Page 32 of Secrets Among the Tides
“Princess!”
Shouting around me became distant in my ears as my tail gave in under me and I went crashing to the polished floor. My whole body trembled and I felt arms pressing up against me.
There was the whisper of “Poison…” just before I gave in to the darkness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kai
IWATCHED HER FALL TO THE FLOOR.And before I could register what was happening, before I could even rush to help her, Captain Saber was there, pulling her into his arms.
I watched, heart thundering a wild beat in my chest as he looked her over.
“Poison!” His eyes flared with rage, with pain of a loss.
Before I knew it, the goblet I held was being slapped out of my hand by an advisor. I felt numb as I looked over to him, to the panic in his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. I was the Emperor’s only heir. If I were to die, our kingdom would be doomed.
But I didn’t care about that. I didn’t care about anything but Princess Odele being held tight in Captain Saber’s arms. Blood began to dribble from the corner of her mouth and float in tendrils above her body. She wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t she moving? And more importantly, who had poisoned her?
“Escort Prince Kai to his rooms and keep him there!” the captain began barking out commands. And then he was swimming away, clutching the Princess tightly to his chest, his hand cradled at the back of her head to keep her in place.
I was suddenly grabbed, pushed among the sudden frenzy of the crowd as I was ushered toward the stairway. I followed on a numb fin, and I couldn’t help but look back to where we’d been sitting, laughing, moments ago. To where she’d been hurriedly taken from the room.
Poison. Poison. Poison. The words mocked me, enraged me. But above all, they worried me.
Something in me started crumbling. Just when we had begun to get along. Just when I was beginning to crave her nearness, to want to be around her, the world had been cruel enough to try and take her from me.
I turned to my advisor and said to him in our mother tongue,“Find who did this.”His eyes widened at the menace in my usually calm voice. He bowed his head in acquiescence.“When you find the mer, bring them to me. Alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Maisie
IKNEW ONLY DARKNESS AND PAIN.Nothing else existed. Nothing else could slip within the edges of the two. My body raged with fever one moment, before trembling against an icy freeze the next. I drowned in nightmares that were so vivid, I couldn’t help but scream as though they were real.
Shadows flickered and slithered against the scales of my flesh, threatening to drag me under, to hold me down.
And to never let me resurface.
~~
AGONY PULLED ME AWAKE.I rolled over in the darkness, knowing nothing about where I was or even who I was. All I knew was the pain that held me in a tight fist and had me heaving. My stomach roiled painfully and I clutched at it, but there was no easing whatever was inside.
The light brush of something against my face had me swatting against the darkness in fear. My head was too muddled to think clearly. But I breathed in and out. In. Out. Until finally, my brain cleared for a mere moment, just enough for me to remember who I was. Maisie Fauna. And where I was. The palace.
I sat up, gently easing my tail from the side of the bed. A mistake, because pain shot straight through my skull, nearly blinding me. I heaved a breath and fell forward, hitting the wall beside the bed. My limbs ached and screamed in protest as I tried getting up, as my fingernails clawed against the wall. They came in touch with something soft. I struggled to remember what it was. Oh, right. A tapestry. I hauled myself up, shoulder sliding up against the wall.
I tugged…
And the tapestry came falling down.
I groaned in pain. Poison. Someone had poisoned me. Why? Did it matter? My hands slid up the wall to keep myself upright. I put pressure on my palm and heard the sliding of stone against stone. And suddenly, the wall that was keeping me upright was gone and I was falling through empty space.
I reeled back before I could hit the floor, causing a pain I’d never known to electrify me all the way down to my tailfin. Wiping a hand across my vision to clear it, I looked up at where the wall had been and stared into a hallway of sorts. Inside, nothing but blackness greeted me.
This can’t be real.
I pushed through it, my fins screaming at every movement. The darkness was too thick to see anything through, anyway. I pressed my hands against the outer edges of the doorway, pushing my fingers against stone. A piece of it pushed in and then the wall seemed to materialize once again.
