“Are you all right, my gem?” he asked with concern.
I grit my teeth. “Fine.” Not entirely a lie as the pain was already ebbing. I just didn’t think I’d be able to get up and continue right away.
“You stupid mer!” Percival came over to spit at me. “Can’t you do anything right?”
“Obviously not,” I muttered sarcastically, leaning onto Kai, and hiding my face in the silk material of his salmon pink kimono. Really, he looked lovely in it. I focused on that instead of on Percival’s insults.
“Get up,” he commanded impatiently. “Get up and do it again, and do it right. I’ll not having you embarrassing this kingdom with your stupidity—”
Kai nearly dropped me in his swiftness to get up and grip Percival by the collar. I startled, and looked up, watching as he shook the older mer so hard, it looked like his head would rattle right off his neck.
“You will speak to the Princess with respect, you blubbering slug.”
Percival muttered noncommittal noises. The sight of him being jarred around brough me slight relief, a relief that shattered when the Queen’s voice rang out angrily. “Enough!”
Everyone froze and turned to look at her.
She had risen from her throne, and was glaring in our direction with a vengeance that could have killed me, had she possessed magic.
“Get out. All of you. Leave.”
She was instantly obeyed by everyone, save myself, Kai, and Percival. Though, Kai did release her advisor and take a stroke back to try and pick me up.
“Leave her,” the Queen ordered, before he could even take my hand.
Kai glared at her with disbelief. “But—”
“I said leave her. And you…” She turned angrily to Percival. “Get out of my sight as well.”
“M-Majesty…”
“Now.”
He bowed deeply before scuttling away. Kai left much more slowly, casting me discreet, reassuring glances. Once he was gone, and we were alone, the Queen looked down at me, and snorted.
“I confess, I never thought I’d see this task beyond you. You always like to pretend to be so intelligent.” She kicked her tail lightly, the movement sending my skirts floating up to reveal my scarred fin. Panicked, I pulled them back down to cover me. “I do hope you won’t make such grievous mistakes the day of, dearest daughter. It would be such a shame if the coronation were at all ruined by you falling to your death thanks to this.” She gestured at my fin again.
The threat didn’t go unnoticed.
I had to pretend I didn’t notice. “Forgive me for my slight, my Queen.” I hated this. I hated the pretending, acting as though everything was alright. As if the Queen didn’t make me sick to my stomach every time I saw her. Murderer, my mind screamed. She’d had my mother killed. And for that, every fiber in me despised her.
The Queen smiled radiantly, and it transformed her whole face. “It’s not your fault you weren’t raised to know these things.”
No. It’s yours.
I bit my lip to avoid replying.
“You and your ilk cannot be expected to be refined in the finer arts like we are here at the palace, and you likely never will. Mer who hovel at the bottom hardly ever float to the top, if you understand my meaning.”
I did, and it was demeaning. To think, this mer was ruling Thalassar. It was no wonder those of us at the bottom couldn’t go places besides to war. Because of mer like her at the top pushing us back down.
Then, the Queen held her hand out to me. “Let me help you.”
I stared at it with wide eyes for a moment before I quickly took it, and she hauled me up easily. Once off the floor, she snatched her hand back as if my touched burned, and I dusted off the back of my dress and fixed my skirts.
“Do not forget your place, little mer.”
~~
HOW COULD I forget my place when she never ceased to remind me? I knew very well what I was without having her there to whisper my worthlessness in my ears. I knew I was from Lagoona, a small pond that wasn’t lavish in riches or the like, but it was beautiful. It was a place full of life and quirky mer. It was a place of sunlight and wind, even beneath the depths.
It’s not your fault you weren’t raised to know these things…
The Queen’s words had me wondering, moments after she dismissed me from her presence and I tread slowly back to my room, what my life would have been like if my mother had never died. If I’d grown up in a palace, here or in Kappur, what would I be like? My fin cramped in response to the question. I’d be whole and plump, without a deformity, with a mother and father who loved me, and perhaps a few siblings.
But if I’d been raised in a palace instead, I’d not be who I was. Caring, and compassionate. Perhaps I’d be like Odele, or maybe even like Queen Circe.
I would have certainly never met the Black Blade, or Josiah, or my grandmother. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with Tiberius or Kai or Elias…
I wouldn’t have been me.
But I would have been able to make a change… The moment the thought fluttered through my mind, another voice inside overpowered it by a thousand.
“Be the change you wish to see.”
Josiah had said those words to me at Tides’ Tavern. He’d been so thoroughly convinced at the time, even when I hadn’t been, that I, of all mer, could make a change. That I could make my mark in the sea. At the time, I’d been so eager to believe him, so eager to believe that his words were the truth. Arriving at the palace had only broken me down. It had chipped me apart, little by little, until I’d become this. A mer who doubted her worth because of an injury and because, in my nerves, I failed at reciting a few lines.
But I wasn’t that. I wasn’t Odele. I wasn’t just a poor mer with little education and a penchant for trouble. I was strong, I’d survived. I was caring, and kind, and the mer of Thalassar loved me. I had a father out there tearing kingdoms apart to find me.
I was a Princess.
Odalaea Malabella Knoll.
Heir to the thrones of Thalassar and Kappur.
And I would not be afraid to take back what was mine.
~~
THAT NIGHT, we all got together, because I’d finally made a decision. I finally knew what I wanted.
The Queen wasn’t going to sit back and watch as her throne was taken from her. Her increasing verbal threats the past few weeks had made it all but clear. She knew who I was, and thought I didn’t belong. I didn’t doubt that, come the day of, she would try to assassinate us both. She’d stop at nothing to keep her throne and the crown.
“I am going to take my throne back,” I announced without preamble.
I was met with shocked stares.
Elias dropped his tail from the chair he had it perched up on and fumbled with his blade.
Kai, perched at the end of the bed, smiled almost shyly.
Tiberius looked at me gravely, his posture tensing.
Odele was the one to break the silence by bursting into a thunderous applause and twirling in circles. “I knew you’d see reason!”
It was Tiberius who asked, in a voice tight with an unknown emotion, “What made you change your mind?”
I sighed, placing my hands behind my back. “The Queen did.” They looked at me with even more confusion, so I explained, “She murdered my mother and my aunt. She tried to murder me. She’s a tyrant, who doesn’t care about the suffering of others, or the poverty in Thalassar. But I do. And I want to change it. I want to be Queen.” I want to be the change I wish to see.
“And an amazing Queen you will be,” Odele complimented with giddy excitement, swimming up to me to take my hands. Her smile was a radiant thing on her beautiful face. When she smiled genuinely, she looked almost younger. “You’ll be perfect.”
Emotion swelled tightly in my throat, but instead of giving in to it, I nodded my gratitude. “Thalassar deserves better. It deserves a ruler who cares about them. Not someone who doesn’t want to see them advance. Not someone who will ki
ll anyone who gets in the way of a happier future.”
Odele nodded, almost knowingly. “And if there is one mer in the world who can give that to them, it’s you.” She gave my hands a tight squeeze. “I just know it.” She pulled away, still smiling at me.
“Are you sure about this?” Tiberius asked with uncertainty. He looked like he was ready to strangle something, or someone. I wasn’t sure who.
I tilted my chin up. “Yes.”
“Right then.” Elias sheathed his blade and hopped up from his chair, his mischievous smirk in place. “What do you want us to do?”
“Well…” My gaze passed over all of them, and my heart swelled to impossible sizes. I loved them. Every single one of them had a special place in my heart. I felt differently for each, and loved them all for different reasons. I no longer felt selfish for it, but empowered, and humbled that in my life, I’d gotten these mer who I cared about above all others, and they for me. This time, a small tear slipped out. “I want you all safe,” I confessed. “Because I think the Queen is going to try something nefarious at the wedding, and I’m afraid she’s going to use you all to get to me. So if you all want to leave, and save yourselves, I will understand.”
I waited the span of a few breaths that were slow and torturous.
Tiberius got up from his place and swam over to me, his height and breadth slightly imposing. He stopped before me, and bent to take my mouth in a scorching kiss. He pulled away, leaving me dizzy. “We will never leave you, Maisie. Never.”
Relief made me sag against him as the others murmured their agreements.
“So what do you need? What’s the plan?” Elias asked with enthusiasm.
So I told them. Bits and pieces of what they’d already plotted, adding my own details to it. How the mortician would be taken up to testify, the old nurse as well. The conches would need to be protected until the day of the wedding, when we could out Queen Circe before her whole kingdom, and visiting ones.
We spent the next few hours together perfecting the plot, deciding who was going to do what, when, and how. Finally, when every detail was memorized, I bid everyone goodbye, and watched them go, my heart suddenly weighing heavily in my chest.
Kai and Tiberius were the first to leave. Kai stopped and gave me a hug and a kiss, murmuring a fast and passionate ‘I love you’ in my ear. I nodded in response. When Tiberius came before me, his whole body vibrated with tension.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” he whispered gravely. “I don’t think any of this is a good idea.”
The sweet merman. I placed my hands against his chest and leaned up for a kiss. When I pulled away, I gave him the most genuine smile I could muster, and hoped it was convincing. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” Even if I didn’t quite believe the words myself.
He looked inclined to argue, but I shooed him out and he reluctantly left. Once he was gone, I locked the door and turned to Elias as he made a move to slip behind the tapestry.
“Wait!”
He froze, eyebrow raised.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“You know you don’t have to ask, little fish.”
I smiled, knowing that would be his reply. “I need you to send out two messages for me with someone fast, someone you trust.”
Obviously intrigued, he leaned against a wall. “Oh?”
“And afterwards, I need to meet with you somewhere. But it has to be a secret.”
~~
“YOU’RE DOING the right thing, cousin.” Odele gave me a small pat on the shoulders.
The action didn’t reassure me.
I looked around the room, taking every detail in as if it were very well my last. I’d grown fond of the place, the place where I’d discovered royal secrets, where I’d battled death, where I fell in love and gave myself to them entirely. Where I learned the truth of who I am, and where I’d found a family.
Odele plopped herself onto the bed with a deep sigh of contentment. “After this is over, I want to travel. To Ventlaer, or the great library of Brague. Or Iol, perhaps…” Her tone had gotten slightly wistful around the edges.
I couldn’t bring myself to comment on it.
“Odele,” I whispered, finally having memorized every crook of the room and saving it in a far corner of my mind. “Do you trust me?”
Odele looked at me sharply with her eyebrows raised. “Of course I do. You know that.”
“Can I trust you with my secrets?”
She sat up straight, tucking a stray bit of hair behind her ear. “You kept mine, so of course I’ll keep yours. “What’s this about?”
I took a deep breath, and blurted. “I can’t marry Kai.”
She looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head. “What do you mean you can’t?” she demanded, almost angrily.
I shook my head back and forth. “I can’t. It has to be you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Explain yourself.”
So I did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Odele
I AWOKE THE next day feeling sick to my stomach and to an empty space on the bed beside me. I pressed my palm into the space, assuring myself it was true. The cushions were cold. Vast. Empty.
I sighed, and got up, aware that the room felt suddenly much more empty without Odalaea to fill the spaces. Even if she’d only filled it with judgmental glares and disapproval, I still missed it.
A part of me suddenly hated her for this. For what she was forcing me to go through, but I pushed those emotions aside and got up to get ready for the day ahead of me.
It felt strange, to prepare to do something other than sneak around the palace. But do it I must.
After I got dressed for the day, I braced myself and swam out into the hall to meet with my gaggle of guards. Tiberius wasn’t among them. Good. This would be difficult enough without him there. I straightened, tilting my chin up in a gesture of dominance I’d long since dominated.
“Take me to the Queen,” I commanded.
So they did.
~~
MY STEP-MOTHER was every bit as regal as I remembered, even so early in the morning. Even I, with all the hatred I possessed solely for her, was impressed with how put together she seemed. She sat tall upon her coral and gold throne, stroking the arm of it almost menacingly. Her hair was coiled tightly upon her head, pulling her face into an equally tight expression. Her dress was simple, in colors of bright yellow and orange, the colors making her blinding. As if she wanted to deter the mer from looking her in the eye.
So I met her gaze straight on, the gaze of my mother’s murderer. I was hardly able to spare a second glance to my father, seated quietly beside her. It hurt too much, the sight of him with her, a broken merman in the place of what he used to be. No, instead I looked to the mer responsible for his hardships, for mine. The one who had driven away everything I loved, any happiness I might have had.
“Mother,” I greeted. “Good morning.”
She glared at me without reservation. “What do you want, little mer?” she demanded. “I grow bored with your presence already.”
Ah, I smiled. So she couldn’t tell Odalaea and I apart.
I spread my hands wide, made my smile even wider. “Is that a proper greeting for your beloved step-daughter? And here I thought I’d be welcomed back with hugs and tears after my long absence.”
There was satisfaction in seeing her face suddenly pale, her lips form into a thin line. Her eyes widened as she took me in, her gaze roaming down to my tail, where her eyes narrowed. As if she could see through my skirts to ascertain whether or not my fins were whole.
Whether I was who I said I was.
To ease her doubts, I hiked my skirts up scandalously to expose my fins, the wholeness of them. A moment later, I dropped them, and a gasp tore from my father’s throat.
“Odele?”
I finally turned to look at my father, loathing to take my eyes off of the Queen for even a moment. “Hello, daddy.”
The King got
up from his throne his eyes wide with disbelief, as if he dared not hope I was real, lest he find himself heartbroken all over again. The one thing I regretted about this whole thing was hurting him, for I loved him dearly.
He swam with uneven strokes towards me, his movements jerky and inelegant as he descended his dais and came before me, so close that we could touch. “Is it really you?” he pleaded.
“In the flesh, daddy.”
With a cry, my father pulled me into a tight hug, an action that made me blink with surprise. I couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d hugged me. I’d been a child, for sure. After the death of my mother, we’d grown apart, drifted in different directions of pain and coping until we hardly knew each other at all.
The Queen’s voice tore us apart. “Captain Saber!” she shrieked. I looked up at her, watching as she seemed to fall apart before my eyes like the crumbling dust of old stone. She frantically turned to a guard. “Bring Captain Saber here at once!”
The guard bowed and quickly swam away. When he did, the Queen glared at me.
“Where have you been, you foolish child?”
My father put a protective hand over mine. “Perhaps we should wait—”
“No!” she shrieked at him. “Mind yourself, King, for you are not ruler here. I will know what your spoiled daughter has been doing, where she has been, and I will know it now.”
My whole body tensed. I didn’t like the way she was speaking to my father, the way she’d always spoken to him, as if he were somehow less than her.
“I will tell you everything, of course.” I smiled venomously, as venomously as she taught me to be.
Just then, the doors opened, and I didn’t need to look to know that it was Tiberius. He’d followed me so long, I recognized the loom of him like a shadow.
He stopped by my side, bowed to the Queen, then to my father and I, keeping his face impassive. “You called for me, Majesty?”
The Queen pointed an accusing finger in my direction. “Why did you not inform me that my step-daughter had returned?” she accused.
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