Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The coral had once shimmered like a kingdom of light, a kaleidoscope of pinks, oranges, and reds crowned by fan-like towers and spiraling stone.
Now the reef was a skeleton. The ruin groaned beneath the gentle current, pockmarked with broken spires and discolored with the leeching gray of pollution.
Fishing nets—torn and tangled—hung like limp banners from its once-proud arches, and beer bottles nestled between coral teeth like the offerings of drunken gods.
Ursula reclined on a bed of sea sponge and trailing kelp, her fin coiled beneath her.
The spongy surface shifted with the current, cradling her weight as if the sea itself pampered her.
Her back rested against the cold, slick curve of a barnacled column, a relic of some forgotten coral citadel.
Salt clung to her skin—sharp, grounding—but her expression was distant, bored, as she watched her companions twist lazily through the water.
Flotsam and Jetsam danced through the ribcage of the ruin, long eel bodies lithe and quick.
They had slithered over her body while the moonlight did its own dance on the surface of the water.
Last night, their movements had been anything but quick and fleeting.
They'd brought her to peak after peak as they raided her booty.
The eels were pirates in spirit and sin.
“The boys said they caught sight of a liner veering toward the restricted route,” Jetsam drawled, his voice a silken rasp. He coiled up near her elbow, teeth flashing as he eyed her bared breast. “One that's too fat to turn in time.”
Every once in a while, sailors gambled and sent a ship through the restricted passages.
Those waterways were swifter, the currents faster and more direct—a tempting shortcut for those eager to cut days off a voyage and deliver goods ahead of schedule.
But speed came at a cost. The faster lanes wound through waters where sea monsters were known to prowl—territories thick with kelp-choked trenches, sleeping leviathans, and ancient things that didn’t take kindly to oars.
It was part of the brilliance of Ursula’s contribution to the treaty.
She had advised that humans take the slower, safer routes—charting a course with naval escorts and sea folk protection—while leaving the treacherous lanes under Sea Kingdom jurisdiction.
The Coastal Crown thought they’d been granted safe trade while her people kept leverage.
Because the moment a merchant grew too greedy, too rushed, too arrogant—they’d veer off course, and the Sea Kingdom would still have teeth in the game.
Except the Sea Kingdom had pulled out the teeth of the one who had set the trap.
“Carrying gold or grain?” Flotsam asked, appearing behind Ursula like a shadow come to life, brushing his teeth against her neck.
Jetsam shrugged as though it didn't matter when the reality was that it did.
The ship was likely carrying gold if it was leaving the port.
Some vegetation was hard to grow on the coastal lands, and so the kingdom would trade with inlanders from the North and South for things like grain and certain textiles like cottons.
Ursula shuddered at the thought of that scratchy fabric on her skin. She’d tried on something called a sundress once when on land, spun from woven cotton that chafed like nettles. She’d promptly torn the itchy garment off and stood as the tides intended—naked save for her seashell bra.
It had been a new pair of shells that one of her courtiers had brought back from the eastern seas.
The polished clam shells had shimmered with hues of violet and moonlit pearl, bound with braided strands of kelp and coral silk that knotted neatly at the back of her neck.
The shells weren’t identical—nothing in the sea ever truly was—but they'd cupped her like they had been grown for her alone, smooth and strong and meant to be worn by a queen.
She hadn't been wearing it the day her father had kicked her out of the kingdom and had left it behind. She wasn't wearing any bra now.
Flotsam or Jetsam reached for her bare skin. Ursula didn’t squirm at their renewed attentions, but she didn't lean into it either. She'd already had her fill, and she was done.
She was so done.
Done with this decrepit reef. Done with this ragged life. Done lurking in the drowned remains of nobility, waiting for greedy men to stray from safe passage so she could bleed them of their cargo.
It paid her well. It kept her comfortable. But comfort was not luxury. Every haul, every scam, every drop of effort pulled her further from the throne she’d once deserved. Further from who she was meant to be.
“We’ll punch through the hull mid-keel,” Jetsam was saying.
"And while they’re panicking, we take the loot,” Flotsam finished.
“Brilliant,” Ursula muttered flatly. “You'll do this in broad daylight, in open waters, with two dozen archers stationed on the top deck, harpoons at the ready. Remind me again, which one of you gets shot first?”
The eels exchanged a glance. Jetsam looked slightly less smug. Flotsam frowned, as though trying to do the math that would come up with the correct answer.
Sleek and bendy the eels were. Smart they were not.
“You want the bounty?” she continued, voice cool and low.
“There’s a smuggler’s fog rolling in from the north reef by sunset.
That’s when you strike—silent, submerged.
No fire. No show. Take the gold and let the ship continue on its way.
They won’t even know where the breach happened until they reach their trade destination. ”
“You make it sound so easy.” Flotsam's tongue coiled around one of her nipples. The bud should've piqued. It remained flaccid.
“That’s because I’m smarter than both of you combined.” She brushed past him and reached for her seashell bra. This one was just a pale pink. It should not have gone with her flame red hair, but everything looked good on her. Even seaweed.
Ursula refastened the clasp of her seashell bra, fingers swift and practiced. The straps had rubbed raw at her shoulders after a day of slouching in salt and boredom. She adjusted the fit, smoothed her hair with a flick of her webbed fingers, and kept her back turned.
“That's a fair point about the fog,” Flotsam murmured.
“What if we slip in from the undercurrent?” Jetsam said, already reworking her strategy like it had spawned fully formed from his own slippery mind. “Crack the haul from beneath while they’re blind.”
“Might even blame it on reef-rock,” Flotsam said, a smirk in his tone. “Could make it look like an accident.”
Ursula rolled her eyes so hard they nearly scraped the inside of her skull. Of course. That was how it always went. She’d feed them brilliance in pearls, and they’d spit it back at her in sand, grinning like they'd mined it themselves.
She didn’t correct them. What was the point? Instead, she turned away from the ruin, her long fin slicing the water behind her like black silk.
“Where you off to, darling?” Jetsam asked.
“Out,” she replied without looking back. “Someone’s got to think further ahead than the next ship.”
She was already halfway out of the ruins, gliding through a curtain of sea grass when the current shifted.
The water trembled—an echo, a vibration.
Something large slicing through the sea just above.
She paused mid-stroke, instinct prickling along the ridges of her spine.
The sea carried more than salt and shadow; it carried whispers, disturbances, danger. This one felt wrong.
Behind her, the coral reef dimmed as Flotsam and Jetsam darted past like arrows loosed from a bow.
“Ship,” Jetsam hissed, giddy, vanishing into the gloom above.
Flotsam followed, his body curling around a jagged column of coral before surging toward the surface. “It’s fast.”
They all saw it at the same time.
The royal seal gleamed in the moonlight, stitched into its tattered sails—an ivory crest against deep navy fabric, flapping weakly in the breeze.
The ship was lean and fast, built more for speed than cargo, but it moved strangely tonight—listing slightly, as if the current pulled against it or something inside had thrown it off balance.
“Leave it,” Ursula commanded, her voice low, edged with warning.
Flotsam slithered ahead, his tail cutting through the dark like a knife. “It's a cutter. Easy pickings.”
Ursula’s fingers curled into fists, her nails biting into her palms. “That cutter is coming from the palace. What do they have to trade?”
“They might not have goods to trade,” Jetsam whispered, voice slick as oil, “but they would have the means to trade with. Gold.”
They were fools. Short-sighted, greedy fools. They didn’t understand the balance of power, the delicate game of timing and precision she was playing. She had a plan—one that didn’t involve petty theft or mindless destruction.
It was just like her brother. Just like her father. Men never listened—not unless she sang. Flotsam and Jetsam weren’t worth wasting a song on. Neither were the humans worthy of saving.
She turned her back. But when she did, she heard a song. Low and guttural, it vibrated through the water like a war drum softened by distance. The melody wasn’t woven with magic like her siren's call—it was rougher, a different pitch, an eel-song.
The sound coiled through the sea like a serpent, curling through trenches, wreckage, and forgotten caverns.
It echoed off rusted hulls and the bones of long-dead leviathans.
Flotsam and Jetsam didn’t have the range to summon true monsters—but they didn’t need to.
They could call their allies from the deep.
A shimmer of bioluminescence flickered along the sea's floor—Glimmerscale Lanternfish, dozens of them, darting toward the ship above, casting illusions of lanterns, false beacons that would lure it straight into peril.
From the reef’s edge, Gravecurrent Crabs lumbered into motion, their massive claws leaving trails in the silt. Barnacle-encrusted and armored with fragments of shipwrecks, they moved with eerie purpose, heading toward the ship’s hull like siege engines rising from the grave.
Above, the ship still sailed, oblivious. Ursula turned back, her expression thunderous. “Fools. You’ll tear everything down, and for what? A few pieces of gold?”
But her voice was swallowed by the chaos already rising around her.
Dark shadows emerged from the depths, twisting, writhing, drawn by the call.
Jagged fins cut through the water, gleaming rows of teeth flashed in the gloom, and the rhythmic pulsing of giant jellyfish sent eerie bioluminescence spiraling through the deep.
The monsters were awake. There was no stopping them now.
The crew’s shouts rang out, loud and desperate, but they could do nothing against the horrors rising from below. Planks splintered. A mast snapped. Then, with a thunderous crack, the sea opened its mouth to swallow the ship whole.
The water churned with the wreckage of the ship, splintered wood and scattered cargo bobbing between overturned lifeboats.
Distant cries echoed over the waves, voices thin and desperate against the vast stretch of sea.
The scent of salt and burning pitch clung to the air, sharp and acrid, mixing with the bitter tang of blood.
Ursula drifted beneath it all, arms folded, watching with cool detachment as the crew scrambled for safety. Pathetic creatures, humans. They clung to their fragile boats, their cargo forgotten, their desperate hands reaching for survival. Then he caught her eye.
A man—broad-shouldered, brown skin like fertile earth, strong, moving through the wreckage with purpose, not panic. Even here, amid chaos, he commanded. His voice cut through the shouts, firm and steady. And people listened.
Ursula did too. There was something about his voice. Something in the pitch of it.
She watched as he moved between the crew, hauling men to their feet, guiding them to lifeboats before stepping away to help the next. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to think of himself first, didn’t cling to a single scrap of cargo.
Idiot.
A fool who put others before himself, who thought that if he threw himself into the fire, someone might reach in to pull him out. No one would. No one ever did.
And then, as if the sea heard her thoughts, the mast gave way. A sharp crack split the air. The man had just helped the last sailor into a lifeboat when the towering mast collapsed, its rigging snapping like a giant’s whip. The thick beam came crashing down, knocking him clean off his feet.
He hit the water hard, a burst of foam swallowing him whole. No one dove in after him. Not a single soul.
Ursula harrumphed, her lips pressing into a thin line. She could almost hear herself saying I told you so. She let herself sink, letting the sea cradle her as she peered through the gloom. Below the surface, the man drifted, ropes tangled around his limbs like hungry hands.
He wasn’t struggling. A deep gash ran along his forehead. Dark blood curled into the water, mixing with the debris sinking around him. The hit had knocked him out. If the ropes didn’t drown him, the weight of his own body would.
Ursula told herself it wasn’t her problem. He had made his choice—to care, to save, to throw himself into the fray like a noble, self-sacrificing fool. And look where it got him.
Last time she saved someone, she'd lost her crown. She'd lost everything.
So what would this cost her?
With a frustrated flick of her tail, she surged forward, closing the distance between them in seconds. She would just put his head above water. That was it. She wasn’t saving him.
She was simply… delaying the inevitable.