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Off and on I fell asleep in the Black Blade’s arms, the voice of the real Princess of Thalassar lulling me to sleep with the incessant details of her boring life. Eventually, I had to leave his side, letting secrets and whispers, plots of discovery waiting until the next night.
I ventured up to my room, just as lights outside my windows began to expand in swaths of magenta, orange, and periwinkle. Phytoplankton illuminated whatever shadows the surface light could not reach, covering the ocean in a dusting of golden and blue particles.
I stopped and stared beyond the bars of my pretty prison, and even that black steel refused to put a damper on my mood. Eramaea was so beautiful, my heart ached.
Sighing, I took a stroke away from the windows and slowly peeled the dress from my body. It slid down in a tuft of gossamer and silk past my tail and onto the quartz floors. I turned and froze for a moment, transfixed on the vision of myself in the mirror.
My hair was tousled, the tips floating over my bare shoulders. There was a smattering of scales raining down my shoulders and lower back. I tried to see myself as what Elias claimed me to be. Was the mer before the mirror really beautiful? Could she be, or rather, could I be?
My skin held the slightest tint of pink, like it had been coated over with the dustings of a pearl. And my hair and tail... Thin aqua fins ranged halfway below my hip and nearly down to the tip of my tail on either side of my body. They fanned out at my sides, in a way I imagined a bird took off for flight, and when the light caught them, you could make out the darker tracings of veins running through. The left side was shredded, and there was the small silvery sheen of scar tissue spiderwebbing on my tail.
If it weren’t for this scar, I could almost trick myself into believing that I was actually part of the Malabella lineage. I shook that thought off as soon as it formed. No. I was nothing. No one. Just because my hair held the undertone of blue in it, though it was on the darker side of purple, it didn’t make me royalty.
I was letting the silk gowns get to my head.
With a sharp shake of it, I turned from the mirror and waded into the bathing room. First, a scrub. I could never get enough of those.
I took my time soaking in the sands before getting out and choosing an outfit for the day. The princess had very little assortment of simple clothes, and I’d exhausted them all already. I grabbed a dress in the pretty color of purple, one that matched my tail, but glittered with diamond jewels.
I slipped it on. The dress had thin straps that crisscrossed at my upper back. There was a heart shaped neckline, and the oval cut behind the dress left my back bare. The skirts were puffy, the whole thing rather superfluous, and so like Princess Odele that I had a maddening urge to rip the dress from my body. I didn’t. I had to make up for my mistake the day before. Which meant I had to don her face. For real this time. If I wanted to make a change, discover secrets, and stop a war, I had to be her. In every way.
So I picked out jewelry and extravagant headpieces. Diamonds glittered at my ears, a necklace of purple stones, as big as a sea robin’s eggs, was heavy at the base of my throat.
I grabbed a pack of cosmetics and slid a bright dusting of ground mother-of-pearl across my eyelids, brightening my cheeks and lips with pink until they sparkled.
When I finished, a knock sounded at the bedroom door. I answered it slowly, imagining that Odele would take her time before answering, all haughty arrogance.
I moved the chair propped up against it and opened it. Palace guards floated on the other side, among them, I noticed, was also one of Prince Kai’s own guards. They bowed low before straightening. “Princess,” they greeted in unison. “The queen requests an audience with you immediately.”
Of course she did.
“We are to escort you to her, at the behest of Captain Saber.”
Just the mention of him made my gut clench angrily. The tadpole. He’d followed Elias and I. He’d turned him in. Because of him, Elias had nearly died.
“I never want to see you again.”
I’d meant it, and he had obviously heeded the venom in my words if he’d sent his guards in his stead.
I tilted my chin up, the same way I’d seen Odele do it hundreds of times in those conch recordings. “Fine. Take me to her.”
I swam with dignity, my limp hurting a great deal less than it had yesterday. Still, if I had been in pain, I wouldn’t have let my weakness show. Especially not in front of the queen.
I was guided into the throne room, where the queen awaited, and much to my inner turmoil, the king did not. There was another merman in her presence, though. He was decked out in royal finery, robes in bright colors with silver thread and clips holding the material together at the throat. He was old and a little sleazy-looking. Wrinkles sagged his face, ever slightly. His nose was long and crooked, eyes a tad too small beneath drooping eyelids. Wisps of white hair were plastered onto his scalp as if by magic.
I didn’t like the way he spoke in hushed tones with the queen. And I certainly didn’t like the way they lapsed into silence the moment they saw me.
The guards left me to swim in alone, closing the doors after me. I swam up to the fin of her throne and bowed low, a respectful mask already settled into place.
“You called for me, Your Majesty?” I asked politely. The queen looked me over, eyes narrowing over my every inch. Finally, that sharp gaze settled on my face.
“Dearest daughter,” she began tightly.
My eyes flicked over to the merman at her side. He didn’t know who I really was. Good.
“I have been giving it a fair bit of thought. Since your sickness has passed, I believe it best to continue on with your lessons once more.”
Lessons. I tried to remember the captain’s words. He’d explained to me in detail what exactly the princess’ duties entailed. Fencing. Riding. Lessons in politics. Tea time. He had started to oversee my princess training. I hoped that would no longer be the case.
“With Captain Saber being busy with... more pressing matters, we have doubled your security. Prince Kai has sent over one of his own guards, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
More pressing matters. I read between those lines. The more pressing matters obviously meant he was out there looking for the princess he so obviously loved. The sooner he found her, the sooner he could get rid of me.
“And so, you will continue your lessons with Percival as though they never ceased.” She nodded to the merman at her side.
Percival. I racked my mind for a hint of recognition. Why was his name so familiar? Then it clicked. Like the whiplash of a strong current, it all came rushing back to me. Percival Pike. The name of one of the witnesses on the marriage contract I’d found. And, if I was remembering Captain Saber’s teachings correctly, he was the queen’s royal advisor.
And I was meant to study with him.
“These lessons will keep you occupied and less focused on the other activities you think are worth your time.”
What she really meant was more focused on becoming the princess and less focused on the things that truly mattered. Like the fate of criminals and selects.
I nodded my acquiescence. “Of course, stepmother.” The words burned out my throat.
She waited a couple of heartbeats, as if I would object, and then she turned to her advisor. “Off to the schoolroom, both of you.” A curt dismissal. “I have matters to which I must attend.”
Percival and I bowed to the queen respectfully; or at least, as respectfully as I could manage. It came out rather stiff and angry, but I bore through it. Surprised at how something as simple as a bow could seem as condemning as if I let the ax drop on my own neck.
I straightened but didn’t look at her again. I turned and exited the throne room, leaving Percival to follow me. It’s what I imagined Odele would do. Wait for no one. Act as if I owned the world because, well, Odele did own it. At least, she owned Thalassar. Daft as she may be, she was still a princess, the future ruler. She waited for no one.
I didn’t slow when I heard and felt Percival approach behind me. He swam to my side, matching my pace, with my ever faithful guards trying to make themselves invisible behind us. There was something sleazy about this merman that made me uncomfortable. I put discreet space between us.
“I cannot express how glad I am to see you alive and well.”
Alive and well. What a strange way to word it. My eyes narrowed, but I assumed the most flippant expression. Like I had not a care in the world. I was wary of him, the same way prey are wary of sharks. The same way one should be wary in rock fish-infested waters.
“How kind of you to be so attentive towards my well-being, Percival.”
“Yes, well, you are the future of Thalassar, and as your mother says, you must be up to par in your studies. They’ve been put off for too long.”
“My stepmother,” I corrected haughtily.
He stiffened, causing me to smile. I’d sounded just like Odele then. How she never ceased to remind those around her that Queen Circe was not her birth mother. So many conch recordings. Her personality was embedded deep into my brain.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” He sniffed once. “Well, then, shall we venture to the library?”
“It’s not like I have a choice, do I?”
I could feel the glare emanating from his body but gave no acknowledgment of knowing I’d upset him.
We swam to the royal library in silence. I hadn’t yet been to the royal library; in fact, there hadn’t even been a tour of the palace. So when we finally arrived, I tried not to let my awe show when I beheld it.
White columns marked the open doored entrance to the place, and it seemed palatial in its own right. Blooms of brightness burst, like lanterns, stars, and fire had melded together to illuminate the vast expanse of space. The colored glass windows on the far side of the library ranged like the shelves did, from floor to ceiling. Each shelf was filled with conch shell recordings and scrolls of kelp parchments.
In Lagoona, we’d never had libraries this grand. In fact, we hadn’t had a library at all. We’d had a house of public records, but it was nothing like this.
There were tables made of quartz and coral, chairs all around them, rows and rows of shelves, and a desk behind which sat a very old and bent merman with skin that glowed like the light of a lantern. Off to the side, there was a room that was closed off from the rest of the library, encased in walls and darker windows. A sign on the door informed me: ‘Royal records. Royal access only.’
Percival swam up to the desk with the glowing merman. Without a polite word, he pulled a large, leather-bound book open and began flipping the delicate kelp pages. I watched curiously as he took the quill—the elongated and sharp tooth of some creature—and dipped it into an opened vial of squid ink, signing on a page. Turning, he handed the quill to me.
I shouldn’t have been nervous as I went up to the book and looked at the scrawling letters. It was a sign in, sign out ledger.
“Princess Odele, how nice it is to see you well again!” the old, glowing man exclaimed. His voice reminded me of the whistle of the current blowing between cattail stalks. It was the pleasant sound of home.
I smiled widely as I bent gracefully over the book and started to sign Odele’s name as neat as I possibly could. “It’s good to be back.”
“We missed you around here. I was hopelessly lost without my little helper.”
I froze mid-letter. The Princess of Thalassar helped the librarian? That wasn’t something she ever mentioned in any of her conches. I had to admit, it caught me off guard, and I couldn’t very well imagine her inside this place, joyously stocking shelves or among the conches. That seemed like servant’s work, something she would deem beneath her.
I finished signing her name and set the quill aside. I wasn’t sure how to respond to him, so I just gifted him with a smile that he returned a second too late, for he’d been observing my hands. Before I could contemplate his stare, Percival impatiently waved me away from the front desk and to a table in the center of the library. I sat and watched as he went to gather conches and parchment in his arms. He worked quickly, long fingers pulling things from shelves efficiently. His long robes flowed behind his tail, like a dark wave or a sinister shadow following his every move.
He came over and gently laid the contents down onto the table before taking a seat across from me. “Let’s begin where we left off, shall we?” He opened a roll of parchment and tapped his fingers against the looping scrawl of handwriting written there. A beat of silence. “Well?” he asked expectantly.
Internally, I panicked. My lessons had started from the beginning. Eating. Drinking. Swimming. What did I know about the lessons of the princess? Foreign languages, history of the Malabella lineage, things that an outsider couldn’t possibly know.
And that was what I should know. The queen had known that. So had this been some sort of test on her end? To humiliate me? As if to say, ‘imposter,’
Imposter. Imposter. Imposter.
But Percival didn’t know that.
I scoffed and pushed the parchment away. “Ugh.” I made a noise of disgust deep in my throat. “How boooring.” I looked down at my nails. Flippant. Rude. Wearing her mind was too easy. And I was good at it.
“Princess.” Percival sounded exasperated. “We must study.”
“I am sure we must, Percy. But I really don’t feel like it.” I slowly got up from my seat, palms pressed tightly against the surface of the table. “There are many other things I’d rather be doing.” I made a move to turn away.
“If you could at least listen to the lessons?” A vehement demand.
Nothing bad could come from just listening. As long as I pretended. I let out a suffering sigh and plopped myself indignantly back into the seat. “If you must. But make it quick. I have things to do today.”
As it turned out, there were things I’d wanted to do that day—visit Elias—that Percival didn’t allow. I barely got time to breathe. Lessons were shoved down my throat. At first I feigned disinterest, but after a while, though I still refused to write and answer questions, I paid rapt attention.
There was so much to learn. About politics, foreign trade, strategic battle planning... It was all insider information. Things to be tucked away in my mind for future use. Whatever use I’d find for them.
After lessons, we went in for a light lunch that I fought hard not to devour, despite its bland taste. When we finished there were more lessons, listening to conches, and to my immense fear, hippocampus riding.
I tried not to tremble as I was brought before the massive beast. It was gargantuan, and it wasn’t so much the height I feared, but rather falling and then being trampled by it.
I recalled the first time I rode one of the beasts, the gut-clenching fear, and the way Captain Saber had felt behind me. The protective way his arms caged me on the animal. The heat of his body against my back...
No. I had to stop thinking about Captain Saber. A feat that proved difficult without his presence. I expected to see him around every corner or trailing the shadows behind me. I’d been the one to chase him away. I never expected to feel his absence like a phantom, or to feel an ache for the slightest bit of teasing and banter.
Pushing thoughts of him away, I swallowed my fears and nervously approached the beast, trying to appear confident, though I was sure my features were pulled tightly into a grimace. I gripped the reins and hauled myself up, hugging my tail to the side of its body. I rode slowly with the instructor at my side, an instructor that didn’t give me much instruction, and the guards at my back, flanking almost all around me like a wall of bodies.
The guards were supposed to make me feel safe. I felt anything but. The excess number of mer were just a reminder of everything I still had to figure out; marriage contracts, why a war had been started, and what Percival knew about it.
I was having a hard time figuring out how to approach the subject. It wasn’t until later that I got my opportunity.
After surviving the hippocampus ride, we went back to our studies. I was listening to a recording on marriage contracts and found my opening.
“Why must marriage contracts be so tedious?” I pushed the shell away.
Percival glared. He did a lot of that, I noticed. “You and I both know that marriage contracts are a matter of state, Princess. Very important.”
“Yet it all seems so... cold. Like pawning off a hippocampus. I am a princess. Not an animal.”
Not for the first time that day, he sighed with exasperation, making me think that perhaps the princess was prone to those sorts of conversations with him.
“Marriage is a promise between two nations. Contracts are meant to assure each country that the other won’t look elsewhere should a better prospect arise.” He looked at me as if to say, ‘You already know this.’
I ignored it and went on, “I’m sure there have been many broken marriage contracts throughout history.”
He glared suspiciously. “Of course there have been.” His tone grew a darker edge. “And they’ve all ended in the same conclusion: war.”
My bones chilled. War. A broken marriage contract could lead to war after all. His words confirmed just what Elias and I already knew. Now to confirm my other suspicions...
“And if the contract between Draconi and Thalassar were to be broken?”
He let out a gasp, his face raging red. Bushy eyebrows pulled together. “Don’t even speak such things aloud!”
I leaned back in my chair, eyes widening in surprise at his outburst. I tried pushing away his words with a flippant expression and a wave of my hand. He didn’t let me finish half the gesture before he was bearing down on me again, reaching for my hand and crushing it in his grip.
“Kingdoms have gone to war for less than the mere mention of such treason. Thalassar has fallen victim already to the hardships of war, and you will not let it happen again. You will marry Prince Kai Li. Do you understand?”
I let out the shakiest of breaths but nodded. Only then did he release my hand.
Yes, I wanted to whisper. I understand.
“So did he tell you that’s why Thalassar and Kappur are at war?”
Elias paced a short distance from one side of the cove to the next. He claimed he needed to stretch his muscles to help his wound. I wondered if it was really because he was anxious at the information I was bringing him.
“Not directly. But I’ve no doubt he meant to imply it.”
You will not let it happen again.
Was it too farfetched to think that that’s what he’d meant? It had felt like a warning.
I held the marriage contract in my hands, fingers tracing the edges of Percival’s neat scripture.
“He obviously knows something.” Elias finally stopped pacing and turned to look at me. His black eyes were intense, shadows cast against his cheeks and beneath his eyes, making him look even more formidable.
“Obviously. I mean, his signature is on the contract, and the old barnacle has been advisor to the Malabella lineage for decades. He knows why we’re at war.”
“Getting him to talk will be difficult.” Elias stretched and cracked his knuckles.
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t,” I warned.
His eyebrows lifted, and the side of his mouth twitched. “I wasn’t planning on hurting him, little fish. I was actually going to suggest you use your feminine wiles to seduce the old mer.”
My face heated and I felt the words like a jab. “Don’t tease.” I glanced down at the contract to avoid looking at him. But there was the soft rustling of clothes, and a moment later, his warm hands covered the tops of my own. I set the contract in my lap, eyes finding his.
“Don’t doubt your abilities to seduce, little fish. You’ve ensnared the Dragon Prince easily enough.”
I snorted. “It’s one thing to seduce a pretty prince and another entirely to seduce a barnacled, saggy merman.”
“And what about the merman of the night?”
My breath stuck shy at the entrance of my lungs. There was no mistaking that tone, the sudden darkening of his voice that curled the hairs on the back of my neck and had goosebumps rising over my skin. He was good at that. Too good. At changing the rhythm of a conversation that would otherwise be lighthearted, into one that made my heart pound.
This was unfamiliar territory with a merman who had become familiar; a comfort. Things between us had never gotten further than that kiss in the alleyway, than the light tracings of a touch, than heated words that promised passion like I’d ever known. But something inside me wanted more. My body burned with the demand for it. Only fear kept me from taking that first stroke. And I knew he’d only go as far as I wanted him to go. He’d only go as far as what I allowed.
“What are you so afraid of?” he whispered, darkly, like he could read my every thought. Curiosity and a challenge all packed into the tenebrous lilt of his voice.
You.
The word hung unbidden between us. Then there was the way my heart pounded, and how he could surely hear it, each thump daring to make that first move.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
“Elias.” My voice was hoarse as it shattered the quiet. I dared to place the palms of my hands on his arms. His skin was hot and warmed the chill in my bones.
“Maisie...”
As if we hadn’t seemed intimate enough, he had to go and say my name. Like it was the only name he knew, and the only one he wanted to know.
I closed my eyes against the sensation. As if it hurt. And it did. Just not the way I’d expected.
What are you so afraid of?
The pain in my fins reminded me. I’d been foolish once. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now. But with Elias, I wanted to be foolish all over again, only this time I wondered how different the outcome would be. Would I be hurt again? Would blinding pain splinter through every nerve, every bone, and leave me a mangled, crippled mess? Or would I find something different on the other side? Would I find light and stars and wishes? Pleasure, happiness, a future? Something worthwhile?
My eyes opened, and I finally found the voice to answer. “Nothing.” And then, I kissed him.
I’d always imagined what it would be like to plunge my hands into two-legger fire. With Elias, I got my answer. It was all-consuming, from head to fin, my body heated, blazing. Like I was glowing hot from the molten core of lava, and I was pulling the Black Blade down with me.
Our mouths opened for each other’s secrets and we took, pushing and pulling until somehow, his body had slanted over mine, and I felt the comfort of his heavy weight.
His lips brought me to depths I never knew existed until now. His tongue traced over the seam of my lips, and I found myself gasping, only to take him in deeper.
My hands fumbled in their nerves. The only way to steady them was by bunching my fingers into the material at his shoulders.
Elias pulled away just long enough to murmur against my cheek. His dark curling voice was a whisper beneath the depths of the secrets that joined us. And then he was kissing me again.
Our bodies didn’t know the meaning of the word space. How could they when we fit so perfectly together? His hands gripped my shoulders with the same urgency I gripped him, and then his fingers moved, slipping to the sides to press down on the sharp ridges of my collarbone. Then further still, to the straps of the dress. He paused, broke away and looked in my eyes, wordlessly asking: ‘Is this okay?’
I nodded, and his fingers nearly tore the material. He pushed it aside and hooked his fingers into the bodice of the dress and pulled. I gasped as it was torn from me, the material sliding down the length of my body. And Elias pulled me in with a hunger in the shadowing of his gaze that was both frightening and thrilling.
I was finally bare before him. The whole of me on display. From the dusting of purple blue scales across my abdomen and shoulders, to the torn fin flapping nervously at my side, and finally to the rest of me. Naked. Breasts suddenly heavy with desire and the urge to feel his touch. I felt I just might burst if he stared at me much longer.
His hands went to my shoulders, and with half-lidded eyes, I watched as he traced the shadows contouring my body, down to my collarbone, lower to my breasts.
A place that I let him explore without reservation.
He cupped them in his hands, and I never knew how one little gesture could send desire pulsing through every nerve in my body. I didn’t need to look down to know that I was opening up to him, preparing for our joining.
I felt it. Felt the need pulsing there, begging to be touched. I held my breath as Elias bent down and to my surprise, pressed his tongue where his hand had been. Right on my nipple.
I groaned, arching into his touch, fingers clinging to him as if I’d be lost otherwise. Maybe I would be. He switched his ministrations from one side to another, and my head whirled faster and faster the more insistent he got.
Finally—finally—he slid back up my body and took my mouth in a kiss that left me gasping for water.
It was overwhelming, to have so little between us and feel like we were leagues apart. I clawed at his tunic, slipping the material from his shoulder.
Elias pulled away long enough to chuckle and press the tip of his nose to my own. “Give me but a moment, little fish.”
“Hurry.” I barely recognized my own voice, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to feel him over me again. But he was pulling away, unfastening the belt around his waist. It slowly floated away from him, along with his scabbard and blade. I swallowed as his hands hiked up his black tunic, past his tail and higher still, discarding it completely. I’d seen his chest before, but I’d never seen him like this, bared before me so intimately.
His muscles looked all the more prominent in the shadows of the cave, cords on his arms bunching and straining. He was holding back from pouncing. As if from fear of hurting himself—for he still wore a strip of gauze around his wound—or the fear of hurting me. No. His gaze spoke differently.
The Black Blade feared nothing and he, above all others, saw a strength in me that I had yet to see.
His hesitation was due to something else entirely. I realized because he was giving me a chance to admire him. Just another bit of the Black Blade for me and me alone. The proof of what would soon come to pass between us in his posture and...
My gaze lowered there. His body opened for me, like mine did for him, and if I’d ever been unsure about his desires before, I no longer was. Not with the evidence rising strong against his stomach. Like with mine, the V of his hips had a slit running down the middle, but where mine was flat, his bulged. It opened, and that part of him that made him male, his member, was thick and long.
Nervously, I opened my arms to him. an invitation, and he gladly went into them, body covering mine. His hands were all over me, each light caress of his fingers punctuating all the secrets between us, bringing us together.
Thumb against my hip bone. I know who you are.
My hands running down his chest. I love Thalassar more than anything.
His fingers through my hair. Fake Princess.
A savage kiss between our lips. Savior of the broken.
Hand on my breast. An outlaw but so much more.
A scared mermaid.
And then he entered me in one swift thrust, pressing me into the cushions of the couch. A gasp tore out of my throat at the sensation. My tail curled around his tightly, pulling each other closer. He moved, and I felt him inside me. Hard and heavy, velvety and warm. Lights danced behind my eyelids the faster and harder he moved, and throughout it all, we never ceased touching and never stopped sharing the most intimate of silent secrets.
And when that final sensation came over me, a shuddering that had me crying out and gripping him to avoid spiraling into that abyss, another secret followed.
One we didn’t need to say aloud for either of us to understand.
I love you.