“I’m hardly a wise man, but you can’t expect me to be fool enough to believe that.” As he spoke, a particularly rough wave hit the boat, and they all tumbled forward. Before Arianna could right herself, however, she was lifted into the air by strong arms. Blessed, warm water enveloped her as those arms dumped her over the boat’s side. For the first time in her life, Arianna swam straight down as fast as her fins could push her. She was nearly ten fathoms deep by the time she realized a familiar song was echoing above her.
Shouts rang out from the boat, and Arianna turned and pushed herself back toward the surface. She knew something was most definitely wrong. Other Protectors should have heard and joined him by then. No merperson was supposed to fight alone. The song her brother was using was his fiercest, and even her ears slightly burned as he pushed it out. Bodies spilled out of the boat and kicked about at the surface, trying to flee the song. The red-coated man did not fall into the water, however. As Arianna looked around to find help, she realized that there were simply too many pirates. Every Protector had risen to the surface, and every one of them was involved in the fight of his or her life.
Another explosion went off above the surface and, finally, a twelfth body appeared in the water. As Arianna began to rejoice, however, she realized that this body didn’t wear a red coat.
No speed was fast enough as she darted the rest of the way up. When she finally reached the surface, there was no sign of the little boat anywhere. Just debris and flaming ships everywhere. Tongues of fire danced on the water as pieces of the broken ship floated about and the smaller boats began rowing to shore. But Arianna’s only thought was for her brother.
Rinaldo’s eyes were closed as he bobbed up and down with the waves. He opened them, though, when Arianna gathered him up in her arms. Hot tears mixed with sea water as they rolled down her face, and hatred for her silence surged as she looked at the wounds on his chest, arms, and face that she should have been able to heal with her voice.
How had this happened? Her brother had one of the strongest voices in their guard. How did a mere pirate best him? And why were there so many? Where was the Sun Crown’s navy? She tightened her grip on her brother as she prepared to pull him down to their Healers, but he shook his head. Confused, she allowed the water to push them back up to the top.
“Tell Father—” Violent coughing choked his words off, and Arianna waited in agony until his fit was over. “Have Father ask the Sun Crown—” More coughing wracked his body, and Arianna held on as tightly as she dared. When he was finally done, his breaths were shallow and his eyelids seemed heavy, but he lifted one shaking hand to touch her cheek.
A sudden boom in the distance made Arianna look up.
“Took them long enough,” Rinaldo wheezed.
She frowned at him in confusion.
“The Sun Crown has deigned to send his navy to assist us.”
Arianna looked back up to see if any ships were close enough to hail for help, but a flash of red caught her eye instead. Less than ten fathoms away floated a beaten but buoyant boat. In it was the pirate with the red coat. And he was rowing right for her.
“He’s coming for you,” Rinaldo said, coughing again. Arianna prayed that the red on his lip wasn’t what it appeared to be.
“You might as well remain, child,” the pirate called out in a silky voice. “Can’t leave him to die alone, now, can you?”
“Arianna.” Rinaldo pulled her face back down to look into his. “The Maker has made you strong. Don’t ever forget that. And don’t let anyone else forget it, either.”
She glared at him. Why was he making this speech sound so final?
“And do you know what a strong girl knows how to do?” He smiled at her scowl. “She knows when to let go. You need to let me go, Ari.”
Arianna shook her head so hard it hurt, but he just gave her a sad smile.
“Let me go.”
Why? She mouthed.
Instead of answering, he yanked the charm off his neck. As soon as the string had snapped, his two legs shimmered back into his blue-green tail. In one swoop, he pushed her down into the water with his right arm before using his tail to launch himself at the pirate in the boat. Arianna watched in horror as the boat splintered from the strength of his impact. A fight ensued, but Arianna couldn’t tell who was who. She could only hope and pray.
Finally, the tussle subsided. The body in the red coat floated on the surface. The one with the tail cascaded slowly down.
6
Dangerous Mourning
“Thank the Maker it’s cloudy today,” Renata muttered as she packed up a little bag of objects for the mourning ceremony. She darted to the door before pausing and turning back to Arianna, almost as if she’d forgotten her niece was there. “Your father says you may sit with the family for as long as you can remain,” she said gently. “I’ll be helping your mother finalize the funeral details. You can come, though, whenever you want.”
But Arianna couldn’t return the smile as her aunt swam away. She knew Renata only meant kindness. She must have begged and pleaded for such an allowance from Arianna’s father, particularly with the humans coming down to join them. But what joy could be derived from such a victory? Was she expected to rejoice that she might attend her brother’s funeral as part of the family?
But she couldn’t be upset with Renata, she reminded herself. None of this was Renata’s fault. In fact, Renata was the reason the humans were coming at all.
Undesirous of company, Arianna slowly finished donning her mourning attire alone. She had put on her black camicett and black pearl earrings already, and her hair was as tightly pulled back as ever. Today, however, she was allowed to adorn it with the obsidian pins her aunt had loaned her for the awful occasion.
By the time Arianna was finished with her personal preparations, there was still too much time left before the service started to do anything but sit and stare at the giant coral box that held him. So she set off to watch the humans descend instead.
The irony that the humans were using charms to attend the merprince’s funeral just three days after the ball was not lost on Arianna. But now she wished with all her heart that they weren’t coming, that her aunt had not won the argument with her father to invite them.
For once, the confrontation had been one Arianna had not meant to listen in on. Rather, she had been waiting to see if her mother might join her for some time in her tower. But as she waited up on the roof of her parents’ tower, she had immediately realized her mistake, and would have swum away if she hadn’t been so frightened of being noticed. For it was not her mother’s voice she’d heard inside the tower, but her aunt’s.
“They’re asking for charms,” Renata had said quietly. “Your steward reports that they’ve requested again and again to offer their condolences.”
“They only wish to ease their singed consciences,” Amadeo had snapped. “They know it was their fault the pirates were so bold to begin with.”
“So what if it’s so? Perhaps this might buy us time! Perhaps their guilt will provide us some provincial peace . . . even if just for now!”
“You would pardon them!”
“You forget that if anyone has a right to be angry with the humans’ negligence, it’s me, brother! First Angelo. And now my nephew has been stolen from me!” Then she had paused. “But it is tradition to honor such requests. You know it is. Perhaps this can stave off war. At least for a little.”
There had been a long silence, so long that Arianna had wondered if her father was too angry to speak. But when he finally did speak, the longing in his voice surprised Arianna.
“You’ve changed much in the last fifteen years.”
“Not changed,” her aunt had replied in a taut voice. “Just wiser.”
Now, Arianna placed herself in one of the shallow alcoves where she could watch the humans begin their descent, thanks to her aunt’s efforts. The spot was one of her favorites, a little cavern carved out of one of the sea cliffs by the constant pounding
of the waves. During high tide it was covered. But during low tides, Arianna could sit and watch the human shore while she fingered her little conch necklace.
This particular line of shore was usually rather quiet, but today it crawled with humans. If she hadn’t been mourning the loss of her greatest friend and companion, Arianna would have smiled at how ridiculous the humans looked as they tried to board the dolphin sleighs. It was as though they’d forgotten they were wearing the merpeople’s charms at all. Hadn’t they seen her own people parading about with charms in their own world a few days before?
But she couldn’t smile today, not even at irony. Since she was a small child, and he would sneak up to see her and bring her treats, Arianna had longed to tell her brother how much he meant to her. With her own voice, wherever it was. Someday, she’d promised herself from a young age, she would utter the words herself. She would make him proud.
But now she never would. And to make her pain worse, her chest physically ached with the song of mourning that needed so much to burst forth.
“I want to ride with Uncle Michael!”
Arianna turned when she heard the familiar voice from the other side of the beach, then slid into the water to swim closer for a better look. When she surfaced behind an outcropping of rocks, little Claire was clinging to Prince Michael’s leg and jutting her bottom lip out pathetically. Baby Lucy was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.” A young woman pursed her lips and looked at the man beside her.
“No need to worry,” Prince Michael said, hoisting Claire up onto his shoulders. “We’ll keep our sleigh right next to yours. Rinaldo told me that the merpeople drivers are very accommodating.”
Arianna couldn’t help the sad smile that came to her face as she watched the prince’s face fall while he spoke these words, and she wondered how close he and her brother had actually been. Rinaldo had been to shore several times that Arianna could remember, and several times before even that, as he was five years her senior. But now she would never know.
“You put a lot of trust in these merpeople,” the woman said, eyeing their waiting driver as though he couldn’t hear them.
“I trusted Rinaldo.”
In that moment, Arianna wanted to kiss the prince.
“Very well, then. But hold onto Claire tightly! None of this shoulder business. And Claire, hold onto the sleigh’s railing with one hand and your uncle with the other. And don’t you dare take that charm off to play with it!” She turned again to the man beside her. “We should have just left her at home with Lucy.”
The sleighs began to make their slow descent into the waves, and Arianna decided to swim alongside the prince’s chariot, just far enough away to stay hidden behind the coral beds. She could hear several shrieks as the humans first dipped their heads below the water, and she decided that the humans would benefit from venturing into the sea more often.
The shrieking soon stopped, however, as the sleigh drivers hummed their gentle songs to the dolphins, and the dolphins, two per sleigh, cut smoothly through the water. The human panic was soon replaced by squeals of delight. The clear blue of the water, the great varieties and colors of flora that blanketed the shallow seafloor, even the low, constant choruses of Arianna’s people were praised. Despite her sorrow, Arianna couldn’t help feeling just a bit proud. Rinaldo would have been proud.
Prince Michael pointed everything out to his niece as they went, and the woman watched them throughout it all with a furrowed brow. But Prince Michael didn’t seem offended in the least bit.
“See that, Claire? That’s called an urchin. See how pointy its spikes are? And that there is called a—” His lesson broke off, however, as a great shadow blocked the weak light that filtered through the water.
Arianna frowned up at the shadow. The day should have held only thin cloud cover. Her father’s trackers had sworn there wouldn’t be a storm for several days. As she wondered what else the shadow might be, however, a distant flash and explosion from above told Arianna that there was indeed a storm.
“Claire!”
Prince Michael’s voice snapped Arianna’s attention back to the humans.
He was staring in horror at his niece. “Claire! Talk to me! Claire, what’s wrong?”
Claire didn’t answer, but it was clear that she was panicking. Her eyes were wild, and she began to thrash as though trying to escape his arms.
“Maura!” Prince Michael yelled over to the other sleigh. “I don’t think Claire can—” His own words were cut off as he, too, began to choke. Arianna looked frantically all around her at the other humans in the sleighs, and the sounds of fizzling, dying charms filled the water. The charms that should have lasted another four hours were losing their songs, fast.
Arianna was at their sleigh in seconds. She grabbed Claire in one arm and Michael in the other. But he pushed her outstretched arm away. She tried to gesture that she was going to take him to the surface. She was trying to save him! Why was he fighting her? She reached down and grabbed his arm again. Only when he pushed her hand off and thrust it at Claire, though, did Arianna realize what he was trying to say. For a split second, she stared into his hazel eyes as he continued to choke. But the smaller weight in her arms reminded her of what she had to do.
Their descent had seemed so gradual, and yet the party must have come farther faster than she’d thought. The trip to the surface was agonizing. Claire didn’t make it easy, either. She continued to thrash and kick as Arianna dragged them upward.
Hold on! Arianna thought at her. Almost there!
They broke the surface only to be tossed hard by a gigantic wave. Arianna had to fight to keep them from being dashed on the very rocks she’d hoped to take shelter on. The child’s clear scream was more beautiful to her ears than any merperson’s voice had ever been, however, for it meant that she could breathe. Claire was alive.
But they weren’t out of danger yet. It took Arianna a good twenty seconds more to push her way through the storm to the other, more sheltered side of the rocks where the surf and stone met sand.
After laying the little girl down on the sand, Arianna motioned for her to stay put before diving back down again.
Please make this stop! she prayed to the Maker. If you care for us, then you can make this stop!
But the storm did not stop, and Arianna gasped in dismay as she reached the place that the sleigh had been. Humans everywhere were trying to swim upward, many clutching their charms. But where were the Protectors? Arianna looked around for Michael or the guards, but none were to be found. It was hard to see without the day’s light to pierce the violent waves, waves that could be felt even as far below the surface as she was. And the water had grown so cold it made her shiver.
Just as she was about to despair, she caught sight of the prince trying to swim up just a few dozen yards away. She streaked across the gap and grabbed him beneath his shoulders, propelling them up as fast as she could go.
He was heavier than she’d expected, however, and the turbulence of the storm above made her journey even more difficult than the first. She wanted to glance down at him to make sure he was still conscious, but when she attempted such a feat, she nearly lost her grip as they were slammed into the more shallow sand by a crashing wave.
Eventually they reached the surface, but when they did, there was little to rejoice about. Each time she thought she saw the rocks where she’d left Claire, another wall of water smashed into them. Prince Michael choked again and again, and Arianna’s arm strength was quickly fading.
Don’t you care? she cried silently to the heavens.
There was no miracle in response. No voice from above or helping hand from below. But eventually, after drifting for several minutes as she attempted to keep the prince from swallowing more seawater, Arianna did finally spy the spot of beach she’d left Claire on.
With her tail so stiff it hurt and her back and arms feeling as though they might fall off, she pushed the prince up onto
the sand beside his niece, who immediately threw herself upon him. The little girl was soaked and crying, but Arianna was simply grateful that the child was exactly where she’d left her.
Michael, however, was not as fortunate, it seemed. Arianna’s stomach twisted as a few drops of blood dripped down his face and onto the sand beneath him. Had he hit his head before she’d pulled him out?
Just as she leaned forward to examine the cut more closely, a wave engulfed all three of them, nearly dragging them all back to sea. She needed to get them further inland.
Without thinking twice, for the first time in her life Arianna pulled her tail out of the water. Not even the tip was touching. She meant to push herself up the beach a few feet before reaching back to drag the prince behind her. But as she tried to push herself forward, her fins prickled with the oddest sensation, which turned quickly into searing hot pain. It was all she could do to not collapse on the sand and let the pain whisk her into unconsciousness.
Trembling with the effort, Arianna forced herself to look back, and when she did, she couldn’t help the silent shriek that escaped her. Instead of her blue-green fins, she found two gangly legs sticking out behind her. The only thought that drowned out her shock was a distracted relief that her mourning camicett was long enough to cover her new strange limbs nearly down to her knees.
A strangled cough from Prince Michael, however, brought Arianna out of her trance. Legs or no legs, she needed to get him to higher ground.
Her new legs proved to be far less able than they had been when brought on by Rinaldo’s charm. Those legs had been strong and quick, easily following Arianna’s every whim. These legs were clumsy, however, and far from helpful. Pulling her own body up the beach was nearly as hard as dragging Prince Michael.
Only when they were hidden behind a little grove of palm trees did Arianna stop. As she arranged him into a more comfortable position, Claire, who had been trying to help pull him up the shore, surprised Arianna by clambering into and huddling in Arianna’s lap. And as the little girl clung to her arm, Arianna realized she didn’t mind at all.
Silent Mermaid: A Retelling of The Little Mermaid (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Book 5) Page 4
