My moment of contemplative reverie was interrupted by a pair of luminous azure eyes blinking my way from the cell opposite mine. Their limited light allowance set an eerie glow over the wide smile that curled beneath. “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
I had no right to be leery of the mysterious entity. He was a captive there, same as me. Even so, something about that creepy mer set my skin on edge. “Yes, thank you for that,” I replied in lieu of a dismissal.
Alastor paused for a brief glance over his shoulder. “Keep him talking, the light helps.”
“Keep him talking?” I repeated in a hushed whisper meant for his ears alone. “Before you got here he was blathering on about ravens, writing desks, and something called a Jabberwocky. I think he’s crazy.”
Across the aisle that smile grew wider still, its stretch bordering on impossible. “I’m not crazy. My reality is just … different from yours.”
“I don’t care if he’s drumming the Atlantica Pride anthem on this tailfin,” Alastor strained against the persistent lock, “he’s helping our cause.”
From above came the clap of armor, its drum growing steadily louder. The sound awoke The Screecher, who trumpeted their impending arrival with his/her high-pitched screams.
Reaching through the bars, my hand caught Alastor’s and squeezed hard enough for my fingernails to slice my message into his flesh. “This cause is a lost one now. Go! Poseidon will show no mercy if he finds you here!”
“You have magic!” Alastor argued, not budging in the least. “Use it to throw open these doors and come with me!”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried that?” My nervous gaze flicked from Alastor to the ramp leading to the castle’s higher ground—now illuminated with an eerie blue glow, thanks to our looney audience. “Something down here blocks my magic. I can’t get out and, more than that, I cannot watch another person I care about condemned to this hole because of me. If you care for me one iota, do not ask me endure that anguish again! Go! Hide!”
With defeat slicing deep valleys between his brows, Alastor dropped his arms to his sides. Even in that faint light, he met my gaze with a conviction that made my heart ache. “I will hide, but I will never leave you. Whatever happens, we go through it together.”
“Together,” I agreed knowing it was one promise I could never keep. Before he could kick off, my hand shot out to seize his arm. “Alastor, wait! What of my father? How does he fare?”
Leaning in, he breathed the words against my cheek. “He lives. You are many things, Vanessa, but a murderer is not among them.”
I wanted to hug him. To sing praises to Mother Ocean. To close my eyes and be bathed in the miracle of that news. Instead, I ground my teeth and jerked my head in the opposite direction of the incoming ruckus. “Go! Hurry!” I demanded.
Alastor pried himself away, swimming farther into the catacombs of the prison. The moment he disappeared from sight, my head fell against the bars. For an instant, I let bloom the flourish of relief.
You know what squashes a short-lived reprieve in no time flat? A troop of eight soldiers lined up in front of my cell in perfect military precision, their faces devoid of emotion. Hands behind their backs, they dared not look my way, but fixated on the wall behind me.
All except one. Doralious swam point of the crew, any kindness he once showed me replaced by icy indifference. “Princess Vanessa of Atlantica, your trial at The Pit is at hand. Come with us without incident, or we have full authority to beach you,” he stated, tensed jawline twitching. “Will you comply?”
His frostiness stabbed icicles into my already battered heart. Pushing back from the bars, I crossed my wrists in front of me and offered them up for the clamp of the cuffs. “Doralious, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. You have to know that.”
Slamming open the cell door, he secured the cuffs with more force than was necessary. “Save your excuses for The Pit. You harmed the king, and I am merely here to take out the trash.”
A nod to his men and I was hooked by the elbows and dragged toward the spiraling ramp. My tail slapping against the stone, I craned my neck to stare back at the darkness which consumed Alastor. With him on my side and my father’s life spared, it seemed fate granted me an ounce of mercy. Mother Ocean was smiling on me. That bolstered my confidence for my trial ahead. After all, I was still the beloved Princess of Atlantica. Really, what was the worst that could happen?
The Pit. As the name suggests it was not a place built on sunshine and kisses. Positioned on three sides was coliseum-style seating carved into rock walls. The fourth side of the makeshift arena was a trench so deep it seemed to venture straight to the Earth’s core. There were tales of what lay at the bottom of The Pit’s chasm. Some said gnarly sea beasts patrolled those waters, grappling over every hardened criminal who was bound and cast to the depths. Others claimed is was a tribe of cannibalistic mer that camped at the bottom. Either way, it was a mystery I had no desire to solve.
Hands shackled and shoved forward by guards, I quickly learned that urban legends weren’t required to make The Pit scary. Clamping my lips to stifle a scream, I gaped down at the pitch black abyss beside me. My head spun in a dizzying case of vertigo. In a normal situation, such a trench would be no real threat to a mer. A few flips of the tail and—voila—freedom! In the scheme of things, what kind of punishment would that be? Much like a beaching, being cast into The Pit was a death sentence. In both cases the convicted mer’s hands were bound, their tail weighed by a rock. In a beaching, it prevented them from lurching and rolling their way back into the water. Death in The Pit was a longer, more brutal punishment. As with all fish, water had to move over our gills for us to breath. Pinned in one spot, the criminal would be able to breathe … for a time. Then, the water would still. No current able to dip that deep. The mer would be surrounded by water, yet unable to claim a breath. If there was a more cruel way to die, I couldn’t imagine it.
Poked and prodded to the center of the arena, judgmental stares from Council members and the upper crust of Atlantica glared down at me. Every seat was occupied, the arena filled to capacity by the crowd’s morbid curiosity. The moment I swam into view, they erupted in a deafening chorus of sneers and boos.
“You don’t seem to have many supporters here, Princess,” Doralious scoffed, his cheek muscle contracting in another involuntary spasm. Slamming the heel of his palm into my shoulder blade, he propelled me forward. “Maybe instead of being our next queen, as I once thought, you’ll be the first royal tossed into The Pit.”
The soldiers flanking him tittered at his pitiless jab.
Pulling my shoulders back, I tipped my chin in their direction. “If not, you boys are being unnecessarily rough and unforgiving to either the future queen or Royal Alchemist. Both are positions that can order your beaching. But by all means, shove me again.”
“Princess Vanessa of Atlantica!” a shrill voice interrupted with a boom that reverberated through the arena and down The Pit’s trench. “You have been brought here for crimes against the crown. The king is unable to proceed over your trial; therefore, he has appointed me to act in his stead.”
Sagging in defeat, my upper lip curled into a cringe. I knew that voice … but it didn’t stop me from praying to Mother Ocean that I was wrong. Let it be a trick of the senses due to the roaring crowd and cavernous space. Let anyone but him be positioned on that platform to decide my fate. Heck, at this point I would have opted for Lebo the simple-minded stable hand over … Neleus.
Chest puffed with borrowed authority, he hitched the brow over his vacant, cloudy eye. The gesture pulled his scar taut, momentarily straightening its jagged line. “I do believe it is customary for the accused to bow before their magistrate.”
“You heard him! Bow for your sentencing!” Clapping his hand on my shoulder, Doralious shoved me down with enough force to send me tumbling.
Unable to get my bound hands under me, my face mashed into the groun
d. Granules of sand ground between my teeth and burned their way up my nostrils. Tail curled under me, I pushed myself up to what humans would consider a kneeling position. Hacking and spitting to clear my airway, my disheveled hair curtained half of my face as I turned to glower at the vindictive Chief Master.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Uneasy glances were exchanged between the Council members that had come to know me. Those onlookers that had been shaking their fists and shouting for justice settled into their seats and shifted uncomfortably. Whatever I had done, I was the king’s daughter and they were all witnessing my public shaming at the hands of a merman without kingly authority. It seemed Neleus didn’t have quite the support he was hoping for on this endeavor.
Flicking my hair from my eyes, I raised my chin and let the crowd see my grime covered face and nest of hair in complete disarray from a night of sleeping on the floor. Amphrite lingered at Neleus’s elbow. Catching her gaze, I held it with an unrelenting intensity. She took her care and doting on my father into consideration when she chose that day’s glamour. Her shells, tail, and hair were a brilliantly shimmering white, her eyes an ethereal blue. Appearing a true angel of the sea, she offered me a sympathetic frown. Father’s condition must have stabilized, elsewise any empathy she had for me would have expired.
“People of Atlantica,” Neleus began, swimming along the perimeter of the first tier seating, “it is with a heavy heart that I state before you the crimes of our troubled princess.”
My own nature made me want to throw my head back in a wry huff of laughter and roll my eyes skyward that he would dare refer to me in such a way. The need for the crowd to stay swayed to my side forced me to curb that desire. Biting my lip, I dropped my chin to my chest and cloaked myself in a finely braided blanket of melancholy.
“She plotted to lure our king into harm’s way,” he continued, his claims building in zest and vigor with each word, “convinced the Council through clever wordplay to seek peace with the humans—”
Pausing, he glanced to the crowd, anticipating a rash of boos and hisses. Silence was the only response. Nervous stares of the once eager participants now lingered on the door, as if anticipating Poseidon’s arrival and wrath.
Adjusting his posture, Neleus folded his hands in front of him and ventured on. “Driven by her own thirst for the throne, she plotted to send our benevolent king out of the sea where his life was nearly stolen from us!”
Something small, with a sharp bite, struck my shoulder, followed by another and another. Squelching a yelp, I bowed my head and hid beneath the canopy of my own shackled arms. Risking a peek out, I saw the members of the Royal Guard that lined the arena pelting me with rocks, shells, and any other shrapnel they could find.
“Enough of that! We are not heathens!” Neleus bellowed. Fighting to conceal his amusement, his crinkling eyes contradicted his tone. “Princess Vanessa, treasured daughter of Poseidon, how do you plead?”
Heaving me upright, the skin of my upper arm was pinched between Doralious’s merciless fingers hard enough to bloom in a rash of purple.
Swallowing hard, I met Neleus’s icy stare and spoke the truth of my heart. “I never meant my father any harm. I love and admire him, more than you know. When I voiced my suggestion to the Council, I thought I was speaking in the best interest of Atlantica. I know now, after this heartbreaking catastrophe, that my words came out of turn. I beg you, people of Atlantica, Council, Queen,” my chin dipped in a nod of acknowledgment to each that were present, “and most of all my father, to understand that I held no malicious intent and bear unimaginable guilt for what transpired.”
Raising one hand to his jawline, Neleus ran his thumb over the edge of his scar. “Vanessa is the first born Princess of Atlantica. That said, others may view her acts as treasonous. To let them go unpunished would be a display of weakness we cannot allow in this time of war.”
Movement, in an otherwise still throng, snapped my head to the entrance I’d been dragged through only moments ago. Alastor filled the doorway: shoulders raised, hands balled into tight fists at his sides. His gills opened and shut with each agitated huff. Loriana hovered behind him, apprehension over her son’s brewing fury deepening the lines on her face.
“Princess Vanessa spoke out of turn on a pivotal matter that almost cost Atlantica our King,” Neleus stated.
The moment of verdict at hand, a hush fell over the vast arena.
“Her penance shall be paid with a period of silence.” He continued with an arrogant nonchalance, “Since the princess cannot hold her tongue, Amphrite … bring it to me.”
An aghast buzz rippled through the arena. Even those against me were stunned into a slack-jawed silence.
Judging by Neleus’s smug sneer, the sound must have filtered to his ears as a thunderous applause.
The fight drained from my body, my vision tunneling in fear. The crowd turned on itself. Some demanded my release, others shouted that the punishment was too lax. Alastor bolted in my direction, raging like a typhoon. Loriana caught his arm, begging him to be still. Vehemently, my head whipped side to side warning him not to risk another stroke in my direction. If he tried to intercede, he would be beached. That I could not allow.
Doralious and his cohorts surrounded me. Unfastening my shackles, they spread my arms out in a wide arc that made my shoulders ache.
“Doralious, please, we were friends once. You can stop this,” I pleaded, salting the ocean with my tears.
“That was before I knew you to be the lowest form of bottom-feeder … a traitor,” he sneered, stepping back as the queen neared. “Consider this our gift to Atlantica.”
My magic returned with an electrified jolt the second those binding cuffs fell away. I could have fought on my own behalf, but there was no helping me. The clang of fear ringing in my ears, I flexed my mystical essence and cast it out to one it could benefit—my beloved handmaiden.
Thinking the words, I planted them in Loriana’s mind. “Get him out of here. Don’t let him see this.”
I accompanied my order with a delicate touch of magic, one that granted her a physical strength which trumped her son’s tenfold. With a sorrowful nod of thanks and understanding, she seized Alastor from behind. Her arms hooked under his pits and clamped onto his shoulders. As Alastor kicked and flailed, she easily forced him and his furious resistance from the arena.
A bittersweet sigh of triumph passing over my gills, I turned my attention to the churning cloud of purple that marked Amphrite’s arrival. Considering the last words exchanged between us had been volatile ones, I expected she would relish in this task. Much to my surprise, I found her jaw set tight and her nostrils flared in revulsion. I wanted to be brave, to be the warrior she attempted to mold me into for three years. Instead, to my extreme disappointment, I found myself blinking back tears.
“Leave us!” Amphrite snapped at the soldiers in a tone which left no room for debate.
As if summoned by the potent brew of my fear, my mother materialized behind her. On a normal day, her ghastly manifestation terrified me. In that moment, I sought her gaze. There, in the haunted hollows of her eyes, burned a maternal passion to protect me. Clamping my lids shut, one rogue tear slipped free and was swallowed by the sea.
“Stop it,” Amphrite hissed with a haughty flip of her cascading locks.
Mother’s head slowly turned in Amphrite’s direction, revealing a festering cavity in her neck where writhing sea bugs feasted on the decomposing flesh. Her long-stilled gills began to expand and contract. Each superficial inhale swelled her size, her wrath amplifying her to a towering beast of ire only I bore witness to.
Glancing one way, then the other to ensure the soldiers were out of ear shot, Amphrite’s face softened. “Do not let them see you cry. This is a temporary punishment performed through magical means that has no purpose other than to degrade you. Don’t give them the satisfaction of stealing your dignity. Rest assured your ability to speak will be restored soon enough, there is no nee
d to mourn that. For now, you need to look Chief Master Neleus in the eye and do not look away. Make him cast his stare elsewhere if he can’t take the gruesomeness of his barbaric sentencing.”
Understanding washing over her, Mother deflated like a pacified Pufferfish. Bobbing her head in grief-stricken agreement, she vanished without further spectacle.
That was it.
Unless I could find a way to go back in time and take Alastor up on his suggestion to bolt from the kingdom and live out our days as recluses, there was no way out. I thought myself treasured by the merfolk of Atlantica, yet I had sent away the only one who even tried to come to my aid.
“If you want to use your magic to take the pain away, I will—”
“No,” I interrupted. Shards of my shattered heart were sawing me in half from the inside out. More than anything, I needed an outlet for that anguish. “I need to feel … something.”
Equal parts regret and compassion played across Amphrite’s features.
Shutting my eyes, I took a cleansing breath to brace myself. Then, with a jerk of my head to let Amphrite know I was ready, I stared up at Neleus with icy detachment … and offered her my tongue.
Violet tendrils poked into the tip of my tongue, holding the wriggling muscle taut. Yet another wisp traced over the meatiest part. Tissue popped. Scorching pain sliced through the tender flesh. Coppery warmth flooded my mouth and down my throat, choking me. Swaying … wavering, I flexed my resolve to its limits by steeling my spine against the dizzying spots that danced before me. Ruby droplets dripped from my chin, melding into a crimson halo in the water around me. Atlantica’s Chief Master averted his eyes.
Chapter Ten
T he precession of a princess. Regal pageantry traded for shackles. Showers of lovingly tossed sea flowers substituted for flying stones and insults. The stones stung less.
Blood seeped through my teeth, staining them pink before dribbling down to coat my chin with gore. My puffy eyes were a sliver away from being swollen shut. The pain in my mouth—that dull, pulsating ache—was a constant presence. Still, in that moment, I felt none of it. The agony of it all left me a numb, emotionless lump floating at the insistence of the soldiers escorting me.
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