A Pirate's Dream (7 page)

“Grr.” She shook her head, yanking a slug so hard that she caused several less-mature ones to tumble off their perches to the ground.

“Careful, great-daughter, they’re not yet matured, and since I harvest the best snails in all of Seren, it would be a great loss to waste them.” Bending over, she scooped the baby snails into her palm then repositioned them back in their nests.

“Sorry,” Nimue muttered, feeling foolishly out of sorts. “It’s stupid. Nothing I should be this upset about.”

“Hm.” Maiven’s orange-red tail flicked at a passing crow fish that tried to snatch one of the snails. It cawed irritably once before swimming off in rush. “I often find that sometimes it’s the smallest things that bother us most.”

Rolling her eyes, but being gentler when she grabbed for the next snail, she thought about what’d happened that morning.

Since Nimue had arrived in Seren, the queen had been nothing but cordial and pleasant. Honestly, she was becoming a friend, and Nimue cherished that. But as wonderful as the queen was, her brother irritated the ever-living crap—as her mother often told her father—out of her.

“He ignores me. Completely.” She shoved another snail into her smock. “I haven’t seen the arrogant jerk for a week, and today, he’s coming out of his study, and that horrible fish—” She flicked a glance at her very mermaid grandmother and stuttered, “No offense to you.”

She smiled. “None taken, dear.” Then she turned and began harvesting the next stalk for snails. “I take it that you’re speaking of Stygia?”

“One and the same,” she growled, snarling at the shell in her hand. “She comes out of the study right behind him, with her hand on his arm possessively, as if I really cared—” She snapped off another snail.

“Mind the food, great-daughter.”

Releasing her grip on the poor stalk, she backed up; just thinking about it was filling her with a quiet rage. She’d had to sit through breakfast with Stygia making moony eyes at Sircco and him raging at Nimue, as if he were offended that she would dare to eat at the same table as they did.

As if she’d had a choice. There was only one great table, and besides, Sirenade had invited her there as
her
personal guest and...

She stomped her foot. “He’s just so mean to me, and I don’t know why.”

Maiven lifted a finely arched brow. “And that bothers you?”

“Yes! No.” She shook her head then sighed. “I don’t know. But he’s the first merman I’ve ever seen, and I was so curious, but he’s just such an ass.”

Great-mother gave her a women-do-not-swear kind of look, which instantly had Nimue clamping her lips shut. If her grandmother only knew just how varied her vocabulary was on the subject, courtesy of living her life on a ship with first-class ruffians...

“He’s the king, Nimue. They’re allowed to be—” She sniffed. “Asses.”

Choking on her laughter, because her grandmother looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon, she didn’t know what to say other than, “Thank you.”

Nodding regally, Maiven plucked at another snail. “Maybe what you need to do is analyze why it bothers you that he’s ignoring you. Aren’t you having fun here?”

She shrugged, her anger not quite so hot anymore. “I am. I mean, it’s not lost on me that I’m still a prisoner. Couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.”

Nimue had caught wind, through servant chatter, that there was a hidden stairwell that led from Seren straight to the legger’s shore, but the queen’s fiercest warriors heavily guarded it.

Not that she really wanted to leave.

But she still couldn’t stop feeling like she was a prisoner. And it wasn’t so much because she couldn’t get out and do things, she could. She got to spend time with her great-mother, whom she was coming to feel great affection for. And even though underwater lakes should have seemed impossible, there were, in fact, underwater lakes. Sirenade had told Nimue that once she had a few moments of free time, she’d take Nimue there to learn how to swim.

Jian was her constant companion, keeping constantly to her side so that even if she was alone in her room, she was never truly alone.

But she couldn’t leave.

She couldn’t talk to her parents.

And as crazy as it was, she missed them. She wanted to reassure them that she was safe and to apologize to them for what she’d done. Sirenade had told her that Sircco had spoken with them, but she wouldn’t say much more other than that the rafters had shaken when Hook spoke.

“Daughter of Talia’s soul”—Maiven laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed until Nimue glanced up—“there are times in life when we are forced to endure trials.”

Wanting to kick herself for being so foolish, Nimue glanced down at her feet. This was hardly a trial compared to what her great-mother had been forced to endure—the death of her only daughter. Being a prisoner for five and a half more months in a place where she was treated more like a princess than a captive was hardly worthy of tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Now, hush.”

Maiven pulled her in for a swift hug. She smelled like her mother’s gardens back at the chalet, like honeysuckle and desert sage. It was a pleasant smell, and it squeezed at Nimue’s heart.

“None of that, dear. I’m not comparing us, and I don’t want you to, either. This is a great burden for you. Especially to be forced to endure the company of a merman you find both reprehensible and divine.”

“What?” She frowned, giving a nervous titter. “I don’t. I think he’s...”

Tipping her head, her grandmother didn’t look in the slightest bit fooled. “You can say many things about our king, but being homely is not one of them.”

“How come there are no other males in the city?” Nimue switched subjects. She really didn’t want to dwell on that pompous jerk anymore, but she was curious. “Is he that petty that—”

“Tut. Petty.” Maiven chuckled. “No, Nimue, petty he is not. I do not know why the king acts with you as he does, but he is a good man. The fact is that apart from royalty, no maiden may bear a male fry. It is why we are forced to seek mates in the above.”

Nimue knew what “the above” meant, just as her father and mother had often referred to Seren as the under. These were two distinctive classes of peoples: those who lived above the sea and those who lived below.

“What happened to yours?”

Blinking, she went back to harvesting. “He died. A long time ago. And I’m much too old to seek another.”

Glancing at her nubile great-mother, she shook her head. “You don’t look old.”

“No, maybe not in body, but in spirit, I am. When Talia died, it was like I did, too. I never wanted to replace her, never wanted to erase her memory with another.”

Not sure what to say, feeling as though she might have been delving into places she shouldn’t, Nimue moved over to a new strand and began plucking.

Just then, a loud racket sounded, and a bucket came rolling through the patch, tossing snails every which way.

“Bloody... argh, Ariana!” Maiven bellowed. “What have you done now, girl?”

The once-pristine garden grounds were now littered with baby snails. Kneeling, Nimue began scooping them up and placing them haphazardly on whatever strand of kelp she found.

A mermaid came gliding through the back doorway of Maiven’s coral hutch, hanging her head. She was a lovely creature, as they all were, but there was something intensely alluring about Ariana.

Her hair was the white of purest snow. Her eyes were a cut-emerald color. Her tail was a deep-stained crimson, and it was patterned unlike anything Nimue had seen since she’d been here.

Several of the scales had arranged themselves in such a way that it appeared as though white roses creeping with green vines had wrapped themselves around her tail. Nimue released a puff of awe as the creature stopped a few yards from Maiven, occasionally casting nervous, shifty glances in Nimue’s direction.

“I’m... I’m so sorry, teacher. I did not... did not...” Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes as she began wringing her hands. “It was just so hot and my strength not—”

Sighing, but not with exasperation, Maiven moved toward the mermaid and gave her elbow a quick squeeze. “It is quite all right, Ari, I forgot you’d be stopping by today. Give me a moment to clean my hands and we’ll start our lessons.”

“Okay,” she said sweetly, glancing down at the tip of her flicking tail, but still looking curiously back and forth between it and Nimue.

Maiven undid her apron, set it aside, and then hooked a finger in Nimue’s direction.

“Wait here, Ari, touch nothing,” she said one final time and then headed toward her hutch.

Nimue knew her great-mother wanted her to follow, but she was as curious of Ariana as the mermaid clearly was of her.

“Hi,” she said it slowly.

Ari laughed, the sound joyful and almost, childlike, that it threw Nimue to see it. Ariana was clearly a mermaid of fertile years. She had a slim waist and full bouncing breasts; her face was equally as mature, her lips full and ripe. Her eyes slanted and her cheekbones razor sharp. She was a striking woman.

Realizing the mermaid wasn’t going to respond, Nimue followed her grandmother.

She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “What is—” But before she even got to finish her thought, her grandmother answered.

“She is touched, dear.”

“Oh,” she said shocked, and then, “oh. I’m sorry.”

“No.” Holding up her palm, her grandmother began pulling out books from a bookshelf sitting beside her living room conch chair. “She is incredibly sweet, but I didn’t want there to be any confusion on your part as to why she sometimes acts as she does.”

“What?” She glanced over her shoulder once again only to note the mermaid treading the same spot she’d been when Maiven had given her the order not to move. “Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

It wasn’t often that she came across someone like Ariana, Nimue wanted to make sure that she was sensitive to the mermaid’s needs, but she was also intensely curious.

“A boating accident. The maid swam too close. We told her to move away, but she got too close to its hull and...” she squeezed her eyes shut, trembling as though reliving the memory, “she very nearly died that day. When she awoke she came back to us this way. No one here really knows how to deal with her, though we try our best.”

“What do you teach her?”

Maiven pointed to twig shaped spirals of coral and some pencils with colored tips on them. “Nothing really. She calls them her lessons, but she draws. And she’s quite good at them actually.”

Opening the journals, she swam aside so that Nimue could look at the drawings. Quite good was an understatement.

Ariana might not be able to process the world as the rest of them did, but she captured the essence of life within the pages. There were images of grottos with mermaids languishing upon rocks.

Rocks that formed into a skull. She smiled when she saw that one. “That’s one of my father’s holdings.”

“Aye.” Maiven nodded, tracing her fingers over drawings as Nimue continued to turn the pages.

She was impressed by the skill it took to make such fine, detailed sketches.

Squealing with delight at the sight of Smee’s blue eyes staring back at her, Nimue said, “She’s seen Smee.”

“Yes. She’s got quite the fascination with pirates and leggers in general. Though we tell her it’s no longer safe for her in the above, she rarely listens. But Ariana is as slippery as an eel to catch, and has no fear of using her voice should the need arise.”

“Her voice?”

“She’s a siren.”

“I thought you were all siren’s?”

Mother had always spoken of the siren song she heard anytime she and father entered the under.

Laughing, Maiven tucked a red curl behind her ear. “Not the way Ariana is. No one is the way Ariana is. But unfortunately, I think we should call it a day. I’ve stew to make and Ariana will be here for a while. Unless, of course, you wish to stay?”

Her great-mother’s eyes looked hopeful, but Nimue was starting to feel a little tired. “No, thank you. I think I’ll return to my dungeon for now. But I’ll be by again at some point this week.”

“Tut.” Maiven chuckled, gave her a quick hug, then pointed at a bowl of glittering sea snails. “Take those to the cook at the palace, and do try to stop calling your room a dungeon. It’s the first step to accepting one’s fate.”

“Yes, great-mother,” she said it dutifully, if not with a bit of an eye roll, which her grandmother generously ignored.

After setting her apron down on the razor clam kitchen shelf, she grabbed the bowl of snails, and with one final glance back at the woman who was naught more than a girl, she returned to the palace.

N
imue had barely stepped foot inside when she was violently shoulder bumped. She fell to her knees, dropping the bowl of snails so that they scattered like tiny projectiles across the marble kitchen floor.

Cook, a broad mermaid of a woman with plump fish hips and a stout middle section, harrumphed. “Stygia, you saw that girl coming in here. Did you really need to shove her as you did? Look at my kitchen. What a mess!”

Though the snails had felt soft and delicate coming off the stems, they were now sliming the kitchen floors as they tried to hide within shadow. Maiven had warned her that frightened snails made messes, but the green glop that reminded Nimue of snot, was more than just a little mess.

Curling her nose, she shot Stygia a venomous glare. “You did that on purpose.”

The green-haired barracuda smiled an evil smile. “No, I didn’t. You were just in my way,
legger
.”

Normally, Nimue didn’t let the insults get to her. But she’d been in a bad mood that morning to begin with. Jumping to her feet, she hooked her leg behind Stygia’s tail and her arm through the crook of her elbow. Then, using a move that Smee had taught her, she flipped the fish onto her back, so that Nimue was the one standing above her.

“Do not,” she stressed, “do that again.”

Hissing, churning water with the agitated swish of her iridescent pink tail, Stygia righted herself and glared at Cook as though she were also to blame. Without saying a word, she slammed the swinging doors open, exiting with chin held high.