The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1)
Page 3
Subjects were lined up before them, Queen Serena and King Triton. They listened to the merpeople’s needs. They cared for all merfolk, giving priority to those in the most need, caring for the little merpeople, even the maids.
She would be a just queen. She knew she could be everything Triton needed in a bride. He had a noble sense of duty. She had seen it in him. When he was outside the palace, he always stopped to speak with those who called out to him. She had heard him make speeches about making Adamar a peaceful place to live, where royalty did not hold themselves above all other merfolk, but instead took time to understand their needs and desires. She was sure he would deliver on his promises when he became king. The merpeople who whispered that it was all just talk were wrong. He was a great and noble merman, and she ached for him so fiercely it was physically painful.
She thought of his smile, the flirtatious one and the caring one. Though she loved the caring one best, it was the flirtatious curling of his lip that she held on to. It made her heart flutter with hope. He could want her too. It was possible. Now she just had to make it happen.
Chapter 2
Crowns, Tears, and Tentacles
The atrium rang with girlish laughter. Serena froze in the corridor. She had just come from the grand dining hall, which she and all the other maids had been preparing for the following night’s dinner party under the watchful eye of the Head Maid, Marissa. Serena was on her way to do her daily cleaning of the atrium, but the sight in the middle of the atrium floor made her stop short in the doorway.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight—Triton surrounded by half a dozen pretty, wealthy girls. Their wealth was evidenced by the pearls and cave crystals entwined in their elaborately braided and twisted hair. Only the wealthy could afford to wear currency like an ornament. Their tails were always rubbed down with whale and seal blubber oil—very expensive stuff, since merpeople did not hunt such creatures and thus had to harvest the oil from the fresh carcasses of animals that died naturally. They were the sort of mermaids who bought their shell tops instead of making them, and they had a different one for every day of the week.
Two of them were redheads, Triton’s favorite, and he had his arm draped casually over the shoulder of the one nearest him. She was gazing up at him from the crook of his shoulder, absolutely giddy. Serena hadn’t caught whatever Triton had said to make them go into such a tizzy, but she could imagine. He had a routine with such girls—a routine Serena had observed far too often for her liking. He usually regaled them with a hunting story of chasing down great whites, tiger sharks, and even packs of orcas that attacked merpeople or started killing sea creatures for sport. He would end the story by saying something like, “And I’d fight a whole hoard of them if it meant protecting you beautiful mermaids,” or “If only I could have a pretty face to come home to after a hunt.” It drove the bubbleheads mad. Triton rarely surrounded himself with intelligent or sophisticated mermaids. They were not the type to swarm and giggle and swoon at a well-placed pick up line, and Triton seemed to be quite fond of the swooning. Part of Serena was glad he occupied his time with the stupid ones, since they would be easy to outshine if she ever got the chance.
Serena swam silently into the atrium, concealing an eye roll with her floating mass of hair. She went straight to a patch of algae trying to take hold on the floor and started scrubbing. She did not look over at Triton and his admirers. Normally, she could not keep her eyes from drifting to him, but she did not want to see that flirtatious smile (the smile he’d given her just yesterday) on his face when he looked at those other mermaids.
“Tell us another one, Triton,” said one of the mermaids.
The others started to chime in their assent when the redhead with Triton’s arm around her—who seemed oblivious to the other mermaids’ request for more stories—said, “Got any plans for tonight, Triton?”
Serena’s head whipped around. Her sponge went still on the floor. Tiny flecks of the algae she’d scrubbed loose floated around her head, entangling in her hair. She didn’t notice. The other bubbleheads glared at the redheaded mermaid. Some held their hands slightly curled, as though they were preparing to claw the redhead’s face. Serena held her breath, trying to read Triton’s expression.
Triton seemed oblivious to the tension created all around him. He smiled a lopsided, easy grin and said, “Actually, I do.” When the redhead lifted her head from his shoulder and scowled, he added, “With friends. Disappointing, I know. Mermaids make far better company than mermen, but what’s a prince to do? I made a promise to be there, and surely you all must know I never break a promise.”
The mermaids all giggled, the redhead rested her head on him again, and there was a chorus of “Oh, of course you do,” and “We know you do.” Serena let out a long breath.
“But you know,” said Triton, “there’s a dinner party tomorrow night, and I still don’t have a date.”
The answering squeals of ecstasy made Serena flinch and rub her ear. She sighed resignedly. He would pick the petite redhead under his arm and maybe date her for a week or two and then forget about her. She turned back to her scrubbing, wishing she could plug her ears and forget the whole thing.
“Who do you think I should take with me?”
Looking back, replaying it over and over, Serena was never sure what it was about the question that made her do what she did. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t expressly chosen the redhead as she had assumed he would. Perhaps it was the memory of the flirtatious smile and sweet words of the day before. Perhaps it was both, because they both suggested that she had a chance. He didn’t always have to choose the redhead. He thought she was pretty. He could want her. And why shouldn’t he? She was his perfect match.
“Me!” she said, before any of the bubbleheads could do much more than gasp in delight at his question and start another round of giggles. She pumped her tail so that she rose from the floor as she turned to face him with her head held high and her heart beating so hard she feared it might burst. “You should take me.”
Complete silence. Triton raised his eyes from the mermaids all around him and looked to the far end of the atrium. His deep blue eyes locked with her dark brown ones. There was a glimmer of recognition in those ocean-colored eyes, and Serena’s heart pitter-pattered its way up to her throat in excitement. His mouth curved in a smile that showed off his perfect teeth. Serena felt her own face begin to mimic his, and then it happened. His eyebrows arched in comic surprise, and he laughed. It was a brisk, happy laugh—a short, “Ha!” There was no cruelty in it, only amusement.
Serena crumbled. She felt the unpleasant sting in her eyes that meant tears were forming. He thought she was joking. The idea of taking her to a dinner party was so absurd to him that he had automatically assumed she couldn’t possibly be serious. She told herself not to sob; whatever she did, she must not sob. Her tears would mix with the ocean and no one would be the wiser, but if she made a noise they would know…he would know. She bit down on her tongue to help hold it all in. But even though she kept silent and kept her head high with her eyes straight ahead, her face betrayed her hurt. Her lips pulled down at the corners, her eyelids drooped bashfully, and her forehead creased.
The other mermaids sensed her pain, her vulnerability, and attacked like sharks in a feeding frenzy. They all began to laugh as one—a cacophony of shrill cackles, tinkling giggles, and cruel snickers.
“Prince Triton take you to the party?”
“Just who exactly do you think you are, little maid?”
“Little? There’s nothing little about her. Cut back on the clams, honey.”
“Keep your eyes where they belong and go back to your scrubbing. You missed a spot.”
“You really think he’d be interested in you?”
“He wouldn’t be able to show his face again if he showed up with you on his arm.”
From high up in the third level balcony, Queen Amphitrite watched the whole thing. Unlike her son, she had recognized the passion in Serena’s eyes, in the set of her mouth, in the way she leaned toward Triton as if longing to be as close as possible. Amphitrite knew it was no joke. She also knew who Serena was—the daughter of that dreadful sea witch who’d tried to lure her husband away with magic potions. It would have to be stopped before her son even had the chance to get wise. She was sure he wouldn’t fall for the girl even if he did realize her feelings…but it was best to take precautions.
Amphitrite propelled herself over the balcony and began to swim down to the atrium. Serena saw her when she reached the first balcony level. The queen’s beautiful face was unreadable, but she was breathtaking as usual. Her pink tail shimmered in the sunlight coming through the windows from the surface. Small pink shells of all shapes and sizes were woven together in her top to create the shape of two large clam shells. Her long hair was a river of gold full of pink ocean flowers, pearls, and even doubloons. The mermaids continued to jeer as she approached from behind them.
“Silence!” said the queen, startling Triton and his entourage. “That’s quite enough from you silly little guppies.”
The mermaids pouted at being called guppies, but they held their tongues. Serena’s tears eased, and she let out her first sound since the jeering had started, a shaky sigh of relief. Triton had not known how to handle the group of bloodthirsty females. And really, what merman did? But the queen had come to her rescue. Serena inclined her head in a bow.
“Finally, you remember your place,” said Amphitrite. The way she snapped out the words and the sneer Serena heard behind them shattered her once more. Amphitrite was not there to help. She was there to jeer in her own way. The betrayal was so sudden that Serena looked as though she had been slapped, and the small sob came so suddenly she couldn’t hold it back.
The young mermaids still surrounding Triton, who looked even more uncomfortable now that another angry female had been added to the mix, smiled nastily behind Amphitrite’s back at the sound of Serena’s anguish.
“You do in fact remember that you are a maid, do you not?” said Amphitrite, her own lips pulling up in a cruel smirk as well.
“Yes, your Majesty.” Serena despised the weak quiver in her voice—it reminded her of Hazel cowering before Moira—but she couldn’t control it.
“As if that wasn’t reason enough to keep your mouth shut, you’re also the daughter of the local sea witch.”
Serena snapped her head up from her bow, and the wide-eyed look of shock and hurt on her face made Amphitrite’s cold sneer a little bigger.
“Oh yes, I know exactly who you are,” said Amphitrite. “Although, I don’t know your name, of course. Why would I bother? Your mother is a vile sorceress and seductress. If she’s still in business, she’s now also a criminal under my new decree. You are the daughter of a criminal. You are a faceless, nameless polyp that scrubs our floors, fetches our things, and cleans up after our parties.”
Serena looked to Triton. He was staring at his mother with something like incredulity. Now he didn’t just look uncomfortable, he looked upset. Serena tried to catch his eye, to beg him silently to intervene, but he was fixated on his mother. She silently begged him to tell the queen that he had thought her name was worth knowing. Tell her you know my name. But perhaps he didn’t know her name. Perhaps it had already slipped his mind, maybe from the moment he swam away from her the day before.
“Look at me, girl, not him!” said Amphitrite. “From now on you keep your eyes on your work and that’s it. You are not fit to look at him. Your kind is not fit to lick the ground he swims over. You will abandon your foolish romantic notions for my son. You will remember your place, or you won’t even be able to call yourself a maid anymore. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” said Serena, trying in vain to choke down another sob.
“Don’t just float there. Get back to work.” With a flick of her tail, Amphitrite turned to look at her son. “Triton, make better use of your time elsewhere. You mermaids go home. You’ve had enough fun for one day.”
The mermaids stifled giggles behind their hands as they swam by Serena to the palace doors. Triton spared Serena one last apologetic glance that she caught out of the corner of her eye before he headed down the corridor that would lead him to his battle training grounds. Amphitrite did not turn back to look at Serena. She pumped her tail in a graceful arcs and swam back up to her chambers on the fourth floor.
Serena scrubbed slowly, not making a sound, as they all left. Her heart was no longer aching with desire or pounding with excitement. Her heart felt nothing at all. There seemed to be a hole in her chest, and in the place where her heart used to be there was only an uncomfortable pressure from trying not to cry. When she was finally alone in the atrium, she dropped her sponge and her barnacle scraper and punted them across the atrium with her tail with an angry yell that turned into a cry of anguish.
Now it felt as though her heart had returned, but in pieces, and it was crying out in agony. She yanked open the palace doors and swam with all her might. She swam blindly, not knowing where she was going and not caring, as long as it wasn’t her home. She swam all the way to the outskirts of the city. The city was built on an elevated piece of land that had once been a coral reef that stood only about two-hundred and fifty feet below the surface of the water. The edge of the city dropped off suddenly into Deep Ocean. The water below the edge of the city was a darker blue. Eventually, as it went down, it would turn black.
Serena laid herself out on a stone outcropping overlooking the drop and finally allowed herself to weep. Her back shook up and down with the force of her sobs as she let herself feel the worst of the pain. One image kept forming in her head, renewing her tears and her sobs each time. Triton’s genuine amusement. The easy smile. The brisk laugh that meant everything she had dreamed of was just a joke to him.
Over and over, behind her lids, she rose and said, “Me! You should take me.” Over and over his beautiful face split in a smile. Over and over that “Ha!” crashed against her eardrums and dashed her dreams to pieces. She had been a fool to think one flirty smile could change everything. Of course he hadn’t meant anything by it. He was charming. He was raised to be. He was polite. That was all he had been doing yesterday, living up to his upbringing. He didn’t remember her name. She was sure of it now.
The jeers of the mermaids were just unpleasant background noise in her head. Queen Amphitrite’s words stung, all the more so because there was truth in them. Yet again, her mother’s reputation marred Serena no matter how hard she tried to escape it. Moira was also the main reason why Serena was a maid, and thus so far below Triton’s station. Moira had wealth (though nothing like that of the bubbleheads, since half the time she asked for potion ingredients as payment instead of money), but she did not share it with her daughters, especially not with a daughter who did not follow in her fin strokes. Serena would not have cared—she didn’t want her mother’s ill-gotten money—but Moira’s reputation had followed her into the job market as well. Even merpeople who did not know about the darker deals made in Moira’s cave were hesitant to hire the daughter of a sea witch. All merfolk knew that sea witches’ powers were inh
erited, and sea witch magic was mistrusted. It was seen as dark, unsavory, an evil opposite to the magic of the Trident. No one ever really outgrew that childish tendency to mistrust things they did not understand, things that were different, like merpeople with inherent magical power.
But it wasn’t Queen Amphitrite’s words or her cruel sneer that caused Serena the most pain; she had heard such things before, though not from someone so loved and respected as the queen. What hurt the most was that laugh and all it represented.
She was weeping too loudly to hear the movement in the water. It was a slow, steady sound. A pumping of strong limbs with a few seconds pause between each pump.
“Pardon my intrusion,” said a smooth, deep voice that made Serena suck in a startled gasp that choked off her sobs, “but I could not help but notice your distress.”
The speaker was a giant octopus, one of the largest Serena had ever seen. When he pumped his tentacles as one behind him in a fluid motion to propel himself closer to her, he was as long as a merman. When he stopped in front of her and splayed out his tentacles, he looked massive and a little bit frightening. Serena’s unease showed on her face.
“Please don’t be afraid, miss,” said the octopus. He spoke slowly, taking his time on each word. His voice was calm and dignified. He spoke like royalty. “I heard you crying, and it was such a heartbreaking sound that I had to see if I could offer any help. My name is Casius. What’s yours?”
Serena stared as Casius for a moment, trying to let the shaky little hiccups brought on by such heavy crying pass before she responded. He was a bright orange-red color, rather beautiful. His body was covered in textured folds of skin. Serena knew these folds would help him blend in to textured surfaces, like rocks or coral, when he camouflaged himself. She had a strange urge to run her hand along his oblong head to see what the wrinkles felt like.