Page 33 of Secrets Among the Tides
My stomach heaved as I bent down, fingers fumbling for the tapestry on the floor. When I finally gripped it, I tried for what felt like an eternity to hang it back up where it had been. That miniscule task had worn me out, had my body on the edge of collapsing.
Trembling, I took a stroke, then two, but it was all I managed before I let the darkness drag me under once more.
~~
SMALL RAYS OF LIGHT BEAMS SHONEdown against my eyes. I blinked several times, though my lids felt heavy with the weight of sleep. I managed to open them and glance around at my surroundings. My body was trembling from the cold and I soon saw why. I was sprawled on the floor by the bed and still wearing the dress I’d worn to the anniversary dinner.
I lifted myself up on shaking arms and looked around the room. Small rays of phytoplankton pierced past the sea glass to cast a rainbow of illuminative colors against the floors and walls.
My whole body ached and my mind raced, struggling to remember events from the day before. There had been the anniversary dinner. Arguing with diplomats about the selects. And then…I’d toasted with Prince Kai. After that there was nothing but darkness.
Poison.
I’d been poisoned.
But the question was, were they trying to poisonmeor the Princess. Not me. No one here knew who I was aside from Captain Saber, the King and Queen. So, an even bigger question still, was who had Princess Odele hurt, that they wanted her dead?
I swam jerkily over to the bed and sat on the edge. Every muscle in me ached. The pain reminding me of the gator attack that had destroyed my fin. Except, this was much, much worse. I hunched over my tail and breathed in and out as an attempt to control it.
When I looked up again, my gaze fell on the wall beside the bed. The tapestry that had hung there was crooked, hanging on by a single hook. I narrowed my eyes at it when the memories suddenly came back to me in an instant.
Last night, the panel on the wall, the doorway…
Had it been real? Or had it been a dream?
I got up slowly and swam over to the wall. My shaking fingers moved the tapestry aside to reveal the wall behind. Polished quartz, like the rest of the place. Maybe ithadbeen a dream. I was about to turn away when something caught my eye.
I pressed my face closer to the wall, squinting my eyes to see the thin outline against the wall, like a thin crack in the stone. Taking a breath, I pressed my hand up against it and there was the familiar sound of stone scraping against stone as that small piece of quartz was pushed inwards.
A sudden scraping sound filled the room, and I jolted back as the wall suddenly parted to reveal the dark entrance of a doorway. My heart thundered wildly, my breath hitching as it struggled to catch up with my racing mind. It hadn’t been a dream. I hadn’t imagined it in a delirious fever.
The Princess had a secret passage in her bedroom.
Fear tried to slide doubt into my mind, but my curiosity got the best of me and I swam slowly into the entrance. But it was dark, too dark to see anything in front of me. I made it five swim strokes in when the sudden slithering of something slimy against my fin had me shuddering and racing back to the entrance.
Something was in there, something more mysterious than the creature that had slithered over me. It could be the answer to the mystery of her disappearance. How had she disappeared straight under the noses of guards and palace courtiers? Could this be a passage that had led her out? And if so, did no one else know about it?
I’d have to explore it, to find answers at the end of it.
A knocking at the door pulled me out of those thoughts. Quickly, I pressed the panel again and the wall slid back into place, then I straightened the tapestry until it looked as though it hadn’t been bothered in the first place and swam as quickly as I could manage into the bed.
A second later, the doors opened and mer I didn’t recognize shuffled in wearing white medical robes. Following behind them was Captain Saber. His eyes locked on mine, and I swore I saw relief slash through his blue depths.
The medics rushed to my bedside and bowed respectfully. “Your Highness, such a relief it is, to see you awake.”
I managed to give them a weak smile, though my own gaze remained on the captain. He was at the fin of the bed, his posture rigid straight, hand on the hilt of his sword. Maybe he meant to cut the medics down, if they even touched me wrong. Funny, it almost seemed like he truly cared.
“Yeah.” I sat up again the cushiony mound at my back. Speaking hurt my throat, made it burn, and I felt my lips chapped and cracking. “What a crazy night.”
The medics looked to each other. “Your Highness…you’ve been unconscious for seven days.”
My breath froze as soon as it climbed up my throat. “Seven days?” I choked out.
They nodded. “The poison left you unconscious. You are lucky to be alive.”
“Right.” I fought back the panic. Seven days. I’d been knocked out for seven days because someone had poisoned me. No, not me. Princess Odele. Why?
I kept my gaze focused straight ahead as the medics got to work, checking my temperature and looking me over, if only to avoid looking at the tapestry by the side of the bed. Whatever was beyond that dark hall was the answer to everything.
