Page 38 of Whispers Beneath the Deep
She exuded power. Command. Both which were staggering. I blinked, for I could not find the will to do much else. A choked laugh escaped me. “Oh, Maisie.” I shook my head back and forth. “You’re more like Princess Odele than you know.”
Her spine steeled. To her, there could be no greater insult than to be compared to the mermaid she despised the most.
“Goodbye, Captain.” She whirled around, opened the door to her temporary lodgings, and slammed it in my face.
I stared at it long after she’d done it, willing my heart to cease its infernal rapid beating. Deny it as she might, thereweresome similarities they shared, similarities that ran deeper than just an outwards appearance. Odele used to slam that door in my face as well.
Odele. Odele. Maisie. Odele. Maisie. Odele.
Maisie.
Maisie.
Maisie. Maisie.Maisie.
Was this mermaid from Lagoona pushing the princess from my mind, or were they starting to blur together, becoming one single entity that made my heart pound with affection for the both of them?
No.
It couldn’t be true.
Or rather, I didn’twantit to be true. My head knew which mer was which. And it was time for my heart to learn who it belonged to.
Chapter Twenty
Maisie
The tears came unbidden, swarming from my eyes in the most annoying little bubbles. I swiped at them, but the harder I tried to push them away, the more came out. A part of me didn’t even know why I was crying so suddenly. Captain Saber’s words tipped me over that ledge I’d been so carefully balancing on, and into an abyss. Leaden tail weighing me down, I could do nothing but sink.
I lowered myself to the floor in the princess’ rooms, back leaning against the door as my heart betrayed me. Suddenly, it was all very overwhelming, crashing over me like a tidal wave. Doubts were but whispers in the deepest parts of my mind, growing louder now. Fast moving images like recordings from a conch bubbling. The marriage contract. Elias. The swing of an axe. Captain Saber. Odele. Prince Kai.
You are like the princess…
Elias. Kai. Tiberius.
“Gah!” I shot up and paced the room desperately trying to remove the thoughts that currently plagued me by the dozen. At the tip of that overwhelming peak werethem.
Elias.
Kai.
Tiberius.
My body was a treacherous shell of a thing, and instead of being hollow inside, empty, my blood flowed and my heart pounded, my mind pulsed with thoughts of them.
Elias was my honesty. My greatest secret and my greatest truth. We were the same, him and I, or at least, the opposite sides of the same tarnished coin. Poor, longing for a better tomorrow, for a day when the waters of Thalassar no longer ran on currents of blood. We were matching blades set with different stones.
Prince Kai… my heart pounded just thinking of him. Dangerously beautiful. Like capturing the image of an erupting volcano. I’d be damned if I got too close to the heat of the Dragon Prince, but damned if I didn’t want to find myself trapped in the steel lock of his jaws. He was an impossibility. Because he had a duty to his kingdom to save them by marrying a princess. I was but an imposter longing for the greatest jewel of all in the dragon’s den.
And Tiberius… he was the hatred in the swing of my blade. The danger and the beauty that went hand in hand in the making of a weapon. The line separating enemy from friend was unclear. I could not deny that I saw something in him. Maybe it was just an illusion. Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see, but there was a goodness in him, just past a surface that I dared not scratch. Lest I find my heart falling into the betrayal of feeling something other than hatred for a royal soldier.
It wasn’t hard to fathom why all of these mermen invaded my thoughts—my heart. It was quite possible that I cared for them all. I mean, the proof was in the beating of my heart, and the tears I shed. But it didn’t matter what I felt. Not for the Black Blade, not for the Dragon Prince, and certainly not for an infuriating captain. In the end, I would leave them all behind.
I went into the closet after barricading the door with a chair. Stripping down completely, I went for a simple camisole and nightgown. The material slipped over my body, hugging me like a second skin. That was all I donned before I made my way over to the tapestry, went through it, then the tunnel, and into the cove.
Ominous quiet greeted me. A light below beckoned, so I followed the soft glow of lava. But down by the cavern’s floor, the couch was empty, and there was no sign of Elias.
I picked up a globe, holding the heavy weight of the cold orb in my hand, and turned slowly.
