The sight shocked him out of his sorrow for a moment. Were they okay? Had they seen what happened? And then a terrible suspicion crept from his solar plexus to this throat with the cold burn of ice. Why had they not done anything? Their magic was just as powerful as his own. Why had they not saved her?
He tried to shake off the ugly thoughts, but he approached the reef as quietly as he could, forcing his eyes not to drift back to the body of his beloved wife. He stopped short when he got close enough to hear their voices.
“What do you mean you haven’t decided?” said Moira. “There is no more time. If you won’t make the decision, I will. Hand the little brat to me, Hazel; I’ll kill her myself.”
Triton’s blood ran cold, and a knot formed in his throat, cutting off his airway. They had Cordelia? Moira wanted to kill her? None of it made sense. His brain clicked futilely, trying to understand.
“Mother, you will do nothing until I say so,” said Serena, her voice the angry hiss that had become familiar to Triton the past few years.
“Oh please, Serena, don’t act all noble now. She’s as much trouble as her mother, so she must receive the same fate. We can put her in the net, make it look as though Athena found her and then died with her in her arms.”
Triton’s chilled blood warmed up and then came to a boil. Moira. The name was a snarl in his head. She was behind it all.
“It’s a good plan,” said Serena.
There was a sharp inhalation from Hazel, but she did not object.
Triton’s stomach flipped. It wasn’t just Moira. Oh, how he wanted it to just be Moira. How could she? His dear Serena as wicked as her mother?
“Of course it is,” said Moira with a scoff. Then her voice changed to that terribly sweet croon that Triton hated so much. “Have I ever steered you wrong, darling?”
A moment of silence.
“No, Mother.”
The rage took over again. How could she? How dare she? How could any of them? He extended the arm holding the Trident so that the prongs pointed towards the pirate ship. His arm bent slightly at the elbow as a lightning bolt blasted out of the tip. It struck the front of the ship just below the wooden woman carved into the prow and blew a massive hole in it. The three mermaids cried out at the sound.
“Your pirates will find a watery grave,” he said, his anger making his voice an almighty boom, “and for your treachery, you shall all receive a similar fate. Come out and face me like the nobility you have pretended to be these past seventeen years, unhand my daughter, and perhaps I will make your deaths quick.”
“Pretend?” said Serena, showing her face. There was such terrible fury upon it that he almost backed up when she came swimming straight at him. He could have sworn he heard her hair crackle as it stood on end. “You call what I have done as queen pretending? Did the people not cry out to me and call me beloved? Did not you yourself say Adamar had found the height of prosperity under my reign? I am nobility.”
Triton sputtered a moment before he said, “You are a murderer!”
“No, I am your wife. I am Adamar’s true queen. I gave you and this city everything I have—my love, my time, my body, my mind, my magic—and you both tossed me aside like broken fishing line as soon as she batted her eyes! How is that fair? If you can answer me that, I will gladly lay down my head on the chopping block and you can swing the sword yourself.”
“I did not toss you aside, devil woman!” said Triton. At her words, guilt had seeped into his heart like poisonous gas, but he did not want to feel it, and so he ground it out by stoking the fires of his rage. The Trident glowed like a hot iron. “Are you not still queen? Are you not still my wife? For a few more moments anyways.” He pointed the Trident at Hazel’s heart, and she shrank back. “Give me my daughter, witch!”
Hazel flung out her arm, clutching the basket in her hand, her eyes shut tight and her head averted as if expecting a blow. Triton snatched the basket and opened it. His sigh of relief momentarily softened his face.
“Am I still your wife, Triton?” said Serena, tears stinging her eyes. “When was the last time you gave me a sweet word or a soft touch? When did you last come to me when you were troubled? When did you last desire my company at all? I know precisely when. The last time you paid me any mind was the morning before you met her!”
“That’s not true!” said Triton, his voice like thunder. “You pushed me away, Serena!”
“No, I pushed her away, and you went with her. After all those years you just turned away. You didn’t love me anymore. I was nothing to you any longer. I could see it in your eyes! And yet, I went on loving you just the same. How do you think that felt, to see you toss everything we had aside for a skinny little tramp who only wanted your crown? She tricked you, Triton. She just wanted to use you. She didn’t understand you or care for you. She was going to take the throne from our children too, Triton. Our children!”
“Are you mad? Athena wanted nothing but my love and your friendship, and you refused to give it to her.”
“You’re blind! She was just like all those other useless mermaids you let dangle all over you when you were young.”
“What are you talking about?” said Triton, throwing up the arm holding the Trident in exasperation, momentarily forgetting to keep it pointed at the three sea witches and the octopus. The hand holding Cordelia’s basket stayed safely nestled at his side.
“She was just like your parents!”
“My parents?” His eyes were wide with incredulity.
“They all just wanted to use you. Those other mermaids just wanted your crown. Your mother treated you like her plaything, her little prince to dress up and coddle. Your father saw you as his ticket to immortality. They were vain and cruel, and they were teaching you to be the same. You would not be the king you are now without me. I did what was necessary.”
“YOU SLAUGHTERED HER! YOU WERE GOING TO KILL OUR CHILD!”
A roar burst from his chest and the Trident aimed at her heart, and for a moment, he meant to kill her, slaughter her as she had slaughtered Athena, but something held him back—an echo of a laugh from sweeter times, the faces of his children. Instead, he turned back to the pirate ship, which was sinking fast, only to find that much of the crew had piled into a row boat and were headed towards the island. He swiveled the Trident from Serena to the boat, and with an almighty war cry, he shot a bolt of golden energy that blasted the rowboat like a barrel of gunpowder. The pirates flew into the air, screaming and bleeding (those who were still in relatively one piece, at least). The water ran red once again.
“Yes, I did. I killed her,” said Serena, using her low, authoritative, queenly voice, though it shook with anger at the end. She seemed impervious to the destruction of the rowboat. “And I would do it again if it meant saving you. Don’t you see how I love you, Triton? Don’t you see that I want only the best for you? I would kill all of them a thousand times to protect you.”
“All of them? What do you mean, all of them?”
Serena’s mouth clamped shut with an audible snap. Her eyes flicked downwards, no longer boring into his.
“My God, Serena?” said Triton, backing away from her.
The sadness that crossed his face for a moment clawed at Serena’s heart. He would never have believed her capable of such evil, and yet, she had done it. What did that make her?
“Who else have you killed?”
She said nothing and bit her lip, and he could see the glossy shimmer of tears in her eyes. His face twisted in agony when realization dawned. He let out a sound like a wounded animal.
“My parents? You killed my parents?” He ran a hand down his face and through his beard, and a small sob escaped him. “The strange illness that only took them…yes, of course. One of your nasty little concoctions, I suppose?”
“Nasty little concoctions?” said Serena with a snarl.
&nb
sp; “Why didn’t I see it before?” he said.
“Hard to see through the inky waters of love,” said Moira with a cackle, amused by the whole exchange.
Serena sucked in a breath, and her lips became a hard line of warning as she looked at her mother. There was no way Triton would ever take her back if he knew he had not ever truly loved her. She was sure she could convince him that Athena’s death was necessary, that his parent’s deaths were necessary, but only if she could remind him that he had once loved her.
“I don’t know how I ever loved you,” he said, and the look of disgust on his face felt like a mortal wound to Serena.
“Don’t you?” said Moira, one eyebrow raised playfully.
“Mother,” Serena hissed through her teeth.
“I suppose you were too caught up chasing that new pretty tail to notice Serena’s new taste in jewelry.”
Triton blinked at Moira, confused, but then his eyes zipped to the place where the locket had rested for so long. He stared for a long moment, putting it all together: his sudden desire for her all those years ago, her refusal to take off the locket, and his sudden change of feelings towards her when he first kissed Athena. Fury found its way back onto his face, baring his teeth.
“My father was right! You did bewitch me! You killed him because he figured it out!”
“I killed him because he would not let us be together just because I was a maid, because he feared and envied my power!” said Serena, matching Triton’s outrage. “I was right for you, Triton. I still am. We belong together, and both your parents were going to keep us apart because of their own vanity and greed.”
He stared at her, took in the mad light in her eyes, the desperate shriek in her voice, and suddenly he felt extraordinarily weary.
“You’re insane,” he said softly, shaking his head.
Serena ground her teeth. “What did you just say?”
But Triton was no longer looking at her. Once again, he had eyes only for Athena. The deck of the ship was almost submerged now. Triton, though, was looking at the net attached to it.
“She broke your spell when my father and the Trident could not,” he said, a small smile on his face.
Hate slammed into Serena like a tidal wave. Her beautiful face transformed into an ugly snarl.
“And I broke her,” she hissed.
“And for that you will be punished,” said Triton through a clenched jaw. “All three of you…perhaps four. What role did you play in this, octopus?”
“So you have forgotten my name?” said Casius, his skin deep crimson.
“You there,” said Trion, pointing to a ray nearby on the reef, “Did you see the octopus take part in the queen’s death?”
The ray looked from the glaring eyes of Serena and Moira to the prongs of the Trident and came to rest on the Trident.
“Yes, my lord. He held her in place when the ship appeared. He got stuck in the net with her, but Queen Serena cut him free.”
“So the life of your pet is more important than hers?” said Triton.
“Pet?” said Casius.
“His life is worth hers ten times over,” spat Serena.
Triton’s lip curled in a cruel smile. “Perhaps since you love octopi more than your own kind, you should be one. And since all three of you are so much alike, it would be a shame to lose that family resemblance.”
“What do you—?”
The golden mist surrounded the three sea witches before Serena could finish. They cried out in unison as their bodies began to change. Their tails ballooned at the base and split at the fins, branching out in eight directions. The scales fell away and were replaced by rubbery skin. Their eight new limbs grew suckers on the undersides. At the crowns of their heads just along their hairlines, thin, black tentacles nearly as long as their hair sprouted up and wriggled like sea snakes, fanning out from their heads like strange crowns.
Moira’s scream was loudest of all. She stared down at her new tentacles with her eyes wide with horror and her mouth a perfect ‘o’ of terror.
“It’s hideous! My tail, beautiful tail! What have you done?” said Moira. Her hands went up to touch the thin tentacles at her hairline. One looped around her hand, and she screamed and yanked it free, knocking her crystal crown loose. She gasped and reached up to grab it, but one of the new tentacles on her head beat her to it and placed the crown gently back on her head just behind the line of tentacles.
“You shall live the rest of your lives as cecaelia: half human, half octopus, and mermaids no more,” said Triton. “Now you are as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside, and all merfolk will distrust you. You will find it much harder to destroy any more lives with your manipulative magic.”
“You will pay for this, Triton!” said Moira, her aquiline face predatory. “We will restore ourselves to our full glory, and then we will take back what is ours.”
“Moira,” said Triton with feigned pity and a click of his tongue, “you know the Trident’s magic cannot be reversed by any power save the Trident. In that way, it is even more powerful than your own magic.”
Moira shrieked with rage, her fingers bent into claws, and she began to chant a curse in ancient Atlantian, but after only a few words, she choked, put a hand to her throat, and slumped in the water.
“Easy, Mother. Be calm,” said Serena, but her own face was anything but calm as she stared down at her new body. She looked from it to Triton as she spoke, terrible hurt on her face. “Your power is drained. You will exhaust yourself.”
“Do you wish to finish what she started?” said Triton. He looked Serena in the eyes. His face was creased in anger, but his eyes were dull with sorrow.
Serena stared back at him. Her fists clenched at her side for a moment, and then she sighed and let them fall limp.
“I cannot harm you, Triton.”
“You already have, Serena.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered.
Triton pointed the Trident at Casius and a golden beam surrounded him. “You, Casius, shall no longer change the color of your skin. Hunting will not come easy, and you will have to rely on your beloved witches to sustain you. Pray you do not fall out of their favor, or you may end up like my beloved.”
Casius cast down his eyes, accepting his punishment in silence.
“All of you are hereby exiled from Adamar. The city will be closed off to you forever more.” He looked at Moira. “Your curses shall not penetrate it.”
He raised the Trident above his head, and there was a loud crack. Serena, Hazel, Moira, and Casius were all flung back from the reef as if smacked by the tail of a whale. Triton swam towards them and stopped a few feet away.
“Triton, what about my children?” said Serena. She swam towards him with her hands clasped together in a pleading gesture, panic in her eyes at the prospect of never seeing her daughters again. She collided with an invisible barrier that knocked her back. She gaped in wonder for a moment and then looked at Triton with true fear. “You must let me see them, Triton. Please.”
Triton shut his eyes and turned his head away. He sucked in a deep, shaky breath. When he looked at her again, she watched fury and sorrow war across his face.
“Do you see now what you have done, Serena? You’ve created a life that is a lie. You did not win my heart; you took it hostage. You created a false life for yourself. You left gravestones in your path to get it, but those were not your only victims. Don’t you see what this will do to our daughters, to know that their mother is a murderer, to know they can never see you again because of what you have done?”
“They know I love them. They will understand. Just let me explain to them.”
“You will do nothing of the sort!” said Triton.
“I may not be able to come to them, but they will come to me,” said Serena, matching his fury. “You cannot stop them! You cannot keep them
from me!”
Triton closed his eyes again and sighed.
“Yes, I can,” he said, his voice soft and sad. “I can spare them the pain and shame of knowing what you are. I can give them the mother they all deserve.” He looked once again at Athena’s body.
“You wouldn’t,” said Serena, her eyes wild.
“I can spare the kingdom too,” he said. “No one in Adamar will remember you as anything more than a sea witch. Athena has been their one and only queen these past seventeen years. The princesses are all her daughters.” Serena’s mouth dropped open. She tried to speak and could not. “Celine and Ariana will not remember you. They will not remember that they have powers, given to them by you. They will not remember your lessons. None of your daughters will know you. Every memory they have of you will now bear Athena’s face. Their mother died at the hands of pirates this very day, and they will mourn her well. The only soul in Adamar who will remember any of you is me, and that is only so that I can keep this city safe from all of you. If only I could pluck you from my memory, I would, Serena. Be gone from this place. I must recover the body of the only mermaid I ever truly loved, and I do not wish to feel your presence while I do it. I never wish to see your face again.”
The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) Page 20
