2. Chapter 2
Chapter two
TAVRIC
I leaned my forearms on the railing of the ship and looked out over the swells as the moonlight glinted off the water.
We’d been out all day, inspecting coastal fortifications.
Most of the watchtowers had been well maintained, but there were a few repairs needed, as well as a lax garrison commander who would need to be disciplined.
It was a beautiful night for sailing, but Harlan had shaken his head at me when we’d finished our inspection and I’d told him to steer us farther out to sea.
My crew found my propensity for sailing at night odd, but it was where I found the most calm.
And since we were already out on the water, I didn’t feel bad about taking a few extra hours to clear my mind and look for telltale signs of life in the water.
We’d been sailing out in open water for more than an hour, and the crew had left me alone for the most part, knowing my preference for solitude. But now Harlan was approaching, a spyglass in hand. “I assume you’ll want this,” he said as he held it out to me.
“Thank you.” I was quick to hold it to my eye and scan the water.
“Any chance you’ll tell me what you’re searching for?”
I gave a shrug. “Nothing in particular.”
He scoffed.
I cut my eyes over to him and raised a brow, silently waiting for him to speak his mind.
He ran a hand through his ruffled hair and over his beard that had just a few strands of gray in it.
He was ten years my senior and had been the one to teach me how to sail.
As my first mate and my friend, I trusted him, but I didn’t tell him everything.
“You’ve been searching for something ever since your birthday. ”
I looked away. He was right, of course.
“You ever going to tell me what it is so I can help you find it?”
I tapped the spyglass against my palm, debating for several moments. “Not it,” I finally confided. “Who.”
His brow shot up. “You’re looking for someone?”
I nodded. “When I went overboard on my birthday, I didn’t make it to shore on my own.”
He faced me more fully. “What does that mean?” There was an edge to his tone, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d given everyone the scare of their lives that night. Having the crown prince disappear overboard on his twenty-fourth birthday wasn’t on anyone’s to-do list.
“You remember how inebriated I was.” I stared at my hands, remembering how I’d sailed off on this ship, seeking the oblivion of salt spray and drink after my father had told me about his condition.
“Of course I do. I also remember seeing you fall into the ocean when you got in the way of that yardarm.”
I fingered the raised scar at my hairline, still embarrassed that I’d been worse than useless when the storm had come up.
“I didn’t lose consciousness, but it was dark and I was disoriented.
” It had been terrifying, and for just a few moments, I thought I might drown.
But then a set of arms had looped around my chest and started towing me to shore, and I’d let them.
“I didn’t make it to shore on my own. Someone helped me. ”
He looked baffled. “Who?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know her name.
” I’d started calling her Melody in my head because she’d sung to me.
That was how I’d known it was a woman even before I saw her face.
The sound of her voice had entranced me.
“But I want to find her, to thank her at the very least.” She’d brought me close to shore and pushed me forward so I could drag myself onto the sandy beach.
When I’d turned back, I’d been shocked to see the woman still half submerged, fire-red hair dancing in the water around her.
She’d sung a few more notes, the tune sounding like a farewell, and in the few seconds it took to rub the water from my eyes, she’d disappeared.
“And you think we’ll find her in the ocean?” Harlan looked both confused and awed. “Are you saying…”
I shrugged, unwilling to say it out loud. None of us had ever seen one with our own eyes, but the rumors were rampant.
And how else could Melody have disappeared so completely unless she was a—
“Mermaid!” The shout rang out from the crow’s nest.
I looked up to see Jenkins pointing out at the ocean, and my heart shot into my throat.
I ran.
LYRIELLE
There was a loud noise. Blackness surrounded me. Cold enveloped me. Water shot up my nose.
Water? What was happening? I kicked against the wetness around me, shocked and terrified and unable to breathe. How was I in water?
I clawed at the wetness, trying to remember what my father had taught me about swimming.
When I finally broke the surface and gulped in air, my lungs constricted in spasms as I coughed and tried to breathe despite the freezing water.
I pushed down, hoping to keep myself up.
I’d only tried to swim once, and that had been nearly ten years ago.
Lifting my chin to keep my nose further from the water, I strained to see around me, but there was nothing except waves of inky blackness, tipped by ribbons of moonlight that reflected off the water.
But what water? Why was I in water? I’d been falling and there had been nothing but hard ground below me. I looked around for land, but there was none. Was this what death looked like? Cold, endless water? What if—
My head was tugged back, and I gasped one deep breath before the weight of my hair and the rolling waves pulled me under the surface again.
I was going to die. Auntie had been right. Freedom did have a price.
The water tugged at my braid, pulling me deeper.
Just as my lungs screamed and I felt I couldn’t keep myself from trying to breathe any longer, something caught under my arm. A branch? A rope? A hand? Was there someone else in the water with me? I was now being dragged through the water. But dragged where? Up? Or down?
Air hit my face again and I gasped for breath, flailing around until my hands latched on to the shoulders of a man who was in the water with me, his face stunned but determined.
“I’ve got you,” he shouted as he secured me to his side. “Don’t fight or you’ll pull us both under.”
I coughed and sputtered, desperate for more air, but tried to do as he asked.
As I clung to his neck and did my best to convince myself that I was not on the verge of death anymore, I could feel him kicking and using one arm to pull us through the water.
My eyes darted around, trying to make sense of this impossible situation.
My whole body shook with terror and with cold, but the warmth of the man I clung to anchored me just enough that I was able to focus.
A large shadow loomed above us, and after several moments, the shadow took the shape of a ship; that must have been where the man had come from.
I looked up at the railing , where several faces peered over the edge.
“Do you need assistance, Highness?” one man hollered down at us.
“No. Stand by,” the man holding me yelled back.
“It’s a mermaid, it is!” another shouted from above. “Tritan has blessed us with one of his daughters.”
A ladder made of rope hung down the side of the ship, and the man reached out with his left hand to take hold of the first rung, his right arm still firmly anchored around my waist.
I continued to cling to him, shaking and frantic.
“Grab hold of the ladder, miss.” I looked at him, frightened and unsure, but his eyes were kind and encouraging. “You can do it.”
I nodded and, with great effort, managed to release him with my right hand and latch onto the closest rung.
“Well done. Now pull.”
Working together, we were able to pull our upper bodies out of the water. My arm shook with the effort, even though I was certain that he did most of the work.
While his right forearm kept me anchored to his side, he reached out with his right hand so he could hold the ladder while his left hand moved up to the next rung. “Now you. Move your hand up. Good. Pull.”
The sea swelled and the current pulled on my hair, weighing on my neck. I cried out, afraid I’d be sucked back into the sea. “Don’t let me go,” I begged.
He looked back over his shoulder at the length of my hair trailing down my back and into the depths. “Poseiden’s hoard, maybe you truly are a mermaid,” he muttered in astonishment.
Before I could reply, the waves heaved again and the pull on my hair was so strong that I lost my grip on the ladder. The man tried to keep a hold of me, but his grasp broke and I was swallowed by the waves once more.
As I sank into the blackness that stole my air, I wondered if perhaps the man and the sea had just been one last vivid daydream before the plummet from my tower ended my life.
It had been nice to think that someone had been willing to care for me. Perhaps that was the best I could hope for in my last moments in this world.
A strong hand circled my arm and pulled, forcing me to acknowledge that I was not quite dead and should try to keep it that way.
I kicked my legs and grabbed at the water until my head broke the surface. I latched onto his neck again, pulling close, desperate to keep my head above water. My hair was going to kill me.
“Calm down,” he insisted, his voice tight as he reached behind me. “This hair is going to drown you.”
I felt him tugging on it and wondered why he wasn’t taking me back to the ship. But all I could do was hold on to him as he kicked his legs, keeping us above water while he pulled and tugged my hair. What was he doing? My hair wasn’t any good to him unless I sang.
“Forgive me, but if you want to live…”
“I’m coming down to help,” a voice shouted from the deck above.
“Don’t!” the man said, still pulling on my hair. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“Is it a mermaid?” The shout came from a different voice above us.
The man’s eyes cut to me, a question in his gaze. What did he expect me to say? I lived in the only magic kingdom known to man, and even we knew that mermaids were nothing but a myth or a bedtime story.
He went back to his task and I finally realized what he was doing.
Sparks and fire. He’s cutting my hair. I could see some of the strands reflecting the moonlight as they floated away.
A wave of horror washed over me, an instinctual bristling. Cutting my hair was the ultimate betrayal of everything I’d been taught. All of my worth, all the good that I had ever done, had been because of my hair.
Yet, with each cut, it became easier to hold my head above the water.
So I closed my eyes and I let it happen. This was what I’d wanted. This was why I’d run away—to be free of the life my hair tethered me to.
“There,” he said and immediately grabbed my waist and swam us both back to the ship. “Shall we try again?”
I stared, slack-jawed over his shoulder as the last of my hair slipped beneath the inky surface. Gone. My hair was gone. The way my head rested on my neck felt wobbly and strange.
This time, he put me in front of him and encouraged me to climb while he caged me from behind.
I discovered that my months of training to climb the tower made it fairly easy to scale the ladder now that my hair was gone, though a ladder that swung precariously from a rocking ship was certainly different from a solid stone wall, and the man kept having to pull my skirt out of my way when it would tangle around my feet.
Hand over hand, I climbed toward the railing above and the men who waited there.
So many faces peered down on us. All men. Some young, some old. Some grizzled and rough, some fresh-faced.
“Has King Tritan sent us one of his daughters, Highness?” one of the younger men yelled.
Highness? Was this man royalty, then? And the King Tritan they spoke of, perhaps he was a ruler of another land. One who regularly threw his daughters into the sea? That didn’t seem right. Then again, nothing about this was right.
Those strange thoughts swirled in my head, distracting me from the strain of pulling myself up the ladder. The man—prince?—who’d saved me stayed one rung below me the whole time, anchoring the ladder and telling me I could do it.
When we reached the top, several sets of hands took hold of me and dragged me over the railing.
As soon as my feet met the wooden planks, I collapsed onto the deck, catching myself with my hands. My chest heaved with labored breathing, and my eyes darted around, tired and confused. I was on a ship in the middle of the sea, and the tower from which I’d fallen was nowhere in sight.
I looked up, acutely aware of all the eyes staring at me in the lamplight as unease crept up my spine.
The wet, wooden planks beneath my hands testified to the fact that this truly was a ship, and I truly was surrounded by men, one of whom had just saved me from certain death.