STONE SCRAPED HARSHLY AS THE OPENING WAS FORMED.I swam cautiously out, holding the black blade tightly in my hand. When I swam out, the secret passageway closed behind me, the noise seemed loud in the quiet and dark alley. I looked around, my eyes alert to every threat. Almost as if I expected a murderer to come spiraling through the water to try and kill me again.
But there was no one.
No sign of suspicious mer, and certainly no sign of the Black Blade. He hadn’t really told mehowhe would get the disk back to me. Only that he would do so in a timely manner. I wondered stupidly if he’d duped me, if he’d taken the disk just because he could. The Black Blade—Elias—obviously wasn’t what he seemed, what I’d thought he’d be.
I imagined someone serious, a shadow of the night, a faceless mer with mysterious magic, an older mer with a heroic streak, someone who would ask for nothing in return. He was none of these things. He was young, a few years older than my nineteen, and though his features were dark and mysterious, he smiled like he was a demon. And he obviously only helped people so they’d remain in his debt. That didn’t sound hero like at all to me.
He just sounded like a barracuda. An infuriatingly handsome barracuda who liked to steal kisses from mer he knew nothing about. Yes, he’d known I was supposed to be the Princess—even if I really wasn’t—because of my coloring. He was observant, I’d give him that. But obviously notthatobservant.
I swam to the mouth of the alley and peeked my head around the corners. He wasn’t there. Just the hustle and bustle of Eramaea night activity. Would I risk swimming out to look for him? No. I had no idea where I’d be going or even where he’d be. I couldn’t exactly go asking the mer of Thalassar where the outlaw was located, as I doubt they’d even had a clue.
I swam back into the alleyway and started to make my way towards the secret passage when a bag that was hung on a hook on the wall caught my eye. I swam over to it slowly. The bag was identical to the one I’d worn last time I’d come here. But the one I had was hanging safely within the confines of the cove. I pulled it off the hook and opened it. Inside was the disk and a note written on kelp parchment.
I pulled them both out.
You owe me, Princess.The words were scrawled with dark squid ink, under it a drawing of twin black swords crossing each other. The Black Blade.
Smiling, I placed both things back into the bag and went over to the secret entry again. I pushed the panel and it opened, I swam through, back into the cove. I was eager to watch every single conch. Eager to finally uncover the secrets that Princess Odele had tried to hide.
The secrets she was being hunted for.
~~
“…THEY’RE AFTER ME…”
I held my breath as I watched Princess Odele’s image in the bubble. She was crying, breathing heavily. Her hair was down, floating above her shoulders with each vicious jerk of her head. She sniffled, brought the back of her hand up to her nose and wiped at it. The other hand was out of the image, presumably holding the conch that had recorded this image in the first place.
“They’re out to get me, I know it,” she whispered between sobs. “They want to ruin my life!” Her head jerked to the side and there was the noise of a door knocking. “They’re here,” she whispered quietly.
I leaned forward, my heart thundering as I watched her swim and place the conch down. If I looked closely, I could make out the outline of her bedroom.
“They’re coming for me,” she sobbed. “This conch will be the evidence.” There was a loud clang as her bedroom doors were thrown open. I flinched when she did, watching with dread as someone else appeared in the image, within the range of recording of the conch.
The Queen.
My hands flew to my lips, stifling the gasp that ripped through me. No. It couldn’t be! Had the Queen killed the Princess? I scooted forward on the chair I sat in, holding my hands against my tail to steady myself as I watched the scene unfold before me.
“What doyouwant?” Princess Odele spat.
The Queen placed her hands on her ample hips. “Look at you. Have you no shame? The hour is late and you still have not dressed!”
Princess Odele sobbed. “I don’t want to! You can’t ruin my life this way!”
The Queen rolled her eyes. “Again with this complaining? Go ahead, get it out of your system. Keep crying about how we are ending your life and out to get you and blah, blah.”
“It’s true!” Princess Odele shrieked.
“Yes. Poor Princess, she’s being forced into an engagement with the Dragon Prince Kai. It must be so difficult to be you.”
I blinked at her words. What?That’swhat was going on in this conch? The Princess had cried, had made me believe that someone was coming after her because of some secret knowledge she possessed when in reality, she’d been crying because she didn’t want to meet her betrothed?
I slapped a hand against my forehead and groaned. I’d worried at my nails for the longest time because of her idiocy. The blasted guppy of a Princess! How infuriating! I had the sudden urge to rip the conch from the disk and chuck it across the room.
Therehadto be a secret around here somewhere. There had to be something that the Princess had hidden away to explain her disappearance. She couldn’t have just vanished into thin bubbles. I bent to the floor and began sorting through conches. I noticed the sides had small numbers etched into them. The order that she’d recorded them in, perhaps?
It took me close to an hour to sort them all by number. If every conch here was as ridiculous as the one I just watched had been, I feared for my sanity. But I needed to watch them. I needed to get an insight on the Princess’s life, who she spoke of, her secrets, who appeared beside her in images.
So once they were finally sorted, I picked up conch number one and placed it carefully onto the disk and sat back to watch the Princess of Thalassar’s life unfold.
