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36

Claira

T he sea wizard could have easily used one of his tentacles to carry me, but he chose to drag me into the water in his arms. My desire to maim him must have faded, because when my legs fused with an earsplitting pop , I was less than careful about where I stuck my seashell.

“I seem to be back in your good graces,” he said as soon as our heads slipped under the tide. I looked up from my tail to discover one of my arms wound around his neck and my shell braced against his chest. Ugh. I really hated being carried.

“For now.” I huffed, hating how my tail dangled helplessly while his tentacles writhed and twisted around it.

Amusement flickered in his white eyes, his dark hair lashing over his head much like his tentacles did underneath us. His powerful appendages undulated, and the smooth movement propelled us across the seafloor.

Gradually, the surrounding ocean darkened with our descent, and I glanced around, wondering how long it would take for the bioluminescent algae to react to my magic and start to glow.

My face flushed at the memory of Barren and me drifting through the sea of stars. Him carrying me—now that, I didn’t hate. It had been one of the most romantic sights I’d ever seen. Recreating that magical moment with the sea wizard only hours later? Laverne would be judging me with a spitball to the face if she knew.

“It’s a ways down,” the sea wizard muttered, focusing on the shadowy water ahead.

No—this time, it wasn’t going to be romantic. With any luck, the lights would irritate him and mess with his vision. The perfect start to my revenge for him tricking me into a bad deal.

We passed into the shadows, and my eyes pricked as the darkness set in. But instead of my magic lighting the algae, my vision switched, and colors drained away.

“What the heck?” My throat constricted as my gaze darted, taking in the many shades of gray in the nearby beds of coral and seagrass. There were no stars. No other magic.

This whole time, I’d thought the bioluminescent lights had been a combined effort—mine and Barren’s magic working together to light up the sea.

Now I knew the truth.

The lights had only glowed for Barren.

It was a realization that left me feeling strangely numb.

“Is there a problem?” The sea wizard’s voice was like a gentle wave, lapping at the shore of my consciousness.

I snapped out of my daze at the realization that we’d stopped moving. The sea wizard’s chin dipped, his inquisitive eyes aimed at me.

“Nope,” I lied, averting my gaze toward the water. With my new vision, the stark whiteness of his eyes stood out even more, making it uncomfortable to look at him for longer than a passing glance. “No problems here.”

His hand unexpectedly touched my face, sweeping my unruly hair aside. “It’s a long way down to the Undersea.” Then his tentacles resumed their work, drawing us into deeper waters.

“Deep in the bowels, so I hear,” I muttered, wondering why he’d even bothered with my hair. It had a mind of its own, both underwater and on land, much like his kind’s tentacles seemed to. Only Kai had ever been able to tame it. “Is there a reason you haven’t just teleported us?”

“The change in depth can be… jarring,” the sea wizard said, his tendrils twirling to yet another stop. “We can try it if you’d like. Although you may end up with a headache.”

More head pain—fantastic. Just what I needed.

I thought over the offer, absentmindedly searching for the bump on my head. Only… where was the bump again? Under my fingertips, my scalp was completely smooth.

My eyes snapped to the sea wizard. “Did you?—?”

A smirk was waiting for me. “Did I do what?”

The more my eyes narrowed, the further his mouth seemed to broaden.

Yes, it had definitely been him.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I said, pressing into my skull, already missing the soreness. Maybe it was silly, but I kind of liked that minor bump. It was a reminder that my voice had called to Barren. He’d been so flustered when I’d finally asked him if it had.

“Oh?” The sea wizard’s look turned puzzled. “Did you enjoy being concussed?”

“Concussed?” Had I really hit my head that hard? “No, I—I don’t have a concussion.”

“Not now, no. But you were concussed when I found you,” he said, continuing our descent. “Initially, I wondered if walking on sand was a new experience for you, considering how you kept stumbling over your feet.”

“I wasn’t stumbling,” I said with a huff. Okay, maybe a little, but it wasn’t that much. “I’ve had years of experience walking on sand.”

He snorted a laugh, clearly unconvinced. “Of course you have.”

So Barren had been right—I did have a concussion. Damn . Now I felt even worse for leaving. What would he think when he woke up and didn’t find me next to him?

“If you teleport us down there and I get a headache, can your magic cure it?”

“Hm.” Ghostly white eyes veered up in thought. “Yes, I suppose it could.”

I stopped him right there. “But will you cure it?”

That seemed to catch his attention. “I’d be delighted to help, but I will require compensation.”

Ugh . My teeth ground together. “How about you agree to relieve me of any headaches, and I kindly refrain from impaling you with this seashell?” I pressed the shell’s ridges into his chest, focusing on the tattoo-like marks. “How’s that for compensation?” I murmured, letting the shell scrape along the thickest mark. Yes, they were the perfect lines to trace if I needed to carve him up.

My hand holding the shell wavered because, damn , that was a dark thought. I wasn’t quite at the point of wanting to wish him harm—not yet. But I was dangerously close.

I could see the heat rising in his icy stare as my threat sank in. “If you insist.”

All at once, magic erupted around us. I was suddenly crushed against the sea wizard’s chest, the pressure of a humpback whale bearing down on my head and shoulders.

“Easy,” he muttered, his hands firm on my shoulders, steadying me. “We’re halfway there.”

“Halfway?” I croaked. The change in the water was immense, and I could feel it in every bone and scale. My head spun as I fought to collect my bearings. Silt and sediment formed in layers around us, a depressingly desolate seascape void of the coral and grass I was used to. This had to be the bottom of the ocean. “It doesn’t get lower than this—does it?”

“There’s a reason it’s called the Undersea.” Despite the strange pressure, the sea wizard’s tentacles floated effortlessly, his demeanor unchanged. “You’ll acclimate soon enough.”

The touch of a tentacle on the back of my head seemed to steady me, and I had the sneaking suspicion he was up to more magic.

“Ready?” he asked, and no, I wasn’t ready. But would I ever be?

“Go ahead,” I groaned, squeezing his ribs as I braced myself.

The water crackled with dark magic, and the layers of sediment disappeared.

“Careful,” he said as I lurched forward, the pressure dragging my head to the stony seafloor. “The feeling will pass.” It took a tentacle wrapping around the back of my neck for the dizziness to subside enough for me to crawl my way back upright and get a look around.

Huh—what do you know? Bowels was a strangely appropriate assessment.

We’d materialized in the middle of a long channel lined with smooth stone and skeletal streams of kelp, as well as cryptic holes wide enough for a body to pass through. Although I had no idea of the scope of these tunnels, an unshakeable sense lingered that I’d found myself in the heart of a winding labyrinth carved directly into the ocean floor.

There were so many holes leading in different directions, yet there was not a single carved mark or sign telling where exactly they might lead. I was so immersed in trying to work out how someone would navigate through them that the sea wizard’s voice barely registered when he asked, “How’s your head?”

“No pain so far,” I said, although everything down to my eyeballs was feeling the foreignness that was the Undersea. The water here almost felt like a new element entirely. Intensely cold and stagnant, not a current to be felt. “I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got my night vision,” I muttered, craning my neck to see down one of the tunnels. “Does your kind really live here?”

“Indeed,” he said, pulling us down the channel. His limber tentacles skillfully guided us through the water, making sure that my tail didn’t scrape against the rocks below. The ceiling lowered, and his tentacles stretched to find it, using the grooves between the smooth rock faces to pull us along.

With every movement, the channel narrowed further, until the rocky walls seemed to squeeze around us. “This is where your queen holds court?” I asked, even my water-filled lungs feeling constricted.

“These are the servant’s corridors,” he muttered softly, his gaze briefly flicking down to my tail. “The crown bid me to keep your arrival… discreet.”

“I see.” Following his lead, I kept my voice to a whisper. “I take it mermaids aren’t frequent visitors?”

“A mermaid wouldn’t survive the Undersea,” he said coldly. That wasn’t surprising, considering the rocky relationship between the merfolk and the cecaelia. My spine shimmied at the thought of coming across the dark spawn I’d faced back in the Atlantic. They’d want me dead, for sure.

“Be still,” he hissed, and we turned an abrupt corner. He pulled us into a tight crevice in the rocky wall, our bodies forced together. But before I could question his motives, a shadow emerged, and eyes as dark as obsidian were blinking in my face.

“What did you bring with you, puppet?” a nasally voice asked. “You’ll share her, yes?”

Pale, branch-like arms grabbed for me without remorse, and one of the sea wizard’s tentacles whipped. It was a remarkably seamless motion, his trident materializing at the tendril’s curled end.

The sharp sound of my gasp mixed with the stranger’s grunt as the trident pierced his bony chest.

“ You… ”

“You shouldn’t have tried to touch what’s not yours,” the sea wizard finished for him, much too calmly, considering the dark cloud of blood forming in the water around us.

He’d impaled him. Without hesitation or a second thought.

The sea wizard pulled back on his weapon, and I almost felt the crack of the cecaelia’s bones as the dark prongs yanked free. The stranger’s limbs seemed to shrivel away, his obsidian eyes emptying as he sank to the corridor’s bottom.

“You—you just—” I couldn’t even say it. The touch of the cold, bloody water against my skin made my stomach turn with disgust.

The sea wizard held a single finger to his lips. “As I said, we’re to be discreet.”

He drew us out of the crevice, laying dark magic over the stranger’s body as we passed. I watched in horror as both flesh and bones appeared to liquefy into a repulsive, dark substance that penetrated the water. When I turned back to the sea wizard, and it was like looking at him for the first time.

Holy crap —Poseidon help me.

Merfolk could do monstrous things, but they couldn’t melt people. No, the sea wizard was a monster of a different level. A literal sea demon.

This was why Queen Sagari had made such a show of demonstrating her control over him, saying that he couldn’t harm me.

“It had to be done,” he said. Not a hint of regret.

“Sure,” I croaked, nodding along. Barren had been right—the cecaelia were ruthless, even to their own kind. I was vaguely aware that I was shaking when we descended through a hole that dropped into a much larger corridor below.

My eyes widened as I took in the vastness of this new space. “Whoa.” It made the servant’s corridors look like ant tunnels.

The walls were alive with decorative rock carvings painted over in subtle gray hues. I paused, my eyes catching on the colossal figures. “What the hell? ”

Yeah, the carvings were something, all right.

Great octopus-like figures spanned floor to ceiling, their tentacles sprawling like unbridled tempests set upon the ocean. Miniature carvings sat under them—architecture suspiciously similar to merfolk dwellings—with each building and its inhabitants crushed underneath a massive appendage.

Five kingdoms, each with an octopus creature set above it, and it was painfully obvious what these carvings were meant to symbolize.

Fuck.

“Um.” My voice quaked. I clutched my shell, realizing with painful clarity it wouldn’t be enough to keep me safe. “About this cure your queen promised for the merfolk…”

The sea wizard’s smoky voice only added to the already eerie atmosphere of the hall. “Quite the deception, wasn’t it?” he said with a sigh. “The queen isn’t usually so clever, but she went to great lengths to bring you here.”

To bring me here? I swallowed thickly, failing to steady my trembling hands.

“Take me back.” The words slipped out, but I knew even before the sea wizard’s head shook that it was an impossible request.

“There’s no going back now, little captive.” He spoke with a strained, miserable voice, as if he weren’t enjoying his part in this deception. “The only way now is forward.”

The sea wizard’s magic overtook us, and the next thing I knew, we were at the mouth of a cavernous entryway framed with intricate carvings. Depictions of masked creatures twisted up the rocks, their faces contorted in anguish… or was it ecstasy?

Shit —I wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Now, what do we have here?” Two cecaelian men flanked the entrance, yet I wasn’t certain which of them had spoken. They clung to the rocky sides upside-down, and I gnawed at my lip, waiting to see if the sea wizard would use his magic to melt them, too. To my relief, he disregarded their presence, choosing instead to sweep me into the passage.

My relief did not last long.

Because inside of the entrance, men of every size lounged on jagged rocks, and even more seemed to emerge from every crevice we passed by. While some were built like warriors and others had lean frames, they all shared one thing in common: a hunger in their eyes that made my skin crawl.

So, the expressions on the carvings outside had been ones of ecstasy. Fantastic.

The sound of their lewd whispers was like a physical force pushing against me from all sides. Everywhere I looked, more pale chests and mounds of tentacles.

A true den of depravity.

And at its center was Queen Sagari, her thick frame hugged by the lifeless branches of coralline that made up her nest-like throne. Her head tilted back against the brittle mesh, her dark lips parting and closing with each salty inhale and exhale.

Very much asleep.

And although their queen lay idle, the men of her court slithered, twisting and weaving over the rocks surrounding her. Despite them maintaining their distance, tension built inside me as we drew closer to the throne.

The queen looked different underwater. Older, perhaps. Her hair floated like tattered rags above her head, and her crown sat on the arm of her throne, one tentacle wrapped securely around it. It must have taken scissors the size of hedge clippers to cut it free from her hair.

That’s when I noticed what else was beside her—a grand relic framed in barnacle-encrusted bronze. A dark tapestry of semi-translucent kelp draped over the sizable oval, obscuring what was underneath.

Immediately, I recognized it for what it was. A standing mirror. Gram had one similar, although hers was more modern and barnacle-free.

I shot the sea wizard a glare, but he remained expressionless, his puppet-like mask already perfectly in place. Naturally.

Now that we were in his queen’s presence, it seemed he wouldn’t be of any more help.

“Queen Sagari.” As soon as the name left my lips, a hush fell over the throne room.

She didn’t rouse.

“ Queen Sagari .”

“Huh-uh?” She sat up with a snort, her thick fingers fumbling for her crown before her eyes had even opened.

I didn’t give her a chance to fully wake before I continued. “I believe you wanted to make a deal with me,” I said, my shell digging into my ribs as I folded my arms over my chest. “Only, now that I’ve seen the manner in which you’ve decorated your palace , I wonder why you bothered bringing me here at all.”

Surely, if the destruction of the merfolk was what the cecaelia desired, they could have easily done away with me on land. I wasn’t even one of the good mermaids. I couldn’t swim, couldn’t use magic. Apart from the guys, no other mer would miss me, so why bother with these games?

As soon as the queen’s eyes focused on me, her dark lips curved into a sleepy smile. “Dear child.” She slunk forward, water rippling as she came out of her throne. “I’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep,” she trilled, disregarding every word I’d said. “Come, come. I simply must have you take a look in my mirror.”

She beckoned me closer, but even if I could swim, I wouldn’t have followed.

My lips were so tight they almost hurt as I glared up at the sea wizard. “ Might happen to show me her mirror, my ass,” I forced through bared teeth.

Looking into this mirror was the whole reason I was down here, it seemed. But what some barnacle-infested mirror had to do with anything, I had no clue.

Oh, now I was pissed ?—

“Hands off, puppet,” the queen spat, and the sea wizard’s arms came off me without hesitation. I sunk like an anchor, catching myself with my elbows on the rocks as my tail fell limply beside me, useless as ever.

“My, my—” The queen tutted, her tentacles spinning with her approach. “Poor little thing. So small, so frail.”

“As per my report,” the sea wizard began in a bitter voice. “She is unable to swim.”

After her immediate revulsion at the sea wizard’s outburst, the queen’s hands flew to her mouth. The gasp that followed was nothing less than theatrical. “My dear child… I cannot possibly imagine how you survived so long in such a pitiful state.”

Pitiful? Shame flooded me, my heart pounding as if it might jump out of my chest.

The queen floated overhead, circling around me, each judgmental tut hitting like another blow. “Well, child, you do not expect me to carry you to my mirror, do you? Can you not crawl?”

My fist clenched tightly around my shell, anger seething inside me. I was acutely aware of the cecaelian men’s mocking whispers.

If this was really what I’d been lured down here for—to be mocked and humiliated—I had no doubt my shell would slice right through the queen if she dared drift close.

“I’ll take her to the mirror.” With a sudden movement, the sea wizard’s tentacles flattened, bringing him down to the rocks beside me. In awe, I watched as his body contorted into a perfect bow he directed at his queen. “If you’ll permit it.”

“Well, isn’t this a surprise? A puppet beseeching its master.” Queen Sagari’s lips puckered in thought, her tentacles toying with her crown as she weighed out his offer. “Fine,” she said, giving him a flippant wave. “Carry her to that dreadful mirror. The sooner it’s out of my sight, the better.”

Wait— dreadful mirror?

The sea wizard’s neck lifted. “As you wish.”

His tentacles swept around me, and the next thing I knew, we were hovering in front of the mirror, the sea wizard’s body up against my back.

The queen’s immediate response was to turn away, and I wondered if it had something to do with her disdain for the mirror. As soon as her back was to us, I leaned over, hissing into his ear. “You said she was obsessed with it.”

His soft chuckle only fueled my anger. “Obsessed with bringing you here to look into it, yes.”

My stomach sank as one of his tentacles reached for the top of the woven kelp veil. But before I could witness the unveiling, his hands fell over my eyes.

“The hell are you?—?”

He shushed me with a finger. No, wait—that was definitely a tentacle pressed against my lips. Freaking sea wizard .

“Look straight ahead,” he instructed, his calm voice almost too low to register. “Take a breath. Don’t be frightened. The queen won’t risk looking at your reflection for fear of glimpsing what hides underneath her own glamours.”

“This mirror can see underneath glamours?” I whispered. But what did that have to do with me? I was a mermaid who didn’t even know how to glamour.

“Well?” the queen barked from somewhere behind us. “What does she see?”

The hands covering my eyes lifted, and I wasn’t ready for the awaiting vision in front of me.

The eyes staring back from inside the mirror were a bloodcurdling shade of white. A creature’s eyes. There were no irises at all, only haunting white and madness, with two minuscule black dots in their centers that shrank to the size of needlepoints as my eyes focused.

These weren’t even the eyes of the sea wizard; they were far worse. I couldn’t think—couldn’t breathe. Not while I was held captive by the reflection’s maddening glare.

“Well? What is it you see, child?” The queen’s voice was louder now, hysteria hinting at how crisply her tongue enunciated each syllable.

My throat wouldn’t move. There was a weight on the sides of my head, and I realized it was the sea wizard attempting to pull down my gaze, but I wasn’t ready—no, I couldn’t break the stare between me and this… creature.

It wasn’t me. It couldn’t be me. And yet…

“She demands an answer,” the smooth voice in my ear insisted. His hands moved, tilting down my chin.

His insistence finally broke my stare, but the horror waiting for me at the bottom of the mirror was even worse, and a single word ripped through my throat.

“ No .”

Forget looking through glamours; this mirror was cursed—it had to be. Because the vision before me was not of me at all.

Sure, it was my shirt, my arms, my hair. But that dark horror—those eight spiraling appendages draped over the rocky floor where my tail should have hung—it wasn’t me .

Then I realized what I was holding, and the entire room seemed to blur.

My right hand shook as I clutched the object, knowing full well I was holding the shell the sea wizard had given me. Only in the mirror, it wasn’t a shell at all.

It was a knife.

I recognized it immediately—the same knife I’d stashed in my bikini top before venturing down to find King Eamon’s trident. I’d lost it when one of the cecaelian guards had tossed it down in the prison cell. Only I’d never lost it at all.

Because the sea wizard had shown up and handed my knife right back to me in the form of a magical shell that could cut through anything, and—oh, Poseidon help me —the room was spinning.

“Breathe,” the voice in my ear urged. His grip on me tightened as I felt my body go slack in his arms. “ Breathe , Claira.”

But it wasn’t… I wasn’t… It…

Just as my head fell back and darkness threatened to engulf me, a dark force lashed out, striking me hard across my face.

I gasped, the shock of it causing me to take in a sharp breath of water, my eyes refocusing.

The queen had… slapped me?

A second later, she was pulling me away from the mirror, away from the wizard, a crazed grin spreading across her face like a blight. “Cover it up, puppet,” she barked as one of her tentacles traced over the side of my face she’d just whacked.

Her eyes, which shone like emeralds on land, didn’t seem to lose any of their luster in the darkness. But even she wasn’t like the monstrous creature I’d seen in the mirror. White eyes like a… like a…

“What did you see?” Given how her nails clawed up my arms, I assumed her patience was running painfully thin.

“Sea—” Magic made my tongue expand, choking me up.

I ask for you not to speak of the first thing you see when you look into it. Reveal it to no one—except for me. Those had been the carefully calculated words the sea wizard had chosen for our deal.

A chilling realization sank in—he’d known exactly what I’d see when I looked into the mirror. He’d even urged me to focus straight ahead, guiding the first thing I’d notice.

I searched for him, but Queen Sagari snapped my attention back to her with a jerk of my chin. Anticipation tensed her face, and her eyebrows raised with expectation. “Well?”

“T-tentacles,” I managed, and her face swelled with joy.

“Yes… Yes!” she proclaimed, throwing her head back and jostling me by my shoulders. Then, as if I’d suddenly become something precious and fragile to her, she swept me up, pulling me over to her throne with the tenderness of a mother cradling a newborn.

“I knew you must be one of us,” she cooed, and I stared up at her, totally helpless, as she settled me down onto her throne. “I never doubted it, of course. What other reason could there be for the merfolk’s curse to not affect you?”

When I finally found my voice, it was completely raw. Broken. “I came down here because you said we could break the curse together.”

It had all been a lie.

The queen shrugged, her wild hair bouncing through the water with her movement. “You win some, you lose some,” she said, reaching out to seize my wrist. “This, dear child, is a victory . I brought you to the Undersea because this is where you belong.”

“I’m a… cecaelia?” The whispered question sounded like a curse all of its own.

I lowered my head to look at my tail, fighting the urge to claw my way back over to the mirror to check on my reflection again. It didn’t make sense that this tail wasn’t really mine. But then again, nothing about my tail had ever made sense, had it?

Queen Sagari brushed my cheek with her hand, and when I glanced up, pride was waiting for me in her eyes.

“You’re more than a cecaelia,” she said, and I shrunk away from her touch.

Had she seen the white-eyed version of me in the mirror?

While my mind raced, the queen lifted a hand. “ Puppet ,” she snapped. “The vial.”

Black smoke clouded the water, and a tiny, corked bottle appeared in its wake. The queen snatched it up, passing it into my palm for me to inspect.

Curiously, there was only a single dot of dark liquid set inside it. “What is…?”

“Your blood,” the queen said brusquely. “You gave up a drop, if you’ll recall.”

How could I forget? Although the sea wizard was far from the throne, I shot him another glare.

This is, until the queen tutted. “You seem quite distracted by my puppet. That behavior is hardly befitting someone in your position.”

Someone in my position?

But before I could ask her to elaborate, her attention shifted to the sea wizard, and for a moment, I feared what she might ask of him. “Go fetch the box that I had you prepare,” she ordered, and he melted away into the shadows.

When the last traces of his magic vanished, the queen held up her crown. “This crown is almost as ancient as the oceans themselves,” she began, her voice carrying the weight of history. “It’s been passed down through generations, from the very first queen of the Undersea.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Forged in magic, it holds the remarkable ability to discern those of royal blood.”

“Royal blood?” I scoffed, my fingers curling around the vial. What was she implying?

As if sensing my skepticism, she plucked the vial from my fingers and uncorked it with a sly grin. My gaze remained fixed on the vial as the dark liquid spilled into the water. Then, in one fluid motion, she tossed her crown at it. The instant the dark tarnished metal met the blood, the crown’s surface sizzled, releasing a pulse of magic into the water.

“Good. Very good.” Seeming satisfied with this reaction, she let the crown drift down to the rocky floor. “Careful, child,” she warned as I leaned in closer, inspecting the dark streams of magic. “The crown is thirsty for more of your blood. It will sear all that it touches until its magic falls dormant once more.”

“How do I know that was my blood?” I whispered, still fixated on the smoldering crown. “Everything down here so far has been a deception.”

“Child,” she said, cupping my cheek. I looked up at her and was taken aback by the kindness in her eyes. “Or should I say, my precious grandchild? Doubt is only natural, my dear. But you would do well to heed my words. I never wavered in my hope of finding you. When your mother, my beloved daughter, met her untimely end, and that loathsome merman stole you away from us… I always knew the day would come when we’d be reunited.”

Her smile took on a tender warmth as her fingers caressed my hair. “You bear a striking resemblance to her. My beloved daughter,” she said with a gentle sigh. “May her soul find solace in the depths of the great abyss.”

Although she claimed that we were related and that I was of royal blood, one part of her story struck me the most.

“My mother is… dead?” I turned down to look at my hands. I didn’t know how to feel or if I’d even choose to believe it. I’d always thought she was alive, swimming away somewhere, disregarding the fact that she had a daughter. I wasn’t sure which reality was worse, or if I should let myself care, either way.

I could sense the cecaelia’s eyes on me, their whispers growing as more men emerged from their crevices.

It was foolish to believe them, wasn’t it? They’d done nothing but lie to me. Yet the same thought kept resurfacing…

I was never like the other merfolk, was I?

“You say a merman stole me?”

“Ohhh,” she wailed, making a show of snatching up her crown. It must have been done searching for more blood, because the surface hadn’t burned her when she wrapped around it. “It pains me to even remember that day.”

She snapped her fingers, and the sea wizard materialized with a box in his hands. It was a peculiar box, adorned with a latch and gilded filigree that seemed to dance along its edges.

While I was still assessing it, one of the sea wizard’s tentacles snaked under the latch to retrieve what was inside. When a crown with eight sharpened points emerged, the queen squealed, enraptured.

It was a beautiful crown, truly. But when he held it up, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized where this was headed.

“I haven’t been this excited since the day we discovered the merfolk were cursed.” With a turn toward the sea wizard, the queen clapped her hands. “Puppet,” she commanded, “I’ll give you one moon cycle from now to break the curse concealing her true nature. Do whatever it takes. Use any means, as long as you don’t hurt our dear princess .”

Um… what?

Even if I was cursed, did I want it to be broken?

Numbness settled over me as I stared at the crown cradled in the sea wizard’s grasp. The queen spun away, her laughter filled with unbridled glee. “We shall celebrate with a grand ball!” she exclaimed. “The depths of the sea shall rejoice at the return of the princess!”

My head shook with the sea wizard’s approach. “I—I’m not…” I stuttered, my eyes pleading for his understanding, but it did nothing to stop him.

He held his mouth in a tight grimace as he leaned closer, gingerly placing the crown atop my head. But before he pulled away, his cheek grazed mine as he whispered, “Welcome home, princess.”

Princess.

No—no. I was a captive, a mouse. Anything to him but that .

Already, the crown weighed heavily on my head. Yet, instead of feeling like I was gaining something, a startling clarity washed through me of all the things I’d just lost.

The vision in the mirror had not been that of a princess but of a demoness with white eyes.

There was a reason the sea wizard had wanted me to see my eyes first and why he hadn’t wanted his queen to know about them.

‘ Are you a sea witch? ’ Barren’s voice echoed in my memory, and my hands lifted, grappling with the base of my neck.

“Careful with that crown, child. You must never remove it,” the queen advised, gliding over to straighten it back on top of my head. “How else will your pawns be able to recognize you while you’re under this wretched curse? Wave to them, dearest. Let them know their princess has returned.”

But as I looked out at the bodies closing in around me, I could only shudder. Their eyes were filled with a mix of lust and curiosity, but all I felt was revulsion.