by Regine Abel
I looked down at the medallion resting on my chest. It glowed brightly. December was only two days away. With it, the ninth seal would be activated. I couldn’t wait for that to be over. It was becoming unbearably painful. Thank God it only lasted a few minutes. Stealing a glance at Eric’s back, I fought the urge to cuddle against him. As much as it hurt, I wouldn’t beg for his affection. The hour was late and I needed to sleep. Turning on my side, with my back to his, I closed my eyes.
The ever elusive sleep must have finally claimed me because the next thing I knew, I was standing in the underbrush leading to my greenhouse. I could hear a faint voice in the distance. Curious as to who would be intruding there, I followed the path. But instead of leading to my greenhouse, the path ended at the top of a cliff overlooking a small dock. A battered ship had crashed into it and was taking on water. The voice emanated from within. It was strange that I could hear it from such a distance. Then again, this was a dream...
I opened the gate of the protective railing and climbed the narrow stairs down to the docks. The voice was now stronger, desperately calling for help. I sounded somewhat familiar.
“Hang on, I’m coming!” I shouted.
“Please! Hurry! I don’t want to die,” a frightened feminine voice replied.
Thankfully, I had no problem getting on the deck of the ship, which was surprisingly flush with the dock, and I raced to the door from whence the voice emanated. I looked for a handle, but I couldn’t find one. I pushed against the door with all my weight but it didn’t move an inch.
“The door is stuck!” I yelled, still pushing against it. “Is there something blocking it on your side?”
“It’s not stuck. It’s locked,” the voice said. “Please, unlock it. I’m drowning!”
“But how? I don’t have the key. There isn’t even a keyhole!”
“Yes, there is. Look up, you will see the keyhole,” the voice said. “And you have the key around your neck.”
Exactly like she said, there was a discreet keyhole in the center of the door. Around my neck, a golden key dangled at the end of a delicate gold chain. I took the key in my hand, frowning. Where did I get that key? Before I had a chance to further analyze my sudden uneasiness, the woman started pounding frantically on the door, begging me to save her. Without thinking, I shoved the key into the hole and turn it left. Or rather, I tried to…
The key resisted all my efforts and I feared it would break if I insisted. “It doesn’t work! The key won’t turn!”
“You’re turning it the wrong way,” the voice said with urgency. “Turn it right. Do it now!”
I froze at her words. A terrible sense of dread washed over me. Something was very wrong here. I couldn’t turn the key to the right. Bad things would happen. Eric’s words echoed in my head…
…turn it counterclockwise. Remember, always to the left. Turning it clockwise means death.
“No… I can’t. Eric said never to the right.”
“This isn’t about Eric. Eric is wrong. I’m going to die if you don’t help me right away. Turn the key right now. I beg you!”
The slapping sound of footsteps resonated behind me. “Astrid!”
Looking over my shoulder, I saw Eric come to a running stop on the dock. He was barefoot, wearing nothing but his sleeping tunic. His face was drained of color and he looked terrified.
“Eric! We need your help. The ship is sinking and the door is locked. We have to…”
With his palms raised in a calming gesture, he cautiously approached me.
“Astrid, please… please take the medallion out of the socket and step away from the door. Please…” he said, his voice quivering with fear.
My anxiety level skyrocketed. Why was my fearless Eric so scared? And what did he mean by the medallion? I wasn’t using the medallion. It was a golden key. Turning back to the door, I observed the key and suddenly noticed the strange glow around the keyhole. I squinted and as if a veil was lifted, the battered ship door turned into the Sealed Door, and the gold key into the nautilus.
With a horrified shout, I pulled the medallion out of the socket and hastily backed away. Eric’s arms closed around me and further dragged me from the door. I clung to him with the energy of despair, my entire body shaking violently. His hand fisting my hair, Eric held me in a crushing embrace. I could feel him trembling against me and the warmth of his labored breath on my neck.
The voice stopped its pleading and suddenly broke into an evil chuckle. “Until next time, Queen Astrid.”
“Ignore her, my darling,” Eric whispered in my ear. He lifted me in his arms and carried me out of the dungeon.
* * *
My mind kept replaying what had happened. I was finally starting to grasp what Eric had meant that first night when he said the challenge was to resist temptation although this was rather deception. For the first eight months, this had been a breeze. The last month had been another story. But contrary to what I had believed, it wasn’t madness from extended isolation that plagued me. The voices had been real, insidious. They… no, she had slowly infiltrated my subconscious and at my most vulnerable moment, lured me with her siren’s call to my doom.
Understanding suddenly dawned on me. My eyes flew to Eric, who stood quietly by our bedroom fireplace, staring at me. As I put the pieces together, they fit too perfectly for this to be mere coincidence.
“What are you, Eric?”
He stilled and narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m your husband.”
“Yes. And you’re also not human, are you?”
His face closed off, showing no emotion. “Of course, I’m human,” he said with a clipped tone. “What else would I be? You’ve seen my parents and my mother gave birth to me right here in the castle assisted by the midwife.”
“The first time I heard the voice it was in your study, two weeks ago,” I stood from my seat on the couch in front of the fireplace and paced the room. “You suspected then what was happening. Today, you heard the taunting words she said to me. No one can stay in the castle at night, for fear of their safety, but you can. You fear they will succumb to her lure… to her siren’s song, but you don’t. And your own voice is often quite… hypnotic.”
Eric clenched his jaw at that last comment. I had hit a nerve.
“Your blue hair and silver eyes aren’t normal colors for humans. Whenever you, your father or grand-father were on a ship, it was guaranteed smooth sailing and safe passage from sea monsters. Hence you’ve all been called the Sea Kings.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the mantle of the fireplace. “So what do you think I am, dearest wife?”
I walked over to my jewelry box and pulled out the locket I had found months ago in the greenhouse. Returning to Eric, I extended a closed hand to him. He hesitated for a moment but then presented his open palm and I placed the locket in it.
“I think you’re the same as whatever is locked behind that door.”
Eric blanched when he saw what I had given him. His hands shook when he opened the locket and looked at the portraits staring back at him.
“Where did you find this?” he whispered.
“In the greenhouse...”
Fisting his hand around the locket, he brushed past me and walked to the large window overlooking the courtyard. He pulled the curtains open and stared at the golden outline of the rising sun on the horizon.
“She has your hair and your eyes. He looks just like your father. I’m assuming this is your grand-father, King Harald. She must be the foreign wife we all heard of, but who was unable to reign by his side, because of her duties in her own kingdom. She looks exactly like the crowned mermaid on the fountain in the abandoned section of the garden.”
Eric’s shoulders drooped. With a sigh, he turned back to face me, a look of defeat on his face. He gestured to the couch I previously sat on. “Sit down, Astrid.”
I complied, folding my robe around me.
“Eighty years ago, conquering the unclaime
d Rathlin Islands was deemed impossible. Between the kraken and the frequent storms, it was too hazardous. A bold captain decided to challenge that notion. The islands were not only fertile lands, but they were right at the heart of the main merchant trade routes. Whoever controlled them would become rich and powerful. So he set out to defeat the kraken, and like all the others before him, his ship was destroyed.”
Eric looked at the portraits in the locket and ran his thumb over the woman’s face.
“Queen Alinor, ruler of the merfolk Kingdom of Llys, fancied the foolish human who clung for dear life on the wreckage of his ship amidst troubled waters. She ordered her Sea Witch to recall the kraken and calm the elements. The Queen and the captain became lovers and eventually married. But Harald was human and couldn’t live under the sea.”
His wary eyes locked with mine upon those last words, no doubt to gauge my reaction. I nodded and gave him an encouraging – though somewhat strained – smile. He swallowed, but some of the tension seemed to drain from his shoulders.
“He became the King of Rathlin Islands so that they could remain close to each other. They had two children. Harald brought their firstborn, my father Brandt, to live among the humans and be his heir to the throne of Rathlin. Their daughter, my Aunt Eira, would rule the merfolk after Queen Alinor. My grandfather remained faithful to his wife and visited her often.”
Eric took one last glance at the portraits before closing the locket. He walked over to my vanity near the dresser and placed the locket back in my jewelry box. I shifted restlessly on the couch, knowing he was buying himself some time before delving into the events that had caused this harmonious arrangement to end in the curse that tormented him and threatened my life.
“My father was seventeen when Queen Alinor died. King Harald took him to the funeral so he could pay his final respects to his mother and to bear witness to the crowning of his sister, my Aunt Eira. That’s when my father met a young Sea Witch apprentice named Alba. They became lovers, and that liaison lasted twelve years. It ended when the King died and my father made a politically beneficial marriage to my mother. When Brandt had gone to end things with Alba, she thought he was coming to ask for her hand. She was devastated, especially because she had just found out she was pregnant.”
I knew exactly where this was headed. The curse killed the wives of the ruling king. Of course it would be the revenge of a woman scorned. Eric came to sit next to me, eyeing me warily.
“So you have an older brother, or sister?” I asked softly.
“A sister,” Eric said, folding his hands on his lap. “The separation wasn’t friendly. A month later, my parents were married and a year after that, I was born. Father took me to Llys to be presented to Queen Eira. Alba had been promoted to Royal Sea Witch. In a gesture of goodwill, she told my father she had forgiven him and offered him a jeweled psyche mirror as a present to my mother.”
“Please tell me your father didn’t give a present to his wife from a scorned ex-lover?”
“Foolishly naïve, wasn’t it?” Eric said, shaking his head. “He did. And for years, all seemed well except that my mother went through one miscarriage or stillbirth after another. With each one, my mother became more and more reclusive, spending an unhealthy amount of time in front of her psyche. That’s when they realized something was off with it. I was fifteen when Alba was confronted for her spiteful crime. Queen Eira had her executed, and the psyche was sealed off in the dungeon. It couldn’t be destroyed because it would kill my mother who had too strongly bonded with it. In the end, even that didn’t save her.”
I put a comforting hand over his. He wrapped his fingers around mine and gave them a gentle squeeze. The expression on his face seemed grateful. I realized he had feared rejection because of his lineage. Part of me had suspected from the moment I had seen the locket so many months ago. But Eric was right. While he had merfolk blood, he was human in all the ways that mattered. He also was my husband; the man I loved.
“So what happened?” I asked. “Did the psyche continue to affect your mother?”
“Not exactly. It could no longer influence her, but she was addicted to it. Being unable to get to it was driving her mad. Father decided to take her away from the kingdom for a while to help her recover. Their ship was attacked and sunk by the kraken. My half-sister, Traxia, is also a Sea Witch.”
I felt myself blanch at the name. Traxia… Suddenly, that strange dream I had when Eric had left for a fortnight came back to me. It hadn’t been a dream. That had been the first temptation. If I had gone for that treasure…
“She summoned the kraken to avenge her mother and punish my father for abandoning them. She believed Brandt should have married her mother and made her queen of Llys instead of my Aunt Eira.”
“She wanted her parents to have the same arrangement your grandparents had!”
“Exactly,” Eric nodded. “Traxia went into hiding after her crime, because she knew our aunt, Queen Eira, would have her executed too. In the four years after that, she terrorized our shores and any ship that crossed our waters. Queen Eira helped me defeat her. However, she felt death was too kind a punishment for Traxia who had killed her brother, undermined her reign and trampled our peace treaty. Instead, she imprisoned Traxia in the very psyche her mother had used to torture mine. There, Traxia would linger eternally, unless I showed mercy and set her free.”
“That voice… That was your sister?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes.”
“But how? Surely your aunt wouldn’t have set you up with such a curse?”
“She didn’t. My first wife caused all of this.”
My jaw dropped. Of all the answers I could have imagined, this wasn’t what I expected.
“Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t return cursed from defeating the kraken. Everything was fine. As soon as the threat to our seas had passed, our allies began to pressure me to marry so I did. Sacha was as nosy as she was greedy. She had convinced herself there were treasures in the room beyond the Sealed Door. She snooped until she found the nautilus key and opened the door. Traxia mesmerized her and used her as a vessel to wreak havoc. Once the connection is made, it cannot be undone and only grows in strength. If Sacha had lived, Traxia would have eventually taken over her body and roamed free again.”
I pulled my hands from his grasp and stood up swiftly, putting distance between us. He gaped at me, startled by my knee-jerk reaction.
“She made a connection with me earlier,” I said, hating the trembling of my voice. “What are you saying? All is lost for me? You’re going to have to put me down too?”
He blinked at me, then shook his head. “No. No, my darling. It’s not like that. She didn’t make a connection with you. She simply lured you with her siren’s song. You never surrendered control to her.” He gestured to the couch. “Please sit down. Everything is okay, Astrid. You have nothing to fear.”
My eyes searched his, assessing his honesty. I sat back down, still staring at him with concern. He smiled and extended a hand toward me. I looked at it, hesitating before placing mine in his.
“Traxia was released by my wife. The door can therefore only be resealed by my wife. Until all twelve seals are reactivated, anyone exposed to her whispers long enough can fall under her spell.”
Pulling away from him again, I stood by the fireplace, my eyes lost in the flickering flames. I heard him approach me. The spicy scent of him taunted my nostrils before the warmth of his body pressed against my back. His arms wrapped around me and I leaned back into him.
“I don’t want to lose you, Astrid.” His voice was filled with pain. “I swore I wouldn’t allow myself to care for you, but I do. You have burrowed so deep into my heart, the thought of a future without you is tearing me apart. I have tried to distance myself from you, but you’re all I see, all I want. When I saw you in front of that door…”
Eric turned me around and cupped my face with both hands. I couldn’t believe the words coming out o
f his mouth. Words I had longed to hear, especially over the past weeks when he had closed himself off from me.
“I love you, Astrid. There cannot be any other. I won’t survive losing you. Please, my darling, please be strong. You have come so far… I can’t…”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, but I was smiling at hearing the blessed words. “I love you too, Eric. You will not lose me. I didn’t know who my enemy was before, but I do now. She will not fool me twice.”
“My love,” he whispered.
He captured my lips in a passionate kiss, and then carried me to bed.
CHAPTER 7
Astrid
After that fateful night, Traxia’s voice became a loud and obnoxious constant companion. Despite my determination not to fall prey to her compulsion, the lure of her siren’s call was nearly impossible to resist. It was only a matter of time before I surrendered to its summoning. I was never alone any more, day or night. While the servants still kept their distance, Tormund ensured I was always in someone’s line of sight when within the castle walls. But this wasn’t a viable option in the long term. There were still three months to go, so I had to find another way.
The solution came from the most unexpected place. While pondering why the first eight months had been so easy, I remembered that of all Eric’s previous wives, Ariana had lasted significantly longer than the others. Just like me. I became curious about what we may have had in common to explain this. The answer was so obvious: I felt like a complete idiot for not having seen it sooner.
It turns out, Ariana also loved the outdoors. She had been an artist and spent most of her days painting in the garden or in one of the courtyards. She would often walk in the woodlands on the castle grounds, looking for birds and other small wild creatures to sketch. Like me, the colder season had driven her back indoors. Within a fortnight, she had fallen. There was a reason the servants didn’t sleep within the castle: constant exposure.