The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) (5 page)

Serena
sighed heavily, sending bubbles towards the surface from her mouth,
and said, “I find that very hard to believe.”

“
And
I won’t tell you what to believe, but I stand by what I said.”

They sat
in slightly awkward silence for a moment. Casius’ tentacle
slid off her shoulder, and this time she let it. Her need for
comfort was no longer desperate. Her breathing had returned to
normal. The agonized pain in her chest had dulled to a steady throb.
But now she felt confused, lost, and strangely empty.

“
What
will you do now?” said Casius, anticipating her thoughts.

“
I
don’t know,” she said, sorrow in her voice. “I
just don’t know.”

She did
not want to go home. Just thinking about Moira made her angry. She
didn’t think she could face working in the palace anymore. She
dreaded crossing paths with Amphitrite. And each time Triton saw her
scrubbing or scraping or fetching he would notice her now, but not
in the way she wanted. He would be reminded of his mother’s
words. He would look at her and think,
Unworthy
,
and that was far worse than not being noticed at all.

“
I
think I can help you,” said Casius.

“
Oh,
but you’ve already helped me,” she said. “I
couldn’t ask for any more.”

“
It
will cost me nothing, my dear. In fact, I will gain a companion on
my trip home.”

“
What
do you mean?”

“
You
see, though I am from Adamar, I do not live here anymore. I live in
another city not far from here. It is called Arcanus. I think you
would find solace there. Have you heard of it?”

Serena
shook her head.

“
Well,
it is a city of outcasts, comprised of those who were either
banished from Adamar or found it disagreeable.”

“
You
mean a city of criminals?” said Serena. Her nose wrinkled in
distaste and her eyes narrowed angrily. “I thought you said I
shouldn’t let my mother’s reputation mar mine, and now
you tell me I would fit in well in a city of criminals?”

“
I
did not say you would fit in. You are a rare creature, Serena. I
doubt you would completely fit in anywhere—and why should you
want to?

“
I
said you would find solace. Yes, Arcanus is comprised of those the
royal family has branded criminals, but it is a peaceful place. The
merfolk and other sea creatures there respect each other’s
differences, each other’s freedoms. It is a place to start
fresh without judgement. And I think you will find that many there
who have been labeled criminals are actually victims of the royal
family’s pride, greed, and vanity, just like you.”

Serena
looked at Casius uneasily. To her, the royal family was a golden
pinnacle to look up to. They were noble. They were just. They were
the protectors of the city. Just yesterday (and many days before
that) she had imagined herself one of them, ruling fairly and being
loved by all. She did not feel like she was a victim of the royal
family. If anything, she felt like she was the victim of her own
mother. She was also the victim of her station, which was why she
did not swim away from Casius with a swift, “No thank you.”
The idea of a new beginning was unbelievably tempting. She could
learn a good, reputable trade in a place where her mother’s
name was not floating over her. Perhaps she could even procure a
little wealth. Then Triton would see her as much more than just a
maid—she could be a potential bride.

“
I
see no harm in going with you to see Arcanus,” she said after
a long pause. “If I like it there, I’ll stay. At least
for a while.”

“
Excellent!
I assure you, you won’t regret it.”

“
I
have one condition.”

“
What
is that?”

“
Don’t
tell anyone I’m Moira’s daughter. No going on about how
I have a rare and wonderful power either. If I’m going to
start new, I want it to be as a regular mermaid.”

“
Oh,
but regular is so boring. You are not boring, Serena.”

She
arched an eyebrow at him, and he sighed and said, “Oh, alright
then. Deal. You’re definitely not boring, but you are
stubborn.”

She
smiled at him and said, “Oh, I think you’ll find I can
be dreadfully boring. In fact, I think I’ll discuss the
anatomy of mollusks for the entire journey there. Or perhaps the
many uses of seaweed. Ooo, I’ve got it! I’ll talk about
the enchanting lives of sea slugs. How does that sound?”

“
You
can talk about whatever you like, but don’t be surprised if
you suddenly find one of my tentacles wrapped around your mouth,”
he said, that smile in his voice again, “or you get a face
full of ink. That usually shuts merpeople up. There’s lots of
coughing and sputtering, but at least no more babbling.”

Serena
laughed. It felt wonderful. She launched herself off the
outcropping, stretched her arms towards the surface, and then, still
laughing, bent gracefully backwards at the waist, flicking her tail
to propel her all the way around in a backflip. Then she pumped her
tail and shot like a sailfish into the Deep Ocean. She flipped over,
swimming on her back so she could look at Casius, and called, “What
are you waiting for? Lead the way.”

Casius
swam toward her, his rumbling laugh carried to her on the current.
His movements were both graceful and alien. First, his tentacles and
the webbed skin at the top that connected them blossomed out around
him like a flower in full bloom. Then he pumped them all behind him
at once, his oblong head out in front of him so that he was
perfectly streamlined. Just before he reached her, he caught a
current, and two of his tentacles bowed out beside him while the
other six laid flat against each other, three on top of three. He
looked like a strange gull in flight. He glided past her this way,
and she followed him, flicking her tail for momentum until she
caught the same current.

“
So
what do you do in Arcanus? Anything?” she said as they glided
along side-by-side.

Most sea
creatures simply struggled to survive, fighting the food chain and
the toils of ocean life rather than having an occupation, but Casius
seemed too smart to be content with just that.

“
I’m
an outpost guard,” he said. “I take shifts keeping a
lookout at the edges of the city, deterring troublemakers and
sounding the alarm if anything comes along that’s too big for
me to handle alone. That doesn’t happen often.”
“I
suppose not,” she said, thinking again how very large he was.

“
I’m
also a recruiter of sorts,” he said, not looking at her. “You
see, I am one of the few Arcanus residents who isn’t banned
from Adamar, so sometimes the leaders of Arcanus send me to seek out
others who have been banished. Usually, when merfolk are banished,
they simply wander around the city limits, unsure what to do with
themselves. Other sea creatures are usually more resilient, or they
get eaten very quickly outside the protection of the coral reef and
kelp forest. I also go into the city sometimes, looking for those
who are…disillusioned with life in Adamar.”

Serena
chewed her bottom lip, mulling this over.

“
So
I’m your new recruit?” she said.

“
No,
Serena, you are my new friend.”

Serena’s
smile lit up her face and pushed the last bit of her pain aside, at
least for the time being.

“
Good.”

Had Casius not been with her, Serena would have found
the vastness of the Deep Ocean unsettling. There was only blue. When
neither she nor Casius was speaking, there was only the faint,
steady sound of moving water. The only other life they saw on the
way to Arcanus was a school of sardines that passed quickly without
stopping, though there was an eerie chorus of “Hello”
that came from thousands of mouths all at once. Sardines did
everything as one when they were in schools. They were not afraid of
Casius while they were in such strong numbers, especially since he
didn’t seem to be hungry. Serena stuck close to Casius, though
it would have been impossible to lose him in such a wide open place.
The sound of his tentacles moving in the water beside her was
comforting. They tried to keep up a steady conversation to banish
the silence.

Serena told Casius more about her life than she’d
ever told anyone—the good and the bad—and at first, she
didn’t know why. She told him of her dreams to make a
difference. Her dreams of romance with her handsome prince. She told
him about Moira’s manipulation, always pushing Serena to be
something she didn’t want to be and tearing Hazel down for
trying to be want Moira wanted but falling short of expectations.

“
It sounds as though your sister should have come
with us too,” said Casius.

As Serena looked over at him, intending so say, “I’ll
come back for her if I decide to stay in Arcanus,” it struck
her that she hadn’t had a real friend to turn to since she was
a child. The thought made her want to cry, but at the same time, she
felt a bubble of joy expand in her chest at having finally found
one. The sudden swell of emotion cut off her words.

Casius looked back at her, saw the array of
emotion—tearful and joyous—cross her face, and felt a
fierce desire to protect her. She had been so mistreated and
neglected by her mother, so suppressed and shunned by her society
that she could not see her own vast potential. She had the ambition;
it showed in her dreams. She imagined that if she was ever queen,
married to her sweetheart Triton of course, she would be more of a
helper than a ruler. Yes, she had the noble ambitions, but she
didn’t think she was capable of achieving them. And she had
been taught to despise the most unique part of herself (through her
mother’s dark actions and her fellow merfolk’s disdain),
the part that could potentially help her achieve her grand dreams.
No more. Not if he could help it. Anyone with a derogatory word
about her would answer to him, and he would help her see that her
power should be harnessed, not repressed.

They kept their eyes locked for a moment, both thinking
their own thoughts about the other, before Casius looked ahead and
suddenly slowed his swimming. His tentacles splayed around him
instead of streaming behind, and he pointed with one.

“
There it is,” he said.

Serena looked around and realized she could see the
ocean floor again, though it was a good distance below her. The
floor sloped at a steady incline in front of them, and at the top of
it, a few miles in the distance, was a city. Even from this
distance, she could tell it looked nothing like Adamar. Adamar was
full of rich color; the far off city looked grey and bleak.

Serena looked up towards the surface. It had been late
morning when she fled the palace. Now, above the waves, the sun
would be almost level with the horizon. Once it started setting,
darkness would fall quickly, and she did not want to be caught in
open ocean at night. Endless blue had unsettled her; endless black
would terrify her. Arcanus was still a good distance away.

“
Let’s get a move on then” she said.

They swam fast, no longer speaking. Serena pulled up
short when they got close enough for her to see why the city looked
so bleak. It was made of bones, mostly whale bones judging by the
size, and blueish-black volcanic rock. The whole city was built
inside the top of an inactive underwater volcano, jutting up from
the sediment and sand of the ocean floor. The entrance into the city
was a whale’s ribcage that formed a strange sort of tunnel.
The lip of the volcano had been carved away on either side of the
whale carcass so that it led right into the volcano itself.

“
We have to work with what we can get here in
Arcanus, without the magic of the Trident…or a sea witch,”
said Casius. “Don’t be alarmed. The bones were all
obtained naturally.”

Serena gave the whale skeleton another uneasy look, but
the water was getting darker by the second. She swam into the
strange bone tunnel and stopped again, this time with a gasp of
delight. Blue, phosphorescent light sprung up around her when she
moved. She looked at Casius, her mouth agape. The light faded. She
laughed and traced her name with her hand in the water, and it
appeared in blue light for few moments.

“
I thought you said there was no magic here,”
she said, twirling with her arms spread wide, creating a bright,
blue whirlpool in the steadily darkening water.

“
It’s not magic,” said Casius. “It’s
called Sea Sparkle. It’s a kind of plankton. We harvest it at
the surface and bring it down here for a little extra light at
night.”

“
It’s wonderful!”

Serena swam through the whale ribcage on her back,
watching the trail of phosphorescence left by her movement through
the water. Casius followed. Serena nearly bumped into the barracuda
guarding the entrance at the end of the tunnel. He eyed her
suspiciously when she apologized.

“
She’s with me,” said Casius.

“
Alright then,” said the barracuda and swam
aside.

The mouth of the volcano had mostly been filled up and
shut by hardening lava that had erupted a long, long time ago, but
there was still about thirty feet between the hard lava floor and
the lip of the volcano. The small city was nestled inside the
circular opening, about ten miles in diameter. The buildings,
fashioned from large, jutting, white bones and black rock were
crammed together. The swimming paths were barely wide enough for two
merfolk coming in opposite directions to pass each other. The few
merfolk and sea creatures still moving about near the entrance in
the enclosing darkness looked at Serena curiously as she swam in
with Casius.

“
It’s too late to introduce you to the
Council tonight,” said Casius, ignoring the stares. “You
can stay with me until morning.”

“
Council?”

“
Yes, the leaders of Arcanus. They decide who is
allowed to join the community. They’ll listen to your
story—why you wanted to come here—and if they think you
will fit in here, you will be assigned quarters of your own and a
job. Everyone has to pitch in here—even the Council members.”

“
You didn’t say anything about having to go
before a council,” said Serena, suddenly nervous and wary once
again of this dark, eerie place of bones.

“
No need to be worried. No one I’ve vouched
for has been denied yet. And none of them had your abilities.”

“
No, no. Remember the deal,” said Serena.
“No one knows about my mother or my powers. If you mention
either one, I’m out of here. This is my fresh start,
remember?”

“
Yes, yes, I’m sorry. It was a slip of the
tongue. I was just trying to make a point. I have no intention of
breaking our deal. But honestly, Serena, you have nothing to worry
about.”

— — —

Serena’s
nerves were making her queasy, and the mollusks she’d had for
breakfast just a half hour before were not sitting well in her
stomach. She raked her fingers through her hair, trying to free the
tangles, and fidgeted with the straps of her coral-colored shell top
as she and Casius waited outside the Council building.

“
Relax,
Serena,” said Casius. “You’re jumpier than a
pufferfish.”

“
Sorry.”

Serena
forced her hands to her sides and studied the brown and green double
doors to the Council building. They were made of woven sea plants—
some dead, some still alive— and had curved bones, much like
smiles, for handles.

“
You’re
not on trial here, you know,” said Casius. “Most of the
creatures here have actually been on trial, and they don’t
wish to repeat the process or force it upon others. They just want
to make sure you aren’t going to cause trouble. They only want
merpeople who actually want to be here included in the community.”

Before
Serena could reply, the doors swung open and a young merman, no more
than twelve, beckoned them with his hand and said, “The
Council will see you now.”

Serena
sucked in a slow, calming breath and followed Casius inside. The
building was a single, large, open room, much like the atrium or the
throne room of the palace in Adamar. The room was dim despite the
many windows because of the dark hue of the rock. At the far end of
the room, three merpeople sat in three chairs (much like thrones but
far less grand) made of bone. In the middle was a very long,
middle-aged mermaid whose name, according to Casius, was Bria. Her
hair was a lovely dirty blonde, a collection of multiple hues of
soft browns and bright golds, and she had it plaited in a long braid
that fell across her right shoulder, tied off with a kelp leaf. Her
top was made of silky, brown seal hide, and Serena wondered if she
had been banished from Adamar for poaching—which was only a
step below murder in the underwater world. The thought amped up her
nerves even more, and she could feel her pulse throbbing in her
neck. Bria’s tail was dark green, which made Serena think of
Hazel and suddenly ache for home. She shoved the feeling aside
quickly. To Bria’s right was a muscular merman with a stern
face who, based on Casius’ descriptions, Serena guessed was
Ronan. He had short, black stubble covering his entire jaw. His skin
was the same color as the Bria’s top, and the contrast it made
with his light blue tail—the color of the sky or a tropical
fish—was striking. The merman to Bria’s left, who by
process of elimination must be the one called Jinn, was wiry with an
angular face and the pointiest chin Serena had ever seen. A black
goatee sat on the end of it. His eyelashes and eyebrows were thick,
and darker than the stone surrounding him, but his head was
completely bald. The left fin on his black tail looked shredded, as
though a barracuda or a small shark had taken a bite out of it. His
sharp gaze made Serena nervous. She focused her eyes on the merman
named Ronan. Despite his stern expression, his eyes were soft and
calming. A small smile transformed his face when he locked eyes with
her, and her pulse slowed. She smiled back. But, to her
disappointment, it was not he who spoke first.

“
You
are Serena?” said the Bria.

“
Yes,”
said Serena, relieved that her voice sounded steady and sure.

“
And
why has Casius brought you to Arcanus?”

Serena
glanced sideways at Casius, who inclined her to go on with a forward
movement of his eyes. They had rehearsed what she would say that
morning, at Serena’s insistence. Casius had insisted she
needn’t practice to simply tell the truth. But Serena had
reminded him she did not wish to tell the whole truth.

“
I
am a maid in the palace at Adamar,” she said. “Not
because I wish to be, but because that is all I am able to be. There
are certain…circumstances surrounding my family name that you
will forgive me if I do not wish to tell.” She hesitated,
waiting to see if any of the Council members would protest to this.
Bria remained indifferent, and Jinn continued to look cold and
stiff, but Ronan encouraged her with a slight nod of his head. She
tried to thank him with her eyes and continued, “I was so bold
as to suggest that Prince Triton escort me to the royal dinner
party.” She felt a blush rise in her face and neck, shame at
the memory and reliving it in front of strangers. “The queen
told me I was not worthy to lick the floor he swam over, and that if
I was ever so bold as to even look at him again, I would be fired.”
As she said it, a sudden and fleeting rush of anger surged through
her blood. “Casius met me shortly after, when I left the
palace. I do not wish to be a maid any longer, especially not in the
palace, but I cannot start over in Adamar. My name is marred there,
and from no wrongdoing of my own. I wish to live in Arcanus and join
your community because Casius has assured me that I can start over
here, be something more worthwhile, without judgement, and that
sounds absolutely wonderful.”

Now
Ronan was smiling wide enough to show a glimpse of his teeth, and
the lines of suspicion around Bria’s eyes had softened. Jinn
only continued to stare.

“
You
seem to have already captured the spirit of Arcanus,” said
Ronan. “You are welcome here, Serena. I believe my fellow
Council members agree.”

“
Most
certainly,” said Bria.

Jinn
nodded, his pointy chin cutting through the water like a spear tip.

“
Everyone
in Arcanus must contribute,” said Bria. “Do you have a
preference where you are stationed?”

“
I
have no training in anything.”

“
You
will be trained wherever we place you,” said Ronan.

“
Then
I would like to help people,” said Serena without hesitation.