Kingdom of Salt and Sirens

by J. A. Armitage

  I let my hand trail down to feel the fabric of the jacket below me. It had been almost a week since I’d last seen him. A week I’d spent locked in my room, hiding away from the world, sitting on my balcony searching for him. Just like the first time I saw him, he’d come from nowhere and gone back there.

  I sighed wistfully. In the eighteen years I’d been on the planet, meeting him was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, and it was over. Whatever it was that had happened between us, which admittedly wasn’t much, had come to an end.

  Between my fingers, something crinkled. I pressed it again and looked down. There was something in the jacket pocket. I slipped my fingers between the folds of fabric and pulled out a piece of thin plastic. When I looked closely, I saw it was actually a note written on paper and slipped inside a transparent folder to keep the moisture out. It only said one word. Midnight.

  My heart pounded as I took in the note. I turned it over, hoping to see something else on the back, but it was blank. The paper itself looked like it had been torn from the edge of a newspaper. I could just make out a couple of letters of newsprint on the edge. The writing was scruffy, almost as if a child had written it, and yet, I knew it was his writing. It was strange how someone as well dressed as he was would write so scruffily, but that only added to the enigma that was him.

  Midnight. Was this note meant for me or just something he had in his pocket? Another puzzle. It had been almost a week since my party. Six midnights had come and gone since he’d left this note. I folded it as best I could and put it into my pocket, excitement fizzing through me.

  I had a lead. Ok, I had no way of knowing if the note was for me, or if I’d already missed my chance, but one thing I did know was that I was going to be down on these rocks at midnight tonight.

  Leaving the clothes behind, I headed back to the palace, being careful to keep out of the eye line of the guard on the back entrance of the palace. I’d barely made it over the low wall onto the promenade when I heard my mother calling me.

  “Erica, dear, there you are. I’ve been searching all over the palace for you. Your father and I need to talk to you.” I looked up to find her peering over the balcony. With a sigh, I started up the stairs, ready for the fight that I’d left stewing for days.

  “There is no way in a million years I’m going to marry Hayden,” I snapped, before offering either of my parents the chance to say otherwise. I’d barely spoken to them in the past few days. Instead, keeping to my room and purposely staying clear of the pair of them.

  We were sitting in my father’s private study, a room full of rich leather chairs and paintings of men on horseback hunting for foxes. When I say sitting, my father was sitting, I was standing by the door, ready to make my escape and my mother paced the floor with the same impatient air she always wore. She always looked like she had someplace more important to be and was desperate to be there. Her arms were folded across her chest, her face set in a grimace. Clearly, she wasn’t looking forward to this conversation any more than I was. My father, on the other hand, looked as he always did. Detached, stoic. You could never quite tell what he was thinking which was a great way to be for the leader of a kingdom, but crappy as a trait for a father.

  “I don’t see the problem,” my father said, twirling one thumb around the other. “He’s a nice enough boy. You are always with him anyway. This way, it will save him the trip from his house to the palace.”

  I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Saving him on shoe leather was hardly a good reason to marry. “I don’t love him. He’s dating my friend for goodness sake.”

  “Yes, well your mother assured me that it wasn’t serious between them.”

  “It isn’t,” she interrupted, turning and strolling in the other direction. If this conversation went on much longer, she’d wear a path in the carpet.

  My father cleared his throat. “Anyway, as I said at the ball, you will ascend to the throne one day, and it’s going to be much easier with someone by your side. I can’t imagine having to do it alone.

  I placed my hands on the desk in front of him and looked him straight in the eye.

  “I’d rather become a queen on my own than drag someone who doesn’t love me and that I don’t love into a marriage that neither of us wants. You promised me that once I became eighteen, you would start teaching me everything I needed to know about ruling a kingdom. I’m eighteen now, Daddy, and I’m willing to learn, but until I find someone I love, who loves me, I will not be getting married.”

  My father sighed and slumped slightly in his chair. “I thought that was what you would want. I assumed that Hayden, being who he is would be a bonus for you. You always loved the sea, what better than to marry a sea captain?”

  I arched a brow, not quite understanding what he was talking about. “Sea captain?”

  “Of course! His father is the Admiral of the Royal Fleet. Of course, he’s going to be a sea captain. You know, if you two became man and wife, he would probably let you go on his ship with him.”

  It was a bribe of the worst kind. Mainly, because he knew that sailing around the world with Hayden would be a dream come true, for me anyway. Hayden had never shown much interest in becoming a sea captain, despite his father’s position. He loved sailing, it was responsibility that was his problem.

  I paused, mulling it over in my mind. Would living with Hayden as his wife be such a bad thing? We were best friends and already spent a lot of time together, so I knew we were compatible. He was good-looking too if you were into that sort of thing. Cute, too cute for his own good, really, like an oversized puppy, with large brown eyes and a constant cheeky grin on his face. Yes, I could do a lot worse than waking up every day on our very own ship, sailing to far and distant lands rather than being stuck under the scrutiny of the media and the adoring public of Trifork. Astrid would be upset for a while, but she’d understand...eventually. I tried to talk myself into it as it seemed my mother and father were not about to be talked out of it any time soon.

  “I’ll think about it,” I huffed, turning towards the door. I saw my mother give a satisfied smirk as I left the room.

  It was all I thought about as I headed to my room. Was it possible to fall in love with a friend? Someone I’d known for my whole life. Hayden was certainly loveable, but I wasn’t in love with him. I wished he was here so I could talk the whole thing through with him. There was every chance that he didn’t know he was being made a sea captain and getting his own ship. I got the feeling it was something my father made up in the heat of the moment to entice me to change my mind.

  I was still contemplating a life with Hayden as I headed out onto my balcony. I’d spent so much time out here that I knew every rock and the shape of the coastline heading off into the distance. Tonight, I was looking for something that wasn’t familiar to me at all. Tonight, I wasn’t just going to be looking at the coastline and rocks, I was going to be down there. The clock moved so slowly, and the sun took even longer to set than it usually did, or at least, it felt that way. I whiled away the time planning my route to the water’s edge. Thankfully, the moon was out again, although not as bright as it had been. There was no way I’d be able to get past the guards downstairs without being spotted, so when midnight was almost upon me, I climbed over the balcony railings to my parents adjoining balcony and used the fire escape there.

  Finding a safe route over the rocks was almost impossible. The moon kept disappearing behind clouds, rendering me almost blind. I took each step slowly, speeding up a little each time the moon peeked through and hoping that I wasn’t going to be late for whatever it was that happened at midnight.

  The sea was at high tide, and the waves had picked up slightly. The clothes were still lodged under the rocks where they had been for the past week, but now, they were being dampened by sea spray. Looking around me, I couldn’t see anything except the distant beam of the lighthouse on the horizon to my right.

  Now that I was here, all bravado left m
e. I was getting wetter by the second and dangerously close to falling into the tumultuous sea. I couldn’t see the hands on my watch in the darkness, but I was pretty sure it was already past midnight. I was just about to turn around and head back to the palace when a hand appeared from below the inky surface and dragged me in.

  8

  Underneath

  Panic gripped me as the freezing water surrounded me. Above me, the surface thrashed and foamed, and yet, the water dulled my sense of hearing to almost silence. It was so dark, I couldn’t see, and without my senses working properly, I couldn’t tell which way was up. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on making my way to the surface, trying to figure a way out of this. Because of my mother’s fear of the ocean, a fear I was beginning to understand, considering that this was the second time in a week I was drowning, I’d never learned to swim. Not even in a swimming pool. I’d seen other people do it and had a general idea, but as I kicked my legs about, I knew it was having no effect. I thrashed my arms around, desperate to break the surface to breathe, but I was so disoriented and panicked, that I made no progress. The hand that pulled me in was still holding me, dragging me further down towards the ocean floor, or at least, I assumed that’s where we were heading. I wanted to open my mouth to scream, but I knew that if I did, it would only let in the sea water which would flow down to my lungs, causing me to drown in the most horrible manner.

  “Calm down.” A man’s voice came through the water, and yet, I didn’t hear it with my ears, the words came directly to my brain. It was him. I recognized the strange way he spoke, even though now, he wasn’t actually using his mouth to speak at all. My mind was playing tricks on me. I’d heard that in a person’s last dying seconds, their mind can make them believe things that aren’t real, and I wondered if this was what was happening to me now. I was dying, and in my final moments of life, I was hearing words underwater.

  “You’re not dying,” said the voice, which only confirmed to me that I must be. He could hear my thoughts now as well as putting words into my head.

  I opened my eyes. The salt water stung them, and I still couldn’t see anything beyond the bubbles I was creating with my writhing body.

  The hand gripped my arm more tightly and began pulling me through the water. This time we were going at high speed. Water rushed past me so quickly that the fear of drowning was overcome by the fear of crashing into something. What was going on? What was it that was propelling us through the water? I’d not seen a boat out on the ocean but being pulled along by one was the only explanation I could think of. I closed my eyes one more time, to shield them from the fast-paced water and let myself be pulled to wherever it was that we were going, not that I had any choice in the matter.

  After a good ten minutes or so, we slowed down. The water was warmer here, or at least I didn’t feel the cold as much as I had when I’d first been pulled in.

  “Open your eyes.” The voice came again as we came to a stop and again it wasn’t spoken, just an echo in my head.

  “Open them,” he repeated softly. I noticed he’d let go of my arm.

  I blinked a few times before realizing we were in a cave. A huge underwater cave filled with water.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but as I did, the salt water filled it.

  “Talk with your mind,” the stranger said, but it was too late, I could taste the saltiness of the water that burned as it went down my throat. I began to panic again, but the stranger wrapped his arm around my waist and swam with me upwards. Cold air hit my face, disorienting me as we finally hit the surface.

  The only light in the cavern came from a small hole in the ceiling above us. About the size of a jam jar lid, it was not big enough to crawl through, but it let in just enough moonlight for me to see the stranger in front of me.

  I took in a deep breath and promptly began to choke, coughing up the seawater that had filled my lungs when I’d tried talking just moments before. A small sandy beach sloped gradually out from the water, but overhead, rocks told me we were still in a cave. A cave where the only way out was through a tunnel under the water. The air was thin, but breathable, although it smelled like it could do with a good gust of wind to rid it of its fishy smell. I wrinkled up my nose as the stranger hauled me to the shore, leaving me half in and half out of the water and finally allowing me to get a good look at him again. I thought I remembered how beautiful he was, but now that I saw him again, I realized that I’d not done him justice with my memory of him. His skin, almost blue in the sliver of pale moonlight that accentuated the deep muscles of his chest, dripped with sea water. I watched rivulets of salty ocean water roll down over his stomach before dripping into the sand below him. It was so distracting, that, not for the first time, I felt flustered around him.

  He waited until I’d finished coughing up half the ocean before speaking.

  “How are you?” A small sliver of moonlight danced across the surface of the water creating a strange light show across the cave behind him.

  Indignation filled me, despite my awkwardness around him. It made me feel better, knowing that I could feel something other than a powerful attraction to him that almost scared me. That, in and of itself, was dangerous. Dangerous and wholly the most exciting emotion I’d ever felt. A little indignation would help me drown it out a little.

  “How am I?” I croaked, trying to get the words out despite my throat now feeling like I’d emptied a salt cellar into it.

  He looked at me strangely then, those green eyes of his sparkling in the moonlight with not a hint of purple to them. It was almost as though he was surprised by my outburst, but he recovered quickly from whatever it was that had surprised him. He nodded his head to my question. I coughed fiercely, annoyed that I couldn’t shout at him as I wanted to. My raspy voice could barely get above a whisper, thanks to me consuming half the ocean. “How do you think I am? You came to my party, left without saying a word and then tried to drown me when I came to thank you for saving me.” You are also making my brain fuzzy with how utterly beautiful you are, and my heart almost hurt with how much I want to touch you. I kept the last two thoughts to myself, hoping he wasn’t still poking around in my brain.

  He lounged back on the cold sand, lazily grinning at me, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Repeat back what you just said.” Even though he was communicating with me through his mind, I could still hear the humor in his voice.

  “I said I was only on my way to thank you when you tried to murder me by pulling me into the ocean.”

  I saw his grin widen at the edges. “Remind me what it was you were going to thank me for when I so rudely tried drowning you.”

  “I was going to thank you for saving me from drow...” Realization hit me that what I was about to say sounded ridiculous. Not that it made me any less angry. He’d still pulled me into the ocean and dragged me to goodness knew where.

  “You can’t drown when you are with me. Haven’t you noticed that you are still alive after being underwater more than twenty minutes? Now, I don’t know a lot about humans, but I’m pretty sure that after a couple of minutes down here, they usually drop dead without oxygen.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. It wasn’t helping my concentration much that he was completely naked. At least, his top half was; his bottom half was still under the water line.

  I thought back to when he’d pulled me under. Now that he mentioned it, it did seem like a long time to be underwater. Having never been under water for longer than it took to take a sip from my tap to swill out toothpaste, I wasn’t exactly sure how long a person could survive below the surface, but remembering how awful it felt almost drowning the previous week, I figured it couldn’t have been long.

  So, the question remained, why hadn’t I just drowned?

  “What did you do? Secret oxygen tanks?” I looked around me on the underground beach to see if there was any kind of scuba equipment lying around. All I saw was a starfish lapping at the waterline and a crab scuttling across the
sand.

  “I think you might have noticed if I put a mask on you,” he drawled, his inner voice smoother than chocolate. I wished he’d talk properly so I could hear what it really sounded like. His lip twitched up at the side as he waited for me to come to some kind of realization. I just didn’t know what it was. I also felt like an idiot around him. If only my heart would slow down a bit so I could think straight.

  His confidence annoyed me. Why couldn’t I be like that? Most people got nervous at meeting a member of royalty for the first time. The stranger hadn’t even had the decency to bow to me. I’ve spent my life being schooled to be polite, to have confidence around strangers, but with him, all that went out of the window. Any princessy politeness was forgotten as I tried to think what to say next. He was so distracting, lying there, a self-assured smile on his face. I was annoyed, sure, but it was getting more and more difficult to stay that way when my heart was hammering the way it was.

  “Ok, smartass, how is it that I’ve been underwater for so long and not drowned?” I asked loudly, spitting out the last of the salty water. My voice echoed around the chamber, sending the crab scuttling in the other direction. I sat up on the beach and pulled my knees up out of the warm water, hugging them close to me and waited for the remnants of my voice to die out.

  “I brought you here because I thought you might like to see this,” he replied without answering my question at all. “Dip your toe into the water.”

  I eyed him warily. I’d only just pulled my feet up out of the water.

  “Just do it,” he urged, an easy smile playing on his lips. I waited about ten seconds before acquiescing to his demand. I didn’t want him thinking it was okay for him to boss me around. I let go of my legs and moved one foot forward, inching it to the water’s edge. Slowly I let my toe into the water. It was warmer than the air.

  I shivered slightly. “It’s warm, so what?”

  He grinned at me now. This whole thing was just a game to him, and yet, what choice did I have but to play it? There was no other way out as far as I could see. The cave was completely sealed from above, and I couldn’t swim back through the tunnel without help. He had me well and truly trapped. I wasn’t sure if the thought of it scared me or filled me with excitement. Probably a bit of both.