Page 37 of Depths
Sahar floated closer and placed her hand gently on my elbow. Her eyes swam with pity. But she said nothing because there was nothing to be said. My birth mother had not loved me. Queen Gela?
I’d never know. She’d passed away before all of this happened.
I forced my wings to flutter, keeping me aloft near the fire so that I wouldn’t sink like a stone. But my heart itself had settled on the ocean floor, cold, sad, and as hard as one of the rocks that lay there in the darkness.
I felt a smack on my elbow as Sahar jerked me out of my thoughts. “None of that,” she scolded. “The past is the past, and there’s nothing we can do about it except not repeat it. Come on, let’s grab some fish.”
We swam to the next fire over and were handed two metal bowls with a bit of fish in each. No utensils. Felipe appeared, back from wherever he’d been, and handed me a flask of fermented bubble, saying, “I tested it. It’s good.”
My inner self shot up from the depths of the ocean at that little fact. His lips had touched this flask. My lips were going to touch the same spot his once had, like the ghost of a kiss.
God. I was an idiot. Still, that didn’t stop me from raising the flask to my lips as a giddy little shiver ran down my spine. I took a drink, and the alcohol burned the back of my throat. When I lowered the flask, I had to swallow hard a second time, because the expression on Felipe’s face made some little part of me wonder if he had thought the exact same thing as me.
No. Wishful thinking.
“Come on and eat. As soon as we finish, the singing starts,” Sahar admonished me, pulling me back toward what I realized was my own royal fire. No one else crowded around it.
I felt momentarily guilty about that, but after having been in the cramped carriage all day long, I wasn’t about to lose my chance at a small reprieve.
The fish went down easily, warming my belly and helping improve my mood, not nearly as much as the flask did. After a few more swallows from it, I was feeling very merry indeed.
I watched as several of the servants, and at least one of the competitors, got out instruments and set up in a rough circle. They began to play a song that was quite different from any that I’d heard in the castle. It involved a lot of clapping by all the participants.
Though travel is folly, boy,
Don’t be melancholy, boy,
Just drink and be jolly, boy,
’Cause there is a dolly, boy,
Waiting for you.
Every single member of our retinue joined in the song. Some linked elbows and swam in circles. Others swayed with their hands held high as the song spoke about seeking a better fortune and hope. By the time the last note faded, my heart bobbed like a buoy high on the crests of the ocean.
For one single evening, I forgot all my troubles.
10
Fools scream and yell in anger. Smart men smile and plan.
—Sultan Raj of Cheryn
* * *
The next morning,the fact that all my guards wielded their sparking magic spears should have put me on high alert. But my mind was as slow as a glacier. Around me, everyone but Posey and Felipe moved slowly; I had a feeling we had all over imbibed the night before.
I overheard one of my guards tell Ugo, “My head is pounding, there must be a pressure change.”
“The only pressure change is the fact that you’re dehydrated from taking in so much damn bubble,” Ugo quipped as he pulled a set of poles out of his own tent simultaneously, making one side collapse.
“Sard you,” the other guard grumbled as the tent poles clanked loudly, making him wince.
Ugo tossed a sarcastic hand over his heart. “If only I thought that offer was real.”
I tried but couldn’t stifle my giggle. Both guards whirled around, their eyes growing round when they saw me. I waved a hand dismissively before they could offer an apology. “Carry on.”
Once the camp was packed up, and a breakfast of seaweed-wrapped shrimp was dispersed for everyone to eat on our ride, I settled into my carriage, resigned to another day of awkward conversation and the overpowering scent of testosterone. It was a smell that had a wide range, varying based on the male’s species. Sirens simply made everything saltier, almost as if they were brining the ocean. They made up the greatest contingent of my competitors; there were nearly twenty of them. There were also six mermen, not including Mateo. Mermen gave off a musky scent that was very similar to human male sweat. The shifters, however, gave off a very pungent and spicy scent. Yesterday, my carriage had basically become an olfactory dump, scents piling up and mingling until I’d wanted to retch.
