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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.
It’s what made slipping in and out of the palace without being seen so easy.
I pulled the hood of the cloak onto my head and slipped out of the cove and onto the streets of Eramaea.
The secrets of Eramaean streets were no easy thing. At least, it hadn’t been at first. As I couldn’t afford any errors, I spent days, weeks, observing until my eyes hurt. Until I found the perfect angles of shadows and darkness, of whispers and secrets, and followed it.
Maisie told me that her precious Elias, who I knew as the Black Blade, was scourging orphanages in search of any trace of me, any trace of her.
Since I’d gone through the exact same route and had turned up entirely empty, I knew where he would be. After all, my vast city had only two orphanages, and he’d likely already searched them. And if I knew the Black Blade, which I did in rumored whisperings, I knew he had connections. Likely, he’d try using them, calling in favors to discover all he could about every single orphanage in Thalassar.
He was nothing if not thorough, from what I’d gathered.
I also gathered, from the way that my cousin spoke of him, that she was in love. It’d been so obvious, from the way her fingers fluttered to grasp at the ring between her breasts. A ring made up of the same stuff as the Black Blade’s legendary weapon, the color of obsidian, sharper than steel. Very few blades of that make existed.
Apparently, a ring did too.
I was huddled into a corner in a tavern of ill repute. Not the Siren’s Song, but one as equally disgusting, if not more. The ambiance was deader than a funeral. I’d seen more light in the soulless eyes of my stepmother than at this place.
And the stench was disgusting, too.
It smelled rotten, mossy. Like something dead was decaying in the crumbling wooden and coral walls. I bit back the bile rising in my throat. Ugh, why had I sought out to do this in the first place? Hunting down a criminal to my crown to bring him back to my cousin. And all for what? To prove I wasn’t as worthless as she thought me to be? Well, if this was what it would take for her to trust me, I should have just stayed at home. The stench of ferment and depravity was hardly worth it.
Who knew what kind of diseases lurked through these waters, what kind of ailments these disgusting mer brought with them.
I didn’t want to wait too long to catch anything.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to. The criminal I had my sights set on this whole time got up from a far away table. He was dressed all in black and traveled with no cloak, so his exposed face was easily recognizable. His black hair swept over dark skin, black eyes shining as fierce and threateningly as the blade hanging from his hip. I was too far away for my staring to be noticed, but as I narrowed my eyes, I could make out a thin, pink scar along his cheek.
He swam with purpose in his stroke, a king of criminals, confident in his rule.
The Black Blade.
I got up and followed him out on quiet fins.
The trick to stalking was staying at a far enough distance that you wouldn’t be recognized, but close enough to follow. I prided myself in my self-taught abilities of stealth. My eyes never once strayed from him as he swam through the near desolate waters of this part of Eramea, the home of criminals and their place of business.
His back was to me, and his confident swagger unmistakable. So I knew the moment he suddenly disappeared right before my eyes.
My body came to a stop as I looked around but found no sight of him. It was as if he’d somehow become the shadows and slipped away from me. But that wasn’t possible.
I swam faster, closing in on the space I’d last glimpsed him at. The moment I stepped fin in the spot, I felt a grip on my arm. I was suddenly hauled away from the street and pulled into shadows and darkness.
I did not scream.
It would go ignored here.
I started to struggle and was whipped around, my back colliding into a wall. I gasped for breath, but didn’t let the pain stop me from whipping out my sword, brandishing it in front of me, the tip pointing at the feral white grin of the Black Blade.
“Hello, Princess,” he purred.
I thrust the sword forward in warning, but he slid back, pushing the side of my blade away with his hand. He was too confident for his own good, with all the arrogance of a shark, and all the brains of a blob of dirt.
“Want to tell me why you’re following me, Odele?”
The inability to use my proper title infuriated me. How dare he, the sea scum? I was his superior. He should be groveling at my fins instead of smiling like a sneaky little catfish.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” I commented, fighting back breathlessness. This scum didn’t intimidate me. He hadn’t the first time I met him, either.
“You’ve been stalking me since I was in the tavern, so no, I am not surprised.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
He was observant, taking every inch of me in. A chuckle escaped his mouth. “I’m sorry, did you think you had me fooled?”
Because I had, I didn’t reply to the question. I lifted my sword and pressed the tip into his chest. He barely wavered.
“Enough talking. You’re coming with me to the palace, criminal. Now.” My commands were usually followed by immediate obedience, but only mocking laughter followed this one.
“Oh, I think not, Princess. You see, you have no power here.” He took a stroke back, away from the sharp point of my sword and slid his own out of its sheath. I listened to it slide, watched it glisten beneath phytoplankton glow.
His blade was the same as my cousin’s, except the hilt of his was studded with rare, black diamonds instead of sapphires, the blade longer, heavier.
“But I suppose if you wish for me to accompany you, you’ll have to beat me in a duel first.”
My heart thundered. A duel I could do. After all, I was the Royal Princess of Thalassar. I’d been trained in fighting and strategy since my birth. There was no way this criminal could beat me at my own game.
“Fine,” I conceded with a smile. “Loser owes the other an immediate favor.”
“Deal,” he smiled.
And then he struck.
His move was fierce and strong, the blade arcing down from above, threatening to slice me in half. I blocked it, steel scraping obsidian and causing sparks to rain over us like dozens of tiny fallen stars. The Black Blade was strong. I’d give him credit for that. But he was also an amateur fighter. There was no refinement in him like there was in me. No perfect gliding movements or hand-held positions. He hadn’t been trained for this since birth like me.
I pushed against him and twirled under the swing of his blade. Turning, I struck, and he struck back. Our blades met, clash for clash in an implacable sparring dance, where the strokes were mismatched and savage. We swung, ducked, pushed, and pulled.
I’d hardly call the Black Blade a formidable opponent. He was nothing but a street urchin, sea scum, criminal to my crown and my family.
And I could easily disarm him.
Growing tired of the games, I made my final move, smashing the hilt of my sword onto his face. He didn’t cry out, but he did wince, taken aback for a moment. That moment was all I needed. I slapped the side of my blade onto his wrist and his hold on his weapon slipped. It clamored to the silt in a cloudy puff and I hit my tail against his, sweeping it out from under him. He fell to the ground beside his blade.
Triumph swelled within me. It had taken hardly a few breaths to knock him down, only a few to prove that I was better than this filthy criminal.
I pointed my sword at him, a smile pulling my mouth. “You lost, scum. Now you have to come with me to the palace.”
His chest rose and fell steadily, and he was using his elbows to prop himself up in the sand. His black eyes regarded me with a look I couldn’t quite decipher, but had no desire to do so. All I wanted was for him to uphold his end of the agreement and come with me to the blasted palace, so I could present him to Odalaea and show her that I was as valuable as this scum, the prince, her, and the captain.
That I mattered.
Because I did matter.
“There’s just one problem, Odele,” the Black Blade said coolly. “I don’t play by palace rules.”
In a move so fast, I could hardly see it, he kicked his tail up, hitting the hand holding the hilt of the sword so hard, it smacked onto my precious face. I cried out, and a moment later, my own tail slipped from under me, the sword was torn from my hand, and a heavy body hovered over mine in the silt.
The Black Blade smiled down at me.
“I win.”