“Thank you so much.” I gush quietly.
“Don’t mention it, I had fun, didn’t you?” She questions loudly.
“Yes, much more than I thought.” I admit and she smiles at me again.
“I have been where you are, Callie, and it gets easier once you get to know people and make yourself known to the other mer.” She looks wise in this moment and I am slightly in awe of her confidence.
“I know. It’s just difficult.” I whisper, feeling inferior by far to her many years, more so now than ever.
“Don’t feel inferior dear.” Marina says and I frown.
“How did you know that?” I question, bewildered as to her beyond accurate telling of my mood.
“Oh, I’m empathic dear, didn’t Orion mention it?” She says half-heartedly and I gape at her in shock.
“So you can feel what I’m feeling?” I ask, wondering how the heck she manages that plus being her bouncy self.
“Oh yes, you’re really bummed out, no need for that. We have it all Callie, don’t you see? We get to live forever. Be beautiful and young eternally. Don’t be so down on yourself. Orion loves you, and that is all we can ever ask for. Is to love and be loved in return.” She makes this little speech while correcting my chest piece. I turn and look at myself in the mirror quite unsure of what to say and try to upturn my mood. This comes more easily once I gaze upon my reflection. Fish net fingerless gloves in aqua that have tiny diamonds stitched into them at random intervals climb up to my elbows and I am wearing a constricting metal chest piece in aqua and lilac. The chest piece swirls so it looks like flames encase my torso, highlighting my waist and making it look tiny. My midriff is bare still and tiny droplet shaped crystals hang from the base of the chest piece and touch the top of my belly button. I have a wrap of more crystallised, lilac fish net wrapped tightly around my waist that encases my tail to just below where my knees would be. It would be impossible to wear with legs, restricting my movement beyond belief, but with a tail it makes no difference and is simply stunning. The top of the net wrap has shells mixed in with the material and makes for a kind of belt where my flesh meets my scales. I sigh inwardly, who knew a tail would make for fabulous up cycled chic?
“You like it then I’m guessing?” Marina smiles and I pout.
“Is there any point me even agreeing, you already know I love it. So unfair!” I quip and she smiles gently, giving authoritative instruction, all business now.
“Orion will be here in a moment, hand me that mask will you.”
Orion arrives promptly and knocks in a melodic rhythm on the door. Marina ushers me forward as I blush with the anticipation of seeing him. How can it be that someone I have known only a few weeks gets me so hot under the skin? I drift through the water that fills the apartment with Marina urging me onward from behind. I become stationary as she opens the door at the end of the front room after overtaking me swiftly. The door, of a material I still cannot distinguish, swings forth and reveals Orion, standing and looking suave in a royal blue eye mask that matches the scales that ring his eyes beneath. It has pearls up one side of a deep gold, and I see he wears a waistcoat with tails made of some kind of metal, much like my breastplate. The waist coat is gold with blue, exactly the opposite of the eye piece from which his icy blue eyes linger on my appearance and his lips spread into a smile which is not unlike a lion’s who has just spotted its latest meal.
“You look … stunning.” He breathes and I watch him puff out his chest and I laugh. This man trying to impress me, I can scarcely believe that.
“Not so bad yourself, Mister.” I reply, trying to be seductive. I saunter through the space between us and he slides a hand around my hip where skin fades to scale, leaving tingles in his wake. We both bid Marina a swift farewell goodbye, she smiles a knowing smile at me, and I blush feeling slightly unarmed by her empathic ability.
We travel through the Occulta Mirum together and I take in my surroundings. It stuns me that the buildings towering around us go unnoticed by the human world. Perhaps this city is this world’s best kept secret. A part of me feels a little special that I am living here, witnessing all this splendour, and that I have become entwined in this magical community. Maybe Marina was right, I should make more of an effort to get to know the other mer. After all, nobody else can ever understand what I’m going through. I smile, feeling contented as we head beyond the city limits.
“Are we not going to the ball?” I ask, turning and looking through my mask I see Orion smiling back at me, studying me almost.
“Yes, but it’s at a location outside of the city’s protection. A sunken cathedral in fact, I’m sure you’ll like it.” He smiles and I am immediately curious.
“I thought it was at the Alcazar?” I ask and he smiles at my shortening of the Palace name.
“Only when we can’t find another venue, Marina has outdone herself this month.”
“So what kind of thing goes on at this ball?” I question, observing a shoal of fluidly moving silver fish that pass us silently.
“Well, I think you’ll find it’s more to your taste than you think.” Orion smirks knowingly and I my curiosity mounts.
“How so?” I query, enjoying feeling the movement of my tail pushing me through the water.
“Well, the mer community, believe it or not, is quite up to date with the music scene of today.” He explains examining my expression carefully, his icy blue eyes practically glowing through the dim water as the sun has just lowered below the horizon on the surface. We pass over a large field of sea grass and I can see all the tiny fish below in excruciating detail. They would not have been visible to the human eye, but for me with mer sight, I see them clear as day even in the underwater din of twilight.
“So what, Rock ‘n’ Roll?” I ask, cocking my head in mock amusement.
“Something like that.” He responds quickly with a smirk and I’m slightly taken a back. My mer is seemingly full of surprises.
The journey takes just over an hour, though my mer vision is exceptional, I can tell the sun has well gone from the world above the surface, and as my surroundings are bleak and strange, new marine life begin to appear. Orion and I talk about everything, he asks me about how it feels to be experiencing life beneath the waves as a new mer. I tell him about the loneliness I have been feeling, trying not to make him feel as though he is not enough. He nods in agreement; telling me how I must begin to make a whole life here, friends, even start finding more uses for myself than floating around the apartment.
Out of the darkness, I see lights, speckled and star-like, up ahead and as our conversation comes to a halt, I begin to feel a little excited. My first underwater ball with a gorgeous companion at my side and draped in oceanic finery, I feel like this is perhaps the height of my time as a mer so far. Never really the party animal as a human teenager, I wondered whether it was the idea of being in the arms of Orion that was making this night so appealing or whether the boredom of life, confined to our apartment for the last two weeks, was driving me to extremes. We swim through the oceanic night together, his hand in mine, toward the lights.
As we get closer, I see that the lights are coming from jars of bioluminescent algae strung around the outside of an old, sunken gothic cathedral. It is beautiful and sand laps up the side walls, showing how time has passed since the cathedral originally fell through the depths to this spot. The building is made of uneven grey stones, which shine dully under the moonlight. The cathedral is tall, and the spires sweep upward from the triangular arches through the water. It looks so immovable it seems impossible that it fell from above. The stained glass windows remind me of the white marble chapel in which I awoke as a mer for the first time and the floors in the Alcazar Oceania. A blue glow surrounds the building from the algae collected in jars, giving it a somewhat ghostly and mystical aura. Orion smiles at my awed expression:
“I know. Fit for a princess, don’t you think?” He smiles coolly, running his thumb across the back of my knuckles
. I catch him glimpse at me sideways and those icy blue eyes stop my heart momentarily as my breath hitches and my pupils dilate. The constraints of physics seem to lift in his gaze and I wonder if it is not too farfetched to want to burst above the surface and glide across the star filled horizon. I smile back and look at his chiselled masked jaw, sighing a little half-heartedly as I realise it is still another two weeks before I can be with him wholly.
“Come on you.” He faux complains, rolling his eyes and pulling me toward him so his hip is touching mine and his arm is around my waist. Our scales slide over each other smoothly and I feel him where I do not expect.
“I’m nervous.” I admit, biting my bottom lip.
“Don’t worry, princess. I’ve got you.”
“I know.” I smile and I see him exhale. I wonder if he’s melting for me like I am for him. We’re thawing away years of loneliness with each touch, each kind word.
“Let’s go.” He commands turning his head impatiently and I nod in agreement sensing his agitation at his lack of legs. We move together, my hand in his now, through the night blanketed ocean and I take a deep breath, calming my trembling nervous flesh. A pair of double doors are exquisitely carved from dark wood which now crumble from water damage and I’m reminded how miraculous the sparkle of the Occulta Mirum really is. I expect us to move forward but instead Orion and I rise through the water steadily. Now that we are closer, I can see that parts of the roof have collapsed, they reveal mer in large numbers socialising and laughing in groups inside the hollow building. I swallow, anxious, but Orion squeezes my hand feeling my discomfort and together we descend into the gothic cathedral holding the members of my new family.
The masked ball is something more decadent than any human function that I have ever attended and Marina has outdone herself on the decorations. Even though parts of the ceiling are no longer there, some of the stained glass has been smashed clean through, and the spiral staircases up to the second floor balcony that lines the walls of the rectangular building are teeming with seafloor vegetation and life, the cathedral holds a kind of ethereal glory. As Orion and I enter, I feel over two hundred masked faces turn to us. The bioluminescent glow of algae filled jars fill the room with aqua light that rebounds beautifully off the scales of every tail in the room. It is still early but I’m encased in the reverberations of many voices of the mer that surround us. Still, for a ball it is surprisingly quiet.
“No music?” I turn to Orion and question him with an eyebrow raised and he smiles.
“Impatient, aren’t you?” He teases me and I frown.
“Says you, the man who waited almost five hundred years, a saint looks impatient next to you!” I retort and he smiles a smug smile that makes my heart relax. He places an arm around me and we turn together to face the mass of half human, half fish forms that hover around the building. It never fails to surprise me the way in which mer hold themselves, not being constrained by the laws of the human world they are stationary in the water with a seeming effortlessness and on so many different levels of height, not just the one I was used to on land.
The dress of the other mer is interesting to me, whereby metal and fish netting used inventively to create styles I would never have imagined as a human. I notice that some of the mermaids have chains that connect to a naval piercing and wrap around the waist with delicate charms of nautical design dangling flatly against the skin of their stomach. Some of the charms are even long enough to reach their scales. The mermen are dressed mainly in thick belts, cuffs, chokers, and some are wearing metallic corsets round their waists to make the muscles in their chest bulge with supreme masculine strength. The thing that everyone has in common however is the eye masks, both extravagant and extraordinary, each one is unique and I find it hard to believe such exquisite beauty of an object has been created underwater. This seems so normal to Orion, and as I turn and stare into his happy and content expression, I realise that I really am in his world. I am so baffled by everything that I have experienced, but nothing baffles me more than the fact that the man next to me was really made for me. Out of the glitter and sparkle of the crowd, Starlet emerges through the finery, alone as always, one half of a pair that can no longer exist. I pity her for a moment, and then as she wades through the water, her fuchsia pink tail speckled with baby cyan starfish, she opens her mouth and I lose whatever pity I had.
“Callie! Don’t you look … festive.” She faux compliments through a somewhat forced smile and gritted white teeth. I hold out my hand politely and she meets me in a harsh and slightly too tight handshake, both our tails moving stiffly as we maintain our position in the water, keeping the distance between us as large as possible.
“Why thank you, Starlet.” Is all I can manage back, knowing that creating conflict with someone who is going to be in my, now very long, life, probably permanently, will only hurt me in the future. What happens next is quite odd but luckily it distracts me long enough to stop my skin from crawling under the stunning Starlet’s scrutinising stare. A group of mermen, who all sport a metallic band around their left arms, begin to play various nautical instruments and sing together. The sound produced from them isn’t entirely modern, but the bass line is. It reminds me of a Celtic sound, pan-flutes, harps, and shells all being utilised to create a hypnotic rhythm that has my hips stirring. The mer in the church disperse into couples and begin to dance together, twirling and darting through the water under the light from the stars and half-crescent moon that hovers, hundreds of miles above the surface of the water. In that moment, while I am looking up through the hole in the cathedral’s ceiling, I am sublime, awed, not just by the moon, but by the universe, heavens, and the Goddess that fills them.
“The music you were so impatiently eager for is finally playing, care to dance?” Orion asks and holds out a hand. I look at it, and then at him. His scales and mask combined are as striking as his glacial blue eyes dominate above all his other features. As they bear into mine and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to keep his gaze for longer than a few moments. Their disarming nature makes me feel self-conscious and I don’t trust myself to speak. I simply nod and allow Orion to pull me into his arms and away from the souring expression of Starlet. Her expression actually makes me realise how pretty she would look if she just smiled once in a while, but before I can ponder on this too long, I’m becoming engulfed by the pounding hypnotic beat that is thrumming through the water and over me and Orion.
It encases us in a sensual cocoon of our own movement and connection with the waves and I breathe out, relieved that social interaction with new faces can be postponed a little longer. I look around and see the other couples moving in strategic and deliberate time like pieces on a chessboard. That is one thing that I still can’t get used to, the three dimensionality of the mer world. No longer am I dancing on a solid surface, but floating at a great height. As I look down from about three metres from the roof of the cathedral, I see the mer below us and I notice that they form a whirling cylinder of bodies. I smile as I look down and then back up, to the man who holds my body in his strong arms. I catch Orion staring at me with a slight and adoring smile. We continue to join the highest layer of the whirlwind tornado of bodies and then I realise what the mer are doing, the movement of their bodies in the confined space of the cathedral is creating a typhoon in the water. The faster and faster we move, the more rapidly we are flung around the circular dance formation together. I cling onto Orion and work my tail as he picks up pace.
The music builds, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch Starlet, alone and brooding in the corner, looking sourly between Orion and I. I pity her, unable to help myself before I am overcome once again by the immense speed and I lose her in the spinning torrent of bodies. With one final and definite drumbeat and a howl from the conch shell that is placed firmly against one of the mer musician’s lips, the song falls to a halt. In that second the whirlwind of mer dissipates in a way that shocks me as the water immediately stills and I continue to move,
unable to slow my own momentum. With force, I am thrown out of Orion’s grasp, through the water and into the brooding Starlet with a thud. That is when it happens: That is when the veil is lifted from over my eyes. After that moment, everything was different … For I had been changed forever.
The fog rolls away as quickly as it covered the space in my mind I did not know existed. I am looking like a silent, formless spectre down on Saturnus, Orion, and Atlas as they hover around the large desk in Saturnus’ office, which is covered in waterproofed papers that look aged.
“You are certain of this, Saturnus?” Orion asks looking concerned.
“I am not certain of anything, Orion. Prophecies are tricky beasts at the best of times. It is to do with your soul mate that is for sure. But the extent of her involvement and what it means, I could not tell you.” Saturnus replies and despite his crystal encrusted physique and stunning tattoos, I can see the ugliness of worry behind his sparkling emerald eyes.
“May I?” Atlas asks, reaching toward a brown and crumpled piece of paper from the table surface, his tail twitching slightly. Saturnus nods gently, looking dreamy and thoughtful as he turns from the table. He swiftly moves to the window and stares out into the deep blue ocean outside. Atlas glares intensely onto the words on the page for a few moments as I watch, my heart racing and my mind transfixed.
“This prophecy talks of a war that can be prevented by the sacrifice of something known as the ‘the vessel,’” Atlas says with hesitancy as he runs his hand through his long silver hair.
“Yes, I do not know what ‘the vessel’ is, it could be a weapon, some human we have no knowledge of, even a creature of the deep.” Saturnus replies coolly and Orion, who has been in deep thought speaks in an urgent tone.
The Kiss That Killed Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 1) Page 34