Page 12

For the princess was the goal, and Kaerius did not want to waste any time.

“I’m Captain Derek Brighton, personal guard to Her Royal Highness. Can you write?”

Kaerius offered his name-sign and title, but Brighton merely frowned. “You’ve been mute long enough to have a signed language?”

The Mer prince frowned and shook his head.

The guard picked up an eagle quill with an oddly shaped end and a pale sheet of some unknown substance and offered it to Kaerius.

The prince tilted his head and frowned more deeply.What is that for?

Brighton wrote a series of squiggles with practiced ease. “That’s my name. Can you write?” he asked.

Kaerius shook his head. This was a strange form of magic indeed, if names and perhaps other words could be inscribed upon a surface. Was this meant to be understood, or was it merely for one’s own amusement? Still, he refused to be too awed. The humans would be equally awed if they knew how theMer folk could sing in the depths and communicate over long distances with only their voices and excellent hearing.

“Her Royal Highness specified that you were to be fed generously. So follow me, and we’ll get you dressed and get some food in you.” Brighton crossed the room to stand by an open door.

The Mer prince stood more cautiously this time, unwilling to experience that sickening spinning darkness again.

Brighton looked away. “Put the blanket around your shoulders, man! Haven’t you any sense of decency? Cover yourself!”

Kaerius wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and was dismayed to find that the warmth was welcome. Human bodies were so weak and fragile! His hands were trembling violently, and he couldn’t decide if it was from shock or cold or something else. His bare feet felt like ice blocks upon the stone floor, and he was clumsy with fatigue and cold and the sheer strangeness of legs. He tripped over nothing, for it was so strange to feel the ground with his little feet-fingers that he could barely look up enough to see where he was going.

“Are you always this clumsy?” said Brighton in amusement. “You walk like you’ve never done it before.”

Kaerius snarled silently to himself and stopped in his tracks.

Merfolk had sharp, triangular teeth much like those of sharks, and the sudden shock of dull, plant-eater teeth in the Mer prince’s mouth was enough to cause him to bring one hand up to feel them in disgusted horror. He ran his tongue around his mouth and felt his front teeth with his fingers, barely conscious of his companion’s confusion.

“Just realized you have teeth?” Brighton muttered. “You need some sleep, man, and maybe a physician.”

The prince shrugged away from the man’s steadying hand with half-hearted irritation, for the immensity of his bargain waspressing upon him with sudden weight. How would he defend himself from threats with dull teeth? How would he win the princess’s regard if he could not fight?

What if Brighton himself aspired to win the princess?

Kaerius stepped away and looked at his guide.

Brighton was tall and dark-haired, with a heavy shadow of a beard. The substantial muscles of his shoulders and his erect posture, the easy friendliness of his smile and the comfortable skill with which his hand rested on his sword, combined to give him a graceful, athletic dignity that Kaerius suddenly recognized as threatening. Brighton was disgustingly attractive, and Kaerius narrowed his eyes in resentment.

“Come on, then,” Brighton said. “You’re swaying like a newborn foal. Let’s get you some dinner.” His voice didn’t reciprocate any of Kaerius’s resentment, and the prince’s gut clenched in furious annoyance.

Brighton must not win the princess.

The prince followed his guard down the shadowed hall to a spiral staircase that seemed carved out of the rock of the cliff itself. It would have been dark too, but light from below reflected up its curve.

“There’s a rail here if you’re unsteady,” said Brighton, and the prince snarled again to himself, though he made no sound. There was no shame in not knowing how to walk; no Mer had ever braved such a strange experience before, and Kaerius was sure he was doing quite as well as anyone else would have. Still, the man’s assumption that he needed help rankled.

However, when he took the first step and felt the strange jolt of falling down to the next step, he could not pretend to himself that he was not disconcerted by this horrible construction. His stomach twisted, and he put one hand upon the railing after all, unsure exactly how that was supposed to help.

He stumbled down the stairs and nearly fell at the bottom, his cheeks hot with annoyance and embarrassment. He had been so sure he could do anything a human could do, and better, but here he was nearly tumbling down these horrid stairs as if they were some sort of challenge, while Brighton caught him under one arm with a strong hand and steadied him.

Kaerius pulled away, unwilling to accept help from anyone, much less a possible rival.

Brighton studied him. “Are you still dizzy? The physician should be here by the time you finish eating. But we’ll get you dressed first.”

Humans wore clothes on their bodies, and Kaerius’s gaze flicked up and down Brighton again. His trousers were of fine, dark blue cloth, and at the bottom of his legs, the edge of the trousers fell over things made of leather that covered his feet and feet-fingers. His upper half, with his broad shoulders and muscular arms, was clothed in a soft off-white shirt beneath a blue jacket, open, which matched the trousers.

Humans must wear clothes because their skin was so fragile and weak. The foot-fingers on Kaerius’s right foot throbbed, protesting their mistreatment on the stairs. The sand in his hair and crusted on his chest felt scratchy and strange. He raised one hand and tried to run it through his golden hair, only to scowl at the sand that showered him and the tangles that caught his fingers. His skin was so soft and vulnerable beneath the film of salt and sand.