“Badger’s right. I am queen,” Tatiana said confidently, feeling Jacob’s hand reassuringly squeeze hers. “I need to return order. Azor and the Dradux need to be punished for their crimes. And the rebels pardoned. I need to set everything straight.”
“How, when you don’t have the mark?” Galadriel asked through her teeth.
Tatiana lifted her chin and kept her cool. Knowing lives were on the line, she merely turned and showed her hip.
Galadriel gasped. “I don’t understand. How—?”
“She’s also birthed Azor an heir, which trumps ya,” Badger said plainly. “So we must get goin’. There isn’t much time.”
At the mention of the merling, Jacob dropped her hand.
“It’s true?” he asked simply, disbelief on his face. “How?”
“I…” Her eyes flickered to him for a moment. His devastation crushed her. How did he know about the merling? She closed her eyes a beat, hiding her frustration. In any other circumstances, she’d explain, but with Galadriel there, peace in the colony needed to be restored first.
She merely turned and said, “Sandy, can you reopen the essence pool, then find the wounded and treat them? Jax, Fin, Badger and Jacob: I need you to lock up the Dradux guards in the pillories, including Azor. Ash, stay with me. We’ll see to it everyone is okay. Once I get control of things, I’ll speak to the people and makes things right again.”
“Got it,” Badger said with a bow. When no one else moved or said anything, Badger’s face turned into an ugly scowl. “Where’s your loyalty? This be yer queen! She earned this from her blood, sweat and tears! You will honor her! Bow!”
The group startled and everyone but Galadriel bowed. Instead, she glared with her arms crossed over her chest. “I will not serve an imposter.”
“So be it,” Badger said while handing out the weapons.
In a huff, Galadriel spun on her tail and swam off with Jax following behind her.
: : :
It’s okay, sis,
Fin encouraged telepathically.
She’ll simmer down. You’re doing the right thing.
Though Fin’s words helped, Tatiana wanted Jacob’s reassuring hand in hers more. She looked for him, hoping he’d swim by her side. But he chose to swim on the outskirts of the group instead. Wishing she could mind talk with Jacob like she could her twin brother and explain everything, she kept looking toward Jacob’s permanent scowl, hoping to catch his eye. Then her heart punched against her ribs in anticipation of what they’d find.
The skirmish at the square took her by surprise. Sirens and wails punctuated the crowd as mermen fought, dark green hoods against black. Among the crowd, bodies floated unconscious. In horror, she watched Dradux guards kiss unpromised mermaids, then witnessed the maids changing sides and taking up swords against their friends.
“Oh my starfish,” Tatiana mumbled, seeing the carnage and blood.
Without a thought, she charged, sirening, and held out her trident to the nearest maid. “By order of the Queen, I command you to stop!”
The woman swiveled around and pointed her spear at Tatiana. “Imposter,” she squealed and rushed her.
Jacob appeared from nowhere and parried the woman’s blow. “What are you doing?” he yelled at Tatiana. “Get inside the palace at once!”
“No! My place is here!”
Someone pulled her hair, spinning her around in the current. Tatiana shrieked, staring in the face of a Dradux. “Lookie who I caught.”
His tail whipped around and stung her in the side. She winced, but felt nothing more than a pinch. With her talons, she ripped into his startled expression, shredding his skin to ribbons. “Unhand me!”
Then Jacob was there, piercing the Dradux in the heart with the trident that had been in her hands.
“Come on.” He grabbed Tatiana’s arm and swam her from the square.
“No! I want to fight.”
He put his face inches from hers. “You’re the queen. You don’t get to fight. Now get inside.”
He shoved her up through the porthole and swam off. But instead of air, she surfaced into water. Water everywhere.
“No!” She clutched her neckline, spinning around. The palace was flooded.
46
: : :
Lost Ones
“Enough!” a male’s voice—rich baritone—boomed from outside. Immediately, the noise of the fighting diminished.
Tatiana returned to the square, awed at the response. Some of the mers bowed, while others remained speechless and gawking. Murmurs of a name tumbled through the crowd.
Merric. It’s King Merric.
“What is this? Explain yourselves!” the man yelled, his white hair floating around his head in the current like lightening. Though weathered in his appearance, he lifted his trident with ease and waved it over the crowd, pointing to people at random. No one dared speak, petrified in his presence. “Where’s Phaleon, my son?”
My son?
She’d remembered seeing a bust of King Merric in the library and hearing stories of his greatness, but he couldn’t be the same merman. The King had died ages ago when Phaleon took the throne, and he looked so… old.
A staccato of gasps came from the mers, then a lone courageous voice cried out, “He’s dead.”
“Dead?” He scratched at his beard, his face suddenly pained. “I see.”
Behind him, a whole host of merpeople hovered, wrinkled and aged just like him, and yet they carried weapons, eyes alert, ready for battle. Then she spotted her parents in the crowd with Fin and Ash, anxious but steadfast. Why wasn’t her father rounding up the rebels to attack and capture Azor’s men?
Nervously, Tatiana watched, refraining from swimming across the square to them. She caught her mother’s eye, at the concern filling her face.
“Then who’s in charge?” King Merric bellowed.
“King Azor,” a merman in the crowd said.
“Hmmm.” He thought for a moment. “I’d like to speak with him. Have my grandson explain this mess.”
Grandson?
When no one spoke, he moved forward, whipping his golden fin behind him. “Well, where is he?”
“He left,” a mermaid replied timidly.
Tatiana’s heartbeat boomed in her ears. After her speech earlier and with Azor's absence, she had to account for what had happened, to make things right, to be the one she’d professed herself to be. Queen.
“I’m in charge,” Tatiana said with her head held high, voice quivering.
A rush of whispers filtered through the water. Her family gasped and moved forward, objecting. The King waved them off with a flick of his trident.
“Mighty brave for one so young,” he said as he crossed above the crowd toward her.
“I can explain.” Tatiana momentarily pinched her eyes shut.
I hope.
She rehearsed her defense, intending to reveal all of Azor’s secrets and lies. But upon opening her eyes, she locked onto Pearl who hid in the nave of the palace entrance. In her hands squirmed Xirene’s merling, the blue-tailed girl. Responsibility hit Tatiana. If she told the truth, she’d criminalize the child’s father, ushering the babe into a life she’d promised Xirene she’d protect her from.
With a gulp, she turned to Merric, lost for an explanation. “We have no excuse,” Tatiana said grimly. “Azor and I have been at odds since our promise and, in light of King Phaleon’s death, he hoped by becoming king, he could create peace again.”
An angry murmur pulsed from the crowd.
“They’ve only been promised two weeks! How could they have a child so soon?” an array of voices yelled. “Harlot! Tramp! Whore!”
: : :
Jacob waited impatiently in the audience for Jack and the Lost Ones to attack. That was why they’d come, hadn’t they? But he couldn’t help himself from staring hard at Tatiana, hurt and confused. And how could she have kissed him and not told him about the child? She never even really showed. Was her pregnancy the whole reason why she’d hesitated to kiss him to begin with? Why she wouldn’t leave? Anger surged when imagining Azor forcing himself on her. Crossing his arms over his chest, he watched her grimace at the accusations as she fluttered her tail in the current.
“I think after everything,” she continued, smoothing her trembling hands down her skirt, “we should start by freeing the rebels and disbanding the Dradux.”
A collective gasp flowed around Jacob, silencing the attacks against her virtue. But Jacob only saw Azor for the animal that he was. He sucked water over his gills, trying hard to slow the blood crashing through his veins. Azor would suffer for hurting her, mating with her, then forcing her promise—die miserably.
“—and actually, I’ve since discovered I wasn’t promised to Azor to begin with…” She raised her hand as proof, but light caught her ring finger. She clasped her hands, to hide the evidence. Jacob’s heart stopped for a beat as he studied the black shards of light erupting from his hand, evidence of their bond.
Hissing and vitriol worked its way through the crowd again, condemning her.
“Liar! She is
promised
,” someone yelled behind Jacob.
Chants broke out all around him. “To Bone Island with her! Arrest her! Off with her fins!”
“No!” Jacob kicked his tail, bulleting himself above the crowd. “I’m the one. The one who should be punished! Not Tatiana!”
“Jacob, no!” Tatiana gestured him away with her hand, then someone yanked on his tail, pulling him down.
“Hover somewhere else, sympathizer!” a woman screamed in his face.
Jacob scowled, putting space between them. He bumped into another mer, who shot him a look, wary of his trident. “I’m here. Find your own spot!”
“Jacob,” Grommet said from behind, pulling him backward. “What are you doing?”
“Silence!” The people hushed and looked up, frozen in a trance under Merric’s hard gaze. “It seems we have a discrepancy of who’s responsible.”
“Ya think?” Grommet mumbled.
“I’ll kill him,” Jacob seethed quietly. “If he’s even so far as touched her—”
“You and me both,” Grommet agreed.
Azor interrupted from the other side of the square. “And who are you?”
Jacob panned to his voice, his body shaking with adrenaline.
Merric raised one brow. “I’m your grandfather.”
“I highly doubt it, old man.” Azor snorted.
Whispers from the mers flew around. Was this actually Merric? Or was it someone else?
Merric postured, bristling his fins. “I’ve come to help you.”
“What?” Azor smirked. “Help me? I think I’ve got things under control!”
Jacob grunted, flexing his fingers around the shaft of the trident, arching his fins. Why was Jack waiting? Why were they entertaining this idiot?
“Imposter!” someone yelled from the crowd. Jacob and Grommet followed in suit, “Imposter!”
“Ahhh, now.” Azor sneered and moved into the light. With a stretch of his neck, he displayed the crown, and floated down towards the stage opposite Merric. Six Dradux guards flanked him, scythes pointed outward. “You all saw Queen Desiree crown me today, and as you know, an heir doesn’t necessarily have to be a male to make one king.”
All Jacob could focus on was Azor’s pulsing jugular and how he’d love to slice into it and watch him bleed in the current.
Merric’s gills flared. “In special circumstances, yes, but you have passed her off as a boy—”
“I accepted the crown on Tatiana’s lies.” Azor pointed his spear toward her. “Struck with grief over my father’s sudden death, I wasn’t there for the birth. How was I to know? I took her word.”
“You murdered King Phaleon after he wouldn’t die on his own,” Tatiana interrupted. “And you’re not of royal blood! Your mother confessed she switched you at birth!”
Azor threw back his head and laughed. “We’ve been through this already. My mother is grieving and—” He scanned the crowd and pointed. “How was I switched with my sister Galadriel? Explain that.”
“Because I am not Galadriel!” A girl yelled behind them as she rose in the current. “I’m Ashlyn Frances Lanski, born mer and switched at birth because I wasn’t a boy! So my father could be king!”
“Ashlyn?” Azor yanked his chin back, then shook his head before readdressing his people. “Are you going to believe this nonsense? The mad words of a woman? Or your King?”
The crowd murmured, unsure. Without hard proof, they couldn’t decide what to believe, who to follow. Jacob stared at Tatiana, at the woman he loved, withholding his desire to yell out and demand Azor’s death. But if she didn’t say something soon, the crowd could turn on her and even with Jack’s army, she could lose her life in the upheaval. Her eyes briefly met his, flashing fear.
“Tell them,” Jacob mouthed.
Her chest heaved as her chin rose. Courage replaced her fear. “Then explain why your daughter doesn’t have the mark of royalty, Azor?” she yelled.
Jacob watched fear cross Azor’s face. “The what?”
“The mark of a royal. This—” she turned and lifted her dress, revealing her fleur-de-lis.
“Of course my daughter has the mark—”
Heartache thudded in Jacob’s chest, watching the merling girl in Pearleza’s hands as she swam to Tatiana’s side, the daughter she shared with Azor. But when she lifted the babe, the merling didn’t have the mark of a royal.
How can that be?
Hope pulsed into Jacob. Hope that the whole thing had been a ruse to look like Azor’s kin. Hope that his girl was still untouched. Hope that they could get out of this alive.
“Arrest them!” Azor called abruptly.
Madness broke out as mers swarmed in all directions. In a brief glimpse, Jacob saw the Dradux guards surround Tatiana, holding her arms and mouth. He kicked his tail, unable to gain ground as the massive crowd squeezed and pushed him, trapping him under their bodies and tails.
“No!” Jacob called, elbowing against those around him, ready to sting anyone who’d get in his way. Trapped in the sea of moving mers, he couldn’t free himself from the angered horde’s path, when suddenly the mers broke apart. He found himself face to face with Azor.
Azor’s shock was briefly entertaining, until his Dradux guards pushed Jacob away.
“We meet again,” Jacob said with a wry smile.
And it’s not going to end pretty.