Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
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.
If there was one thing she could never be accused of, it was lacking audacity.
At her first opportunity, Ursula broke away from the school of simpering merpeople and sought her own path. She 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.
She had been allowed back for her father's burial in the deep sea but then promptly escorted out once again.
She swam deeper until the voices of the court grew faint. Finding herself before a door she hadn’t seen in years, she brushed her fingers 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.
Ariel's fascination with the air breathers bordered on sickness, as far as Ursula was concerned.
What value could these crude, corroded baubles possibly hold?
The girl was never content with what was beneath the waves.
She had seen it for years—Ariel slipping away, breaking the surface, stepping onto human land like she had every right to be there, walking side by side with Princess Aurora, their laughter ringing out over the cliffs as they vanished into the golden spires of the human palace.
Ursula had saved Ariel from humans. Pulled the girl from the depths as her blood stained the sea. Torn the harpoon from her side and called a kraken to sink the humans who had dared to harm her.
And for what?
Ariel had repaid her with nothing but loss. Her father’s trust. Her brother's… well, Triton had never done anything for Ursula. Her bedchamber had been taken. Her place in the kingdom stolen from her. She should have let the sea claim the brat that day.
Ursula exhaled sharply, forcing herself to push the thought of Ariel aside. She had wasted enough time regretting saving one fool—why had she gone and saved another today?
She hadn’t meant to. She had watched the man sink, bound in ropes, left behind by the very men he had tried to save. He had fought for them, dragged them into lifeboats, put their lives above his own, and in the end—not a single one had come for him.
He was a fool. Just like her.
She had once believed in loyalty, had fought for something greater than herself, had risked everything for family, for duty, for the love of her people—and what had it gotten her?
Exile. Betrayal. A life spent scavenging instead of ruling.
She had learned her lesson. Hopefully, he had learned his. If he survived. She was sure he would. A bright light like his.
Something inside her hadn’t wanted to see that light die out. She had seen the way he moved, the way the crew listened when he spoke, the way he had not hesitated to throw himself into the fire for the sake of others.
It was stupid. Reckless. Weak.
And still, she had reached for him. She would never see that sailor again. He was not her concern.
What was her concern was her empty pockets.
With the mess Flotsam and Jetsam had made of the royal ship, they'd let the liner that had likely been carrying the gold slip by them.
All of her carefully laid plans, instead of sinking to the bottom of the sea's floor for easy pickings, were now out to sea.
It would be days, possibly weeks, before the liner returned, if they were smart.
Ursula 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.
It wasn't thievery. Not that Ursula had a problem with taking anything from the royal family.
These jewels were her birthright. She slipped the chain around her neck and tucked the gem inside one of her seashells.
The sapphire warmed her breast as she pulled the cloak back over her head.
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 into his gills.
“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. Ursula resumed her escape, only to pause again when she turned the next corner. There, standing 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. Luckily, he was distracted now.
King Triton stood at the edge of the coral dais, his massive frame coiled with tension.
Muscles corded along his arms as he gripped his golden trident—a weapon of legend, crackling faintly with restrained power.
His sea-blue eyes were stormy, his heavy brow furrowed beneath the weight of his crown.
Salt-crusted strands of silver hair floated around his head like a mane, giving him the appearance of a sea god carved from wrath and stone.
The long sweep of his tail, opalescent and edged with a sharp fin, flicked restlessly as he paced.
Before him hovered a much smaller figure. Sebastian stood upright on two jointed legs, the carapace of his shell polished to a lacquered red gleam. His pincers tapped together with an anxious rhythm, and his eyestalks twitched as he tried to keep pace with the king’s agitation.
“She’s still missing?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Sebastian’s voice carried the clipped, proper cadence of someone used to bearing bad news—and the bite of royal tempers.
Triton’s grip on his trident tightened. “I want every current searched.”
“Yes, sire.” Sebastian bowed low, though his voice muttered under his breath, “As if we haven’t already turned the ocean inside out…”
Triton didn’t hear. Or perhaps he did and simply chose not to respond. His gaze had already drifted, scanning the endless blue as if sheer force of will might summon his wayward daughter back to him.
Of course, it was Ariel that was missing.
All of her sisters were bound to other mermen in different seas across the world.
Each one an alliance that merged the waterways under Triton's command.
It was Ariel, the youngest and the most spoiled, who thought she could do as she pleased and go wherever she fancied.
“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 another. "She's set to meet her betrothed tomorrow."
Betrothed? So big brother had gone and gotten his last daughter on a hook. Ursula wondered with which sea.
"This alliance with the King of the Coastlands is vital," barked her brother.
The Coastlands? That was no sea. So that was the price of peace? Ursula had wondered how her father and brother had gotten the Coastal King to cave. Now she knew.
If she hadn't have been banished, would that have been her fate? An arranged marriage to the Prince of the Coast? Better Ariel than her. Ursula had no interest in being any man's pawn.
“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. Sebastian, go and stall the prince while the guards search.”
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 dark 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 as she began to sing.
“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 these waters 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. She would sneak onto the coast 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. 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.