The Sea of Love Series Continues!
Chapter One
A Mermaid’s Dream
It’s a recurring dream I’ve had, ever since I left the sea to be with my prince. Only this time, it ends differently.
My wedding is to be the largest this kingdom has seen in generations. People line the streets, cheering and celebrating. Every public house is overrun with patrons. Merchants hawk sweets and ribbons tied to sticks, which children beg their parents to purchase for them. Even from within the Great Hall, where my prince and I entertain our guests, we can hear the cheers waft through the palace’s walls. They have needed a reason to celebrate. It has been gloomy since the death of their queen, some years prior. That is one thing my prince and I have in common. We have our love, of course, but also the loss of our mothers. I kiss my prince and feel that I have everything I wanted. It has been worth it, to leave the sea and make my home here. Nothing can go wrong.
Then the dream shifts.
My father arrives in the Great Hall with all five of my mer-sisters, half the sea king’s royal court, and a myriad of our relatives, some of them ancient and half-immortal, all of them very magical. They are all also dripping wet and nude.
I am horrified.
Suddenly, it is quite clear that I have made a horrible mistake. How could I have ever thought the prince and I could make a life together?
All my grand visions for myself crumble. There will be no swimming back and forth to Triton’s golden palace whenever I please, or bringing my sisters to the castle, showing them the gardens and the surrounding villages. I had hoped we would even ride horses! Mermaids on horses! My sisters would have found it hilarious and wonderful.
But here is the stark reality, right before my face, in the form of a soggy sea court splashing through the Great Hall, eager to meet my husband’s family, while the humans recoil in horror. Against the dank stone of this seaside castle, my usually glorious family appears like salt-stained beasts sent to ruin the furniture.
And it’s my fault. I hadn’t told them about the secret chest of garments I kept in the cove, so I could be dressed when I reappeared in the castle. I hadn’t shown them of the back entrances I used, so no one would know I had gone for a swim, so no one would witness my tail give way to legs upon my return, so no one would see how I lingered at water’s edge and swallowed my tears when I left the sea. I hadn’t taught them the customs of my fiancé and his family. “Arrive before sunset on the first day of the full moon! It will be a grand party!” I’d said. Like an idiot. An unfeeling, thoughtless, reckless, inconsiderate idiot.
Ignominious droplets fall from my father's powerful trident to the floor. My sisters’ usually shimmering hair sags on their shoulders. They are soggy, limp, and bewildered. They look amongst their surroundings with blurry eyes and teeter on wobbly legs, these creatures who can swim leagues and fight monsters with ease now fumble through a foreign element that I had neglected to prepare them for—just as I’d failed to prepare it for them.
I had done this to them, to those who had traveled so far for me. As if I had not a care for those who cared so much for me.
I look to my prince, desperate for help. He turns away from me, his shoulders hunched in shame.
“Please,” I say. “Help them. They’re wet.”
My sisters stumble toward me. Their legs begin to crumble, their dried flesh rips away as they fall to the ground. They crawl toward me, dragging a pile of brittle fish bones behind them. “Amarine! Why have you left us? Help us!” they beg.
Someone in the crowd begins to scream. Shrieks of horror quickly turn to rage. “Monsters!” they yell. “Princess of Death!” shouts another. A thrown object sails through the air and bounces off my father’s shoulder. Triton’s eyes glow like fire, his power growing. He grows taller and taller, the fire pours from his eyes, burning the people closest to him. The fire sweeps the room, consuming everything, beginning with my prince. My father’s rage knows no bounds. Everyone will be consumed. Now there will be war. Nothing good can survive this.
My beautiful wedding gown goes up in smoke, and soon I too am consumed.
#
I wake with a start, silken sheets tumbling to the floor. The early morning breeze flutters the gauzy curtains along my arched balcony door. I can see dawn’s first light creeping over the horizon. I look beside me, where my prince still sleeps, his hand resting on my hip. Even in sleep, Caspian can’t bear to be separated from me. He has his own chambers but sneaks into mine each night, despite the way Sir Maurice, the head courtier, sniffs about “propriety” and “appearances.”
I slip from the bed, tiptoe past the dog—sweet, slobbery Samson—who snores from his cushion on the floor. I push the curtains aside to step onto my balcony. Below me, gentle waves lap the stone foundations of the castle. A fresh morning breeze dances over my flesh. I long to feel the water on my skin instead.
I look upon the wide expanse of the sea, searching for something familiar, a telltale break in the surface, a darting bit of shimmer, anything that would signify that one of my own kind is nearby. But there is no one to comfort me. There is only the ocean, my first home.
I close my eyes and send my thoughts into the water. If only one of my sisters were nearby enough to feel me. I make inaudible clicks with my tongue. I know those sound waves won’t reach far enough, but I try anyway. At this moment, I feel nothing but despair.
I’m sorry. Forgive me. Please don’t hate me. Please let it all be well.
I open my eyes and immediately feel ashamed. I shouldn’t feel despair. After all, it is the day before my wedding. Early sunlight glints on the water’s surface, as if to reassure me that everything is, indeed, all sunshine.
It’s very bizarre to be marrying a human.
I didn’t mean to fall in love, I swear. With a human, especially one who was a prince. It would have been easier to fall in love with a fisherman if I was going to break all the rules for a land spouse. An easier life, an easier time keeping my secrets.
I’ve been keeping so many secrets, mostly from the humans. Unwise as it may be, Caspian and I had entrusted a few intimates with the truth of my origin. Yet even with that knowledge, no one truly comprehends how bewildering this life is to me. I sit through their lengthy meals, gaze at their many paintings, and jostle in carriages through their lands. I smile as if I understand everything. Truly, I understand nothing. It is all foreign to me. My sweet prince tries to explain, to draw me in, to make every adjustment easier on me. I want to please him, so I pretend that the transition is seamless, that adaptation is painless. But it is only when I swim that I can fully be myself.
When I swim, my worries fall away. I don’t think of the massive amounts of upheaval I have brought to my life—and to this kingdom and mine. I don’t think about my anger with my father’s attempts to control me. I don’t think about my encounter with the sea witch Sidra. I certainly don’t think about how foolish I was to ask a sea witch for a spell that would cloak my whereabouts—so my father wouldn’t know I’d run off to be with my prince. I wince, forcing myself not to think of how I had almost bartered away my voice. For no one wins when you bargain with a sea witch.
When I swim, I don’t think about the moment my father burst into the sea witch’s lair, foiled her spell, reconciled with me, then gave me his blessing and accompanied me to the shore to meet the man I love. When I swim, I don’t think about how I miss my family. I don’t think about the pinch of jealousy I had when I met my father’s human love, Alexandra. I don’t think of the ache that accompanies my happiness for him, because while I want him to be happy, I will always miss my mother. When I swim, all of these jumbled feelings are merely a part of the adventure of falling love.
When I’m not swimming, I’m worried there are fish bones under my nails or a scale flake on my face. I’m worried a fisherman might see me at a vulnerable moment, caught between sea and land. I’m worried I will misinterpret the use of various human objects and betray my origins to the wrong person at the wrong time. I’m worried my true nature will overtake me, that I’ll encounter water at an inopportune time or, worse, my temper will betray me. The wife my prince is expected to have, from what I understand, is a docile, supportive creature. I am not. According to human lore, a mermaid is a hybrid—part-fish and all monster. According to their stories, monsters ruin everything.
I try not to think of it. I try to focus on the extreme bliss of being in love.
My strategy, so far, has been to keep my worlds separate. I slip away from my prince when I feel my mer-form about to burst through the surface. I share with him only the most whimsical and magical parts of my mermaid life: stories of racing dolphin pods, of leaping over waves in the moonlight, of singing with my sisters, of sneaking to the surface to feel the sun on my face. I don’t tell him that yesterday I punched an impudent shark in the face. I don’t tell him how my father can send lightning through the water. I don’t tell him how, with a lilt in my song, I’ve enchanted many a creature into doing exactly what I want. He knows nothing of my real power.
I only slip into the sea once a day, to clear my head, to swim fast, to move with the rhythms that feel the most natural to me. In the world above, they move like the ticks on a clock, the day pushing forward like a crab inching up a rock. I need to feel the rush and swell of the ocean to feel like myself. I need its expanse, its oblivion, to be able to find myself, to know that I am still Amarine, daughter of Triton, maid of the sea.
I had thought I could slip in and out of the ocean at will. But what will happen when my sea life comes to me?
I’ve never even showed him my tail. It’s as if I think I’m a sea witch, and all I have to do is enchant him until the wedding, until it’s too late for him to reject me.
As the day grows brighter, it becomes clearer to me that there will be no hiding my world from him. How long could I keep a secret anyway, before it pushed itself between us? How long can I keep a secret about myself, when I have invited the very secret to our wedding?
When my family arrives, he’ll know. My world could drown him. My family could kill him. To me, we are strong, fierce, and magnificent. But what looks like magic to me could look like duplicity to him. I may hope he’d see us as divine, but he may also see us as monstrous. And monsters ruin everything.
Would it be better if I left now? Would Caspian be safer if he never married me? If I jumped into the sea now, I could meet up with my family, head them off before they arrived. I could be a minor interference in my prince’s life’s story. If I went home now, he would have a chance to marry someone who wouldn’t destroy him.
The sea begins to turn from silver to blue as the sun rises, reminding me of the flash in Sidra’s eyes as we escaped her lair. The last thing she’d shouted lingers still in my mind, as much as I fight to forget it.
He cannot love what he cannot understand.
Was it a curse, or a prophecy? Was there time to save my family, myself, my love?
The salt sprays against the castle walls. I wanted so badly to know the world above. I gave up my life within the sea to come here. Am I trapped now? Are we all doomed?
#
Warm brown arms circle my waist, and I startle. My prince’s soft lips nuzzle at my earlobe.
“Good morning, my moonbeam.” His morning voice is rough; so is the stubble of his beard. He calls me “moonbeam” because that is how I first appeared to him, dark and silvery, dressed only in moonlight at the sea’s edge. Usually, I would sink against him and relish how his muscled chest warms my back. Now, I remain rigid. It’s too painful to relax, to pretend we aren’t making a huge mistake.
He notices my hands gripping the balcony’s edge. “You look as if you were thinking of jumping in.”
“I am, actually.”
He caresses my hips with his hands. “Going for a swim?”
“No….” Do I say it? I can’t take it back if I say it. “I’m thinking it might be better for you if I went for a swim … and didn’t come back.”
~
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PRINCESS OF THE SEA will be released on November 5, 2019.
