Page 17 of Sea's Secret

“Isn’t it too late to break the match?”

“No. It’s never too late. Look, I understand your feelings, but, perhaps, you should talk with him instead of laying here in bed, worrying about it? That would be the first and best action, I think. I know you, and that mind of yours is in a whirlpool of terrible, worst-case scenario thoughts, telling yourself that you are traitorous and awful, which is just not true. You are the most loyal mer in all of Marren, which is also annoying ‘cause I see how it hurts you.” He paused and looked at me kindly; then continued, “How long have you been here on your bed?”

“It is an important thing to worry over.”

“How long have you been here?”

“What time is it?”

“Two hours till sunset.”

“Five hours? That's not–”

“Nope, that is horrible, Meria!”

“Finn–” I whined.

“You need to get out of your room. Let's go for a swim,” Finn sang, tugging at the bottom of my tail.

“I don't feel up to it,” I said, twisting my tail out to push him away.

“I know, but once we are swimming, you will feel much better.”

“I don't want all the mer to congratulate me over and over again when I am not sure I should really be with Edmar.”

“You need to get out of your head, and listen to your soul,” Finn said, poking me in the side and pulling my kelp blanket off of me, exposing my teal tail. “Come on, Meria.”

I groaned, but I listened to him and swam from my bed.

“Fine, but only if we go somewhere outside of the city. I do not feel like wearing a covering. I want to swim fast.”

My father expressed to me time and time again that I could only swim without a covering on my tail if I did not allow anyone to see me, other than my family, of course. He did not want anyone to remember our traitor Queen, my mother—and seeing my tail would cause that to happen, it seemed.

“Completely do-able,” he said with a smile. “Come on!”

We swam around a coral reef to the east of the city. It was the smaller, less visited reef, but it was my favorite because it had swimmable caves and many sandy bottoms between the coral, which is where I found most of my shells. I watched the fish for a few minutes before Finn pulled me away into depths and through a tunnel I hadn't explored before. There was a small cave which had an entrance covered by a few seaweed plants.

“What is this?” I asked Finn as he pulled me into the small cavern.

“Okay, so last week, when I was on patrol, I found this cave, and you will never guess what’s inside of it,” he said with a smile, tugging me through the cave’s entrance. Finn was a watcher. A watcher was a member of a group of elite mer that were given special permission to roam the nearby Seas. They patrolled the seas above, often watching ships and making sure any human debris did not hurt us or expose our kind to non-mer, especially during storms. It was a difficult position to get, but with Finn, being cousin to the Princesses of Marren, he got the job easily after coming of age. He knew much about humans from his observations of them. He was sure they were no longer as corrupt as they once were.

I was unsure.

As we reached a larger, open part of the cavern, I noticed that the walls of the cave extended high up and reached out above the water. Finn swam to the bottom as I continued to stare up above.

“Look at this,” he said, motioning for me to go to the sandy bottom. I swam and reached him. In his hand, he held pieces of gold, golden flattened disks, and there was a face etched on each of them. I’d seen similar things before—human things that sank long ago.

“Wow–what are they?” I asked, taking one and looking it over.

“No idea, but it is gold, similar to the other treasures that ships have inside of them when they sink,” he shrugged with a smile, taking the coin from my hand and tossing it behind us.

I nodded. Indeed, shipwrecks were so fun to explore, although they were dangerous. I had only explored one of them before, with Finn. He was fascinated by the world above.

He moved more sand away, and it made the water murky. Underneath the sand was a wooden box. “Buried treasure,” he said, pulling the chest up onto the sand. After the sand settled again, he looked around the cave floor for something to open it.

“If this is a human thing, doesn't it need air?” I asked.

“We can take it to the surface. You’ve been at your first changing tide—so, officially, you can go up there.”

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