2. The Mother’s Decree
The Mother’s Decree
Sigurd
The heavy blinds stay drawn against the afternoon sun, leaving my office in the dimness I prefer. Across the reinforced steel desk, the naga delegation occupies three oversized leather chairs.
Ananta, Nalini, and Vasuki wear impeccable suits above the waist, with silk ties knotted neatly at their throats.
Below, thick coils of jewel-toned scales spill over the broad cushions and onto the antique rug.
The chairs are larger than anything made for humans, but the nagas still need room to settle their tails.
Their scales rasp against the leather as they shift. Vasuki adds another sound by tapping a gold fountain pen against the rim of his coaster. Clink. Clink. Clink.
We’ve spent three hours arguing over a two-percent margin on temperature-controlled shipping containers. That’s about two and a half hours longer than the subject deserves.
One of my tentacles taps against the steel floor beneath the desk. My suits are cut along the back so my tentacles can move freely without destroying the tailoring. The desk keeps the movement out of sight, which is exactly where I want it.
Vasuki hits the coaster again. The sound lands directly on what remains of my patience.
“Put the pen down, Vasuki,” I tell him. “We’re not spending another hour on basic transit logistics.”
The tapping stops. He sets the pen down and narrows his slitted eyes at me, but he doesn’t pick it up again.
Ananta takes the revised contract from inside his jacket and slides it across the desk. “The subzero containers for our venom require specialized magical maintenance, Sigurd. The markup reflects the additional logistical burden.”
I leave the contract where it is. Their pharmaceutical buyers require cold transit, and the venom can’t tolerate prolonged surface heat. They need my fleet if they want the shipment across the Atlantic on schedule.
The rest of this argument is mostly theater. They know it, and so do I.
“The containers are standard issue,” I tell him. “Your customs delays aren’t my financial burden.”
Nalini shifts in her chair, emerald scales catching what little light reaches the room. “That’s a harsh position, even for you. We both know the delivery schedule is tight.”
“Which is why this meeting should’ve ended hours ago.” I look at Ananta across the desk. “My ships leave at midnight. Sign the addendum, or find another fleet.”
Nobody speaks for several seconds. Ananta studies the contract, then reaches for Vasuki’s abandoned pen and signs the final page.
They were never going to walk away from the deal. They only wanted to know whether wasting three hours of my day could buy them two percent. Now they have their answer.
“Leave it there,” I tell him. “I have other appointments.”
The nagas uncoil themselves from the chairs, their scales dragging over leather and carpet with a dry rasp. Vasuki retrieves his fountain pen on the way out, and the three of them disappear into the hallway.
The doors close behind them, and my tentacle finally stops tapping against the floor. Three hours of negotiation has changed exactly nothing except the hour on the clock. I should find a less expensive way to waste an afternoon.
I roll my shoulders and lean back in the chair, enjoying the silence while it lasts. It lasts for roughly five seconds.
The office doors open again, and Brighid steps inside with her tablet clutched against her chest. My selkie secretary is usually impossible to rattle, but today her eyes keep darting toward the hallway.
“Mr. Eiriksson,” she starts. “Madam Solveig is—” My mother walks in before Brighid can finish.
Solveig Haraldsdóttir rarely visits the surface, and she never arrives without a good reason. She crosses the threshold in a severe black gown, one hand wrapped around an obsidian cane. My mother always emits a particular kind of chill, and not just because she’s a kraken.
Brighid takes one careful step aside. Solveig barely looks at her before pointing the cane toward the hallway. “Dismissed, seal. Close the door.”
Brighid glances at me, but I give her a small nod. She retreats into the hall and pulls the doors shut behind her.
I get to my feet as Solveig crosses the antique rug. My tentacles draw closer to my back on instinct, and I make them settle again. My mother notices everything, so there’s no reason to give her anything extra to notice.
She stops on the other side of the desk and looks me over. Her glowing blue eyes move from my face to the contract the nagas left behind. “Sigurd,” she says, giving me the greeting with all her usual maternal warmth.
That is to say, none. I rest one hand against the edge of the desk. “Móeir. To what do I owe the lack of warning?”
She starts a slow circuit around the chairs the nagas just vacated. The hem of her gown brushes the rug while the obsidian cane taps lightly beside her.
I wait for the reason she crossed several hundred miles of ocean to stand in my office. Whatever it is, I already know I’m not going to enjoy it.
We manage our parts of the family empire from different worlds on purpose. Solveig handles the abyssal courts and old alliances, while I handle the surface business. It keeps both of us happier.
If she came to the surface herself, something is seriously wrong. She confirms it when she stops beside the desk.
“I just finished cleaning up your mess with the leviathan,” she says, leaning her weight on the cane. “The truce is signed. The war is paused.”
The fighting between the merman clans has been dragging on for months, and my mother made her position clear from the beginning. We were not to interfere.
Then my djinn friend Rakan needed my help, and I went into contested waters for him anyway. Lotan the leviathan took the intrusion exactly as badly as expected.
My mother had to buy a truce afterward, and she hasn’t let me forget the cost since. I’ve heard some version of the lecture every time we’ve spoken.
“Yes, Móeir, I’m aware.” I rest one hand against the edge of the desk. “And like I told you last time, I’ll look into options for the people along the human coastline.”
“The humans are irrelevant,” Solveig says without hesitation. “I’ve already ordered that quaint little town evacuated.”
My fingers tighten against the steel. The metal gives a faint groan beneath my hand before I realize how hard I’m gripping it. “Móeir.”
“You’re denting the furniture, Sigurd.” Solveig glances down at my hand. “Release it.”
“The desk is mine to ruin.” I ease my grip anyway. “Tell me why you signed an eviction order for Saltweather.”
“The port is a necessary casualty,” she says. Her tone suggests the matter should require no further discussion.
“It’s a thriving human community,” I tell her. “It’s also a logistical anchor. Clearing it out will disrupt routes all along that stretch of coast.”
“Your freighters can reroute.” Solveig dismisses the concern with one hand. “You swam into contested waters for the sake of your djinn friend. I had to offer the coastline to get Lotan to back off.”
She isn’t wrong about why the problem exists, but that doesn’t make evacuating Saltweather any less extreme. I look at her across the desk, trying to decide how she can regard an entire town as collateral and expect me to do the same.
“It is what it is,” she continues. “Now we have another problem. The clans are already stirring up outrage over the favor we showed the leviathan, and we need to make our position clear.”
I already dislike where this is going. “How?”
“You will escort Maren to Rakan’s wedding this weekend.” Solveig watches me closely. “It will remind them that our house remains allied with the merfolk.”
Of course she means Maren. The idea doesn’t appeal in the slightest. Three centuries with the siren was more than enough.
She lived for cameras, appearances, and public approval. I spent most of our relationship refusing to become whatever version of me she thought would photograph better.
“I’m well aware of when Rakan’s wedding is,” I tell my mother. “I’ll be attending. I won’t be attending with Maren.”
Solveig’s expression hardens. She lifts the cane and brings it down against the steel desk. The impact leaves a deep crease in the metal.
I look at the new dent beside the one I nearly made myself. Apparently, concern for the furniture has limits.
“You don’t have a choice,” she says. “Unless you acquired a mate while I was busy stopping a war, you will escort the siren. You’re the head of surface operations. Act like it.”
It isn’t a suggestion or even an argument. My mother has already decided what I’m going to do and expects the rest of the world to catch up.
I lean one hand against the desk. “You can command the tides, Móeir. You don’t command who sits at my table.”
Her glowing eyes narrow. “This isn’t about your table. It’s about the clans.”
“They don’t get a vote either.” I hold her stare, and for a moment neither of us moves.
Solveig grips the cane between both hands. “You will obey me before the weekend arrives.” She turns toward the doors before I can tell her otherwise.
The hem of her black gown sweeps over the rug as she leaves. A moment later, the doors close behind her, and I cross to the sideboard for the aquavit.
I pour a measure into a tumbler and add one cube of ice. Then I take the glass with me as I turn toward the darkened windows.
Lotan wants territory. My mother wants compliance, and the abyssal courts want reassurance that we haven’t abandoned the merfolk for a leviathan. None of those demands makes the others any easier to satisfy.
If I arrive at Rakan’s wedding alone, the clans will read it as another slight. If I arrive with Maren, I give my mother exactly the public display she wants.
Neither option appeals to me, so I take a drink instead. The sharp botanical burn settles on my tongue as the ice shifts against the glass.
The small clink pulls an older memory to the surface. Three centuries ago, Maren and I stood at a diplomatic gala, surrounded by marble, chandeliers, and people pretending not to listen to us argue.
She had finally run out of patience with my refusal to perform our relationship for an audience. I can still remember the look on her face when she turned on me.
“You are nothing but ice and transaction, Sigurd. I spent three centuries trying to find a heartbeat in there, but you just calculate. You’re a vault, not a man.”
At the time, I’d thought the accusation was unfair. Looking back, I’m not sure either of us understood why we stayed together as long as we did.
Maren wanted a partner who would smile for cameras, attend every gala, and make the abyssal papers jealous. I wanted someone who could sit beside me without turning every private moment into a public performance.
Neither of us got what we wanted, and the endless years didn’t make us any more compatible. Staying longer only gave us more opportunities to prove it.
I finish the aquavit and set the empty glass on the sideboard. Three centuries later, the courts are still trying to make Maren useful to me, as though the relationship failed because we needed a larger audience.
For once, I’d like someone to walk into this office who doesn’t want my money, my ships, my name, or a piece of the ocean. The office doors slam open before I can decide whether that qualifies as tempting fate.
I turn toward the sound, and my tentacles flare from the openings in my jacket before I’ve identified the threat. The intruder isn’t an assassin or a territorial rival.
She’s human, soaked from the rain, and marching straight into my office as though she had every right to be here. A wet cardigan clings to her shoulders above faded jeans.
A canvas overnight bag hangs from one shoulder, and she grips a damp manila folder against her ribs. Rainwater darkens the edges of the cardboard.
Brighid rushes in behind her, flushed and breathing hard. “Mr. Eiriksson, I’m so sorry. She came out of the elevator and slipped past the guards before anyone could stop her.”
I barely hear the explanation. The woman has already crossed the antique rug and stopped several feet from my desk.
She looks straight at me. “Sigurd Eiriksson.” My name sounds less like a question than an accusation.
“Your front desk is a bureaucratic nightmare, and I’m out of patience,” she continues. “You’re going to call off your eviction crew.”
I set my empty tumbler on the sideboard. Of everything anyone has said to me today, that is the first opening I didn’t anticipate.
My attention drops briefly to the water collecting around her shoes. “You’re dripping onto a rug that predates the Roman Empire.”
“I don’t care about your rug. I care about my town.” She starts toward me again, still clutching the folder against her chest. “Call them off, or I’m going to make this a massive legal problem for you.”
Behind her, Brighid raises her tablet and reaches for the security control. I lift one hand before she can touch it, and she stops.
“Sir, protocol says I have to call security.” Brighid looks from the woman to me. “She bypassed the entire lobby detail.”
“Cancel the security detail,” I tell her. “I’ll handle this.”
Brighid hesitates, clearly unhappy with the decision. She lowers the tablet, retreats into the hallway, and closes the doors behind her.
The woman watches her leave, then turns straight back to me. Most people become noticeably more careful once security leaves them alone in my office, but she only looks more determined.
I cross the rug until a few feet separate us. She has to tip her head back to meet my eyes, but she doesn’t give up any ground.
“You walked past my security detail to threaten me with litigation,” I say. “I assume you have a name.”
Her fingers crease the damp edge of the folder. “Valerie Priest. I’m a librarian in Saltweather, and you’re stealing my town.”
A librarian explains the folder, if not the invasion. More interestingly, she hasn’t asked for my money, my influence, or anything for herself.
My mother wants me to arrive at Rakan’s wedding with a woman at my side. I look at Valerie Priest, and for the first time all afternoon, one of Solveig’s demands starts to look useful.