Page 31 of Depths
I couldn’t help a smug grin as I swam away.
8
Happiness is the delusional goal of weaker men, those too afraid to seek power.
—Sultan Raj of Cheryn
* * *
When I stumbledtoward my chamber late that night, the waves above me were laced with moonlight, and I thought foolishly that I was finished with troubles until morning. How wrong I was.
I stepped through the door of my sanctuary, intending to strip off my dress and fall face-first onto my pillow, but Felipe did his cursory check of my bedroom and then swam past me to my door just as I headed for my dressing chamber. The click of the lock made me turn back toward him. He’d locked us inside my sitting room.
The move should not have affected me; I’d been alone in my chambers waiting with him for my maids or Sahar often enough. He was my guard. I trusted him with my life. He never locked the door though. Not of his own accord. Not with just two of us present.
My stomach heated and clenched, and my throat felt lined in syrup too thick to let me speak.
I clasped my hands, unsure of what to do with them. I stared at the glowing orange lanterns, then glanced at him. Then back again.
Should I be hopeful?
There had been that one singular moment as jellyfish sailed overhead, an undulating mass of pain. He’d gazed at me the way a man looks at a woman, not the way a guard looks at his queen.
At least, I thought it had been a moment. I started to second-guess myself.
Perhaps he wanted to discuss the fact that he thought thatI thoughtthat it was a moment. Oh, all the stars in the sky, I didn’t think that I could handle being rejected by my guard. Especially since it would be horribly unfair of me to fire him immediately afterward so I’d never have to face him again.
I swallowed hard as the silence stretched on, and I became more and more certain that Felipe was going to tell me he saw me as nothing more than a child. He was just searching for the words to let me down easily.
Ugh. My stomach transformed, becoming as cold and heavy as iron. Why did I do this to myself? Why did I grow attached to men I knew I could not have? Felipe … Mateo.
I risked another glance at my guard.
Felipe chewed his lip, revealing how nervous he was.
Anxiety started to squeeze my chest and make my cheeks flush with panicked heat. My heart started to sputter. If we didn’t get this over with soon, I was in danger of collapse. So despite my utter terror in the face of Felipe’s rejection, I spoke.
“When Mayi held me in her cave, she wouldn’t come every day. She’d leave me for long stretches with the ghosts.” My voice grew quieter and quieter as I recalled my time chained in the cave by my birth mother. “When I asked her why … do you know what she told me?”
Felipe shook his head, his blue and black hair glinting in the light of the lanterns.
“She told me that sometimes anticipation was just as bad as torture.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Your Majesty, I hope you won’t think that I’m overstepping my place, but …”
Overstepping his place? Did that mean …Was I wrong? Had I been right about our moment?
Was he trying to tell me he was interested?
I felt tugged in every direction, like a puppet on a string, at someone else’s mercy. My eyes pled with him to explain, while my nails carved crescent moons into my palms.
His brown eyes bore into mine.
And I started to feel certain again that this, right now, was transforming into another moment.
But he broke the moment when he moved.
Felipe’s navy-blue tail emerged in an instant, and with a flick, he was across the room.
