Page 19 of Depths
After issuing those commands, I swam back to my throne, head held high, as if I knew exactly what I was doing. But as fury cooled and my chest was no longer a molten pit of anger, I wondered if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
I’d just invited an enemy to compete for my hand.
5
Bravado is a bear trap that one day will snap and shred you.
—Sultan Raj of Cheryn
* * *
The dull businessof managing a country kept me occupied for the next two days, while my staff made arrangements for the travel to Reef City for the first round of tournament trials.
I sent my first royal letter to the country of Lored, reaching out to see if we could establish a trade agreement for some of their goods—particularly coffee—in exchange for some of our natural resources like pearls or whale blubber.
I met with the castle treasurer in my official meeting room, a chamber set with a long table taken from the wreckage of a downed ship and a mishmash of chairs that had been painted with gold leaf. The room was filled with fascinating books on the history of Okeanos, tales of its wars, the history and development of the different groups. I learned much from these books about the home I’d never known. While Reef City and Palati, the capital city that sat next to my castle, had become metropolitan mixes of all sea peoples, other regions were mainly comprised of one type of magical being. Places like Nowhere and Sky Stones didn’t have nearly the same diversity. Nowhere was a desert to the south and was still mostly the realm of nomadic hermit crab shifters. To the north, a place called Sky Stones was made of the buildings from an entire sky breather village that had sunk beneath the sea, and it was still ninety percent inhabited by sirens.
I wanted to read those fascinating accounts all day, to curl up and add words and phrases to my vocabulary. Thus far, I’d learned that “Oh, go sing for your supper,” was an insult to a mer or siren, a slur that meant they had no more talent than the magic the gods had given them. “Pokey” was a term used for the hermit crab shifters, both a reference to their claws and to the fact that they came from the podunk regions of the country. Shark shifters were never hammerhead sharks, and to call a shifter a “hammerhead” was basically to compare him to a base animal. It would, according to the historian in the lexicon book, be a sure way to get bitten. I loved those accounts, sneaking in reads here and there between the endless meetings, taking some of the books to bed with me.
Unfortunately, life wasn’t all fascinating reading. There were also numbers to deal with, lots of them. Hence, I had quite a few meetings with Camden, my treasurer.
Two afternoons past the opening ceremony, he came in with a scroll of parchment under his arm that was twice as thick as his head. Camden was a puffer fish shifter and skinny as a rail, though the pants he wore, a deep wine-colored velvet, were quite baggy in case he puffed up. A smattering of tiny spikes dotted his chest like freckles, and he had the habit of worrying his shell collar as he pointed out credits and debits and other numerical items that were so dry and dull that I was surprised he didn’t suck all the water out of the room.
We discussed finances ad nauseum, Declan perched next to me in my official meeting chambers, pulling the parchment over to himself and chiming in whenever he pleased as if this was his country to run. Part of me wanted to disagree with his suggestions just to be contrary, but I resisted the urge, because typically—annoyingly—he was correct.
“Look, if you minimize the glass work to repair the castle atrium, you can reassign those workers to—”
“The glassblower’s guild won’t be happy about that. They don’t like to change mid-project when everything’s been set up. They’ll add on extra fees,” the treasurer, Camden, argued.
Declan gave him a dull stare. “Turrets are still more important. The castle is vulnerable to attack from above, and we can’t man shattered turrets.”
I rubbed at my forehead. “Is there another guild, perhaps from another city, that we could contact for turret repair?”
Camden’s naturally round eyes blinked at me. “That’s just … not done, Your Majesty.”
“Well, tell the guild here then that we need both items done at once, and they can decide if they want to subcontract to another guild or not, but if they don’t figure it out soon, I’ll reach out to another guild myself.”
Sahar stood and swam over to Camden, who seemed frozen in shock at the idea that he actually had to deliver unpleasant news other than a bill. “Camden, I’ll come with you. You just create an estimate … alright?” As usual, Sahar smoothed out the rough edges of my plan. I’d have been lost without her.
He shook his head slowly as he rolled up his parchment. “It will be expensive, Majesty.”
“Yes, well, if we need it, I’m certain Evaness will extend me a line of credit.” I raised my eyebrows and gave Declan a droll look.
He chuckled. “Well, perhaps. If our queen is over the whole ink-to-the-face business. She did mention that such an unprovoked attack could be considered an act of war.” He steepled his fingers and gave me a fake serious look.
“When are you leaving again? Should I get your gargoyle saddled?” I poked at him fondly.
“As soon as things aresettled.” There was something smug in his tone that I didn’t like, but before I could figure out what it was, Sahar swam over to me.
My siren adviser leaned down, a small smile making the crow’s feet near her eyes wrinkle. “Your Majesty, I’ve arranged a little meeting for you with two of the competitors who got less attention at the ball.”
“Ugh,” Declan grunted his displeasure.
Sahar kept doing this, finding tiny holes in my schedule so that I could have awkward conversations with these men. I’d stopped asking the normal get-to-know-you questions, because if I heard blue was a man’s favorite color one more time …
“Okay, thank you.” I nodded.
Declan shoved back his chair and stood. “That’s my cue to leave. Enjoy your stilted conversation.”
