Page 3 of Depths
“False queen!” A woman’s voice smacked hard like an oar and cut through the dull ripples of conversation.
“Air lover!” a man growled.
“Sky breather!” some unseen figure bellowed.
I blinked as a chilled wave darted across my back, raising goose bumps on my skin, which had absolutely nothing to do with the curses being hurled my direction from the crowd below. Or so I told myself. But I fought the urge to scratch at my arms uncomfortably. Ihatedwhen people didn’t like me. My smile grew brittle, but I kept it in place, hoping it might soften one or two of my citizens below.
Honey, not vinegar,I reminded myself.If it works to attract flies, it’ll work for fish, right?
I stood twenty feet above a crowded mix of sea people, on a palace balcony made of the glass cut to reflect like a prism. My body was encased in a shimmering golden dress stitched with as many earth walker gold pieces as the seamstress could manage. I jangled when I moved, like a coin purse or a wind chime. The effect was enchanting, a dress that blinded as much as it sparkled. It reflected my heritage and signaled the riches I could bring the sea kingdom through trade, or so the seamstress had said when she’d stealthily pitched her idea for the gown I should wear to today’s tournament opening ceremony. The thing weighed as much as a shipwreck. If I tripped, I feared I’d crack the glass floor of the castle.
The ocean floor in front of the palace was packed tight with sea people of all stripes and sizes. There were shark shifters who chose to retain their dorsal fins even in human form. There were mermen and mermaids, the bright colors of their hair and tails like flashes of rainbow amidst the rest of the crowd. There were small mer children with silver fins who hadn’t developed their final colors yet, constantly trying to swim up and away from their parents, many of whom grabbed their little ones by the tail and held on, making the children bob in the water like birds might bob while clinging to a clothesline on a windy day back in Evaness. Back home.
Some of the children waved their hands in time to the music that began to play; the castle’s orchestra had arrived just after the verbal jabs and was currently smoothing over the discontent with a jaunty song mocking sailors. The crowd perked up and started singing along as soon as they recognized the tune. I’d discovered this was common. The ocean people were very musically inclined.
You know what only a fool would do? Would do? Would do?
Only a fool would ride a tree
Thinking that he could cross the sea
With nothing but the wind to blow him
Naught but a plank to stow him
I think that we should show him
That a fool will dro-o-own, down, down in the sea
As the song grew more raucous, my eyes traced over hermit crab shifters, whose red hair gave them away and who looked decidedly uncomfortable without their giant shells protecting their backs, shells which hadn’t been allowed onto the castle grounds for security reasons. Or so Felipe, my personal guard, had told me earlier. At least I wasn’t the only one who felt awkwardly exposed.
Off to one side, a group of unearthly beautiful sirens stood a head taller than most of the others, their magically selected hair colors on display standing out in the crowd. They could alter their hair at will. Most of them had chosen to make their hair white blonde today, but some had midnight black locks to contrast with their golden skin. All of them had beautifully shaped curls floating around them in gorgeous waves that made me envious. My hair only ever knotted if the current caught it, which was why I’d had my own golden locks carefully plaited today, and layered the braids in elaborate swooping designs beneath my shell crown.
A few half-rotted faces were scattered here and there amongst the crowd, some of Posey’s friends from the undead army who hadn’t left with my sister, Bloss. The soldiers stood apart from the people, judged by them, but they were merely mercenaries who’d fought the evil Queen Mayi and helped to liberate the sea kingdom from her rule and to keep me from becoming her puppet. To me, they were heroes, saviors. They’d stormed under the water, their ability to exist without breathing an asset as they marched across the depths and stormed the castle, sweeping away the reign of the monster who’d kidnapped me. I thought I saw a familiar decaying face among them, but it moved before I could be certain it was Lizza, my sister’s newly appointed castle mage, who had stayed behind in the sea to help me. Beside that face, I’d sworn I’d seen a brunette.Perhaps it was merely a trick of the eyes,I told myself. Wishful thinking since part of me wanted my sister here to hold my hand, even while another part of me rebelled against such childishness. I gave the undead a grateful smile before my eyes swept on.
There was also a tight knot of people with jellyfish-like tentacles for hair. They danced eerily in the current, and their skin was a soft lavender. It was difficult not to stare. Near them, swordfish shifters with sharp, elongated noses stayed in fish form, all except for one, who looked almost human except for the lethal-looking protrusion of his nose, like a dagger had been stuck onto his face. I wondered briefly if he ever smashed into things with a nose that long. Did it get caught in doorjambs?
Before he caught me staring, I let my eyes roam again.
I made the mistake of making eye contact with one of the sirens, and his resulting wink and grin had my grip tightening on the glass railing. Dammit. I’d broken one of mother’s cardinal rules. No. Not mother’s. Queen Gela’s. I still had to remind myself that the woman who’d raised me was no mother of mine. People always said life changes in an instant. My life proved that saying true.
One moment, I’d been Queen Gela’s human, second-born daughter. Rare, but not special in a world that had few women but a lot of magic. Lacking the latter, I’d been nothing more than a spare princess. But, the next second, I’d been snapped up by a dragon, who’d delivered me to a monstrous sea sprite. The sprite had told me that I was her daughter, stolen shortly after birth, that I was months older than I’d thought I was and eighteen already, and I’d discovered I was incredibly magically powerful. Everything I’d ever believed about myself had drowned a slow, painful death, swirling like a whirlpool, slowly sucked under.
The pain of that betrayal, the discovery of the fact that the woman I’d loved with all my heart, the woman who’d kissed away my scraped knees and bruised elbows, pressed at me. Each memory—our silly tea parties, the way she’d always caressed my hair—felt like a stone set onto my chest, compressing it further so that I couldn’t breathe.
Before my emotions could catapult me down into a deep chasm of hurt, a cheer rippled through the crowd like a riptide, yanking me out of that depressing trajectory and forcing me to focus on the present.
I snarkily scolded myself.Come, Avia, no time for pouting.Every royal family has an entire wing of skeletons hidden in the castle. You’re just one of the many bones.
I focused outward. The orchestra had just swum up higher, so the crowd could better see them. Once they were above the heads of even the tallest, the royal musicians started a new song and performed a complicated little swimming formation as they played, moving in synchrony, forming circles and shapes with their bodies. I realized, with the wide-eyed clarity of someone last to understand a joke, that the orchestra had just spelled out the name of the sea kingdom: Okeanos. It was a name only spoken by residents, considered sacred. Secret.
It was a name I’d only learned about a week ago, when I’d decided to claim my birthright and accept my place as sea queen.
I smiled, glad the orchestra seemed to have changed the tide. The people weren’t shouting hatred anymore. I raised my hands to clap for the musicians, but a sea sponge smashed into my cheek, laden with squid ink. The dark ink billowed out in a foul-tasting cloud around my face, temporarily blinding me until I pulled it away, realizing that it had darkened my skin to a deep blue-black.
Apparently, the shouting protests had escalated to projectiles. Wonderful.
Felipe, my bodyguard, cursed beneath his breath and quickly pulled open the door behind me, barking at one of the mer attendants there. I didn’t look back, I simply kept smiling as though I hadn’t realized I looked a horrible fright. Embarrassment grated at my stomach, shredding it. The only action I took was a slight wave of my hand behind me as I summoned my guard back, wanting to counteract whatever angry order he was issuing. “Felipe,” I called softly.
