Epilogue
The great coral doors of King Triton’s court loomed before Ursula like a whale's mouth waiting to devour her whole.
She entered with her proud head cast down as would a guppy seeking castoffs in the wake of a human's ship.
It was demeaning, but she had very few choices these days.
So she pressed forward. If there was one thing she could never be accused of, it was lacking audacity.
At her first opportunity, she broke away from the school of simpering merpeople and sought her own path. Ursula glided forward, her dark figure casting elongated shadows across the shimmering floor. She knew these halls like they were her own home because once upon a time, they had been.
The once-familiar corridors seemed smaller now, shrunken by time and her exile.
Each twist and turn of the castle whispered memories she would rather forget.
A snide comment from her father here, a rebuke from Triton there.
The laughter of her cousins echoing in a chamber she had never quite belonged to.
Still, she swam deeper until the voices of the court grew faint. Ursula found herself before a door she hadn’t seen in years. Her fingers brushed against its coral frame, and her lips curled into a sneer.
This room had once been hers.
She eased the door open, slipping inside.
The interior was unrecognizable. Gone were her elegant seashell furnishings and maps of the ocean floor.
Instead, the space was cluttered, overflowing with an assortment of mismatched objects.
Forks and candlesticks hung from seaweed strands like decorations.
Rusted trinkets and chipped porcelain plates lined the walls.
Ursula’s sneer deepened as she took it all in.
The youngest princess, Ariel, had turned this room into an ode to her ridiculous obsession with the human world.
The air breathers. Ariel's fascination with their kind bordered on sickness, as far as Ursula was concerned.
What value could these crude, corroded baubles possibly hold?
She swam past a pile of tarnished silverware and stopped at a vanity adorned with pearls and aquamarine.
Her gaze locked on a small chest half-buried beneath a tangle of nets.
Flipping it open, Ursula smiled. Inside was a collection of gleaming jewels—emeralds, sapphires, rubies, all shimmering like captured starlight.
Her fingers lingered on a particularly large sapphire. This stone had belonged to their grandmother. It had been passed down to Ursula, but Triton hadn't allowed her to take it with her when he'd banished her. She tightened her grip and tucked it away with the rest.
This wasn't thievery. Not that Ursula had a problem with taking anything from the royal family. These jewels were her birthright. She emptied the chest of jewels and slipped them into her cloak. With one last glance at the chaotic space, she slipped back into the hallway.
A shadow passed over the corridor ahead. Ursula froze, shrinking into the corner as a patrol of guards approached. One of them paused, sniffing the water.
“Did you hear something?”
The other guard yawned. “Probably just a crab.”
Ursula rolled her eyes. She could almost pity her brother for ruling over such imbeciles. Almost.
The guards lumbered past, and Ursula resumed her escape, but she paused when she turned the next corner. There, floating at the far end of the hall, was Triton himself.
Her big brother was the only one who could see through her illusions. No matter how carefully she masked her appearance, her brother’s piercing eyes would always find her.
He was distracted now. He gripped his golden trident in one hand. His brow furrowed as he spoke to one of his advisors.
“She’s still missing?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I don’t understand why the princess keeps disappearing,” said a lady's maid whom Ursula somewhat recognized. The woman had been in attendance to her when she was the jewel of the crown.
"It's likely bridal nerves," suggested the advisor. "Her betrothed arrives tomorrow."
Betrothed? So big brother had gone and gotten his last daughter on a hook. Ursula wondered with which ocean.
"This alliance between the King of Marinelle," barked her brother.
Marinelle? That was no ocean. That was land; a land of humans.
“Send out a search party. We cannot afford a delay. My daughter must meet Prince Eric at the docks tomorrow morning, or the trading agreement could collapse. This alliance is vital to the kingdom. She must be present. Find her!”
Poor, precious Ariel. So adored, so sheltered—and so utterly incapable of handling the pressures of royal life.
Ursula had tried to warn her father. She'd told him that Triton's guppies didn't have the mettle to rule. And what had she gotten for her troubles? Passed over by her father and banished by her brother.
Well, this was them all getting their just desserts.
“Princess Ariel?”
Ursula froze for half a heartbeat before her lips curled into an amused grin. The guard’s mistake was delicious. She and Ariel shared the same red hair and sharp features. The resemblance had always been uncanny—a source of bitterness during her years in the court.
The guard frowned, confusion creeping into his gaze as he looked closer. “Wait... you’re not—”
Before he could finish, Ursula straightened, her voice taking on a low, hypnotic hum. “You saw nothing,” she said, her words rippling through the water, melodic and irresistible. “You will not go out to look for the princess. You will go and get drunk instead. Do you understand?”
The guard’s expression went slack, his earlier suspicion dissolving under the weight of her siren’s song. “Get… drunk.”
Ursula smiled, her teeth glinting in the dim light. “Good boy. Now off you go.”
The guard swam past her, dazed but determined, his earlier mistake already forgotten.
Ursula lingered in the corridor, her mind alight with a new idea. For too long, she'd been reduced to sneaking around the kingdom that should've been hers. She'd been the one that had to go around hiding who she was to survive.
That would all stop. Not tonight. Tonight, she would sneak into Marinelle and meet the human prince face to face. It would be her face that he looked upon, but it would be Ariel's name that she gave him.
She flexed her fingers, power crackling faintly in the water around her. Ariel was missing, and Triton was desperate. The prince was expecting a wide-eyed, innocent princess—but what he’d get was someone far more cunning.
With a dark laugh, Ursula slipped into the depths, her plan fully formed. By the time she surfaced, she would no longer be the outcast sister. She would be married to the prince and return to her throne as queen.
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Book Two in the Wicked Evermore series.