Needing no further provocation, the two merman positioned themselves between Amphrite and me, fingers tapping the hilts of their swords in an open threat.
Over their well-muscled shoulders, I watched a malicious grin curl across Amphrite’s cobalt lips.
My vision tunneled.
The slow and steady thump of my pulse hammered in my temples.
Against my breast bone, the ursela shell blazed red hot.
In a blink, I hovered nose to nose with my enemy. Emerald vines licked around me as my hand clamped to her belly.
“Your child will be born, strong and beautiful,” my voice tore from my throat in an unrecognizable growl, “but as the sun sets on her third day of life, your tail will be replaced by human legs. You will be torn from your child and cursed to walk the human realm forever!”
The guards spun into action. Seizing my shoulders, they pinned me to the ground.
“This spell shall be unbreakable!” I screamed, unaffected by their manhandling in throes of my face-off with true evil.
Twisting my arms behind my back, they slapped on a pair of magic-stifling shackles. “Princess Vanessa, Alchemist to the Kingdom of Atlantica, you are under arrest for the crime of treason and genocide of your own people, as well as assault on the queen.”
“You will lose all that you love, just as I have!” I vehemently promised my smug step-mother, the tendons bulging in my neck.
Hauling me upright, the guards hooked my elbows to drag me away.
“I know the truth about you, Amphrite!” I craned my neck to shout, “I know who the real sea witch is … Your Majesty!”
Chapter Twenty Four
B each her!”
“Slice off her fins!”
“Toss her in the chasm!”
My reception to The Pit, for a second time, was not a warm one. Not that I blamed any of them.
“Enough!” Triton—my salvation—swam into the room, a gruff tremor reverberating from his broad chest.
“All Hail the King of Atlantica!” Doralious bellowed from beside me, where he held my elbow in an unforgiving grasp.
Every mer in the stadium rose in respectful tribute to their ruler, their closed fists clamping over their hearts. The number of guardsmen had noticeably shrunk, as had the presence of any Pacific mer.
Holding up one appreciative hand, Triton lowered it slowly to ease them to their seats. When his gaze fell to me, it radiated with an anger I didn’t know my mild-mannered brother capable of.
Moving as one mindlessly obedient body, the onlookers took their seats.
When silence fell, the new king tore his attention from me. Filling his gills, he sent his voice booming to the depths of the chasm. “Today, my fellow Atlanticans, the way we have been living our lives came under attack. Hundreds of our soldiers lost their lives because of the evil and dastardly humans. A terrible sadness has befallen every heart under the sea. How, then, do we respond? Do we let fear and unyielding anger drive us to further attacks? No!” Stamping his trident to the ground, he punctuated his declaration. “Enough blood has been shed. Enough lives have been lost. It is time for us to band together, to take solace in a simpler way of life where we rely on our cultures and traditions instead of human trinkets, and pray fervently to Mother Ocean to ease our troubled souls as she does the stormiest of seas.”
Growing restless, Doralious shoved me forward with a rough bump to my shoulder blade. “And the prisoner, my King?”
Lips screwing up to the side, I raised one eyebrow and cast a sideways glance in his direction. “So eager to see me punished that you would interrupt the crowned ruler of the Seven Seas?” I tsked, and pointedly peered up at Triton from under my brow. “One might question your up-bringing.”
Our long standing private joke cracked Triton’s kingly façade. Unfortunately, not in the way I hoped. Combing his fingers through his growing beard, his shoulders sagged. Deep lines of sorrow slicing between his brows.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he muttered, forcing himself to meet my demanding stare. An intense storm of torment clouded his eyes to a deep sea blue. “That said, the prisoner in question is my sister—”
Doralious launched off the ground. His arms pulled from his body, posed for battle. “Your Majesty, her crimes cannot go unpunished! Why kind of message does that send to the families of all that perished?”
All emotion drained from Triton’s features, the lethal result sending chills shivering through me. “I remember you once took great joy in the princess having her tongue removed, Doralious. Interrupt me again, and I will see to it that you get to experience that same penance.”
Doralious snapped back as if struck. Jaw clenched, he begrudgingly swallowed his anger, and bowed his head. “Humblest apologies, my King.”
“As I was saying,” Triton raised his voice to reach the farthest corners of the arena, “Vanessa is my sister. My love for her makes it impossible for me to be impartial in her sentencing. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart, that I turn that task over to the Council to ensure a just punishment is delivered.”
And just like that, any hope for mercy I was clinging to washed away with the rapid turning tide.
Chapter Twenty Five
T riton did not relinquish his position, but allowed the elected representatives from five of the Seven Seas—the Caribbean being excluded for obvious reasons, and the Pacific’s absence still a question mark—to join him at his stately platform. Each delegate’s expression appeared more stoic and pinched than the next.
“Princess Vanessa, Royal Alchemist of Atlantica, you are accused of treason and genocide of your own people—a crime of the highest magnitude. Is it true it was your spell that allowed our soldiers to walk on land?” Triton asked with a frosty detachment that made the tips of my fins curl.
Craving the warmth of his smile and the sunshine in his laughter, memories from a simpler time flashed through my mind.
Triton falling back in a blissful swan-dive. “Vanessa can be Queen of Atlantica! I’ll be King of the Mana-minis!”
Doralious rammed his elbow into my ribs, forcing the water from my gills in a pained huff.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I confirmed, pressing my bound armed against my throbbing side. “It was.”
“And is it true that once they were there and vulnerable, you withdrew your magic, leaving them to suffocate and die?” Spine straight as a Pipefish, Triton glared down with an anger that morphed his face from red to purple.
A young and unsure Triton, self-consciously calling out, “Vanessa? Would you … I mean, I know our schedules are insane, but I … miss you. Do you think we could dine together tonight? Maybe catch up a bit?”
Lunging forward, I flung myself to the restrictive limits of the shackles. My shoulder blades, stretched to their breaking point, screamed in pain that my brewing fury denied. “How can you ask me that? Alastor was out there! Do you honestly believe I would ever intentionally bring him any harm?”
I expected my brother to rage back at me. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his chin to his chest. Even at this distance I could see the ragged breaths dragging through his quivering gills. When his head rose once more, he wore a somber mask that stung more that the harshest of words.
“Answer the question,” he rumbled.
Triton, still round with baby fat, curling up on the floor beside my bed. Holding my hand through the torturous effects of the Fire Coral.
“No! I didn’t withdraw anything! My power,” admitting the truth out loud hurt more than any swordfish blade ever could, “wasn’t strong enough. I maintained the spell as long as I possibly could.”
The sharp-featured representative from the Arctic Sea, turned both hands palms out in a frosty shrug. “Why or how you revoked the magic is of little consequence. It was your spell that enchanted them. A spell you claimed you could control. Which we now know to be a falsehood of the most lethal kind. To put this in the simplest possible terms, it doesn’t make our soldiers any less
dead.”
“Organa!” the raven-haired seductress from the Mediterranean scolded. “A bit of compassion for those in mourning, if you please!”
“My apologies,” hands folded in front of her, one snow white brow raised at the bothersome triviality, “I forget that warm water mer need to be coddled.”
Ignoring them both, I targeted my stare on Triton. My tail flipped back and forth beneath me, ready for battle. “I never wanted to do the spell! You insisted! I relented for you! To save you from the Caribbeans that I was sure would kill you as soon as your value to them was exhausted, and to save Atlantica from civil war!”
Seizing the coral bannister in front of him in a white knuckle grip, Triton boomed, “Am I in their clutches now? Do our factions battle still? The second you invoked your spell their soldiers grew legs along with ours! All were forced to kick to the surface or perish! The merman put their own issues aside to focus on our common enemy, and Calypso was dragged to the dungeon to await sentencing. From that moment on, if you couldn’t maintain the spell you could have eased it off. Something! Anything, to buy them a few minutes more!” Suddenly remembering his audience, Triton pulled back and gestured the delegates forward with a jerk of his chin. “Enough of this. Let’s get on with it.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” the Gulf mer soothed, her face the very definition of empathy. “However, you may need a moment to brace yourself for what is to come.”
Triton pulled back, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “You can’t possibly mean …” Purposely, he trailed off to avoid uttering the words that mer of all distinctions dare not speak.
The Arctic mer bobbed her head in a brief nod, “She betrayed the throne at the expense of hundreds of lives. Only one punishment fits a crime of this magnitude … the Kiss of the Kraken.”
The crowd erupted in shrieks and gasps.
Ears ringing at deafening vibrato, my tail failed me, sending me crumbling to the ocean floor.
“No!” the most unlikely voice shouted in my defense. Head snapping to the side, I gaped up at my protector … Doralious. Had my former friend finally regained his sense? “We don’t know what it will do to her!”
“Yes, we do,” Triton somberly mumbled. “It will kill her.”
“Or worse!” Doralious raved, floating from the ground on puffed up purpose. “We can all attest she has a caliber of power and magic few have ever seen! Add to that the ursela shell and the rumor that she touched the Olympus Pearl, and there’s no telling what will happen! A beaching in magic-defusing shackles is a far less risky, and more merciful option!”
As protectors went, he wasn’t the best. Still, his argument held weight.
“For centuries this punishment has been reserved for those who commit the vilest atrocities against their own kind … for good reason.” The delegate from the Atlantic, who wore her hair the bright blue and yellow combination of a blue tang fish, seemed to loathe the very taste of the words rolling from her tongue. “These laws are in place to protect us from others rising up in a similar fashion. We cannot show her favoritism, no matter her station within the kingdom.”
“Perhaps we could enslave her the remainder of her days!” Doralious offered hopefully. “Think of the asset she could be to Atlantica if properly controlled!”
“Triton, please …” Struggling to reclaim the water that had been knocked from my gills, I beseeched the one person with the power to undo the verdict.
Hope died with a shake of his head, murdered by a brutal, stabbing betrayal.
“No,” he muttered. “The punishment meets the crime. It is just.”
A red haze tinged the edges of my vision.
The crowd around us vanished.
All I could see was Triton and all that we had meant to each other for so as long as I could remember.
“There was no crime,” I sneered through my teeth, forcing myself off the ground. “You know that. Everything I did, every so-called crime I’m accused of, was to save you. Or, have you forgotten?”
“I have forgotten nothing,” Triton countered, his chest swelling with his own venomous rage.
Stretching to full height, my fingernails dug into the palms of my tightly balled fists. “The spell wasn’t ready! I told you that! You insisted I rush it!”
“Not at this cost!” Triton thundered, his face contorted with rage. “I never wanted this!”
“They were going to kill you!” I screamed, matching his intensity. “What should I have done, Triton? You tell me!”
“You should have let me die for my people!” Perched at the edge of his pedestal, a pulsating vein throbbed at Triton’s temple. “That is my place! That is my duty! All those lives that were lost, do you not realize I would lay down my life here and now to bring them back? You robbed me of that choice. Denied me the right to honor my people in the noblest way a king ever could!”
“How could I do that? You are my brother and I love you!”
“I am your king!” he roared, silencing the room.
The drumming of my own heart in my ears was the only sound to be heard.
“Tomorrow,” wetting his lips, Triton leaned back against his trident, “as the sun sets over Atlantica, you will be bound in the courtyard for all to see. The Kraken will be summoned. Its venom extracted and injected into your veins.”
“We were family,” I managed in a barely audible whisper.
Mourning reflected back from Triton’s regal front, as if already peering at my cold carcass. “May Mother Ocean have mercy on your soul.”
Chapter Twenty Six
A dark, dank cell acted as my suite the night before my execution. Others probably would have spent the sleepless night replaying the highlights of their life on an endless loop. Not me. Hours passed with my face pressed against those algae-covered stalagmite bars. During my previous stay in the dungeon, Alastor appeared from the darkness. His only goal being to save me … to protect me. If he was anywhere close by, and free to venture of his own accord, he would come for me again. I knew that without a shadow of doubt. Every splash I heard, every push of moving water, I scoured my limited sight line for his amber eyes.
Certain, this time, that I heard someone coming, I leaned into the bars and searched the shadows once more.
“Alastor!” I whispered, my heart launching in a stutter-beat when a face, indeed, emerged.
The guard who swam forward snorted in contempt.
“Not quite, Princess.” He sneered and overturned my food tray in the hall.
As I watched the remnants of my dinner settle to the ocean floor out of my reach, he clanged Calypso’s tray down in the cell opposite me and kicked off without another word.
Stomach rumbling in protest, I rested my forehead to the bars and filled my gills to capacity.
“Psstt.” The noise from across the aisle brought my gaze up.
Calypso’s arm was extended from her cell bars, half a seaweed wrap balanced in her palm.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, and reached for her kind offering.
“A bit of advice with this gift,” the other accused traitor to Atlantica ventured, retracting her hand slightly. “Whoever it is you’re waiting for, remember … once you’ve given your heart, it’s a hard treasure to reclaim.”
With a gentle toss, she landed the wrap in my hand.
Appetite suddenly lost, I stared down at my last meal and let the impact of her words bob in the water between us.
Blinking hard, I let my eyes adjust from the pitch black cell to the glowing amber diamonds dancing through the water from the late day sun. Two guards, resembling beluga whales in personality and stature, held me by each arm. Their none-too-gentle grips bruised purple bands around my biceps.
Mer from every district filled the courtyard; a melting pot of cultures brought together to see history be made. This time, there was no booing. No one threw anything. Their sorrow-filled silence welcomed me to my fate. In the center of the square, two gigantic rib bones from a whale shark had been planted
into the ground. Directly across from it sat a pedestaled throne for Triton. My brother lorded over the event, Doralious hovering behind him like a lowly remora clinging to the side of a predator.
As the guards stretched my arms out wide, securing each wrist to a section of bone with ropes of braided reed, I let my gaze skim over the last faces I would ever see. Most passed in a melded blur, until one in particular demanded my focus. Calypso. Alongside the courtyard, she was bound to a bone spike all her own. Our eyes met. The defeat I felt reflected back from the black pools of her irises. Whatever happened, whomever we had been, we were now equals.
Wincing as the tightening reeds pinched my skin, I forced myself to look Triton’s way. He was a beacon of emotional neutrality. Cold and unfeeling as stone—at least on the surface. I envied his stoicism. Emotion had me leaking out every orifice of my face.
Tipping his scruffy-bearded chin to his loathsome servant, Triton muttered, “Let us begin.”
Reaching behind the throne, Doralious extracted a flounder-sized conk shell.
One.
Two.
Three trumpeted blasts.
Each emotionally filleted me and spread my sins out wide for all to see.
The steady beat of my heart stalled as the water in the square began to churn. It ebbed and flowed in a vacuum rush. Raven hair blew out in a curtain behind me, then tossed forward to lash my cheeks. The ocean floor trembled. An ominous rumble, reminiscent of thunder, reverberated from the depths. A massive shadow formed in the distance, the sheer size of it making my jaw swing slack. Swelling and retracting, it neared, growing larger with each inbound stroke. Children screamed and hid behind their mothers. Mermaids clung to the strong arms of their men. The thinned down Royal Guardsmen tightened their grips on their swords. The irony of all their reactions wasn’t lost on me. They were safe. The beast had been summoned for me.
Rise of the Sea Witch Page 20