Chapter 14 #6
The leader flushed a furious shade of pink. “How dare—”
Before he could continue, a horn sounded. A low, menacing drone from the main conch of the palace that shook the world around it. The Quorum spun in its direction.
Lirik stretched out an arm to keep Yemi behind her. “Stay here,” she said quietly, her voice back to normal.
Yemi followed her eyes as she stared out over the city beneath them.
Svelte figures appearing as silver flashes of light darted among the palace towers, pursued by the hulking forms of exterior guards.
The few other inhabitants seen milling about disappeared into structures as the guards chased the silver merfolk from palace grounds and into the city proper.
The gathered inquisitors remained still and silent as they watched, waiting for the creatures to be caught. One by one, the creatures disappeared into the dark chasms that established the separation of city blocks.
“Come with me,” Lirik whispered and took Yemi’s hand. The two of them snuck away toward the wall of rock behind them while the mob of nobles remained fixated on the chase of the creatures.
A crack in the rock formation revealed itself once they were closer. Lirik fit herself through it, and Yemi trailed her through a shallow trench on the other side.
“What were those things?” Yemi asked, though she could have been talking about a number of things.
“The Hollow,” Lirik replied.
Yemi frowned. “Are they Mer?” Until now, she’d assumed “the Hollow” Helene was content to let have her was a euphemism for the vast oceans in which she’d been invited to drown.
“The Hollow are the lost. Some Mer regret allowing Ursla to save them, so they shun her. When they cannot adjust to our world, they become a danger to it, so they are banished and usually end up beneath the city in those shadowed trench lanes. They lose themselves. And for want of food, they feast on each other.” A clearing appeared ahead of them, and on the other side, blue light glittered through a curtain of kelp. Lirik pulled back the thick strands.
“Every story you’ve heard that saw the sea folk mirrored in divinity was about the Mer. Every nightmare you’ve had about being eaten alive, drowning in seas of your blood and the dust of your own entrails, has been about the Hollow,” Lirik said as she motioned for Yemi to go ahead of her.
Yemi found herself in the shallow end of a grotto the shape of a fishbowl.
Cubbies carved into the worn, rounded walls were stuffed with algae-crusted trinkets, flotsam, and jetsam from the world above the water.
She peeked above the surface to where the cavern continued.
Here, waterlogged books and cracked paintings on wrinkled canvas overfilled the lower shelves of a warped bookcase and were stacked on the flat of stone surrounding it.
It was beautiful and strange all at once—a curation of barely notable nonsense, and yet someone had taken the time to haul it here, lovingly.
“What is this place?” she asked Lirik.
“Arielle’s cove,” Lirik replied. “I always knew it existed but only found it a few years ago.”
“What?” Yemi gasped.
Her grandmother had told her tales of looted shipwrecks and obscure stories from other lands; Yemi had written them off as fictions from an old woman’s imagination.
But the paintings, the kitsch, the weathered masonry of foreign figureheads were all real.
So were the happier memories of her family alive and intact and in enough peace for storytelling instead of battle planning.
Yemi found herself beaming.
“There it is,” Lirik said.
Yemi drew up onto the rocks and dragged herself over to the bookcase. Some of the volumes were ancient, and many of them were written in languages she didn’t recognize.
She shook water droplets from her hand to trace her fingers along the places where her grandmother had tested writing her name in ink on the backboards of old volumes.
“What was she like?” Lirik asked, stretching across a rock as if it were a chaise.
“My grandmother?” Yemi raised an eyebrow. “I guess I would say… ‘effervescent’? Spirited. Bright. And, as I’m coming to discover, potentially shortsighted.”
It was difficult to contend with these revelations about her grandmother, a woman she’d defended viciously all her life but may have earned the criticism she received.
She’d made choices that wrecked lives not through malice, just selfishness.
And not just the lives of Men. She’d upended two entire worlds.
But being in this space, the cavern where she’d collected her innocent dreams, Yemi felt her affection for humanity more keenly.
Arielle had been trapped by the nature of her birth, like anyone else. It was hard to make her a villain.
Lirik’s intense gaze brought her down from her own thoughts.
“She made her decision based on one man’s feelings for her without accounting for the inescapable feelings of a million others,” Yemi said.
“Turns out those feelings mattered, too. Love doesn’t work the way she thought it did.
Had she fallen for a carpenter or fisherman…
Well. The consequences have been dramatic.
They’ve left me lost, which is why I find myself here. ”
Lirik nodded. “I know about the wars. They made their mark here, too.”
Of course they did, Yemi thought. This was where the dead and dying ended up.
“The wars killed thousands, and then the fish disappearing from the north ruined livelihoods, and we were blamed for it. Men can’t seem to decide if we are gods or lesser creatures. They killed both my parents, then stole my throne. My mother suffered greatly first.”
“How will you avenge her?”
Yemi was surprised. “You know, you’re the first person to expect vengeance from me. As queen, I’m supposed to be above it.”
Lirik shrugged. “What’s the point of power if you can’t use it?”
Yemi smiled slightly. “That’s also why I’m here. I assumed the seat of the Mer realm would have an army substantial enough to rival the one I mean to take back. But Her Majesty was not forthcoming.”
“You’re about fifty years too late, I’m afraid.” Lirik sighed. “The exodus. Things fell apart when Triton died.”
“You were here fifty years ago?” she asked Lirik.
“I am a one-hundred-and-eight-year-old siren. Young, sure, but I might as well be an infant as far as my mother is concerned.” The last part was drenched in resentment.
Yemi’s curiosity was piqued. “A siren? Is that how you did that with the Quorum?”
Lirik nodded. “We’re not supposed to use it on our own, but that’s really more of a guideline than a rule.”
“Have you thought about leaving like the others?” Yemi asked her.
A grim silence fell between them, and Yemi knew to leave it alone.
“What is Queen Helene like?” she asked instead.
Lirik sighed. “Quiet. Distant. Sad.”
“I glimpsed at least one of those, and it wasn’t the ‘quiet,’ ” Yemi replied.
“I don’t know. I feel bad for her. She’s lonely. She wasn’t in line for the throne but took it up anyway, and now everyone’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
Lirik dragged a finger around the rim of an old drinking glass, filling the cove with an eerie whistling noise.
“There’s only the one kingdom, but Triton’s children all left for other seas and now have their own territories.
When Helene’s line ends, my mother will replace her but can never hold the title of queen.
So that will be the end of this place. The city of Abyssa becomes a reliquary, and the real power of the seas will shift to one of the others.
Their territory will be the new seat of the kingdom. ”
I should have gone to one of them instead, Yemi thought.
Lirik propped herself up on an elbow. “She was in love once, the queen. With Ursla’s daughter. Back then, I hear she was more fun. More everything. Not a queenly type, but back then, she didn’t have to be.”
Yemi shut her book. “Ursla’s what?”
“Yeah.” Lirik waggled what might have been eyebrows. “They made a lot of trouble together, and then the daughter, she… died or something. Poor queen hasn’t been the same since.”
Yemi reeled. Ursla had a dead daughter? But what was it Selah had said? She couldn’t create life as a witch, only manipulate—
“Selah,” Yemi said aloud.
“Hmm?” Lirik perked up.
“Nothing,” Yemi replied. She reached for the medallion tying her hair together to confirm it was still there.
Give this to Helene.
Her mind reeled. Selah and Helene… but why hadn’t Ursla mentioned it? If Ursla could create life of her own, why did Selah insist she was only a witch?
“You wouldn’t know why Ursla’s exiled?” Yemi asked, trying not to sound overeager.
“Goes back to Merrine and Peris. The royal line was created so there would always be someone with the blood of the Old Gods to rule the sea. Without it, Ursla would have no one to keep her from the throne. The Old Gods, they didn’t like her much.”
Yemi snorted.
“Triton had the power to banish her after Arielle… you know.”
“And she just stayed away?” Yemi raised an eyebrow.
“Pretty sure. But you never know.” Lirik winked.
She wasn’t wrong. The old girl did have a knack for showing up in places she’d been expressly unwelcome.
“You don’t approve of her,” Lirik sang, observing perhaps the deep frown that settled across Yemi’s face. She dangled the very tip of her tail into the pool below, circling it above a small group of green fish.
“I suppose that’s one way to put it,” Yemi replied.
“And yet you rely on her. To bring you here.”
“Life is full of compromises.” She sighed.
Lirik reached into the pool and speared a fish the size of a fist with her fingers.
Its tail twitched faintly until she calmly dragged a long nail across its belly.
In a single motion, she scooped out its guts, emptied them into the pool, and then bit it in half.
The head she left for Yemi, reaching across to hand it to her.