‘I have here a record of the marriage bargain as it was laid out between our tribes six hundred years ago. “The First Prince shall be soul bound to the first Redfolk kin he lays eyes on.” These are the words as they are written, as they were agreed upon, as the magic acts upon.’
The Red King looked ready to explode. ‘We do not need a history lesson, old man,’ he snarled. ‘Get to your point before I cut it out of you.’
‘The first Redfolk he lays eyes on,’ Iomhar repeated, enunciating his song precisely. He made a large sweeping gesture at the chamber with its kelp banners and its nervous congregation. ‘Those are the terms of the bargain. Everything else, the wedding ceremony, the blindfold, even your choosing of his betrothed… these are all decoration. Symbols. Atmosphere.’
It seemed Iomhar winked at Fionn. Like he’d just shared a private joke.
The Blue King stirred. He had been floating with his head tucked against his chest, engulfed in grave contemplation. Iomhar’s speech apparently struck a chord in his thoughts. ‘He is right, Rhiath. The bargain has been fulfilled. Anything we attempted here would have been null and void as a result.’
Another Redfolk, one who looked like a young man and had been hanging keenly onto every word on the edge of their circle, now spoke up with hope in his song. ‘Do you mean to say our betrothal would go against the terms of the bargain, because it has already been satisfied?’
Rory gave the young Redfolk a quick, scathing appraisal. Too tall and lanky, and he had a raspy quality to his DeepSong. This was the man Fionn would have ended up marrying? He was no competition, Rory decided.
It wasn’t until much later that Rory realised his first impression of the guy came from mis-placed jealousy. As it was, Rory clamped an arm around Fionn’s shoulders just to stake his claim again.
The young red merman continued in earnest. ‘Because I am the second Redfolk that your prince would have seen, the magic would not have ignited a bond between us anyway?’
The Blue King raised his stare to meet the Red King’s. It held brazen defiance. ‘We must assume so.’
Hope swirled in Rory’s chest and in Fionn’s. It sounded like they were on a course to victory.
The Red King shot forward, surprising his own guards. Suddenly, he loomed over Rory. Even Fionn startled, readying his stance for an attack as the crimson giant leered down at them. ‘If you are truly Redfolk then you bow to me, now.’
Rory’s gills flared at the challenge. ‘Like fuck, mate.’
There was the barest, subtlest of pauses that told Rory the Red King needed a moment to parse his meaning in the DeepSong. Rory felt immense satisfaction when the king’s scowl deepened.
‘Your insolence invites a death sentence in my realm,’ the king growled.
‘This is not your realm,’ the Blue King cut in sharply. ‘And the bargain does not stipulate that he must leave it.’
Fionn seemed to light up. In the sweetest voice Rory had ever heard him use, he sang, ‘I shall go wherever my bonded mate chooses.’
Out of here,Rory thought, swallowing back a wave of dread. The mood in the room had only darkened. He was caught by a wash of vertigo, a sense of tiptoeing over a deadly chasm.
Fionn’s hand on his shoulder steadied him.
The Red King’s mouth twisted into a mockery of a grin as he looked at Rory again. ‘Then perhaps we shall not leave, either. If it pleases my kin to stay, then so shall we.’
He made a complicated hand signal to his red envoy. Two of them began to rattle some instruments made of shells. The sound seemed to command the water, making it gather in a spot high up in the chamber. It churned and frothed, a strange underwater whirlpool, until the water itself parted like a window opening onto another world.
The room froze. Rory felt his pulse stutter.
The vision beyond the whirlpool showed an ocean like nothing he had ever seen. The water was like… translucent mercury. The world seemed silvery and viscous. Sparkling seaweed dangled in the current like vines made of crystal. The seabed was covered in bone-white coral.Bleached?Rory wondered, horrified.
And the warmth pouring out of this whirling portal was something else. Did the Redfolk live in a tropical climate? The Minchmen shuddered as the heat reached them.
‘You must forgive us for making ourselves comfortable,’ the Red King declared. ‘Do not fear, we will soon make your ocean as beautiful as ours.’
‘Close it at once,’ the Blue King demanded.
‘No.’ The Red king smirked, leaning into the Blue King’s face. ‘We will pour storms into these waters. We shall heat them with our wrath. Your seas shall run cold no more. Such is the fate chosen by your little prince.’
What. The. Fuck.
Rory couldn’t tell if he was most furious about the threat to his oceans or about the Red King lumping all of this on Fionn’s head. Something snapped inside him, accompanied by a cracking of his spines…
Fionn pushed his way between the two monarchs. ‘You are the real traitor to both our peoples,’ he told the Red King. ‘I know my own heart. I never deserved to be a pawn in your games! And I know that you did not come here seeking peace. These are not the words or the actions of any king I would allow myself to be ruled by.’
