Page 5 of Drown Me Gently (Flipped Fairytales)

“But what if I wasn’t?” Auren interjected, and Ulric froze at the swell of urgency in his voice. Like this is what he’d wanted to say all along. “What if I weren’t a prince? What if Poseidon’s blood didn’t flow in my veins? Would you still come after me?”

Ulric’s jaw clenched, and he said nothing.

Because he couldn’t. The magic in his skin wouldn’t allow him. Even now, as the honest truth rested on the tip of his tongue, the marks along his skin began to burn in warning.

Because Ulric’s magic was conditional. Not born into him like Auren’s. His connection to the ocean’s power was bestowed after years of training and trial… and an oath. An oath to give himself to the god of the sea and never let his heart belong to another.

He vowed never to take a mate.

A lover.

No tether to anything that would distract him.

He’d promised Poseidon his entire life in exchange for eternal power. The ability to protect the sea and all it birthed. He had never strayed from that path. Nothing had ever tempted him to do so.

Until now.

But the magic threatened. It burned on his skin. So he lied. He lied to those cerulean eyes looking at him with too much earnestness.

“No.” Ulric finally said. “I would not.”

The court of Atlantis rose from the seabed like a monument carved from time itself. Poseidon, it was said, had always favored the architecture of the Greeks, and so his builders had mimicked the Pantheon’s glory below the waves.

But where the Greeks etched their heroes into their temples, Atlantis honored only the god of the sea. Across the inner walls, murals bloomed in sweeping arches: the elegance of the Merfolk, the solemn watch of the Krakens, the wrath of the ocean as it demolished human fleets.

A visual scripture of sea-born power.

Ulric hovered to the right of the Queen’s throne, the designated place of the Court Sorcerer.

Every tattoo along his upper body hummed with magic.

Being this close to another carrier of the god’s power always charged the water around him.

The queen’s magic was second only to his. The chosen Mermaid of the sea.

And kneeling at the far away base of her throne, head bowed before her diamond gaze, was Auren.

Ulric didn’t envy his position.

Auren knelt before the throne, tail curled respectfully beneath him. One hand lay flat against the tiled floor, the other crossed over his chest with a bowed head. The only stance one took before Queen Tritheya.

She sat above him like the sea itself—dark-skinned, with coiled black hair and piercing silver eyes. She looked nothing like Auren, nor most of her children. That was the nature of divine parentage. Poseidon’s magic had fathered them all, and so they bore little resemblance to her.

Her tail was a magnificent sapphire blue, longer than that of any Mermaid Ulric had known. Ear fins curved from the sides of her head like delicate fans, framing the crown of gemstones and shells that gleamed like they had grown there.

“Mother, I have come at your request,” Auren said, his voice clipped. His head remained bowed.

“Yes. I’m sure you came very willingly,” she replied, dry as salt.

Ulric kept still, arms folded behind his back.

“There has been a significant increase in human ships above our city,” Queen Tritheya said, silver eyes sweeping the room like a tide rolling in.

“More than a dozen vessels over the past three moon cycles. One in particular concerns me. Civilian-marked, named The Windless. Captained by a biologist, we believe a coastal kingdom has sent it to study the sea. Particularly, right above Atlantis.”

Her gaze snapped to Auren, sharp as a spearpoint.

“Do you have any idea why that might be, my son?”

The room’s pressure shifted, magic responding to the Queen’s scrutiny. Ulric’s tattoos prickled across his chest. His tentacles coiled tighter.

Auren’s jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t know.”

A lie. And not a good one.

The Queen’s expression didn’t change. “You forget,” she said softly, “I can sense lies the way sharks smell blood in the water.”

“Then you already know the answer.”

Ulric’s throat tightened.

Don’t provoke her, he silently urged. Not like this.

“I know you’ve been playing a dangerous game,” the Queen continued. “Swimming close to the surface. Visiting human ships. Endangering every life in this city with your curiosity.”

“I was careful,” Auren muttered.

“Clearly not careful enough,” she said. “Because now the humans are watching. They linger. They probe. You were seen.”

Auren flinched but didn’t deny it.

“I’m forbidding you from rising again,” she said. “You will not approach the surface. If I sense even a ripple near the barrier, Ulric will craft a sinking potion that physically prevents you from crossing it.”

Auren’s head snapped up, and Ulric’s breath stuttered as those eyes swept past the queen and locked on him. Like Auren was silently pleading with him to speak. To contradict her. To come to his rescue, as Ulric had done many times before.

I’m sorry, spriteling.

Ulric held his gaze and forced the words out.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, each syllable cutting his tongue. “I can create such a tonic.”

Auren’s body stiffened, and Ulric felt the betrayal radiating from him like heat from a volcanic vent.

The Queen rose, voice final. “Then we have nothing left to discuss. You are both dismissed.”

Auren didn’t bow. He turned and stormed from the chamber, emerald tail swishing violently, causing the massive doors to slam in his wake.

Ulric didn’t follow. Not immediately.

He floated beside the throne, trying to still the ache that had bloomed behind his ribs.

“Ulric,” the Queen said as she rose from her perch. “You understand this is for his protection.”

He nodded. “Yes, I do.”

Her silver eyes scrutinized him for a moment, and for a heartbeat, he feared she sensed the whirlpool of emotion ravaging his insides.

“Good,” she said finally and left the room.

This is for his own good. He’s going to get himself hurt. It’s for his protection.

Guilt tore through him like a shark at wounded prey. Because what the queen asked of him… what he had agreed to do… It wasn’t protection. It was a cage.

And Auren had heard him say yes to the lock.

Ulric hadn’t meant to return to the cave.

He’d meant to let the sting of the courtroom fade, to give them both space—time to breathe, to cool the frayed ends of their patience. But something restless churned in his chest. He told himself he was only checking on Auren. To ensure the prince was safe, and therefore, fulfill his duty.

He reached the mouth of the hidden cave only to find it empty. No hint of an emerald tail, no sharp voice demanding he go away, no echo of movement or breath.

Panic struck.

Did he really just go to the surface in broad daylight?

Ulric’s tattoos pulsed with unease. His gaze swept the reef’s edge. Sunlight fractured through the shallows ahead, far too close to the surface for any Mer to be lingering.

He surged forward.

And then he saw him.

Auren knelt in the sand at the edge of the reef, just beneath the shimmer line where water kissed the open air. His body was still, fins fluttering behind him. His head was bowed low, shoulders hunched.

Ulric slowed, his reprimand already dying on his tongue.

There, nestled in the sand beside Auren, lay a seabird—small, delicate, and heartbreakingly still.

One wing was splayed at an unnatural angle, the other tucked beneath its body.

Its eyes, swollen from salt, stared blankly through the water.

Most of its feathers remained intact, suggesting it had only just fallen… or been pulled beneath the waves.

“I was coming to check on Iska,” Auren said quietly, not turning to look at him. “And I saw it hit the water. Its wing was broken. I tried to keep it up… so it could breathe. But…”

His voice caught. “…it just gave up in the end.”

Ulric’s anger faded, hollowing into something gentler. He studied the gills along Auren’s neck, the tension in his jaw, the way he looked at the bird like it had taken something precious and never meant to give it back.

Tenderness cracked Ulric’s chest open.

“I can help you bury it,” he said softly. “Properly.”

Auren looked up at him, and emotion lightened his eyes. Surprise, mostly. Gratitude, maybe. He gave a slow nod.

Together, they buried the seabird in a patch of sunwarmed sand, nestled between the rocks. Ulric said no words. Auren didn’t ask for any. When they finished, Auren lingered for a moment longer before turning and swimming slowly back toward the cave.

The silence between them was quiet, but not heavy. Until Auren finally broke it.

“I know it’s stupid,” he muttered. “Getting upset over a common seabird.”

“Death is upsetting,” Ulric said. “Even expected ones. Everything dies eventually.”

“Except you,” Auren said quickly.

Ulric tried not to let his discomfort show as they swam.

“You’ll live forever, won’t you? Even my mother will eventually fade, once Poseidon’s bloodline is secured. But you…You’ll just keep going.”

Auren didn’t say it bitterly. He said it like a fact.

Ulric didn’t answer right away.

The Queen’s immortal tether had been granted.

As the vessel for Poseidon’s bloodline, she was ageless only so long as that bloodline needed her.

Once it flourished on its own, her tether would dissolve.

But Ulric… Ulric had bound himself for eternity.

His life was inked in service. And like the creatures that lived at the ocean’s deepest floor, he would remain. Unmoving. Unchanged. Alone.

When they reached the reef’s bend, Auren darted back through the crevice leading to his secret cave.

Ulric hesitated.

He wasn’t sure why he followed.

But he did.

Inside, the glow of bioluminescent moss and reflected metals painted strange shapes across the walls. Auren’s cave was a shrine to human curiosity. It was reckless but also brimming with wonder. It drew Ulric like dumb prey to an anglerfish.

Auren turned on him immediately. “What? You have to babysit me here, too? Am I not allowed in my own cave now?”

“I never said that.”

“Shouldn’t you be somewhere important?” Auren snapped. “Don’t you have a beloved mate to get back to or something?”

Ulric gave him a long look. “The Kraken chosen by Poseidon do not take mates. We serve and in exchange, wield his magic. That is our promise.”

Auren rolled his eyes. “Gods, how romantic.”

“It has been this way since the beginning. A pact between my people and the gods,” Ulric said, turning away. “We don’t all get to chase foolish dreams.”

Ulric’s gaze swept the space. His attention snagged on the sculpture again—the familiar shape of four long legs, arched neck, and a flowing tail, all formed from twisted leather and discarded rigging.

“I like the horse sculpture,” Ulric said before he could stop himself. “How long did it take you?”

Auren blinked, caught off guard. “The what?”

Ulric realized the mistake too late. Of course, Auren didn’t know what it was.

“That,” Ulric said, nodding toward it. “The creature.”

Auren tilted his head, still watching him. “You know what it is. You said it’s called a harss?”

Ulric hesitated. “It’s pronounced horse. And I’ve seen one. Once. On land.”

Auren’s eyes widened. “Have you been to the surface?—?”

Ulric cut him off, sharper than he meant to. “Just get home before it gets dark.”

Auren stared at him, something unreadable flickering in his expression. But he didn’t push.

And Ulric didn’t explain.

He turned before he could say something he’d regret, slipping into the water’s gloom.

Leaving behind the shimmer of human scraps.

And the Mer who never looked at the deep.

Only the sky.