“This conversation isn’t over, my gem,” I promised darkly, letting my words settle over her like a blanket. They were the whispering promise of something else as well. Of stolen kisses and bodies joining, of claiming.
Her cheeks flushed as my dark meaning registered.
Only then did I release her wrist.
She flexed her fingers, as if my touch had burned. And I could only watch with ire as she turned and smiled at the Iolish merman and settled her arm into the crook of his own, and fell into easy chatter as the three of them turned away from me and left.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tiberius
“YOU WISHED to speak with me, your Majesty?”
“I did.” Queen Circe’s gaze was trained on her long, painted nails, each one tapping a dangerous rhythm against the quartz tabletop. Click. Click. Click. The movements of her long fingers were both distracting and a threat. The tips of her fingers were a dark red. Like blood on the tip of a steel blade.
A part of me was too frightened to move.
Queen Circe was regent, at least until Odele ascended the throne. But now I was not blind to the truth of the curse in the Malabella lineage.
Not a curse at all, but her.
She’d killed every threat before her, and she’d surely kill Odele, were the Princess before her now.
“The doppelganger is to pose as a bride in but a short two weeks,” she commented all too casually.
Had she thought I’d forgotten? No one who was present in the room would be likely to forget.
“How goes the search for my step-daughter?” The clicking of her nails ceased, and her preternatural stillness seemed much more dangerous somehow.
“I regret to inform you that the search for her has proved fruitless. She is nowhere to be found in the kingdom of Thalassar.” The way the Queen’s features slashed with unconcealed rage made me glad for it, too. Hopefully she was far away from here, so far away that the murderous grip of the Queen would not reach her.
Queen Circe straightened in her chair, as if it were the royal throne itself. Click. Click. Click. “Tell me, Captain Saber, is your family well?”
A shiver of unease slid down my spine. I let my cool composure and obedience fall into place, the mask I wore to serve the royals. I would not let her scent my fear. “I believe they are, your Majesty.” It was dangerous to answer any other way.
“It’d be a terrible shame if, in a few weeks time, they find themselves less well.”
“Majesty?” I had to feign ignorance, even though the threat didn’t go unnoticed. Oh, it was very well implied in her tone, in the nefarious clicking of her fingernails against the table. Like they were the blades she intended to slit through my family’s chests herself.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“You have one week, Captain,” she ordered with finality. “One week to find my step-daughter. If, by the end of the week, she is still gone, then consider it your resignation. Are we clear?”
I swallowed the lump of fear that tightened my throat. “Very clear, Majesty.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “Good. Now leave.”
As I turned to leave, my thoughts whirled like the stirrings of an oncoming hurricane. Without saying it directly, she had threatened my family. She had threatened me. Perhaps she thought me a stupid guard and captain, and maybe I was. But I was not a stupid merman, to think they were idle threats.
For Queen Circe had never specified as to whether it would be the resignation of my job…
...or of my life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Maisie
I TRIED NOT to think about Kai, his expression, or the dark and dangerous promise of his parting words. It wasn’t hard to forget him, the moment Ytgar held my hand firmly into the crook of his arm, chattering away in my ear.
Though I followed the conversation, it was hard to grasp the actual point of it. Then again, maybe there was no point to it at all. Maybe he was just talking to take my mind off of the Dragon Prince and our argument.
I hated that it was starting to work.
Soon, there was nothing on my mind but the comfort of Ytgar’s warm touch, his lighthearted words, and the protective presence of Val at our backs.
I turned over my shoulder to look at the silver eyed merman, and was taken by surprise at the gleam in his eyes. I hadn’t really gotten a good look at him before. How could I, when Ytgar stole all the attention to himself? But there was something formidable about the dark skinned mer. He was commanding in his own right, and wore a much more serious expression than I’d ever seen on Captain Saber. His silvery white hair was tied away from his face. He wore a tunic in dull tones of gray, partially exposed beneath the long, thick cloak of velvet he wore. The garment was so long, and lined with the thick fur of some creature, it covered his tail entirely. In fact, I realized with a start, both Iolish mermen wore clothing so long, neither of their tails were visible. Surely they felt suffocatingly hot?
“Why don’t you swim next to us, Val?” I offered with a smile. His protective presence had been welcoming at first, but now, after getting a good look at him, I felt suddenly nervous, and I couldn’t quite place why.
His grave expression never changed, but his lips did twitch slightly into what I believed was a smile. “How am I to guard your backs if I swim next to you, Princess?”
My cheeks flushed. Then went even warmer when Ytgar laughed. “Always so grave, Val.”
I quickly turned away from Val to focus on the hallway before us. I chuckled a little bit with Ytgar. “I’m sorry. I should have known better. My guard is the same way, never wants to relax around me.”
Ytgar’s warm hand covered my own. “Oh, Val isn’t a guard.”
I blinked. “But…” But you introduced him as your guard and advisor.
“You’re aware that Iol breeds whales?” I barely got my nod out before he kept going. “Valmundur here is a whale trainer, and my closest friend since infancy. I’m hopelessly lost without him I’m afraid. So I lie and say he’s a guard, or else they’d never let him into those fun meetings of yours.”
He waited a breath, and I wondered if he was expecting reprimand for such an action. Really, if he thought so little of me, I don’t know why he’d bothered to share that secret in the first place.
“I hope you do not think less of us for it, for his position, or for the deceit.”
I wondered if Odele would have minded the position. If she would have been upset that a whale trainer had been allowed into royal meetings, had given his opinion so freely?
Well I wasn’t Odele, despite my origins or whatever relations lay between us. I was a waitress from Lagoona, with a position perhaps lower than even Val’s, and here I was, being escorted by the arm of the Prince of Iol.
I smiled up at him with reassurance, and I swore his breath caught. “Of course not. What should it matter where someone is from or what position they hold? It’s the heart that counts, I should think.”
Both mermen went very still, and despite earlier protests, I felt Val’s presence on the other side of me. I felt suddenly very small, caged between the two mermen.
“Ah, you are so very lovely, Princess. And not at all what we expected.”
“And what did you expect?” I asked, merely for my own amusement. I was already sure of the answer.
“Fun,” he replied, and I took immediate offense. Was I not fun, then? “Also rude and sarcastic. I admit, I imagined all the lovely arguments we would have, and here I am. Disappointed.”
“Ha, well I’m sorry I am not much more fun than this. It’s been a trying morning.”
He patted my hand, just as my room came into view. We started to it, and he released me. Just as I turned to thank both him and Val for escorting me, he gave me a breathtaking smile. “Perhaps we will not quip with words, but there are other ways to have a good time,” he offered. I stilled as his fingers went to my cheek and trailed low to my chin. His eyes were fixated
on the ring heavy between my exposed cleavage. I flushed all over at the insinuation.
“How dare you?” I demanded.
He blinked, as if a spell had been cast over him to make him say those words. Or maybe he was just surprised by the anger in my voice.
“Um…”
I straightened into a posture that was formidable in my own way. That was commanding. Queenly. “I am engaged to be married—within two weeks—to the Dragon Prince, Kai Li of Draconi. I am sure your brain is not so small that you cannot recall the meeting where it was announced?” I had the satisfaction of watching Ytgar blush.
“But… I…”
I held up a hand, and he shut his mouth. “Regardless of what you saw or overheard in that hallway, he is my betrothed. And if he knew you were propositioning his soon-to-be wife, he would cut you into pieces and feed you to his pet dragon.” At the mention of violence, both mermen tensed. I merely smiled and added, almost as an afterthought, “And he’d do it with his bare hands, too.”
Ytgar’s mouth opened and closed in silent stammers. “I—I meant no offense…”
My eyes rolled. “Of course you didn’t, Prince Ytgar. But please, next time, find your cheap entertainment elsewhere, because you won’t find it with me.” I looked over his shoulder at Val, who looked to be either suppressing a cry of rage, or a laugh. I smiled at him. “Have a good day Valmundur.”
And then I turned and opened the door to my room and swam inside, but not before I heard the harsh bark of laughter, no doubt coming from Val’s throat. Their voices muffled when I closed it, and I leaned the back of my head against it to take deep breaths.
Really. The nerve.
When I opened my eyes, it was to find Odele on the bed, lounging luxuriously and feeding herself little fruits.
“Who’s at the door?” she asked, her mouth full.
“Prince Ytgar and his whale trainer friend, Val,” I answered almost absentmindedly as my gaze swept across the sights before me. Platters and Platters of breakfast food lay all around the room. Frothy tea, pastries, cakes filled with fruit, bowls of fruit and greens, salads, honey dripping onto the floor…
Even as my stomach gave a rumble at the delicacies, I glared at her. “Where did all of this come from?” I asked tightly.
She swallowed and reached for a pastry, a delicious looking thing that bled red berries. She licked them from her fingers before taking a large bite, and spoke around her chewing. “I rang for a maid.”
My temper flared, but I tried to reel it in. “And what, please tell me, did you do that for?”
She shrugged, took another bite. “I was hungry.”
I couldn’t hold my anger in then. “Because you were hungry?” I laughed harshly, though she’d find no joy in the sound. “I’m hungry, too, Odele.”
Odele held out her half eaten confection in offering. “Want some?”
I shrieked and darted over to a platter of food and in an angry, impulsive move, I flipped the contents of the tray violently, watching as it crashed to the floor.
“What’s got your fins flaring, cousin?” She sounded amused.
I was not.
“I can’t believe you,” I accused. “I am out there suffering through your chores while you’re in here eating the day away.”
“Well, I have to keep my arrival here a—”
“A secret, yes I know,” I spat. “And how do you pretend to do that if the whole palace knows you’re here? You think the maid who brought this up won’t talk? What will mer say when they realize that one Princess was in the meeting with the Queen while the other was ordering room service?”
Odele swallowed the last bite of her food and shrugged. “I didn’t think about that.”
“No, you didn’t, did you? You don’t seem to do much thinking.”
Her eyes narrowed and she sat up straighter on the bed, eyebrows pulling together. “Don’t talk to me like that,” she hissed.
I couldn’t help myself. I was angry. I was a volcano on the verge of eruption, and all I wanted to do was damage everything around me. I wanted her to burn. “Don’t talk to you like what? With the truth? Because that’s what this is! You’re a spoiled brat, Odele. You think of nothing and no one but yourself.”
“How dare you—”
“No. How dare you. Do you even realize what you’re doing? Everything we set into motion this morning could be ruined all because you felt the need to play Princess again. I can’t believe I fell for your load of silt. You probably don’t care about my life at all. You’ll gladly sit back while we take the risks in your stead!”
“We?”
“Yes, we. Captain Saber, Prince Kai, Elias and I are all sacrificing things for you, for your kingdom and your mer, while you’ve done nothing but hide away this entire time!”
A slash of hurt crossed her features, so brief, it was like I’d imagined it being there at all. Anger and entitlement were pressed down on her. “I have too been doing stuff.”
“What stuff?” I crossed my arms.
She bit her bottom lip in thought. “I left to find you.”
I scoffed. “But you didn’t find me, did you? Captain Saber did.”
Princess Odele waved the words away, assuming an air of impertinence. “He had a stroke of luck. And anyway, we shouldn’t really be doing anything at all. We’re Princesses. If you’d accept your heritage and title, you could just take the throne back, we’d out the Queen and then all would be well.”
Because it was so easy to take down a monarchy, right. If it were, she could have done it herself by now. But like every other royal I’d ever known, she wanted things handed to her. She wanted everything to solve itself without really lifting a fin to help. Oh sure, it was easy for her to do a little digging, escape to inquire about me, but actually make the trek to find me? She’d stayed hidden within the secret passageways of the palace, for gods’ sakes!
“You have done nothing since this whole thing started. You’ve been waiting behind the comfort of these quartz and stone walls for all your problems to solve themselves.” My hand went to my chest, to grab the ring hanging there. I touched the smooth edges, and was reminded of Elias, my heart suddenly hurting. A tear slipped unbidden from my eye. “You are a Princess of Thalassar, and you’ve done nothing for this kingdom. Gods, Elias has done and is doing more than you ever have.” I dropped the ring, the heavy weight of it resting over my thumping heart. I turned away, unable to look at her any longer. “Gods, and he left to search orphanages for information you had all along. Information you never bothered to share. You… time waster!” I couldn’t help but throw that last bit out like a bitter accusation. I should have regretted it. I should have taken a care with how I spoke to the future ruler of Thalassar, but my anger had taken over. It was an uncontrollable current inside of me releasing in a rush. Once it started, it could not stop.
There was a deafening silence, and I dared to look up to see what my explosion had caused.
I refused to look away from the hurt on her face. I relished in it, in that brief moment of anger and cruelty. What pity should I feel for her? For this mer who had abandoned her kingdom, who had lied to me, and was risking our plan to fulfill her own capricious needs.
“You think so little of me, cousin.” Her voice was hollowed out. No trace of the entitled Princess, no trace of any emotion. I’d taken it from her. “And you really made me believe that you were interested in being a family…” She sighed, and slowly got up from the bed. Without another word, she turned, swimming towards the tapestry. I watched numbly in the aftermath of my angry words as she pressed her hand to the stone and slipped through the passageway.
She didn’t once look back.
CHAPTER NINE
Odele
TRY AS HARD as I might, I could not get the look of Odalaea’s face out of my mind. The look of disappointment, anger, and finally, her simmering hatred, each emotion packed tightly into one facial expression, able to convey every single one with her narrowed eyes
fixated on me.
And every single emotion was precisely why I had not wanted to come forth.
I’d expected it, of course. I’d expected such a reaction. After observing her from behind stone and quartz walls, and in telly recordings, I knew her. Knew that the moment she met me, she would despise me, if not for bringing her the truth, then because we were nothing alike.
I liked to believe we were two halves of a whole, the different sides of a coin. My side was polished, shining, perfect. Hers was varnished, rusted. But we occupied the same space. She was mine, and I was hers. Her blood was my blood. And even if she was everything I despised, poor, righteous, and somewhat pitiful, I loved her despite it all.
And despaired because she didn’t feel the same for me.
My cousin thought me worthless. She would not be the first to think it. Most everyone in the palace believed that of me. That I was daft, shallow, selfish. I’d not deny I was different. But for the first time in the entirety of my life, I wanted to prove those judgments wrong.
So I would take risks, and she would see that I did care. I cared, more than she could ever know. I cared about her, and I cared about me, I cared about our family, and that the world should know the truth.
I slipped into the spacious cove, and immediately felt at home. Well, as at home I could feel in a dirty, barnacle-infested cavern. I’d loathed to admit it, but this place was a second sort of sanctuary for me, the first being the royal library, with all its kelp parchments and conches.
Swimming down to the floor, I rummaged inside the chest of gold and pulled out a spare cloak I kept at the bottom, along with a bag of coins, a belt, sword and sheath. Over the past months, I’d practiced in the music of silence, and in the art of weaponry. I was a quick study, a virtue of mine no one knew I had, and many overlooked. I was good at memorization, at studying things around me.
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