Page 161 of Cruel Tides

Just as my head fell back and darkness threatened to engulf me, a dark force lashed out, striking me hard across my face.

I gasped, the shock of it causing me to take in a sharp breath of water, my eyes refocusing.

The queen had…slappedme?

A second later, she was pulling me away from the mirror, away from the wizard, a crazed grin spreading across her face like a blight. “Cover it up, puppet,” she barked as one of her tentacles traced over the side of my face she’d just whacked.

Her eyes, which shone like emeralds on land, didn’t seem to lose any of their luster in the darkness. But even she wasn’t like the monstrous creature I’d seen in the mirror. White eyes like a… like a…

“What did you see?” Given how her nails clawed up my arms, I assumed her patience was running painfully thin.

“Sea—” Magic made my tongue expand, choking me up.

I ask for you not to speak of the first thing you see when you look into it. Reveal it to no one—except for me.Those had been the carefully calculated words the sea wizard had chosen for our deal.

A chilling realization sank in—he’d known exactly what I’d see when I looked into the mirror. He’d even urged me to focus straight ahead, guiding the first thing I’d notice.

I searched for him, but Queen Sagari snapped my attention back to her with a jerk of my chin. Anticipation tensed her face, and her eyebrows raised with expectation. “Well?”

“T-tentacles,” I managed, and her face swelled with joy.

“Yes… Yes!” she proclaimed, throwing her head back and jostling me by my shoulders. Then, as if I’d suddenly become something precious and fragile to her, she swept me up, pulling me over to her throne with the tenderness of a mother cradling a newborn.

“I knew you must be one of us,” she cooed, and I stared up at her, totally helpless, as she settled me down onto her throne. “I never doubted it, of course. What other reason could there be for the merfolk’s curse to not affect you?”

When I finally found my voice, it was completely raw. Broken. “I came down here because you said we could break the curse together.”

It had all been a lie.

The queen shrugged, her wild hair bouncing through the water with her movement. “You win some, you lose some,” she said, reaching out to seize my wrist. “This, dear child, is avictory. I brought you to the Undersea because this is where you belong.”

“I’m a… cecaelia?” The whispered question sounded like a curse all of its own.

I lowered my head to look at my tail, fighting the urge to claw my way back over to the mirror to check on my reflection again. It didn’t make sense that this tail wasn’t really mine. But then again, nothing about my tail had ever made sense, had it?

Queen Sagari brushed my cheek with her hand, and when I glanced up, pride was waiting for me in her eyes.

“You’re more than a cecaelia,” she said, and I shrunk away from her touch.

Had she seen the white-eyed version of me in the mirror?

While my mind raced, the queen lifted a hand. “Puppet,” she snapped. “The vial.”

Black smoke clouded the water, and a tiny, corked bottle appeared in its wake. The queen snatched it up, passing it into my palm for me to inspect.

Curiously, there was only a single dot of dark liquid set inside it. “What is…?”

“Your blood,” the queen said brusquely. “You gave up a drop, if you’ll recall.”

How could I forget? Although the sea wizard was far from the throne, I shot him another glare.

This is, until the queen tutted. “You seem quite distracted by my puppet. That behavior is hardly befitting someone in your position.”

Someone inmyposition?

But before I could ask her to elaborate, her attention shifted to the sea wizard, and for a moment, I feared what she might ask of him. “Go fetch the box that I had you prepare,” she ordered, and he melted away into the shadows.

When the last traces of his magic vanished, the queen held up her crown. “This crown is almost as ancient as the oceans themselves,” she began, her voice carrying the weight of history. “It’s been passed down through generations, from the very first queen of the Undersea.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Forged in magic, it holds the remarkable ability to discern those of royal blood.”

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