Silenced

by Ekaterine Xia

  The real trials had come after the political hubbub subsided and we were still swimming in dark waters.

  There were still days when I left all the to-dos of the court to Xin, sat on the perch Eldest had called from the sea for me, dabbled my feet in the water and desperately wished to be home again. No matter how much I tried to believe otherwise, home was under the waves, sheltered in the forgiving deep.

  I didn’t regret my choice, even as I sometimes sulked over having to carry our child and my heir without my husband’s help.

  King-father had eyed Xin’s flat abdomen on his last visit and suggested that perhaps a spawnling or two would be easily hidden by a hauberk, but no. I’d heard the stories of the silent queen across the seas, her six brothers, a curse, and shirts crocheted out of stinging nettle.

  Misfortune tended to find extraordinary women, particularly queens who couldn’t quite account for what was happening regarding their heirs. I didn’t need the court to be wondering why my stomach flattened early and yet couldn’t present the court with a healthy babe to cheer over.

  In these uneasy days, I would carry this daughter the full ten moons in my two-legged form. Perhaps with later children, it would be safe enough to slip them to Xin, but that was a thought for the far future.

  There were also the small joys that were slowly growing into larger joys. Sometimes literally. Xin had asked the gardener to lay in orchards behind the castle as a wedding present and I loved walking on the stone paths, watching the fruit grow day by day, waiting impatiently for them to blush and scent the air.

  Kittens, fluffy furry and with a curiosity to match the octopi I loved, and more willingness to cuddle. The many different scents that one could only find above the waves. Roses and pine and grass and the sweet blooming osmanthus Ai had gifted us.

  It was a life filled with blessings, just unfamiliar ones.

  “Are you brooding again?” The question was light and fond, with only a thread of disquiet woven into the words.

  My husband’s arms wound around me and his heat pressed up against my back. I leaned my head back into the curve of his shoulder, against the particular spot created especially for me.

  “I am with child. I believe this is the very definition of brooding,” I teased.

  Rich laughter spilled between us and I smiled, unable to resist the lure of his mirth, so rare now since my abduction.

  “Elle.” His hands cradled the gentle rounding of my stomach.

  I nuzzled my cheek against him, knowing what was going through his mind. Xin wanted to harbor the merling I carried under my heart. Wanted it with a depth of despair and guilt I couldn’t touch. I had to promise him that he could have full charge of the spawn once it left my body. Only then did his focus shift, to waiting, his gaze always focused on us as if he could ward danger off through sheer will alone.

  Perhaps he would be able to, at that.

  “Everything has a price. It is simply that some prices are heavier than others,” I said, cupping his hands under mine.

  “Do you regret it?”

  The weight in his words nearly brought me to my knees.

  “No.” I spun around. “Never. Why would I regret?” The claim spilled out in a rush, but was it to persuade him or myself? Nonetheless, I knew my line and I would hold to it.

  He caught my hands in his and laid a kiss in my palm, the right, and then the left. “Asides from the obvious of having to bear our children as the land-dwellers do, I see how you stare at your hands sometimes, as if they could never be washed clean.”

  That was new. I blinked up at him.

  “No. Not regret. And I have no qualms about the blood I spilled. Vermin requires extermination.” The truth was that I missed the delicate webbing between my fingers. Queen-mother had taken them away, saying that legends and myths were one thing, but fleshly reminders that I wasn’t of them quite another. They appeared again when I shifted to my mer form, but it wasn’t the same.

  My hands looked wrong, oddly bare, and I didn’t know if I stared at my hands so much to accustom myself or in horror.

  Not that I wanted to discuss that with him, not when he was already worried about regrets. It wasn’t regret, not truly. Simply another thing to grow accustomed to and I would. Eventually.

  I sighed and looked up at the sky, so innocently clear, and gave him something else. Another truth. Something he could reassure me about. “It was just too easy. The gods willed it, and it was so. Don’t you ever question how very easy it was? Your resemblance to the king. My rescue of him. His capture of me. Then the challenge and the court’s swift acquiescence.”

  “Ah.”

  He wrapped me in his embrace again and I went willingly, even as part of me truly did wonder how real it all was. Was our love truly ours, or was it another tool in the gods’ hands?

  “I asked the witch, you know, if they’d made us fall in love with each other,” he murmured. “I wondered myself, and she asked me what I would have done differently if I had not loved you.”

  I almost flinched.

  Trust Xin to get to the heart of the matter. Of course it didn’t matter if we were pawns in the hands of the gods. What mattered was whether they had tampered with our hearts. “And what did she say?”

  “She said that they didn’t meddle with hearts. I loved you of my own free will. If I had not, I wouldn’t have brought you such grief,” he said, nudging that buried ache. “I told her I would have done exactly the same. What would you have done differently if you hadn’t loved me?” he returned.

  What would I have done differently? The memories washed back, dark and edged, and I flinched.

  “Vermin requires extermination,” I repeated softly. Perhaps I wouldn’t have come to the conclusion immediately, but there were people that needed killing and he was definitely one of them.

  My husband nodded. “I would have avenged you, for nothing else than my honor as your father’s guard. Your father and brothers would have torn him to shreds for what he did to you. And that is all assuming you would have let us have the kill. Perhaps we would have retreated to the sea and left this land for the land-dwellers. Perhaps not. Eldest would have been loath to leave without making an impression upon the two legged ones regarding abducting more princesses from the sea and this would have been your kill to have. Slightly more effort, perhaps, but we would have arrived here just the same.”

  I breathed out, a long, long exhale that cleared the cobwebs from my thoughts and looked at the sea with a truly light heart for the first time since I’d taken the head off of a king whose name would be forever wiped from history.

  “Perhaps not precisely here, but yes.” I lifted our joined hands and kissed the back of his. “You’re a wise mer, my king,” I said lightly.

  His arms tightened. “A mer who loves you, my queen.”

  The baby kicked once, lightly, and I smiled.

  << ~ >>

  Some friends have asked me if Silenced was written as a response to politics today and, well, yes? But also, no. For the record, I started Silenced years and years ago. It just so happens that 2019 is the year where I finally finished it.

  Asides from misogynistic rapey men in power, The Little Mermaid is also complicated for me in many other ways. I’m Chinese American, a first generation immigrant to America, and I grew up speaking English rather than Mandarin. So for me, I always wonder about what she left behind, what she no longer has access to, and it’s all for love of a man.

  How does she adjust to being on land? Does she adjust to being on land? Particularly the food - is her digestive system even set up for beef or pork? I know a lot of vegetarians who had upset stomachs when they tried to eat meat after years of being vegetarian, and clearly she doesn’t eat seafood, so what protein sources are left? Culture shock is another question. It’s funny and all to think of her using a fork as a comb, but isn’t that just the tip of the iceberg for what else she needs to figure out while being Prince Eric’s princess and then presumably his
queen? I’m not even going to touch on the issue of her age and whether she’s going to regret it hard when she gets older.

  Giving up her tail (literally a piece of her that she’s lived with for at least eighteen years...), her heritage, and her family back home... that’s huge. That’s a giant risk to take, especially since once the decision is made, it’s hard to go back, if it’s even possible at all. Of course, her daddy is Triton, so maybe he can just give her back her tail and then poof presto divorce.

  I know, I know, I’m a romance author going “but what about divorce”... but it’s a lot to think about and Silenced was a bit of an exploration in that direction.

  Teaser for the future, and how Silenced ties into everything else... Qianya is distantly related to both Sethalor and Estyria in Phoenix Chosen. One of the empresses of Tavaneth was Morgance, a siren descended from Qianya and Xin. When Morgance came to Tavaneth, her sister came with her, and that sister was Estyria’s ancestress. And some of you might remember that Kieran, Estyria’s triplet, got saved by a mermaid queen...

  ~~*~~*~~

  Please do let me know if you’ve enjoyed Qianya’s story and what you think of it! As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, as they are what helps other readers decide whether or not this book is for them.

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  Turn the page to find blurbs of more books by me!

  Ariagne

  All she thought she ever wanted was freedom.

  Ariagne sneaks aboard the new justiciar of Elysion’s shuttle, intent on persuading him to accept her terraforming services in exchange for escape from her step-mother.

  All he thought he had was law and the dispensation of order.

  Aidoneus is used to being the rational one, the cold one. Serving as justiciar on an icy mining planet seems apropos for a man such as he.

  Turns out that wasn’t the full truth for either of them.

  Sunshine

  Sunshine doesn’t know what she is. She was her mother’s imaginary friend made flesh, and now she’s little more than wisps of spirit without her parents’ love to anchor her. Pure luck brings Raphael into her life, bringing her into the world again, but who is she without the definition of someone’s want?

  She is pure magic in a world that laughs at the notion. Raphael never knew he had an unanswered prayer until the day Sunshine stumbled into his world. Now he will fight anyone and anything that might take her from the world, even if it’s the woman he loves.

  Who is she? How can he keep her? How can she be purely herself in this world, without the definition of others to bind her? And how can he persuade her that his love is strong enough to let her fly unfettered?

  Phoenix Chosen

  When a spell saves her life by sending her to her mother’s homeland, Estyria finds herself in a world she’d believed to exist solely in bedtime stories – a realm where gods walk the earth, magic is real, and political intrigue strikes close and hard.

  As Scion to a noble House and caught in a competition for the throne, she has mere weeks to learn to navigate the murky waters of court and tangled loyalties.

  More than a crown and the well-being of a country is at stake. Two men are bound to her by destiny and their fates depend upon her choice. Sethalor, who holds secrets and memories lost to her, vows to defy the very gods to keep her safe. Aedrian, who agreed to protect her out of love for his prince, but comes to see in her a ruler he would give his soul to protect.

  Through assassinations, poison, and shifting alliances, can Estyria keep the realm, her heart and the people she loves safe?

  Not Just Human – anthology

  In Hunter and Prey, Isadora arrives at her new school and finds herself the focus of attention. But is all as it seems and can she trust affection so carelessly given? Who is the hunter and who is the prey?

  In Made For Her Pleasure, Meredith and Damien run into a bit of trouble at the hands of her family’s competitor. Fortunately, Damien is more human than their enemies think, and made to fulfill any need Meredith might have of him.

  In Shifters’ Daughter, Lisette is hiding the truth of herself and her werewolf fathers from her boyfriend. When she succumbs to Lysander’s persuasion to meet her family, perhaps he will end up surprising her in turn.

  Spicy; not for those who prefer sweet vanilla.

  Goddess in Waiting

  Amarantha, goddess of memory, is called to present Earth's case before the Elder Council.

  If she fails to persuade them that Earth is on track to Ascension, the planet will be reset back to prehistoric days.

  And that's the good ending.

  The Devourer of Worlds looms in wait to claim Earth as his rightful salvage. Not content with the planet as a main course, he’s also set his eyes on having godlings as appetizers.

  Since drama comes in threes, not only does Amarantha have the Council and the D to contend with, but she must also negotiate the status of her marriage with Death himself.

  Can a goddess nearly Faded into mortal flesh save the world, herself, and her marriage along with it?

  Past Love’s Triumph

  Once upon a time. Or so it usually begins, does it not?

  They say my parents started it all with a blunder, that the King and Queen of House Lan were ignorant enough to offend one of the Fey by neglecting to invite her to the celebration of my birth. They also say the weapon of choice was a spinning wheel. The spindle, to be precise.

  A spinning wheel. As if.

  In a way it fits. Bless the young princess with all the boons a future queen would want or need and yet make the cause of her demise something that is almost exclusively the province of the distaff persuasion. Poetic almost, perhaps the original storyteller’s bit of social commentary. A princess may become a queen and rule, but only if she stays far, far away from the feminine.

  However, my king-father and queen-mother were not stupid and the Powerful One was not an enemy but an old and trusted friend. She did not utter a curse, but a warning.

  Elianna didn’t say a spindle would kill me, but a spear. A man would break me upon himself, hollow out all that I was to create a legacy for him, and kill me in the birthing of that immortality. I could be a princess and then a queen and live, but only if I forsook the feminine side of myself.

  As I said, the stories tell the truth as they saw it.

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