Chapter 14 #3
She remained hovering about the entrance, mindful of the prying eyes pinging off the back of her head. Whispers here manifested in garbled squeaks only coherent to their intended recipients. Yemi’s pulse began to race, and each breath became a deep and anxious one as the voices grew louder.
What if this turned unfriendly? She had no real power here. What did the Mer do to those not welcome? What if she was returned to a deserted beach as only a torso and most of an arm?
She tightened her grip on her spear as the squeaking reached a fever pitch in her ears, prepared to turn and brandish it at whoever needed warning to keep away from her, when the guard appeared in the hallway again.
He was followed by a smaller merwoman, older with a severe countenance, the humanoid bits of her tan and the fish bits an iridescent white with great blobs of orange reminiscent of the carp in Yemi’s palace gardens.
“Minevra,” she said curtly, extending a hand. “Her Majesty’s steward. You are of… some relation?”
“Yes,” Yemi replied. A queen in my own right as well, but sure, she didn’t add. She shook Minevra’s hand hesitantly, still not used to being touched.
“The queen is occupied. But she’s offered you chambers where you’re permitted to wait until she has a free moment.”
Yemi maintained careful control over her face, not wanting to convey the mounting aggravation beginning to roil in her gut. “And when might that be?” she asked with all the sweetness she could muster.
“At Her Majesty’s whim.” Minevra took Yemi in with giant, alien eyes, impossible to read.
“Naturally,” Yemi muttered. Another face emerged from around the corner in the hallway behind Minevra, black with a blob of white up the side of its head. It ducked away as Yemi squinted in its direction.
Hmm.
“Alright, then. Lead the way.”
Minevra nodded to the spear still clutched tightly in Yemi’s fist. “Your weapon. You will not be permitted to take it inside. Turn it over to Horus. He will see it secured, and you may have it back whenever you leave the grounds.”
Yemi winced. The idea of relinquishing her only means of defense in a place so foreign, so potentially hostile, was a painful one.
She studied the guard. He had a brutish build and the kind of emptiness behind his eyes that said he was good at obeying but had no more complex instinct she could appeal to, should things go sideways later.
“This is Horus?” she asked.
“It is,” said Minevra.
Yemi bit her lip, looking from him to her. “I’d rather not.”
Minevra gave a small, apologetic smile. “I’m sure. And yet,” she said, blinking patiently. There was deference there in her manner, but not subservience. Like Orie, she wielded at least some power. Only Minevra’s felt more threatening.
Yemi scanned the coral towers quickly, searching for potential points of escape.
She’d only now noticed the tiny air bubbles streaming from the coral surface as if the structure itself were breathing.
Larger round holes like windows dotted the stalks at intermittent intervals.
She’d find her way through one of them if she had to.
She handed over her father’s spear, keeping the key to herself. It would look like a set of decorative rings on her fingers to anyone else, and she needed to not feel completely naked. Horus placed it in a rack near the entrance alongside a dozen other less impressive ones.
Minevra nodded, satisfied. “This way.”
The halls of the Mer palace were not halls as Yemi knew them.
This was a labyrinth of tubes through the hollows of the coral stalks.
In lieu of framed art, every inch of the walls was etched in intricate glyphs, symbols in a language she couldn’t read.
The farther upward they traveled toward the center, the brighter the walls became as sunlight permeated the carvings.
She had questions, yes, but now was not the time to ask them as she tried to keep her attention on their route, the twists and turns as they made their way deeper into the palace, so she could find her way out again.
That one Mer with the orca spots appeared at different points, tailing them but doing a poor job of staying out of sight.
Yemi felt she vaguely recognized them, but could not remember where or how.
“This ‘great-niece,’ ” Minevra mused. “I am not familiar with that expression. In what way are you ‘great’?”
“Well, that’s the subject of some debate lately,” Yemi scoffed. “But my grandmother, Arielle, was sister to your Queen Helene. I am the daughter of Arielle’s daughter.”
“Perhaps.”
“Sorry?” Yemi flinched.
“You are here by the witch’s magic. You could be anyone.”
Yemi twitched in alarm. If they weren’t convinced she was who she said she was—or perhaps worse, that she was an agent of Ursla’s… well. A prison cell was a type of chamber after all, wasn’t it?
“Does the queen share your skepticism?” Yemi asked as she looked around for signs of imminent danger.
“I am a skeptic for her. The Mer have not seen a Blackgate in the flesh for nearly a hundred years. Arielle’s likeness only exists in our queen’s memory. There’s nothing to even compare her offspring to.”
A lie? Yemi’s jaw clenched. The Mer had been following Ixia’s ships at least since she was a girl. Was it possible Minevra didn’t know?
It dawned on her then that that was how she recognized the one following them. They’d followed her ship into the harbor and waved that day.
“And yet you didn’t seem surprised to see me,” Yemi said quietly, looking for who she assumed now was a friendly face.
Minevra smirked. “I may be surprised when I know for certain who you are.”
It was possible she was being taken to interrogation.
They’d done things similarly with prisoners at the height of the war: dragged them through the tunnels beneath the Rock to disorient them, make them dependent on guards and investigators if they ever wanted to see the sun again.
More than the pathways now, she noticed the increasing presence of watchful eyes on her.
Two mermen seemed to follow at some distance behind them, and still more waited at regular intervals in the corridor ahead.
While Horus had been a mammoth of a guard outside, those inside seemed smaller and wirier by comparison.
Better for giving chase in a hallway, Yemi thought grimly.
She silently cursed Ursla for the paranoia she now felt, her openness to every way this could possibly end, and the world of Men for inflating her idea of what the Mer were capable of.
They passed a corridor of concentric, lotus-shaped openings ending in a golden door when Yemi heard the warbling of many voices and came to a halt. It had all the indicators of a grand hall. And no congregations happened in a palace without the royals.
“What’s that way?” Yemi asked innocently, wondering if she could outmaneuver so many at such a close distance. Was what waited on the other side of the lotus door worth breaking into?
“Nothing you need worry about. Your quarters are just this way,” Minevra replied.
Yemi made a split-second decision.
“Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of time,” she said, flipping backward over the heads of her escorts and using their brief moment of confusion to zoom off toward the lotus door.
“Halt! Halt!” the doorman barked, taking a defensive position in front of the door.
Yemi couldn’t stop now, though. She barreled toward him, aiming for a spot beneath his center of gravity, and braced for impact.
At a violent speed, she wrapped herself around his waist, and they went crashing together through the door.
The chirps of conversation gave way to panicked shrieks as the gathered assembly darted for the room’s edges.
The tackled guard wrestled himself free of her grip and caught her in a chokehold with her arm bent painfully up her back between them.
Yemi grunted as she struggled against him, straining to see over his massive forearm.
She was thankful in the moment that she didn’t need her nose free to breathe.
The throne room was at once bare and opulent.
The queen stretched over a stone chaise centered on a broad, golden wall visually textured like rumpled silk.
It shimmered in the sunlight filtered through the millions of intricate honeycomb holes in the other pale blush walls.
Plankton and microbeings drifted overhead like ethereal glitter.
Over a dozen pairs of accusing eyes were turned to glare at her. She’d interrupted a symposium of some sort. A sea of merfolk with tattooed heads and an abundance of layered jetsam neck jewelry split to clear her line of sight to the queen.
Queen Helene drifted upright as they entered—jerkily, Yemi noted, as if she were being dragged into doing it.
She was thin, almost waiflike, and a sand-brown color with her shark’s fin a mottled tan.
Her eyes were large, her lips full and dark.
Yemi saw her grandmother reflected in the freckles across her strong nose.
Her blue crown of coral antlers mimicked sunrays and sat atop her skull, which was tattooed to look like some oceanic version of pin curls.
She lazily waved a hand to signal Yemi’s release. The guard’s reluctance was evident, but he finally let her go and instead clamped his powerful hands over her shoulders, ready to drag her from the room.
“Forgive me,” Yemi called, directing it to the entire room before focusing on the queen. “I am Yemaya Blackgate, queen of Ixia. We are cousins, albeit distant ones. I’d like an opportunity to speak with you.”
She was trying for charming but had no idea if it was landing.
The crowd’s attentions shifted silently to the queen. Yemi could feel them all daring Helene to grant her nothing more than a swift end. Yemi twitched subtly under the hold of the guard, testing him for weaknesses.