Page 28

28

Abyssal

T his was my doing—every reckless act contrary to my plans, every unbridled impulse I’d failed to leash. All of it had caught up with me. And, for once, I only had myself to blame.

I materialized in the servants’ corridors, choosing to take the longest route that I could back to my chamber. My tentacles needed movement, a distraction. Some other purpose than holding onto the soft flesh of the woman who had just suggested that her soul had recognized me as one of her lovers.

Ah —the absolute agony of pulling away from her. As unbelievable as it was, I now knew a pain keener than a bolt of lightning from Poseidon’s fiercest storm.

She thought it had been the thrall? The agony kept coming.

The thrall was nothing but merfolk nonsense, a false belief that credited Poseidon with binding the souls of lovers together through magic. How utterly laughable.

There were entire undersea caverns filled with histories proving that the only love Poseidon ever cared for was his own.

“Master?” Aracos’s softly rasped inquiry seeped into my mind, an unwanted reminder that he was now the one beside her, not me.

“Let me be.”

“You have upset her, Master.”

“Aracos,” I warned. His deliberate use of ‘you’ instead of the usual ‘we’ hadn’t escaped my notice. “You will drop it.”

“Yes, Master. Aracos will obey.”

I’d been harsher with him than intended, but this wasn’t a place where he was welcome to meddle. However, perhaps I hadn’t been harsh enough because I was only able to regain a mere moment of silence before he was tapping at my mind again.

“Her pain cuts me, Master. Aracos feels it and wonders if you do as well.”

He wondered if I felt it? Oh , if only he knew how close I was to scrapping everything, to rewriting every meticulous plan I’d crafted into a new vision entirely.

“That’s it,” I muttered, my shoulders grating against the rough rocks lining the narrow corridor meant only for the lowest of cecaelia. “A new plan. Yes .”

I would level the Undersea—turn it to silt and start everything anew. A pristine slate, untainted by any past sin or mistake.

I let my tentacles drag against the walls as I envisioned the outcome. Yes , the destruction would be catastrophic, but we would be reborn from the wreckage, and then…

That thought sobered me, bringing me back to cold reality.

“Ha— ” I heaved the sound, palms bracing against rough-hewn rock as I abruptly came to a halt. A new plan would be nothing but fantasy, a desperate wish born from these burdensome hearts and the ceaseless yearning of this soul.

There was only one future, and I’d always known she would be better off without me in it.

“Keep a close watch on her chamber, Aracos. Her knight won’t be back until morning, so do not take your eyes off it. Understood?” I felt my jaw clench as I resumed my trek to my chamber. “If anyone tries to enter, I leave it to you to intervene.”

It was settled. She would return to the light, while I would remain here, as always, condemned to eternal shadow.

“Yes, Master.” In a last act of rebellion, he allowed a surge of his emotions to flow into me. The wave crashed against me, but I was far from being swept away.

My familiar’s concern was touching, but it didn’t change that it was time for me to draw back. I’d allowed myself to indulge in my dear captive’s company for far too long, and now I had to sever our connection while I still had the strength to do it.

The game I’d allowed myself to play with her had been dangerous. Too dangerous. She’d drawn me into her bed, and if I’d lingered there even one more moment, I was positive I would have lost all sense and reason entirely.

The reminder of how I’d left her was a fresh burst of agony, and I took a sharp turn into the next corridor, carelessly pushing past its jagged walls.

“Curse it,” I hissed. Perhaps I had already lost all sense. The weight of her gaze lingered on my mind, an unshakeable spell she’d woven into my very being. Every tender glance, every whispered word, another layer of magic, and oh, how I’d let them accumulate. I was as bound to her as ever, even as I fought to pull away.

I descended into a lower corridor, my mind taking me to places darker still.

She was never supposed to care for me.

She was supposed to fear me, despise me , like all others had. Like she still would one day. Yet here she was now, offering herself to me freely and blindly while unaware of all the parts of myself I’d kept hidden—parts that longed for redemption but were too stained by darkness to ever be cleansed.

The suffering I’d caused with these hands, with this magic…

I would destroy her. Even if it were the furthest from my intention, I would. No matter how many plans or calculations I devised to avoid it, the outcome would remain unchanged.

Loathsome as it was to admit, there were some limitations I could never overcome.

One day, that sorry excuse for a queen would order me to harm her, and I would be a prisoner to the command, powerless to watch as my own body defied me, betraying her.

My teeth scraped together as I tore the thought from my mind, obliterating it entirely.

This life would never be my own. As long as Poseidon’s cursed trident was bound to me, I was destined to serve the crown, regardless of the cost to my soul. That truth alone was all the reinforcement I’d need to keep me from getting too close to her again, from letting myself believe I could ever deserve her.

I’d only just passed into a pocket where intersecting corridors converged when a snarled voice shattered my thoughts.

“There you are, puppet!”

Oh, how I despised the sound of that word, puppet , so often hurled at me from across corridors as a taunt. Annoyance sparked within me, a flicker of rage igniting as I spun to face the source of the interruption.

Harini .

“So, my lady finally got sick of you?” the queen’s knight spat as soon as our eyes met, evidently sensing my foul mood and seizing the opportunity to exploit it. Her face was a twisted scowl, yet also flushed and irritated, as if she’d been searching for something within these corridors for quite some time. A puppet’s chamber, perhaps?

Her resentment toward me shone as fiercely as that cumbersome weapon she kept slung over her shoulder. “I knew it wouldn’t take long,” she added, her eyes boring into the exact spot where I’d let her cut into my neck. “Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t see what you were doing, puppet. Using sympathy to try to slither your way into one of her hearts.”

Ah , so I was the reason a knight such as herself had dared to tread these lowly servants’ corridors.

I shook my head, laughing coldly. “Capturing one of the princess’s hearts? You really think that’s my goal?”

While it was true that I could have prevented Harini from wounding me had I cared to, it hadn’t been for sympathy. I was curious to see how my dear captive might react, and her reaction didn’t disappoint.

The knight bared her teeth in a sneer, evidently believing that was my goal. “After her ceremony, my lady will have no reason to even speak to you, you know.” There was a disdainful curl to her lip as her gaze skimmed the surrounding corridors. “The only time you’ll even catch a glimpse of her is when the queen deigns to summon you, and you come crawling out from your miserable hole.”

Every inch, every tendril, and every wisp of magic froze in place. I kept my voice cold and steady, masking the anger seething beneath my careful surface. “Do you truly not realize the danger of provoking me, Harini?”

As a knight, she never knew when to back down, even when confronted with an opponent far more cunning than she could ever hope to be. It was one of the reasons I’d recommended her for the task of protecting the princess, but I never expected her to be this foolish.

The knight’s sneer deepened, her grip tightening on the haft of her weapon. Yes, it was clear she despised me as much as I despised her loyalty to her queen, but she’d been necessary to my plans, so I remained tolerant of her presence—for now.

Unfortunately for her, I was currently in the mood to revise my arrangements.

“Danger?” she scoffed. “I’ve faced creatures far more terrifying than you could ever hope to be, puppet scum.” She puffed herself up, looking every bit the oafish, lumbering knight. “My ancestors’ tales are filled with deeds that put even your magic to shame. Why, my own brother took down the Indian Ocean’s would-be king with only one tentacle. To this day, he proudly bears the scars of his sacrifice. Even our queen?—”

“I am not in the mood, Harini.” I swung around her, not bothering to let her finish her tale. “I’ve wasted enough of my time already.”

“In case you have forgotten, puppet, a knight is speaking to you,” she snapped as if the title meant something to me. “I have waded through layers of sharkshit and filth to find you, and you will damn well listen to what I have to say.”

A heavy hand latched onto the back of my shoulder, tempting magic to my fingertips.

“ Touch me again, ” I warned, instantly teleporting behind her. One slide of my hand across the end of her pike had the metal melting into a caustic pool that dribbled down her back. “Touch me again, and your brother will have a new tale: how the queen’s puppet scum took his mighty sister down without sacrificing anything. Not a twitch of a muscle. Not a single drop of effort.”

Harini staggered forward, the remnants of her weapon falling from her hand into the crevices below us. She spun around, fury blazing, chest heaving with rage. Yet beneath it all, I glimpsed the first hint of fear as realization sank in.

Excellent . Now she understood.

Her hand appeared to be at a loss, clutching and releasing, unsure of what to do now that it no longer had a weapon to hold to. “You think you can intimidate me with empty threats and tricks?” Her voice rose in that typical knight fashion, her tentacles flaring around her to try to make herself look more significant than she felt. “I’ve seen right through you and your dirty magic. You think I’ve been asleep all these nights, but I know what you’re up to. Once I report it to the queen, she’ll punish you like the worthless scum that you are.”

A rare smile crept across her lips, her presence looming large and fearsome, like a shadowy net stretching to ensnare. Certainly, a fish would have been thoroughly frightened.

“And oh , how I hope the queen grants me the honor of carrying out your punishment.”

“You know what I’m up to?” I murmured, a dark chuckle escaping me. That was unlikely. “Do you, now? Enlighten me, then. What profound revelation has graced your simple mind, Harini?”

“I’ve seen the sickening things you do to my lady in the night,” she said, squaring her shoulders.

My eyebrows shot up. “What exactly are you referring to?”

Harini’s tentacles bristled with barely suppressed rage. “For blunder’s sake, puppet, did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice your twisted experiments? The way she cries out in her sleep as her tail morphs into tentacles and reverts back to that horrible fish tail again?”

Her empty hand finally decided its next move—to curl into its own weapon. “Once was enough, but you kept going like a scum-sucker draining the life out of her,” she continued. “Trust me, I want to see my lady’s tentacles restored from whatever those filthy merfolk have done to her. But you—you don’t even care that you’re causing her pain. And why would you? You have no family, no loyalty, no concept of what it means to care for someone other than yourself and that wretched eel .”

“I have done no such thing,” I said calmly because, without calm, I would have lost all control.

She thought I didn’t care? That I would intentionally hurt the princess? She could never comprehend the things I’d done, the lengths I’d gone through to keep her safe.

The accusation cut deep, not because it held any truth, but because it could have easily been true had I not searched for a loophole in the crown’s command.

“Sharkshit,” Harini growled. “I know the queen has ordered you to return my lady to her real cecaelian form.”

“Ah, yes, our dear queen’s orders…” My thoughts took a darker and colder turn, manifesting in the tone of my voice. “And what if I told you that the queen was indifferent to any harm done to the princess? What if I said she explicitly told me to do whatever it took to achieve results, even if it meant causing her pain? Would you still believe that I’m the villain here, Harini?”

Harini glared at me, her eyes narrowing as if she was incapable of understanding simple speech. “You expect me to believe that?” She snorted. “The queen values the princess more than anyone.”

Of course. Clearly.

But her denial didn’t matter. What mattered was that Lady Desmona had been right—Claira’s spells were weakening. And if her knight hadn’t come to find me, I never would have realized how close everything was to unraveling.

“Should her tentacles transform fully, will you inform me first?” I asked, knowing the answer before even seeing Harini’s scowl.

“Hell no!”

Ah—well, if I couldn’t rely on Harini, I would rely on Aracos. I’d kept him out of our dear captive’s chamber at night as a courtesy, but now I couldn’t afford to take any chances.

If her tentacles were close enough to fully emerging that they changed form in the night, her eyes would soon follow.

“Is that all you wanted to say?” I asked, my tentacles feeling like they’d had their fill of movement.

“Not nearly.” The knight swung closer, advancing with a rigid, simmering anger I didn’t have time for.

A sigh escaped me. “And what exactly do you plan to do, Harini?”

“I am going to the queen.”

“Go on, then,” I said tightly, my gaze returning to the corridor I’d been navigating before her interruption. “I wish you luck. I’m sure Queen Sagari will enjoy being woken up in the dead of night to discuss matters of which she is already aware.”

With a final smirk, I disappeared from the corridor, leaving the knight alone with her fury.

I reappeared at my desk, realizing that I’d forgotten to express my gratitude before departing. Harini might have meant to condemn me, but she’d inadvertently reminded me of my purpose. A purpose which far surpassed any desire to keep the princess here with me—ensuring her safety.

Time was running out. If her lovers wouldn’t come for her, I would need to work that much harder to get her out of the Undersea and back to the surface before her true nature was discovered.

And if I couldn’t save her from emerging as a sea witch, then there was only one option remaining.

The only problem would be finding the fortitude to see it through.