Page 32 of Sea's Secret

There were no structures or buildings. It had been five hundred cycles. Perhaps, they tried to destroy any evidence of their civilization before going into the sea, or their buildings might have been destroyed by storms, or even just the natural processes of time. And yet, those seashells, that strand of pearls, so clearly mer. That made me smile.

We had been there–my people.

You are exactly where you are meant to be, my melody sang.

Chapter Fourteen

Dominick

Light blue eyes –a tempest so strong; it pulled me from the deck of the ship, water–thrashing. I had been tugged. Had I been pulled to the depths? Am I dead or dying? I wasn't sure.

Two blue eyes–as light as the clearest sky. I coughed and sat up quickly, realizing that, yes, indeed, my body was in too much pain to be dead. I was very much alive. The pain radiating through my body was terrible, but it wasn't half as bad as the worst pain I had experienced before, and for that, I counted myself lucky. I opened my eyes to the rising sun, glistening at the crest of the waves. I was on a beach.

What beach?

We had been out way too far from any land for me to have washed up in any kingdom, even Walden.

Is this Marren Island?

Have I found Marren? I shook my head, and sandy water droplets fell around me. I looked beside me, seeing an imprint there–of a body?

It hit me, then. Someone had saved me. Those blue eyes.

A siren. No–sirens killed sailors. A mermaid? Could I be so lucky?

I looked at my hands and noticed that my gloves were no longer there.

No. Did the person who rescued me take them off? Did I kill my rescuer?

I looked at the spider-like webbing of my inky, black veins. I sat there for a few moments, wondering again what had happened.

Did someone really help me get out of the water? What happened to Sands and to The Grimm? Is my uncle lost to the sea?

I hope so.

I gulped, hoping that he was beneath the many fathoms. That was where scum like him belonged.

“Hello?”

I turned toward a feminine voice, coming from behind me. The crashing of the waves almost drowned her out completely.

I looked back at her, but quickly turned away again, my cheeks heating up. She was–she was hardly wearing any clothes. I had no idea where that maiden had come from, but she clearly was not from Walden. If it wasn’t for her extremely long hair, and whatever small fabric had been covering some very specific parts, I would have seen too much. I cleared my throat and closed my eyes. She, for sure, was not a siren, nor a mermaid, as she had legs.

My hope of finding a mermaid was tugged away, along with the tide in front of me, which was lapping at my waterlogged boots.

How did they manage to stay on, yet my gloves did not?

“Hello,” I said, focusing on the washing waves upon the sand. I heard her movement to the right of me and turned my head to the left as if I was looking at something incredibly interesting. But her face came closer to mine, and she touched my hair. As much as I was confident as a pirate and fine enough as a prince, I was not at all sure what to do in the presence of women. They were incredibly foreign to me. When my shipmates went into taverns at various ports, many of my fellow crew members sought the attention of women. I had never sought out female attention, and as soon as the maidens in those taverns started to drift near to me, I would always leave. I did not need to entangle myself in that. I steered clear of females.

“Are you alright?” I looked at her, focusing on her face–her eyes, nothing else.

I could just treat her as I did everyone else.

That will work. I can imagine that she is not a beautiful maiden. I can imagine that she has a limp and is a dirty, rotten pirate.

But already, even though I did not know that maiden, just by looking into those light blue eyes, I could sense that she was untouched by the horrors of the world. There was an innocence there that made me pause.

All of a sudden, I had this urge to protect her–to keep her away from the horrors I’d seen. That probably meant she should stay away from me. I had seen hundreds of women, in all areas of life, even the royals of Terra. But that maiden? She was the most stunning one of them all.

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