Page 174 of Cruel Tides

Only, it wasn’t merely a nightmare. It was real. All of it.

Had I… sobbed myself to sleep, clinging to the star grass the sea wizard had brought me?

“Princess,” a voice said, gruff and male, and an icy awareness slid through me.

The nightmare hadn’t ended.

Someone loomed over me—their chest heaving, their words a hushed, unintelligible murmur—and I shook all the more. Whoever it was, I didn’t recognize them.

My hands flew to my face, and I let out a sharp yelp as calloused hands grabbed hold of me.

“No!” I thrashed and fought, attempting to break free, and the body above me shifted, holding me down. Heavy limbs slid on top of me, one after another, and my heart raced as I struggled against my attacker’s unrelenting grip.

“Easy, princess,” he said, the low growl of an animal. “Quiet, now. The queen sent me here to look after you.”

My shell—where was my shell?

Only, it was useless. My hands were trapped.

“Get… off!” I yelled, preparing to headbutt him, hoping that knocking some of his teeth out would stun him enough that I could get an arm free. But just as I braced for my attack, he jerked back, howling in pain before I had even struck him.

The rough hands grasping my arms released me momentarily as my attacker swatted at something behind his back.

Then my eyes caught something—a blur of motion. It was an eel, writhing in fury, lashing out at the cecaelia on top of me like an angry whip.

Jaws wide, it struck my attacker’s flank with the force of a ship’s bow, and the man let out a guttural roar, his back curving like the end of a tentacle. But the eel’s attack didn’t stop there. No, it was relentless. I could only witness in horror as those needle-like jaws struck again and again.

Finally, the man I assumed to be one of the queen’s pawns fell backward, and the weight of his tentacles slid from me.

But before I could celebrate, a dark cloud swelled up, blurring my vision. Magic filled the chamber, and a figure materialized from within the billowing darkness, his face a pale mask of exhaustion and rage.

My throat choked—the sea wizard.

His eerily calm voice cut through the chaos of the room. “Excuse my intrusion,” he said, and I was sure the scathing glare before me held the power to freeze the blood in the pawn’s veins had he turned around to see it. My attacker’s screams died down to whimpers when the wizard wrapped around him from behind. A long black prong pressed underneath his jaw, into his neck.

It was pathetic how quickly the pawn turned into a shrunken, trembling blob at the mercy of the sea wizard’s trident. His voice rose at least two octaves as he stammered out his purpose. “H-her Majesty sent me here to inquire about a meal for—for the princess!”

Streams of magic rose from the sea wizard’s arms, swirling like smoke, and the pawn let out an agonized scream. “Well, princess?” the sea wizard asked with a menacing grin. “Are you hungry?”

I shook my head, my throat too constricted to possibly speak.

“I suspected as much.” A deafening crack of magic shook through the water, and the dark, ominous cloud from earlier returned. Its pitch blackness swallowed up both the pawn and the sea wizard, and they vanished, leaving behind only fleeting remnants of fading magic.

Now that we were alone, the eel circled above me, its smooth skin running across my shoulder with every turn. It took me at least a minute to compose myself enough to whisper out a thank you.

Arms trembling, my heart thundered as I pushed myself upright. If the eel hadn’t appeared, I didn’t know what could have happened to me. “You gave me the warning back at the ruins, didn’t you?”

Its voice reached my mind with a rasped“Yes.”

So, it really was affiliated with the sea wizard—although I’d thought they’d been one and the same. A pet, perhaps?

The eel brushed past again, rubbing up against me in a way that reminded me of Sprout bunting my hand.

Just when I thought my heart rate was calming, another explosion of smoke appeared before us, and out of it emerged the sea wizard. Alone.

“I offer my apologies.” He lowered his head gracefully as the smoke cleared. “I didn’t expect the queen to send someone to you so soon, but I swear none shall disturb you again,” he said with a hint of formality I was sure I’d never get used to. “Rest easy, princess.”

Rest easy?I might have found his bold statement amusing if I wasn’t so shaken. How could anyone relax after that?

---