Page 44 of Twisted Royals

known any different, you were barely hatched.”

“Are you saying…”

“The Earth Dwellers got her.”

Anxiety brewed in the pit of my belly. “Are you saying they… they did something to her?”

Nurse met my gaze without flinching. “No one knows. She never spoke of it. But what I can tell you is that she became obsessed with them.”

“Obsessed,” I repeated, trying out the new word on my tongue.

“She swam to the surface every day after that. It was terrible for your father, poor thing.” She clucked her tongue again, partly in sympathy, partly in rebuke of a merwoman long gone. “So you see how he would feel seeing you so taken with the very people who he blames for your mother’s death.”

My mind whirled at this new information. “But… they let her go! They were kind!”

“She withered away to nothing, child, wanting a life that could never be hers. Think on that for a while.”

Think I did. There had always been a lot of murmuring where my mother was concerned, but it was never anything more because no one would dare say it within her hearing and risk angering the Sea King.

Is it true? Did my mother want to know the Earth Dwellers as I do? Was it a longing she couldn’t shake? I did think about it as Nurse had instructed. I thought of little else. But in the end, it changed nothing. Death didn’t scare me–living without ever experiencing what I felt I existed for in the first place did.

I was sleeping on the third night and dreaming as I usually did, of all the sights my sisters had told me of, trying to imagine flying fish and a thing called a tree, when my nurse shook me awake.

In my sleep, I forgot to be angry with her, and I smiled. “What is it?”

“You are ten years old,” she whispered fiercely.

Not used to hearing such a tone from her, I sat straight up, eyes wide.

“You are much too young for the things you think you must have. Your grandmother, wise as she was, has set the age of journeying to the surface to fifteen. But as I cannot let you wither away to nothing, and I cannot explain to your father, the sea king, why you are behaving so…”

“We… we are going?” I squeaked, knowing how childishly eager I sounded and not caring.

“He would have you punished, princess or no,” she hissed, still furious at being manipulated.

I knew she had every right to be, and truthfully, I loved her more than any other I’d ever known, so I only nodded, the very picture of submission. “Yes, Nurse.”

“Well, since you simply must have your way…” She gestured to the left, where we would leave.

I’d never shot out of my slumber so quickly. We swam without speaking, past the beautiful palace I called home. I did not look back to admire the coral reef roof—I was too focused on where I was going to distract myself with a glimpse of what I was leaving behind.

In my childish ways, I’d assumed all fish slept when I did, so I was surprised by the stops we had to make for great schools to pass us. Normally, I took time to admire the beautiful, varied colors of the fish, but my mind was elsewhere.

I was vibrating with excitement. I wanted to speak to my dear, dear nurse who, I was old enough to know, was risking much. But every time I glanced at her, her stern, formidable countenance was so unfamiliar and shocking, I did not dare.

We passed all the things familiar to me and swam into wonders before unseen. The closer to the surface we swam, the more tightly wound my body became. Alelia, my oldest sister, had swam to the surface some five years ago, and though I had been a small thing at the time, her words came back to me: “The closer you get to the surface, the stranger the water becomes.”

Was that why my body felt all wound up and tingly?

I glanced at Nurse. Her black hair was held tightly in a huge ball on the back of her neck. When I’d been very small, she’d let me take it down and comb it with my fingers, burying myself in it and just marveling at its sleek, elegant beauty.

“Nurse?” I ventured tentatively.

“Princess?” she replied, and her voice was hard as shell.

I almost gave up, but then I recalled that I had found broken shells before. They could be weakened with just the right amount of pressure. “I… I want to thank you. And…” I swallowed hard. It wasn’t in my nature to apologize. Though I’d never say so aloud, I knew I’d been horribly spoiled as the baby of the family. “I am sorry. I realize now… I must have worried you.”

She stopped swimming and I was forced to stop along with her.

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