Blue Water (A Little Mermaid Reverse Fairytale Book 2)

by J. A. Armitage

  As I looked out towards the shore, I saw that all the boats in the vicinity were now heading toward us—the exact opposite of what I’d intended. When the ship had hit the palace, my only thought had been for the people below. It just hadn’t occurred to me that it would damage the ship too. If it was taking on water, it would eventually sink. A ship this size would probably destroy the delicate coral palace completely, as if things couldn’t get any worse.

  “This is what I want you to do,” I said, trying to keep my tone even, although my heart hammered in my chest and my anxiety was at an all-time peak. “Get everybody off this ship quickly. I don’t want anyone drowning. If you can get everyone onto another one of the naval fleet, all the better. If you can, try and get the word out amongst my ships to drive the media back. There is a war going on beneath the surface, and I don’t want anyone up here accidentally making it worse.”

  I realized I could hardly say anything about that as everything I’d done up to this point had made everything much worse, but now I had a plan.

  “I don’t want any ships or boats in this part of the water at all, and I especially don’t want any cannon fire or gunshot. Can you do that Captain?”

  She raised her hand in a salute and nodded her head.

  “What about you, Your Highness? What do you plan on doing?”

  “I’m going to save some lives!” I replied, before diving over the side into the ocean. I surfaced quickly and swam to the small media boat with Josh and Seth aboard.

  Josh watched me eagerly as Seth resumed filming, this time with someone else’s camera.

  “Take me to the palace!” I demanded. “Now!”

  The captain of the boat turned it around quickly, and we pelted full sail back to the dock by the palace.

  Behind me, I heard the first shot of a cannon. Either Captain Howell hadn’t passed the message on, or she hadn’t been able to.

  “Forget the dock,” I screamed. “Sail right up to the palace.”

  The captain of the little boat appeared concerned as he navigated the rocks, but everyone else aboard filmed the action with glee, knowing that this would make the front cover of every newspaper in all the nine kingdoms and dominate the TV news. When the captain was as close as he could get, I clambered overboard, once again, having to swim to make the short distance to the rocks. My destination was to the only person I knew that could help me now. Unfortunately, my way to her was blocked by John and Anthony as I ran through the castle.

  “The sirens?” John asked.

  I nodded my head as Anthony behind him rolled his eyes at me.

  Ignoring him, I explained what was happening. “The ships need to be called off! They are destroying Havfrue.”

  “I’m on it!” Anthony said, striding off toward John’s office which is where he spent most of his time these days.

  “He blames me for all this, doesn’t he?” I asked, picking up my pace toward the infirmary. John walked alongside.

  “He’s become very frustrated about how the kingdom is being run. He’s grateful that you saved your mother’s life, but he thinks someone other than you should have gone to sea. While all this is going on here, he has been keeping on top of the problems at the border.”

  The trade problems—I’d completely forgotten about them. I didn’t even know what the actual problem was. I’d been too busy trying to save everyone. I’d completely forgotten my own job.

  “I have one more job for you, and then can you go and help Anthony?”

  “Of course, ma’am. However, I can be of assistance.”

  Of course, my mother looked absolutely petrified when I told her what I wanted her to do.

  “I can’t! I simply can’t!”

  I couldn’t blame her. I’d asked her to take me out to Havfrue. As a full mermaid, she’d be able to hold my hand so I could breathe underwater. Unfortunately, she’d had a massive phobia about water ever since the sea witch had tried to take me over eighteen years ago. The fact that there were many sirens out there now did nothing to help me persuade her.

  “You came onboard the ship for Hayden and Astrid’s wedding!” I pointed out.

  “And look what happened. I fell sick and don’t remember most of it. I may be a mermaid, but the sea and I don’t get along.”

  I sucked in a breath between my teeth. I’d not once won an argument with my mother. She was extremely stubborn at the best of times, and as I was asking her to wade into her worst nightmare, this was hardly the best of times.

  “I know you have no real affinity for Havfrue anymore, but Grandfather is still there. He is very sick, and if we don’t get to him, he will die, as will many others.”

  “But...”

  “You think the sirens will stop at Havfrue? Once they win there, they will come to Trifork. Now that they have their magic ring, they will lure countless people into the sea, and then they will rip their bodies apart. I can’t stop them without your help.”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping she wouldn’t ask me what my plan was. I’d only thought so far as to get my mother to take me out to sea. Beyond that, I really didn’t know what I was going to do. What I did know was that I couldn’t just sit around in the palace and watch the world around me crumble without at least trying to do something about it.

  It was all well and good for Anthony to feel frustrated at me, but he wasn’t the one who would soon be ruling the kingdom. It wasn’t enough that I was doing something. I also had to be seen to be doing it. I learned that from my father. He didn’t hide out in the palace when he was needed. He jumped into action. It was perhaps the only thing I’d learned. When it came to anything else to do with ruling a kingdom, I was hopelessly unprepared.

  “You’ll be the death of me, child!” She spoke sternly but pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Come on, John. It looks like there is work to do.”

  John gave a small smile and then picked my mother up right off the bed.

  Thankfully, Lucy was out of the room somewhere, because I knew if she’d seen what we were up to, she’d have insisted on my mother staying in bed. The three of us ran down to the rocks. At the very edge, my mother dove from John’s arms gracefully as the photographers on the boats dithered between photographing the queen and her mother, who incidentally now had a tail and all the action going on out on the horizon. The large ships were now pulling back. All except the one Hayden and Astrid got married on, which was almost wholly submerged with only the bow peeking out. All around it, the sea was ominously red, although flashes of green lit it up every few seconds. I couldn’t begin to think what was going on down there, but whatever it was, it brought fear to every fiber of my being. The red could only be blood. There was so much of it. The green flashes, I had no clue about. It looked like there was an underwater fireworks display going on.

  My mother, whom I knew to be completely petrified, held her hand out to me. Even in the worse moment of her life, she still managed to do it with poise and elegance.

  “If I’d have known I was going to be photographed by every member of the paparazzi in the kingdom, I’d have put some make-up on and changed out of this dreadful hospital gown.”

  If I wasn’t so utterly terrified, I’d have laughed.

  “I won’t be able to speak to you underwater,” I told her, “but you just need to swim straight toward the sinking boat.”

  “I spent the first eighteen years of my life there. I know where I’m going.”

  I took her hand, and the pair of us sank into the water. It felt like another world down here. All the noise and chaos above was left behind as we swam through the calm depths. All that was about to change. The closer we got to Havfrue, the more nervous I felt at what we might find there.

  When we did reach the city, what I did see was the last thing I expected.

  The Shark

  The red water made everything so much more difficult to see, but it was unmistakable that it was blood. There was no way of telling who it belonged to, but it w
as safe to say it was more than one being. In the distance, I could just about make out the ship. It had sunk as low as it was going to go, getting caught on what was left of the palace. Looking up, I could see that the very top of it was still peeking out above the surface.

  As I gazed down, trying to take in the damage, I couldn’t quite grasp what was going on. Plumes of underwater smoke floated upwards, coming from buildings that had been damaged by the cannonballs. The ‘streets’ between them were filled with people fighting which I expected to see. What I didn’t expect to see was that the sirens and the merfolk were not fighting each other, but had come together to fight a common enemy. The only thing I couldn’t see was what that common enemy could be. I searched among the people, hoping to find someone I recognized, but there were so many of them fighting, it was difficult to see who was who.

  “What is going on?” my mother asked, her voice sounding strange in the water. I couldn’t answer her back. However the merfolk managed it, speaking underwater was not something I knew how to do. Instead, I pointed to the street where the most people had congregated. All of them were looking toward the palace. The sirens had their weapons raised. Hopefully, someone would be able to tell us what was happening. My mother swam us down to the seafloor and spoke in the strange merfolk language to an elderly mermaid. I couldn’t understand what the old woman said, but I didn’t need to. At that moment, out of a cloud of red swam my grandfather’s shark. In its teeth was a dismembered arm. It was hard to tell if it belonged to one of the merfolk or to a siren. I didn’t want to know. At least I now knew what was happening.

  The ship had knocked the top off the palace, freeing the only occupant of the room. What with everything else going on, I’d completely forgotten about the shark. The last time I’d seen it, it had saved my life by eating the sea witch. My grandfather had complete control over it, but now it was attacking everyone in its path.

  When my mother saw the monster, she tried pulling me back away from it as it dove into the crowd, claiming another victim. A green flash lit up the sea. I looked to the source of the light and saw Acania with the ring. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t the only one to spot her. The shark gobbled down its snack and started to swim towards her. Even from this distance, I could see she was tiring with all the magic she was using. The last time I’d seen her pull magic from it, it had knocked her out entirely.

  Everyone else was swimming in the opposite direction, desperate to get away. Without thinking, I pulled myself from my mother’s grip and swam as fast as I could toward Acania. I made it just before the shark, but as I pulled her away, I realized two things. The first was that if I didn’t get her to safety quickly, we’d both be lunch, and the second was that I couldn’t breathe with her, the same way I could with the merfolk. I turned back to my mother, but she was lost in the sea of retreating people. I could feel my lungs screaming in pain as they longed to take a breath. Acania’s magic ring could probably save us, but she was now unconscious, and I couldn’t channel magic.

  Just then, it hit me. I had breathed underwater here before without holding anyone’s hand. My grandfather had a room filled with air just for me. I pulled Acania toward the palace and away from the shark.

  Most of the palace was still standing. It was just the top that had been destroyed by the ship that was still balancing precariously on top of it. As the doors were no longer manned by guards, getting inside was pretty simple. I swam through the twisting tunnels, pulling Acania behind me. When I’d all but given up, I found the room. Diving through the magical skin that kept the water out, I took a deep breath, filling my lungs. Both Acania and I fell to the sandy bed, and the iron ring rolled across the room before coming to a stop in the sand.

  Acania’s eyes fluttered open as I tried to get my breathing under control.

  “You saved me...again. Why?” she pulled herself up into a sitting position on the sand. She looked so frail and tired. Her left wing was broken. She saw me staring at it and pulled it around her with her hands. I‘d never seen someone so lost, so without hope. She’d always been damaged, but her frightful appearance had been something to be scared of, not to be pitied.

  “I’ve done you a wrong.”

  “You aren’t the one who stole our magic,” she pointed out. “I know I blamed you, but it was your television friend.”

  I nodded my head slowly. “You are right. I didn’t know about that, but I was the one who sent out my kingdom’s ships to stop you. I didn’t want you to get to Trifork.”

  “You were protecting your people. I am trying to do the same.”

  I sat, looking at her without speaking. She needed my people...any people for hers to survive. They were quite literally falling apart, and the magic they had wasn’t enough to rebuild them, only to hide their strange appearances. I could understand everything she’d done. As she said, she was protecting her people. I wished there was something I could do, but without knowing any magic of my own, the only thing that came to mind was giving up some of the people of Trifork, and that just wasn’t going to happen.

  I didn’t know what I could do for her.

  “I’ll take my girls home. Fighting you has come to nothing for both of us. It has only hurt us all.”

  I bowed my head down to thank her. She was giving up. It made me feel both happy and sad at the same time. Happy that I’d never have to worry about her and her kind ever again, and sad that there was nothing I could give her in return.

  “If you help me find my grandfather, he will call off the shark. Now that you are awake, can you cast a bubble spell around me so I can breathe?”

  She cast her eyes over to the ring and held her hand out. The ring flew through the air and landed in her hand. I took her other hand, ignoring how bony it felt and waited as she cast her spell.

  I’d not been to my grandfather’s bedroom before, but we found it fairly quickly. He lay on the bed, his eyes half open as his redheaded daughters sat around him. With a start, I noticed my mother right by the top of the bed. She must have escaped the shark. Outside, I could just about hear the sound of screams, telling me that the shark was still attacking.

  “He has to call off the shark!” I shouted, my voice echoing back at me in the air bubble.

  It was my mother who spoke. I still wasn’t used to the way she sounded underwater, and I had to concentrate hard to understand her. At least, she wasn’t speaking in the weird merfolk language. “He knows the shark is attacking, but he is too weak to call it. He’s trying.” It was then that I noticed the tears in her eyes.

  Acania swam through the bubble, leaving me inside and headed straight for my grandfather.

  “Let her pass,” I shouted out. “She has the magic to cure him.”

  “No!” My father opened his eyes wide as Acania placed the iron ring by his side.

  I pushed through my aunts. “Grandfather. Acania will save you. She saved Ari and Mother. Please don’t fight it.

  ”

  He shook his head slowly and with great effort. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly and quiet. “You don’t understand. I asked for a great many things from the sea witch, and she granted me everything. One of the things was the ability to control the most monstrous killing machine in the sea. I think I’ve finally gotten through to him and now he is still, but if you take the spell from me, he will continue to kill. He will do as he pleases.” I barely heard his last words as he rasped them out.

  “The shark is in control now, but only as long as my grandfather can hold on,” I repeated. “Is there another cage anywhere?”

  My grandfather answered between ragged breaths. “There is no cage big enough or strong enough to hold him.”

  “Can you do anything?” I asked Acania, fighting the rising panic. It was clear that my grandfather wasn’t going to hold out much longer.

  “The magic of the ring is complex, but it has limits. It is a water magic and cannot conjure up things that aren’t already there. I can create the illusion of a cage, but I
cannot make a real one.”

  An illusion was no good. It might hold the shark for a small while, but he’d soon realize that the bars surrounding him didn’t really exist. I wracked my brains trying to think of a place that the shark could be taken. Inspiration struck me.

  “Grandfather, can you command the shark to follow Ari and me?”

  My mother looked like she was about to object, but my grandfather nodded his head.

  “Do it!” I said before my mother could stop me. I could feel Ari nearby. He was very close. I jumped out of the bubble and swam with all my might to the palace entrance. When Ari saw me, he clasped my hand, and I could breathe again.

  “I thought you might be here. The shark has stopped, and the sirens are throwing their homemade spears at it, but they just bounce off its thick skin.”

  “I know,” I replied. “Follow me.”

  The shark lay on the seabed. Most of the people of Trifork had already left, but the few that had stayed behind were standing with the sirens trying to kill it. The beast didn’t move, but watched them through its beady eyes, waiting for the moment it could attack them back.