Maisie

Deep in the freshwaters of Lagoona, in a backwater pond of the mer Kingdom of Thalassar, the current stirred. The waters today were in a torrent, a sure sign that a storm up top and had only just begun. It was a cold and dark day, like the skies reflected the somber mood of the ocean, rivers, and ponds below.

Thick forests of cattails beat a relentless, violent, back-and-forth rhythm against the walls outside of Tides’ Tavern, and I was sure that by the end of the night, the place would need repairs. Made of two-legger materials that had fallen into our waters, the structure of the tavern was already weak and shabby. Square with rotting, wooden walls, algae and moss covered nearly every surface inch. The ceiling was a sheet of metal, tied down in place with rope from a fisherman’s net. There was a second floor where Josiah—the tavern’s owner—lived and it was just as ill-kept as the bottom floor.

Not that anyone seemed to mind the drear of the place. It was still one of the best in Lagoona because food and drink were both affordable and tasty. The customers didn’t seem to mind that gators swarmed through the backyard. They knew that they were safe as long as they didn’t venture further north into the breeding grounds.

I wished I would have been smart enough to realize that sooner, but I couldn’t blame Josiah for where he’d decided to settle. Perhaps it was because he was from up north. From the swamplands, deep in the bayou that bordered our own little town. He’d wanted to keep his past close and so he had. Hence, the gators.

Despite the day, the tavern was full, though voices were kept as low as a funeral dirge as opposed to the usual loud chatter that tended to fill the place. I could only blame one thing for the quiet, and that was the Selection that would take place tomorrow.

I didn’t want to think too hard on it because I knew it would fill me with emotions that beat in tandem with the currents. Rage. Disgust. Fear. But not thinking about it, not talking about it, not accepting the feelings inside my chest seemed like I was somehow laying down and letting the royals of Thalassar slit my throat. They had soldiers by the thousands, but still they went from village to village, selecting able-bodied mer to fight in their war against the enemy kingdom of Kappur.

Any one of the mer currently in the tavern could be chosen tomorrow to go and fight off an enemy we scarcely knew about. What we did know was speculation, whispers that reached us from the palace. That, and the deaths of our loved ones. That knowledge made me smile wider at them, if only to brighten their moods before the truth came crashing down on their shoulders.

“Another bowl?” I asked one of the customers, a merman with webbed hands and feet like a frog.

His face had been etched in grave lines. At my words, he startled, looking up at me and at the warm smile on my face. His amphibious features softened as he pushed the bowl and cup towards me. “Fish eye stew,” he said quietly. “And a bit o’ ale.”

Picking up the bowl—a large two-legger plastic hat—and the cup, I turned and swam behind the counter. Josiah was shining cups with a strip of kelp as I passed him, going to the kitchen in the back. Enormous pots sat on small mountains of sand on the ground. They were like small volcanoes, containing hot blue lava on the inside that bubbled out heat to keep the food warm. I went to one of the pots and ladled up a spoonful of thick stew and then poured fermented ale into his cup before taking it back to him.

“Enjoy your meal, sir.” I smiled.

He returned the gesture before grabbing the bowl and dunking the contents into his wide mouth.

I was already moving towards the next table, stopping to take the order of the merman there. “How are you doin’ today, Christof?”

The distracted merman almost startled out of his chair at my inquiry. I’d never known the seamstress’ son to be jumpy, but he was staring at me with wide eyes and a panicked expression that made me want to offer comfort.

“Oh.” He chuckled nervously. “I—” He broke off. “A little nervous? I don’t know. Just want a meal before—”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence. I already knew what he meant.

Before Selection.

“I’ll bring you some stew.”

Once the plate was in front of him, he devoured it with loud slurping noises, earlier troubles all but forgotten.

If there was one thing mer came to Tides’ Tavern for, it was the food. Josiah teased that they only came to see me because I was so “exotic”. I thought he was full of sand. Although, my features were rather extraordinary for a pond mer. My hair reached down to my waist and bordered between dark purple and blue. Not quite one but not the other, either. My tail shone in the same shade as my hair, while my skin was the color of a pearl, that strange, shining combination of pink and white. I always knew I looked different from the mer here with their webbed hands and feet, snake tails, or dull green scales.

I stood out, but by no stretch of the imagination was I beautiful. I had a plain face, with a slightly upturned nose and wide eyes. My frame was thin and tall, and even if my coloring was pretty, I knew what the truth of my clothes hid. Scars ran down the side of my tail and trailed up to my hip and waist. I swam with a limp, due to the aquamarine fin on the side of my tail being shredded. When I first started working with Josiah, I’d been attacked by a gator. My own stupidity had almost cost me my life, and my body had never been the same since. The scars made navigating the deep pond slightly difficult.

Still, Josiah liked to tease me. So I’d self-consciously taken to wearing my hair up in a hat to hide it. My tail was harder to hide, but at least the long, dull tunics I wore covered most of it.

I leaned against the counter on my forearms, my tail curling leisurely under me as I smiled at my boss. He didn’t return the gesture. He shined the cups with great fervor, his knuckles going white with the effort. He wasn’t even looking in my general direction. His eyes were glued to the ivory clam shell that rested on a high shelf behind the counter. The center of the shell held a floating bubble, which glowed a bright yellow and depicted moving images.

It was the fanciest thing in Tides’ Tavern.

Despite the poverty in Lagoona, all mer were required by the king and queen to have a telly shell. The royals liked to project images all over the kingdom of their grandeur, if only so that we would be informed of the events at the capitol.

Josiah complained that the royals wasted valuable resources, like the mages and their magic, only to fabricate outlandish stories that they wanted the mer to see.

Mages were rare magic-wielders. The seven sea kingdoms were filled with their own special magic and a science that differed from what existed on two-legger territory. It was a mixture of both. Magic and science blending together to create the world we lived in. It allowed things like soup to stay within the confines of its bowl instead of drifting through the water. Our own foods were denser than two-legger liquids, so it wasn’t too complicated to comprehend the differences.

Josiah thought differently. “They’re trying to manipulate us!” he said angrily, gesturing with the strip of kelp towards the image of the King and Queen of Thalassar greeting the foreign Prince of Draconi.

The images had no color to them, but they were high-quality, and I felt my attention snag on the foreign prince. His features were rather striking, his expression severe as he bowed stiffly to the king and queen.

“They’re trying to distract us with announcements of the royal wedding so that we can take our eyes off the war. It’s their way, you see. They dangle shiny things in front of us so we don’t realize that they’re sharpening the knives intended for our backs.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t dare interrupt. Josiah was all about conspiracy theories. He spoke of nothing else and since he had an audience, I knew he was just getting started. I wondered if he was hoping to start a riot, to raise arms against the King and Queen of Thalassar. A part of me relished in the idea of a revolution. I’d seen first-hand how we suffered during the Selection. It had been going on for years now. And none who were chosen ever came back. Those who tried deserting suffered the consequences of their actions.

“They send out the poorest of us to fight a battle they started while they lounge about in their fancy castle surrounded by experienced soldiers, planning the princess’ wedding! I’d like to see the king go out and die beside the best of us.”

I hissed from between my teeth and glanced warily over my shoulder. “Quiet, Josiah,” I warned. “You know they double security ‘round these parts before the Selection. If a guard hears you, you could be executed.”

Josiah snorted. “Let them come!” he shouted. “Not even royal guards are strong enough to get past the gators!”

I sighed, knowing he wouldn’t let up any time soon. He’d scream and shout for an hour more and the customers would scream and shout with him, as they always did. But in the end, nothing would change. We were nothing; we had no power and little resources. We’d never start a revolution or raise arms against the capitol city. To speak of it was to welcome death. To not speak of it meant cowardice. Living under these circumstances was a double-edged sword.

I turned my attention back to the telly, frowning. The images moved around, waving, elongating, and stretching with the movement of the bubble. In them, the Prince of Draconi sat next to the Princess of Thalassar at a state dinner. The prince’s face was grave, and even I could tell he had no desire to be there. His fiancée, however, smiled widely, relishing in the attention.

I rolled my eyes at their images, knowing Josiah was right. How could they sit there all day, eating from diamond-encrusted silverware while their kingdom suffered greatly from the effects of their war? It wasn’t just Lagoona who suffered, but the swamplands and most other backwater towns who sent their young mer off to war. The war had led them to poverty and near starvation, it had instilled fear and had made life nearly unbearable. Out of fear of being Selected, some mer would rather try and swim away. Those who were caught were executed in Artisan’s Square to remind the rest of us what should happen if we tried neglecting our duties. A law, cruel and barbaric, passed down by the royal family.

A sudden, violent part of me had the urge to reach through that bubble and strangle the princess on her pretty little throne. I’d seen enough images of her to know she seemed as daft as a tadpole. I turned my gaze abruptly away from the image of her and the prince trailing about through the palace gardens.

“Spoiled is what they are,” Josiah continued.

I reached out to place my hand over his own. He stopped polishing the cup to look at me. “You’ve been cleaning that same cup for thirty minutes,” I pointed out. “How ‘bout I take over?”

His ruddy features softened as he offered me a warm smile, revealing his sharp teeth. Josiah was slightly robust, with gray hair that was cropped short. His skin was covered with the gray and green ridges of an alligator’s scales, and his tail was long and thick, with stumpy fat legs at the end. His eyes were yellow with slit pupils that would have been frightening had I not known the merman my entire life.

“You’re a blessing straight from the gods, Maisie.” He released his hold on both kelp and cup to reach out and cradle my cheek for a split second before pulling away. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’ll pray to them that you aren’t Selected tomorrow.”

His words were a reminder that I wasn’t completely safe and that I never would be until this war was over. Tomorrow was the Selection. Up until now, I’d avoided such a fate. The tides could turn at any moment. No one—save for business owners, mothers, mer younger than sixteen, and the elderly—were exempt from it. I was nineteen and could be chosen at any moment.

The war had been going on for as long as I could remember; the Selection had begun when I’d been thirteen. The royals had probably been tired of sending their own into battle in a war that was happening leagues away, where the borders of Thalassar and Kappur met.

Despite the fear gnawing at the center of my stomach, I smiled at my boss. “You’ll not be rid of me so easily. I plan on inheriting the place once you die.” I winked, and he laughed.

“You’re meant for bigger things than running Tides’ Tavern for the rest of your life, Mais.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off before pulling more cups towards me to continue shining. As I did my job, my gaze frequently found the telly, looking at repeat images of the princess and her prince, Josiah’s words playing over and over again in my mind.

I wanted to desperately believe what he was saying, that somehow I was meant for a life bigger than this one. That I was destined to help the mer here in a way that extended to more than a smile to ease their fears. But that was utterly ridiculous. I wasn’t a princess. I was no one but an orphaned mer from the backwaters of Lagoona.

And never, in the history of anything, had a backwater mer made a worthwhile change in the world.

Artisan’s Square was located in the centermost part of the small pond of Lagoona. It was one of the prettiest sights because it boasted the market. Every Finsday, artisans from all over the ocean came to set up their stands and sell their wares. Everything from foreign foods to garments and jewelry. Despite the poverty of Lagoona, the market still burst with merchants.

I couldn’t afford half the things displayed there. Not many could except the lords and ladies of Lagoona, whose rich homes bordered the Square. Though it was ways away from my own home, I still liked to visit after work to see what it was they had to offer.

“Pearls! Get yer pearls here!”

“How ‘bout a lovely necklace for the merfriend? The diamonds are real.”

“Beautiful rubies, straight from Her Majesty, the queen’s crown. Half off!”

I inhaled the scent of the market. During the day, when the sunlight from up top pierced through to illuminate the waters below, the yellow glow of it would hit the jewels just right, casting an underwater rainbow against the pond floor. Colors of magenta, red, cerulean blue, and gold would dance with the movement of the water. It was always an enrapturing sight.

The stands all seemed to blend together to the point where it was hard to tell where one ended and another began. They were made up of all materials ranging from deep sea coral shelves, as well as wood and metal. They used the finest looking sea silk as mantels, the bright colors obviously more expensive than anything I’d ever own.

Lined up on one half of the square, the other half was occupied by a very large dais that was used for public announcements and executions. In the middle of the Square sat a gargantuan nautilus shell, its opening of the chamber spilling out bright pink water lilies. As far as sights went around here, it was all we had besides the cattail forest and the alligator breeding grounds.

I navigated my way through the crowd at a leisurely pace, bumping past locals as well as soldiers keeping watch. The day was almost over, nighttime soon approaching, and already some vendors were packing up to leave. My eyes darted everywhere at once, taking in what sights and colors from the outside world I could. Coral, shells, sea glass and jewelry; some vendors even sold two-legger objects thrown into the sea.

I paused before a weapons’ table, my gaze holding on a winking, black blade.

“Like what you see, little mer?” the vendor asked. He was a surly merman with spikes trailing from his forehead down to his spine. His body was a pale gray, mottled with brown spots. He held the blade up before him for my examination, balancing it on his palm. It was the length of my forearm with a sharp tip but curved edge. It was polished black, immaculate. The hilt was studded with a single sapphire jewel. “Polished obsidian,” the merman continued. “A rare blade, made by Thalassar’s finest.” He handed it to me, placing it in my reluctant fingertips. “Go on,” he urged. “Give it a swing.”

Tightening my grip on it, I took a stroke back, observing the blade as if it would move itself. I’d never held a weapon before, certainly nothing this expensive or of this caliber. I could practically feel how the blade oozed coins and knew immediately it was priceless.

“Go on.”

I took a deep breath and swung the blade in an arc over my head. I had no idea what I was doing and felt entirely too ridiculous, like a child playing at soldier.

The blade differed from a kitchen knife, its purpose clear in the weight as I made a series of jabs. This blade was meant to defend, to protect. It was a blade made for battle. For killing.

I froze, holding the weapon away from me, breathing heavily, my shredded fin pulsing from the exertion.

“Very light, as you can see.”

“It is very pretty,” I observed.

The merman made a noise of impatience. “If you’re looking for ‘pretty’ I suggest you go get yourself a necklace. This weapon here is meant to be dangerous, to kill. It is not a decoration.”

He said it as though beauty and danger could not go hand in hand. As if you could not be one without the other. I saw the beauty in this danger, and just because it was meant to draw blood, did that in turn make it ugly? The act itself was ugly. The weapon, however, was not.

“I meant no insult,” I said cautiously.

“It is not I who you’ve insulted, but the blade’s maker.”

I twirled the weapon, captivated by the movements as I asked, “Who’s the maker?”

“That weapon was made by none other than the infamous Black Blade.”

I stopped, looking at him with bright curiosity. “The Black Blade?”

The merman leaned his forearms against his algae covered wooden tabletop, pushing aside a range of dull silver blades as he did. His eyes were wide with brittle excitement that he didn’t want to contain. “The Black Blade,” he repeated in darker tones. “The most wanted outlaw in the entire Kingdom of Thalassar. You mean to tell me you’ve never heard of him?”

I lowered the weapon to my side, feeling its weight suddenly very heavy. “No, never.”

His smile was mischievous. “There’s a reason for all the extra security during the Selection and it’s because of the Black Blade. He was chosen once too, if rumors are to be believed. But before he could be taken, he escaped, taking down some royal soldiers along the way. The first ever escapee in history.”

“Nuh-uh.” But even as I said the words with disbelief, I leaned closer to him, captivated by his tale.

“No one knows how he did it, only that he did. They couldn’t find him afterwards. They say he moves as quietly as a shadow, as quick as a current. That whenever Selection comes around, he is there to help those chosen escape their fate. He’s a thief of the night, a whisper between the waves, and he’s made a mockery of the royals on more than one occasion. No one who has seen him has lived to tell the tale. A hero to many, and a criminal to the crown.”

His words blanketed over me, filling me with something I’d long forgotten. Hope. The sensation lasted but a moment before I snorted. “Who just so happens to make weapons during his free time? Sounds too good to be true.”

An escapee? Certainly we would have heard about it by now. Even as separated from the rest of Thalassar as we were, we would have heard the whispers. No, he couldn’t possibly exist, whoever he was, because once you were selected, there was no escaping it. You belonged to them, to the crown, and you would go off to war to fight and die for them. Whether you wanted to or not.

“Don’t doubt the existence of the merman of shadows. You’ll never know when you might need him to save your tail.”

I was about to mumble that his story was nothing but bullshark when the blaring of a horn had me turning abruptly.

All chatter ceased as one by one, every mer in the square turned to the dais. I felt my heart tumble inside my chest at the sight that greeted me there.

Several guards were floating atop the structure. They wore the colors of the royals they served; dark blue uniforms with black and gold trimming. One of the guards held a conch shell in his hands, the source of the noise. Another held up a very large, thick flagpole. The flag of Thalassar—a blue background with a golden and black hippocampus stitched on the front—was attached to it, flapping against the current.

There were two other guards, and between them they held a merman, a commoner from Lagoona. His head was hung low, so I had no way to tell who he was. Blood rose from his body in smoky tendrils before disappearing. His clothes were the simple rags of a workman.

When he lifted his head to look up at the crowd, shock rippled through us all.

It was the seamstress’ son, Christof.

“On this Finsday of the forty-fifth year of the Malabella-Oriana reign, I condemn this mer, Christof Ket, to death for the crime of attempted desertion a day before Selection.” The guard holding the conch’s voice rang out loud and clear through the square. “Let this remind the rest of you that cowardice is rewarded only with death, and all deserters who are captured will die at the end of a blade.”

As he said those words, the guard carrying the flagpole suddenly flicked the bottom of it, and out came the sharp, long point of a blade.

After a gesture from the guard who spoke, the two holding the merman came forward, hauling Christof before the center stage. My heart beat wildly, uncontrollably as they brought Christof to a kneeling position. There was panic in his eyes and his shoulders shook with sobs.

To be so young, for he was my age, and to face such a fate... He’d tried deserting before the possibility of being called on to go out and fight. And he’d pay the price for his actions.

“In the name of the queen and king and the entire royal family of Thalassar, I condemn you to die.”

My stomach churned and bile rose high to my throat as I watched the guard lift the blade over Christof’s head.

I wanted to look away. I should have, but I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I let the fear that pervaded through the water paralyze me. It consumed with vicious talons, making my breath come out in shallow spurts. I was playing into the royals’ hands. This was what they wanted to instill in us all. This cloying sensation of being trapped with no escape at all.

Then the blade came swinging down.

And there was nothing but silence.

Silence and blood.

“By the order of the royals, so it is done,” the guard said in a soft but firm voice. “Long may they reign.”

“Long may they reign!” Only the guards echoed those words, banging their fists against their chests, clattering their leather armor, before they promptly left, leaving Christof’s body to sink to the stage.

I tried to blink back the image of his head rolling, of the blood that burst through the water to darken our pond. But the memory was there. I’d witnessed so much death at my young age already that this should have been easy to bear, but it never was. Friends, acquaintances, strangers... Their faces were etched so deeply into my mind that they followed me into unconsciousness every night when I closed my eyes to sleep.

A touch at my arm brought me back to reality. I whirled around to face the vendor of weapons. He was looking at me, his yellow eyes soft, with both sorrow and caution.

It was then that I realized I was gripping the hilt of the blade so tightly that my fingers began to hurt, and I held it in a position poised to strike.

Taking in a deep, shuddering breath, I loosened my hold on it and held it out in front of me, balancing it on my palm as he had. He merely observed it with an expression in his eyes I couldn’t quite read.

“Looks like your infamous Black Blade is nothing but myth.” And one too good to be true, at that. No one would ever come to free us from this tyranny. No outlaw. No royal. No guard.

We were on our own.

And always would be.

The merman’s gaze flicked from the blade to my face. Something in him seemed to soften and I knew he understood every emotion running through me right now.

“Keep it,” he said. I blinked and he leaned forward, closing my fingers around the hilt before pulling away.

I stared at him with disbelief. “I can’t take this. I’ve no money.”

He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I’m not asking you for money. I’m telling you to take the blade.” He bent beneath his table and emerged a second later with a black scabbard and a leather waist strap that were as finely made as the blade. He handed those to me as well.

“But, why?”

He sighed. “Because maybe the Black Blade cannot come here to save you or your mer, but that weapon is a piece of him and maybe it will give you the strength you need to save yourself. Now get. I’m about to close shop.”

I weighed his abrupt words the way I’d weighed the weapon in the palm of my hand. There was a possibility I could be selected tomorrow. If I was, would I face what was to come or would I run? There would be no outlaw to help me, and the merman was right. I knew firsthand we could rely on no one but ourselves if we wanted to be saved.

I stuck the blade into the scabbard. “Thank you,” I whispered before turning around and swimming away, out of Artisan’s Square. Noticing that all had gone quiet now, as the weight of death settled deep into our bones.

Like most homes in Lagoona, mine was made from discarded two-legger material. But unlike most homes, mine was entirely secluded, deep in the cattail forest. It had been my grandmother’s, and when she’d died, it became mine.

A small and shabby place, the house was made from an overturned blue boat that was chipped and furry with algae. A long, wide board had been pried loose, leaving a gaping hole in the front that served as a doorway. I swam through it now and into the confined space. The inside had been carved out, the mud hollowed to give the illusion of space.

There was a small kitchenette with a table and a few supplies I used to make my meals with. To the right was my sleeping area. I had no bed, or rather I couldn’t afford it, so I’d taken cattails, kelp, and tadpoles and woven them together to form a hammock.

After placing the blade carefully on the table, I made my way to the hammock. It was made of fraying thread, the color dulled over time. Two ends spread out and were hammered into the wooden walls. When I climbed into it, my tail hanging off the end, it groaned like it wanted to break.

The boards holding it up creaked as I settled in comfortably, resting my hands on the flat of my stomach. Looking at the wall, I sighed. My telly hung there, albeit it was incredibly smaller than Josiah’s. The shell was chipped around the edges, but it still projected images just the same.

I looked at them now, at the Queen and King of Thalassar sitting upon their coral thrones, and felt hatred stir within me anew.

Years ago, the king had been married to the true Queen of Thalassar. She’d been good and kind and just, but she’d died so many years ago when the princess was only five. She’d soon been replaced by another. By her cousin. This new queen was rather cruel, as she’d been the one to start the war with Kappur and had plummeted the kingdom in darkness.

I closed my eyes against their forced images and turned away, wrapping my arms against myself. The cold still seeped through my bones, spreading throughout my entire body until it was numb. And pretty soon, I felt nothing at all.