Sunken Empire

by Brandy Slaven

The woman, who is clearly my mother, sighs in relief.

  Cecaelia kneels down the rest of the way and places a kiss on my mother's forehead. I watch as the life drains from her body, and then she is no more.

  Standing from her position, Cecaelia doesn't turn around as she speaks to me, "I showed you this memory, so you would understand what it cost her. It is up to you to bring your people back to the light, princess."

  Somehow, I ask her the question on my mind without using my voice, "What was her name?"

  "Her name was Sereia. Your father kidnapped her during the wars. You were born exactly 9 months later, like a human. As per her wishes, hoping you could be hidden in the human realm. Your father was disgusted and wanted you dead. He didn't care who he had to kill in the process. I know your next question, girl. Just as you already know the answer," she says calmly.

  "My father is Bruinen, isn't he?" I ask anyway. She nods to me. I want so badly to be the savior that the Zs need for their people, but how would they feel if they knew that I am the spawn of their worst enemy? Worry digs a hole in my gut, making me nauseous.

  I forget for a moment that the witch is still inside of my head, until she reassures, "Do not fret, princess. Those three mer have been through more than most. Give them a chance. We must be getting back now. I won't be there, but you can call upon me shall the need arise."

  "Thank you for everything," I say. She nods and the room swirls into a variety of colors. "Wait," I say, reaching out to her, "I don't know how to call for you."

  The next thing I know I'm waking up in Zanthus’ arms. He smooths the hair away from my sweaty face, and I see that Zale and Zephyr are on either side of me with a worried look on their faces.

  "I'm going to murder that witch," Zanthus growls.

  I lay a hand on his arm to stop the rant brewing. The frustrating anger on his face softens into something else that starts a fire in my belly. Looking away, I know that I can't go there with any of them again. No matter what the witch said. I refuse to hurt them like that.

  "We need to talk," I tell them.

  After dropping the bomb on the guys and telling them everything Cecaelia showed me, they left me in the study at my request. The only thing I didn’t tell them was about Bruinen. No reason to burst their bubble as soon as it forms.

  I stand in wonder at what I originally thought was an aquarium. Now that I know the truth, it seems all the more magical. Enchanted, I watch as brightly colored fish swim by. Reaching out, I touch my hand to what I thought was glass, but Zale explained is part of the magic. A tingle shoots up my arm and makes me smile. It feels as though the magic recognizes me, and I it.

  Sighing, I turn and face the books stacked on the table. Merrick had come in a few hours ago and given them to me. The top one is a living registry of all known merpeople clans. Sort of like family trees. He left a marker at the Noelani Clan where my mother’s name sits lonely at the bottom of the page. I had flipped through until I found Bruinen’s name on the Mindel Clan, promptly slamming the book closed, and I’ve been standing here since. The other books are mer history and I should probably read them, but my brain feels like scrambled eggs at this point.

  Collapsing into the nearest chair, I allow my head to fall into my palms.

  “You ok, damselfish?” Zale’s soft voice asks.

  The sound of it sends skitters of tiny butterflies into my stomach. It pulls me away from my current thoughts, only this kind can’t be allowed. I try not to think about the way that his lips felt pressed against mine. It works until I look up into his face.

  He smiles down at me and it is my undoing. Tears flow freely from my eyes. I’m not sure if it’s from the info dump or the loss of family that I never had the chance to know or regret from what can now never be with Zale.

  Shockingly, he kneels down in front of me. I know from finding their family page that the three of them are technically royalty, which explains the servers reaction earlier, but they shouldn’t be subservient to anyone. Least of all me. He reaches out, and I jerk upright before he can touch me. Guilt eats me alive as hurt flashes across his face, but it’s for the best. I’m certain my forced smile looks more like a grimace.

  “I’m really tired,” I tell him, trying to cover up my rudeness.

  Zale nods as he stands. “Want to take the books with you for later?”

  He is so thoughtful, and I can’t help reaching out to give him a hug. Warm breath filters through my hair right before I pull away from him. I walk over to pick up the books, which he immediately takes away from me. With his other arm, Zale offers me the crook of his elbow. The guilt is still hanging around from a few moments ago, plus I simply don’t want to be impolite, so I take it.

  We walk out of the study, and he takes a new route. I love how this palace of sorts, even if it started out being a prison a few short hours ago, isn’t overloaded with gawky pretentious decor. It’s got subtle light tones with dark undertones. The fixtures attached to the ceiling are the fanciest thing in this whole place. Thinking of mundane things is a good distraction.

  “How do you have light in those?” I ask Zale. “I mean, I’m assuming it’s not regular electricity and all.”

  His gaze follows mine to the ceiling. When he doesn’t answer me right away, I look down to find him watching my face. Whatever he sees there makes him smile.

  Wiggling his fingers at me, he says, “It’s magic.”

  I roll my eyes, but a short laugh escapes at his theatrics. My absentmindedness follows us all the way through the halls until we come to a set of double doors. The crest etched into the main door is present here as well.

  Zale turns his body to me looking sheepish. “I know you said that you were tired, but I wanted to show you something first. You may consider it a little weird, so just try to keep an open mind.”

  He waits until I nod before opening the door. I’m not remotely frightened because Zale wouldn’t hurt me intentionally. However, that doesn’t stop the small flutter of butterflies of nervousness in my stomach. After the shortest of hesitations, I follow him inside, my feet coming to a stop just over the threshold.

  My eyes must be bugging out of my head. “What the...umm, Zale?”

  “It’s not as scary as it looks,” a warm breath says in my ear, causing a shiver that races through my body. Which of course, said body betrays me by stepping back into Zephyr’s embrace so that his hands find my hips. A wicked look crosses Zale’s face as he watches Zephyr pull my face to him.

  Coming to my senses seconds before our lips touch, I pull away from him. Instead of the hurt look Zale wore before, Zephyr has determination burning in his eyes.

  Too many more looks like that and I won’t be able to hang on to my resolve no matter who it hurts. Distractions. Distractions are good.

  I clear my throat and step away from him. “Where are we?”

  The loss of his body heat hits me like a ton of bricks immediately. I ignore it as Zale starts talking.

  “This is what you’d call our crypts,” he replies, shooting a weird look over my shoulder to Zephyr.

  Well, that much is quite obvious by all of the skeletons around the room. Normal crypts never have the bones just lying around. They’re all in coffins, urns, or cement. I’m not sure I want to understand why they’d do it this way because the effect is overall creeptastic. When I voice this to them, they laugh.

  “They’re just bones,” Zale says. “They won’t come back to life or anything, but there’s magic still there. All of our past generations of royalty are here.”

  We come to stand beside the largest one in the room. I get the whole merpeople thing, but it’s still shocking to see a skeleton with a tail. Especially one that makes the person at least eight-foot long. This one was their father, and something about the magic calls to me. Nowhere near as strong as the guys, but it’s still there. That’s not the only reason I know. The stone statue beside it would have given it away. She is absolutely stunning, even etched in stone. It’s clear wher
e the guys got their looks from.

  “She was your mother,” I say, not questioning if I am right.

  Zale steps up to my right as Zephyr comes to my left. It’s Zale that asks, “How did you know?”

  I let out an unladylike snort. “It’s obvious where you three get your good looks from. She’s beautiful.”

  They both stare down at me as I continue to look over the statue of their mother. A sick feeling in my stomach makes me want to throw up in the middle of the floor.

  “She was taken, wasn’t she? That’s why she has a statue instead of bones,” I whisper sadly.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Zale nod. “She had just as much right to be here as any of them. More so, in my opinion. This was one of the ways that we could honor her.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell them.

  “Us too,” Zale replies. “We knew your family. They were good mers. It’s a tragedy what happened to them.”

  “That’s the story of our lives. One big fucking tragic mess,” Zanthus says from behind us.

  A glance over my shoulder rewards me with a view of him propped against the door, arms crossed against his chest as he watches us.

  “True, but without all of the bad, we’d never genuinely appreciate the good,” I tell him.

  An actual smile crosses his face, and I don’t know if it’s from a spare moment of happiness or the fact that we are having a civil conversation. Either way, it’s a massive reminder of just how much the three of them look alike. In their own smoking hot ways. I stand for longer than I should, staring at that smile. When my eyes rise to meet his, it’s clear as day that he knows what I’m thinking.

  He straightens from the wall and stalks toward me. The only warning I have is the predatory look in his eyes before he grabs my neck and pulls my face to his. Holy Hades, for a brutish merman, he really knows how to kiss. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go anywhere at this point. His mother’s statue at my back and his brothers’ warm bodies on either side of me, leave me trapped. It’s that last thought that has me pulling away. I was kissing Zale and feeling the same for him a few short hours ago, and now I’m with his brother, while he stands next to me, nonetheless. Damn, there’s something firing wrong in my brain.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to them as my face turns red. I can’t help the lifting of my fingers to my lips where they’re still tingling.

  “What are you sorry for?” Zephyr asks, now turned towards us.

  I angle my face to him and catch his eyes. Boy, is that a huge mistake. All I can think is he’s the only one that I haven’t kissed. And holy hell, do I want to. Shaking my head answers his question and helps to dislodge the stray thought.

  I try to blow it off. “I’m just really tired.”

  That’s the biggest copout of all time, but it works. At least, I think it does, before I see the grin that Zanthus tries to hide.

  This time, it’s his arm that is offered and leading me from the room. His brothers follow quietly behind us, and I think, I’ve really mucked things up this time.

  I’m a very superstitious person, so I should have known better than to ask myself how much worse this could possibly get. It can always get worse.

  "I'm telling you, Zan. You spooked her," Zephyr complains the moment we drop Rubi off in her room, and she requests to be alone.

  She enjoyed the kiss as much as I did, so I don't regret pushing her. Does it bother me that she's shut herself away from us? Of course. But, it's only for the time being. At least she isn't running for the barrier again or building one of those makeshift ropes out of her bedsheets to climb out the window like Zephyr did once.

  I roll my eyes at my brother's theatrics. "Have you ever stopped to think that maybe she's just overwhelmed with all of the information we've dropped on her in a short amount of time? I think even I'd need some space to process all of it."

  Zephyr looks from me and Zale and then back to her closed door. I have no doubt that we won't be seeing him again until Rubi decides to make an appearance.

  As though he's agreeing with me, he leans back against the wall across from her door and slides down until his ass is planted on the carpet as he tells us, "I'm just going to sit here for a while...in case."

  Zale's questioning gaze meets mine, but we leave him to it. For all his faults, we both know our brother would never do anything to hurt an innocent. Deep down I know that goes double for the woman hiding inside that room. Zale and I backtrack down the stairs before branching off to go in separate directions. I probably should go with him to the study to see if I can help with any of the research, but I turn left, instead, to head towards our wing of suites.

  That short kiss is seared into my mind, urging my fingers to find a pencil. Making it to my room, I snatch my abandoned materials up off the floor. The book opens to my last drawing, and there's no denying that both the waterspout and long, dark-haired beauty have both come to fruition. Flipping to a blank page, the lead starts to scratch across the surface, and I let my eyes drift closed, sketching her from memory now. The taste of her still lingers on my tongue, making it easy to remember the flush that overtook her soft cheeks and the way those deep purple eyes flashed as we verbally sparred. My lips turn up at that while my pencil scratches furiously across the paper. Even halfway across the Keep, I feel like she's sitting directly in front of me.

  By the time my hand stops moving, the entire page is covered in a portrait so beautiful it makes me sad it's not on a canvas. Then I wonder if I could ever convince her to pose for me. The simple idea makes me smile like I don't think I've ever.

  I regret leaving her now, even if Zephyr will make sure she's not suffering alone. One thing my brother has always had over me, that whole empathy and comforting thing. He may be completely selfish sometimes and loves the sound of his own voice, but there were many times I'd appreciated his demeanor when Father had left for battle, and Mother needed someone.

  I'm no good to anyone sitting here like this. I shouldn't be wasting my time with arts when we've got a workload of trouble headed our way soon if Merrick and Zale's predictions are right. Dropping my pencil into the book, I shut it softly as to not disturb the portrait and set it on the table beside my bed.

  Getting to my feet again, I head out towards the study. Everything is so out of control lately and here I am wandering the Keep's halls like a lunatic.

  Not bothering to check who's inside, I've barely stepped into the room before announcing, "I can't sit still. I feel like my skin is crawling."

  Merrick looks up from his book long enough to make a note on a pad at his side and asks, "Is that the only difference you've been feeling lately?"

  "I guess so," I reply, giving him a questioning glare. "You think whatever this is might be a sickness or a side effect from the witch siphoning our magic?"

  "Or something else entirely," he suggests, leaving the comment hanging.

  I've been around him and Zale long enough to know that when they're in these moods, getting anything out of them is practically impossible. As if conjured by my thought, Zale whips into the room with his nose buried in a book and mumbling to himself. He doesn't even realize I'm here until he almost runs face-first into me.

  "Oh, sorry, brother," he blurts, skirting around me. "What are you doing here?"

  "He's restless," Merrick answers in my place.

  "Ah, yeah, me too," Zale admits. "All of this would be so much easier were we back in the kingdom and had access to our magic."

  "I had considered talking to some of the older mer to see if they can offer any insight," Merrick says switching his attention to us.

  "No!" both Zale and I shout in unison.

  Merrick's eyes flick between us in surprise until I elaborate, "You don't want them knowing that we have no clue what's going on. It'll cause dissension and quite possibly a riot. We also can't give them hope because it'll destroy them if this attempt at breaking the curse fails."

  "Plus," Zale adds, dropping his head so that he looks to
his lap instead of us, "I don't want any of them any more curious than they already are about Rubi."

  The words linger in the air between us, and I realize that's my main unspoken concern as well. Our clan has been locked in their cages without a female presence as long as we have. I trust every last one of them with my life; otherwise, we'd never have been in battle together when cursed to this existence. However, it's already bad enough to have the binding of their magic eating them alive. Add being without a woman for ages and all the other troubles on top of that, and we've got a disaster waiting to happen.

  Nodding in understanding, Merrick suggests, "Well, if this curse is broken soon, we're going to need everyone in tip -op shape again. I haven't even touched a weapon in I can't tell you how long."

  Those sharp blue eyes cut to me, and I realize what he's doing. By planting the idea in my head of getting our men to start a regular training regimen, he's giving me somewhere to bleed this restless energy racing through my veins. Our father could've truly chosen no better or wiser royal advisor than him. I don't give him thanks as I turn to leave; he knows his contributions are greatly appreciated and will one day be rewarded as such.

  Heading off in search of what's left of our royal guard, I try to convince myself that the feeling settling into my gut isn't the hope I just warned the others about.

  I’d asked for space from the three Zs to think almost three days ago. I didn’t think that they would truly hold out this long. In the silence of the approximate seventy-two hours, I’ve managed to get a little of a whole lot of nothing done. There is sleeping and eating what Merrick brings to me, but his is the only face I see.

  Zale, Zephyr, and Zanthus are front and foremost in my thoughts before I go to sleep and first thing when I wake up.

  Who am I kidding? And everywhere in between.

  I try a little exploration of the room they dropped me in. One entire wall has built-in bookshelves that are loaded down. Directly in the middle of the room, there’s a round depression in the floor. The bottom portion is this soft spongy material, and bright pillows overflow the small area. I’ve tried it already and it was quite comfortable to sit and read through some of the mer history books.