, denying what she said. “You saw me in the waves. Your eyes found me when they shouldn’t have been able to, and you drew what your soul saw. Perhaps your mind didn’t recognize it then, but you do now.”

  She tried to remember what she’d seen. Drawing wasn’t like that for her though. She didn’t look at the things in front of her. She felt them. She drew from their life force and put it down on paper so it would be preserved forever.

  But her mind said she had seen him. That she’d watched him walking on the bottom of the ocean, approaching her with confidence and a heart full of hope.

  River gasped, “I did see you.”

  “There it is,” he replied. The grin on his face was filled with pride. “You see? You’re so much more than human, River.”

  “It’s hard to believe.”

  “But you do, don’t you?”

  The idea was fanciful. A faerie. Her. As if that explained all her odd traits and looks.

  But it didn’t explain all that away. She was still the weirdo with mixed blood if she believed him. And if she didn’t, then she had just gone down the path of her childhood again. Wishing she had an excuse for her differences.

  “I want to,” she replied. Her voice pitched lower, quiet, as if she were afraid someone might hear her admit how much she wanted the bloodline and the magic. “But it’s all rather hard to put into perspective, isn’t it? Faeries are myths.”

  Archer reached for her hands again, cupping them between his own. “Then let me prove it to you.”

  “How?”

  He grinned at her then leaned down. His lips pressed against her fingertips and she lost all train of thought. Those soft lips, plush and kind and ever so light.

  What had made her so lucky to have him kiss her fingertips?

  Then, something wiggled between their fingers. Like an ani
mal trapped between the cages of their hands.

  River let out a sound of surprise, a slight whimper before he guided her hands open. There, cupped in her palm, was a bubble of water filled with a tiny scene of the ocean.

  A dolphin the size of a dime swam between her fingers. The water was a deeper blue than she’d ever seen and magic gave the vision life.

  Suddenly, she was terrified the slightest movement might harm the tiny animal clutched between her fingers. “Archer?” she said in panic. “What if I drop it?”

  “It’s not real,” he replied with a chuckle. “It’s just an illusion of a place I love.”

  With a wave of his hand over hers, the dolphin disappeared. Instead, all she held in her hands was saltwater that trickled through her fingers. Some of the salt turned her webbing gritty.

  “Was that magic?” she asked, feeling very light headed.

  “It most certainly was.”

  “You can do magic.”

  He grinned at her again, wicked and wonderfully handsome. “I can do a lot more than that, beautiful River. Would you like me to show you?”

  She wanted to see everything he had to offer. But tonight was her father’s big benefit dinner. The weight of the world crashed down on her shoulders.

  Her shoulders slumped in defeat and she shook her head. “No. I have to go to a dinner with my father tonight.”

  “Why does that make you so upset?” He tilted his head to the side. “You should be excited to spend time with family.”

  She held her hands up and spread her fingers wide, waggling the tips. “I’m tonight’s show.”

  He bristled. His shoulders squared, and he drew himself up in a surprising display of aggression. “They show you like some kind of circus animal?”

  “Not quite.” She shouldn’t have said it like that, but how was she to know he’d be so protective of her? “I just always feel like people are staring at me. But now I know I’m not human so... I guess that makes it a little easier.”

  She shouldn’t even be here talking to him. River scrambled to her feet and shoved all her things into her bag.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Home, I’m going to be late. But thank you for today and for explaining things.” She knew she was being rude, but how did she say goodbye when she felt like he was part of her?

  Or part of her history?

  She didn’t know. The thoughts were too much to unscramble, and she had a stressful night coming up.

  A faerie. She was entertaining the thought that she was a magical creature just so she could feel better about the benefit dinner. River had to get out of here immediately.

  “Sorry,” she muttered and then took off down the sand.

  7

  He watched the little human who was not a human run away from him. Her feet flew across the sand, all because she was suddenly very uncomfortable about the idea of a ball.

  At least, that’s how he remembered them. Maybe humans called them “benefits” now, but he knew what she meant.

  People would dress up in fine clothing. They would toast to their own health and eat food that was far more rich than what they usually ate. They’d talk with each other about menial things they wouldn’t even remember in the morning. All things that made them feel important.

  It wasn’t a difficult evening to partake in. Sure, she had webbed fingers. And maybe some people stared. But that only meant she was a commodity other people wished to claim they knew.

  Such things were a compliment in his eyes. Let them try to collect her, she was the one who held the power. If she didn’t want them to own her, then she didn’t need to give them any permissions over her body.

  Apparently, she didn’t see the situation in the same way.

  Archer stood and stretched his arms over his head. He’d return to his home in the sea now, he supposed. Back into the depths where the quiet of the ocean could still his mind just as she did.

  The seal male snuffed at him. “You’re letting her go?”

  He shrugged. “What else can I do? She ran away from me like I’d lit a fire under her toes.”

  “She was nervous.”

  “Not about me.” Perhaps about her lineage, which he needed to look into. If one of his court had tried to hide their faerie child in the human realm, then he had a lot of questions that needed answering. If she was a half-breed... Well, that was another problem altogether.

  Either way, he intended to find out what happened when her mother walked out of the sea.

  The seal male chuffed again. “You shouldn’t let her go alone.”

  “And why not? Let the humans deal with human struggles.”

  “Because you just said she wasn’t human, and now she’s alone with humans.” The seal snorted and a snot bubble burst on his nose. “Foolish. You’d think a man as old as you would be better at games of love.”

  He was getting relationship advice from a seal.

  Archer rolled his eyes. She didn’t want him at the benefit dinner. Otherwise, she would have asked him to go.

  Wasn’t that how women worked? If they wanted something, they would tell him. Otherwise, they were fine.

  No, he should have remembered she hadn’t grown up in his court. She didn’t function like faeries did who gave little care in the world no matter what the circumstance. She was human and therefore, complicated.

  Archer looked in the direction she’d run off to, wondering if it was too late to show up at her house. Her father would be an obstacle and she wouldn’t want to introduce him to her father right after he broke into their house. Only one other option remained.

  He strode into the sea and dove beneath the waves. He sliced through the water as though he were part of it, and in a way, he was.

  The elemental inside him awakened. A mere flex of his power sent him shooting through the ocean and along the ocean floor. Sand blasted away from him, covering mollusks who shouted obscenities at their king as he disappeared in the distance.

  Archer let out a low laugh that floated through the waves as he dove deeper and deeper. The light dimmed to nearly nothing, then disappeared entirely.

  Far in the distance, he could see a squid moving through the water, languishing in a pocket of warm water. Bright lights danced along its many limbs. The sparks glinted off the eyes of a shark who watched the squid with a hungry gaze. It wouldn’t attack the ancient beast, nor would it tempt fate by attacking its king.

  Deeper and deeper he went until he could see the glowing lights of his city.

  Atlantis.

  The humans believed it long beyond their reach. They believed the city had sunk beneath the waves and that all the inhabitants had died. In fact, Atlantis was still well and whole.

  It was just run by faeries now. As it should have been all those years ago.

  Spires rose all around him, carved out of coral and whale bones. The entire city was a castle, rising out of the ocean floor like a great octopus with many arms stretching up into the water. Fronds of seaweed fed by magic waved in the currents. Schools of fish darted through the light, their bodies reflecting every color of the rainbow.

  Once, he remembered the city being much higher in the ocean. Dolphins and whales had swam past the windows of the homes and children had counted their numbers in glee.

  Now, the children counted fish, and they hoped the creatures would live long enough for them to see again.

  He swam past bubbles of air where people grew food, pouring all their faerie magic into the bee hives and wheat. Bread and honey, that’s what most faeries lived on.

  Archer twisted in the water to avoid a young faerie couple. The male was like a jellyfish and his tendrils would leave a nasty welt if Archer touched them. The female was little more than a ghostly outline in the water. She was made of saltwater and bubbles.

  The beauty of his court was not lost on Archer. They were all so unusually made, and yet beautiful in every sense of the word. They were the ocean, and the ocean made them.
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  He slowed as he approached the largest spire, the place where he lived with his most trusted of the court. Drifting to the entrance, he righted his body and stepped into the bubble of air within the spire.

  Water rained from his shoulders and flooded the ground. The wet slaps of his feet padding across the floor echoed as he strode toward the center of the spire.

  His home was warm and full of everything he could get his hands on. Pots, pans, jewelry, art pieces, everything that resembled the human realm was kept on shelves lining the halls.

  He didn’t know why he collected human things. Maybe because they were so different and he wanted to understand them. Maybe just because they annoyed him with their obsessive need to throw away as many objects as possible.

  Perhaps he’d never know. But either way, he made certain his home was decorated in a way that suited him.

  Archer made it to the center where a large coral growth held the water back. Although magic helped it contain the weight of the ocean.

  “Ebb!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  The clacking of heels echoed through the hall as his most trusted naiad made her way down from her own home. All the spires were interconnected. Anyone could come into his home whenever they wanted.

  Archer preferred it that way. Who needed a front door or permission to visit neighbors? It hardly seemed required when there was so much trust between them.

  She rounded the corner of the hall, her hair tangled atop her head. Or, well, sort of hair. Seaweed created the individual strands in sticky loops of green and teal. Ebb wore it in an intricate braid to keep the strands healthy.

  The rest of her was rather human, but most naiads were. The only difference was that her eyes were blue. No pupil, no whites, just blue.

  “Your Majesty,” she murmured, her voice like the burble of ice in the far north. “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you, Ebb. I have a project for you.”

  “Oh?” She straightened. “What might I do?”

  “I need your brother and you to prepare a suit for me, something humans won’t notice is any different from their clothing.”