Chapter 11 #2
‘Don’t be foolish,’ she snaps. ‘If you return less frequently, he will ask fewer questions. And the others … the longer this goes on the harder it will be for you.’ Her jaw clenches once.
‘You do not have to take my advice. When this is over and I am queen, then … but for now. You should not come home.’
She does not say goodbye. She is that savage scraping creature still. The cold centre flame of her eyes burns in my direction once more. Then she dives gracefully into the water and is gone.
I sit among the reeds and Ceto unfolds beside me, legs trailing in the water next to mine. What I have learned lingers and I follow the thought aloud.
‘You said you and your sisters are not friends.’
‘We are not.’
‘You did not say that they mistreat you. Because of me.’ I search her face for answers.
‘We have precious little reason to trust each other, and I am the least trusted.’
‘Because of the Cetus.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you … you cannot hurt them? You cannot fight back?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘My master’s orders.’
The day has warmed, the air already near to scorching, the wind only fanning the heat. I dip my hands into the cool water, splash my wrists, the back of my neck.
‘I do not understand. He favours you – you serve him loyally. Why would he order you into impotence?’
‘I am stronger than my sisters. It would not be a fair fight.’
‘So you are to do nothing?’
Her lips twist and she is uncommonly vulnerable. It is almost unbearable and yet beneath my rage, there is a quivering, a baby bird trapped beneath my ribs. She is like this with no one else. Only me.
‘Whether it is hard words or harsher hands, it does not matter really. I am not so easy to break.’
‘So … is it a test? Your master continually assessing your strength?’
She is quiet a while, staring at our world, at nothing.
‘It is difficult to explain. He – I – he taught me everything I know. Everything I am, I learned from him. He has been my parent, teacher, master, all. I have had no – no real friends and so, in a way, he has been that too.’
‘Do you love him?’ I ask it without thinking. She does not answer at first. Perhaps she is testing the oath. Perhaps it is too hard a question.
‘I was not taught to love.’
I am aware that she did not say yes. I am aware that she did not say no. ‘Has he ever …’ I hesitate, not knowing how to continue. She does not need me to.
‘No, he has never desired me.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask about desire.’
She stills. She must answer carefully. ‘He has never … taken me against my will.’ Then, ‘He could, though, of course.’
‘The oath.’ I nod.
‘Yes, but also – it’s difficult to explain,’ she says again.
‘Even without the oath, I would find it hard to refuse him. He has made up too much of my world. I wonder, can the master’s tool pull apart his palace?
Every direction I’ve ever taken has been along a path laid by him.
He is origin and journey and destination. ’
It makes an awful kind of sense.
‘And your sisters, they exploit this?’
‘Yes.’
‘But why?’
Her eyes are flat and black once more. ‘We – they – have been turned from each other and on each other. It is not their fault. It is like you with the girls in the palace. We are crabs in a bowl. It is just our world.’
Her voice is tight – brittle and small. It is nothing like me and the girls in the palace; I do not want to imagine how whispers and looks compare to violent, jealous, punishing Nereids. I want to dive into the sea and carve their faces with coral knives. I want to relight the candle in her eyes.
‘Amphitrite could have killed me.’
‘She probably wanted to, yes.’
‘So why didn’t she?’
‘Well, Poseidon might react badly, being robbed of his best bride.’
‘Or he would see the act of killing me as making Amphitrite worthy of becoming his wife.’
Ceto says nothing.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t have sisters.’
‘So?’
‘Amphitrite … is different. She was the youngest before me. She and I do not like each other. We do not respect each other. But we love each other, in the way that we can,’ she says it in a rush, a waterfall of words, ‘we fight and slap and say cruel things … but these are flesh wounds only. She … she would not attempt a mortal blow.’ Do not forget what happened the last time someone touched what is mine.
She will not say it directly, she steps carefully around it in much the same way as she does the oath, but she has not sworn to be so silent.
The Master of the Sea would never have conceived of this, of us.
He would not have thought to forbid such declarations.
I humour her, drawing her out and in towards me, turning the green bottle in my hand.
‘I may never bleed. I may never marry. I may go on, as I am now.’
‘You will lose your kingdom. Be sent away as a sickly spinster.’
‘I should not mind that, I don’t think. Phineus will be better at ruling than I.’
‘I do not think so. Perhaps he will marry you still. Who will you be if you are not their little queen?’
‘I will be your Meda.’
She is not looking at me, she cannot; what I am laying out before her is too much like direct sunlight. She is afraid of burning.
‘What about the prophecy?’
I repeat my grandmother’s words, and add, ‘Perhaps they have all been wrong. Andromeda, ruler of men. Andromeda. Deceiver of men.’
She trembles, still not looking at me, but I do not mind. She is not the Cetus here, she is not in the Coral Kingdom. She need not be strong for me.
‘Ceto. Look at me.’
She does as commanded. Her face is a breath from mine.
‘You will stay with me.’
‘What?’
‘You will stay with me.’
‘But—’
‘Most princesses have bedfellows, it would not be so unheard of. You will not go back to be misused by your sisters. You will tell your master that, given the delay, you think it best that you are with me always.’
Her eyes are heavy lidded, her face upturned.
‘You will stay with me.’ I reach for the dark waves of her hair. She leans into my touch, she is soft and open but only for me, and I am unyielding in my hunger. ‘Do you consent?’
‘Yes.’
I lean closer. My words brush her lips. ‘Good girl.’
I close my mouth over her sigh, swallowing it.
I kiss her slowly, thoroughly; it is my first time and I am exploring.
My teeth indulge in the succulent segment of her bottom lip, my tongue skims hers and she trembles.
Her sigh ends with a delicious little moan.
I want to hear it again. I want it louder, I want more: to learn how to play her, to pluck her strings, to make her sing for me.
I am drunk on the taste of her, it will never be enough.
She presses closer and closer still, my hands are in her hair, at her neck.
I did not know it would be like this. I was never mine but now I am hers, all hers.
She softly sucks on my tongue and I am dimly aware of something imploding.