Elias

I’d been at the palace for days, ever since Maisie had been shot by the damned arrow, and no one had arrested me yet. Perhaps it was because the whole palace was in a state of sorrow and disbelief. They all mourned for Maisie, and the injury she had sustained, I doubted anyone had the energy to come after me. Not when I’d helped to put down that bastard. Not when it was so obvious how much Maisie meant to me.

I was not the praying sort of merman. I had not prayed a single day in my life. I relied merely on myself and my own devices. I had not sought the gods help since the day I’d been selected. I’d not sought them to save the merman who had given up his safety for my own, in exchange for a ring and a better life in the seas.

But now, seeing Maisie, a mer so full of life and love, lying still on a deathbed, I bowed my head and prayed for her.

If you take her away from me, I will hunt you and kill you myself, I promised the gods silently. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to threaten all powerful beings, but it was a promise. One I meant to keep. If they took her away from me, I vowed to never stop hunting them until they restored the life back into her.

Maisie deserved more than this. She deserved the world, and if I had to destroy it to give it to her, I would.

Wake up, I whispered to her, mind to mind, as if it were some secret and shared power we had. She had been good at reading my thoughts, and I hers. Conversations flowed in the silences between us like bubbles on a current. Easily. Quickly.

And I prayed to the gods to send my words to her in sleep, so that she may wake up, and share silent conversations with me all over again.

For now and always.