The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) (6 page)

“
You
can work with the doctor then,” said Bria. “His name is
Victor. Casius will introduce you. He will also assign you your
living quarters.”

“
You will soon adjust to how we live here,”
said Bria. “Merfolk here must be hardworking, but they also
have freedoms not given to them in Adamar. As long as you do not
bring harm to any members of this community and you do your assigned
job, you are free to do as you like.”

Any members of this community?
Serena
thought with unease.
What about bringing harm
to creatures outside Arcanus?
She glanced
nervously at Bria’s seal skin top again.

“
The Council does not run Arcanus tyrannically,
as the royals of Adamar do,” said Jinn, startling Serena with
his clear, somewhat high voice. “All decrees we propose must
be voted on by the merpeople. We keep order, but we do not impose
our frivolous whims on others like the royal family.”

Serena’s discomfort was growing, and she felt her
body stiffen. The little smile she held on her face felt strange.

“
No one here holds themselves higher than their
fellow merfolk,” said Ronan, a mischievous smile growing on
his face. “You can proposition whomever you like to go to a
dinner party here, though we don’t have many.”

A high, nervous laugh escaped Serena’s lips, and
she longed to swim back through the double doors.

“
Welcome to Arcanus,” said Bria, one corner
of her mouth pulled up in a smirk.

“
Thank you very much,” said Serena. “I’m
very glad to be here.”

But at that moment, she wasn’t so sure she was.

— — —

“
What
were the council members banished from Adamar for?” said
Serena as she and Casius maneuvered through the narrow pathways of
Arcanus on the way to the infirmary to meet Victor, the doctor.

“
Do
you really want to know?”

“
Yes.
If I’m going to choose to stay here, I want to know
everything.”

Casius
sighed. “Very well, but please keep your reactions subtle. If
you haven’t already noticed, it’s very cramped quarters
around here, and most everyone is very fond of the Council members.”

“
I’m
not an idiot. I’m not going to shriek like a gull.”

“
Jinn
was accused of plotting to assassinate King Marten, Triton’s
grandfather.”

“
Accused?”

“
There
was not much solid evidence against him. That’s why he was
banished rather than executed.”

“
Well,
was he actually guilty?”

“
No
one knows for sure. He won’t say—and for good reason. If
he admitted to it and word got back to the royal family, he would be
hunted down for execution.”

“
He
seems capable.”

“
Now,
see, you’re judging based on appearance and hearsay—precisely
what you don’t want others to do to you.”

“
You’re
right,” said Serena, a knot of guilt twisting in her chest.

“
That’s
Adamarian society for you. You’re brought up to think that
way.”

Serena
said nothing, unsure and ashamed.

“
Bria…well,
Bria was a poacher.” Now Casius was the one who sounded
guilty. His bright orange pigment dimmed to a grayish purple as he
spoke, and he would not meet Serena’s eyes when she looked
over at him with horror on her face.

“
I
noticed her top,” said Serena, coming to an abrupt stop in
front of Casius, blocking his way. “I thought that might be
it, but I couldn’t imagine that she could be elected a leader
if it was true. What kind of a place is this?”

“
Keep
your voice down,” said Casius.

Serena
locked her lips in a firm, angry line and stared at Casius, waiting
for his explanation.

“
I
admit,” said Casius, his voice very low even though there was
no one passing by them at that moment, “Bria unsettles me.”

“
I
should think so. A giant octopus would make a lovely trophy for a
poacher.”

“
She’s
not that kind of poacher. She doesn’t hunt for sport. She
believes that merfolk are the superior creatures of the ocean and
that they should be able to harvest natural resources—like
blubber, meat, and hides—from other, inferior creatures
despite, and I’m quoting her words here, ‘Despite the
fact that they can speak to us.’”

“
That’s
disgusting. Have you ever spoken to a seal, or a whale, or even a
clown fish? They are just as sentient as merpeople!” Serena
ignored Casius’ protest to keep quiet and went on. “What
exactly makes them inferior? The fact that they don’t look
like us? Poaching shouldn’t be just below murder, it should
be
murder.”

“
Serena,
you don’t have to convince me,” said Casius. “I’m
one of Bria’s so-called inferior creatures. I told you, I…”
He cut off as a merman swam towards them on the path. He spared them
a quick “Hello,” which they returned, before he swam
around a corner. Casius continued in a voice so low Serena had to
lean in to hear him. “I am not fond of Bria. Frankly, she
frightens me. But the good here far outweighs the bad.”

“
Really?
Because you keep talking about how there isn’t any judgement
here, but Bria sounds pretty judgmental to me with her ‘inferior
species’ idea. This place is full of criminals, just like my
mother. I can’t stay here. I’m leaving today.”

She
started to swim away, but Casius looped two tentacles around her
tail and held her back.

“
Serena,”
he said. “Serena, please, just listen to me for a moment. I
think I deserve that, at least, don’t you?”

Serena
blew bubbles out of her mouth in an exasperated sigh and turned to
face him.

“
Serena,
there are always exceptions to every rule. Bria is the exception
here. There are only a handful of other merpeople who share her
views, so she is always outvoted whenever she proposes something
unethical. She’s a Council member because she was an original
founder of Arcanus, along with her older brother and another friend,
and she’s very smart. She is the one who proposed we harvest
the Sea Sparkle for light.”

Serena
chewed her lip, disappointed that the Sea Sparkle idea had come from
Bria’s brain.

“
The
thing that makes Arcanus special is that the creatures who live here
have the right to decide how their community is run. One person or
one family does not decide everything or lord the power of a magical
object, handed down through generations, over the public as the
royals of Adamar do. Yes, there are a lot of criminals here.
However, a large number of them regret their crimes. There are also
people like Ronan here.

“
Ronan
was banished by King Poseidon for helping his friend escape a jail
cell. Ronan was only seventeen, and his friend was a very poor
fifteen-year-old merman who was sentenced to a year in prison for
stealing pain medicine to help his younger sister who suffered from
a long-term, genetic illness. Ronan’s friend was given such a
hard sentence at such a young age because he worked as a palace
servant, and he stole from the palace stores. The royal family took
it as a personal insult. Does that seem right to you?”

“
That
can’t be true,” said Serena. “Ronan’s making
it up.”

“
He’s
not. It can be found in the palace records. I’ve looked.
Ronan, a seventeen-year-old boy, was banished by a king who was not
much more than a boy himself—kicked out of Adamar with no
food, no companions, and no map to show him the way to any of the
other far off merfolk cities, basically sentenced to die out in Deep
Ocean—all because he helped his unjustly imprisoned friend
escape for a couple of hours and gave him some food and shelter.”

Serena’s
stomach twisted. It couldn’t possibly be true. The king and
queen were stern in their reign, but not cruel. But Amphitrite’s
cold, condescending sneer rippled in front of Serena’s eyes
all the same.

— — —

Victor,
Arcanus’ resident doctor, was a skilled but strange man. His
hair was the color of the iron that Moira sometimes harvested from
shipwrecks to trade with pirates for potion ingredients. His tail
was only a shade lighter. His eyes were a blue so icy the irises
almost disappeared into the whites. He was alarmingly thin, and his
fingers were long and spindly like a spider crab’s legs. He
had a habit of rubbing his thumbs against the tips of his fingers.
He did it before performing any sort of examination—checking a
heartbeat, checking throats and ears for infection, or inspecting
underneath scales for bothersome parasites. He was always cracking
odd jokes that made Serena and her fellow nurse and fast friend,
Annabelle, look at each other, confused.

“
That old mermaid’s as crusty as a walrus
on grooming day,” he said to Serena and Annabelle, jabbing his
thumb over his shoulder to indicate the door he’d just come
out of where he’d been inspecting an elderly mermaid with a
bad scale fungus. He laughed at his own joke. His cackling laugh
always cracked at the end and turned into a cough. As he hacked
away, Serena exchanged a look with Annabelle, who mumbled, “I
don’t get it either.”

When he had finished coughing, Victor held out a closed
clam shell to Serena and said, “Rub her down with antifungal
ointment please, Serena, and send her home with some more of it.”

Ever since Serena had learned that Victor had been in
and out of jail in Adamar for using experimental medicines on
unwitting patients, she always double checked the labels of Victor’s
prescriptions before giving them to patients. She flipped the clam
shell over and inspected the information written in squid ink on the
back. She recognized the manufacturer’s name and none of the
ingredients listed stuck out as odd. She was growing more and more
familiar with such things. Though she’d only been in Arcanus
for a month, she spent most of her days at the infirmary. She,
Annabelle, and Victor were the only staff, so even though Arcanus
was a very small place, they were kept busy.

Serena swam into the examination room. The old mermaid
was rather beautiful despite the wrinkles and the tail fungus. Her
long hair was as white as a beluga whale. It fell in a surprisingly
thick braid all the way to the top of her pink tail.

“
There’s really no need for you to rub me
down with that, dear,” she said before Serena could even open
her mouth. “I can do it myself.”

“
How about we do it together,” said Serena.
“It will take less time, and I can show you how much you need
to apply to each affected scale.”

“
Alright then.” The old mermaid
straightened her back and rubbed one hand in a dignified gesture
down the front of her tail.

“
You really only need a thin layer, but you have
to apply it twice a day. If you get it too goopy, it will get
uncomfortable. Flip your tail up for me, please.”

The old mermaid leaned back in the water and flipped
her tail up so that it was level with Serena’s chest. The
fungus was scattered down the length of it, the blue-grey spores
poking out from under the scales in little patches.

“
Now make sure to lift the scale and apply the
ointment to the underside at the base. You see?”

The old mermaid nodded.

“
Now you can do the ones at the top, and I’ll
do the ones at the bottom.” After a few moments of silent
application, Serena said, “Tell me a little about yourself.
It’ll pass the time.”

“
Well,
I never thought I’d be here—an old mermaid with an old
mermaid’s fungus.”

“
You
look great, and anybody can get a fungus.”

“
That’s
sweet of you, dear.” After a few moments pause, she said, “I
used to be a singer. I was pretty famous back in my day.”

“
Oh,
really?”

“
Mmhmm.
My name could reel in the big crowds. I sang at the palace in Adamar
a lot. King Marten, he was Prince Marten back then though, was sweet
on me.”

Serena thought of Triton, and there was a twinge in her
heart. It had been so long since she’d seen him.

“
I didn’t much care for him though. He
liked himself a little too much, if you know what I mean.”

Serena smiled, and the old mermaid smiled back,
encouraged. Serena knew she’d talk through the rest of the
application now.

“
The fame started to fade with my looks, but I
was still making a pretty good living until something went wrong in
my throat. I still don’t know what it was. The doctors
couldn’t figure it out. I’d try to sing and an ugly
croak would come out. And it hurt, too. I thought it was all over,
but then I heard about this young sea witch.” Serena’s
finger froze, a small blob of ointment on the tip. “She was
about the same age you are now. What was her name?” Serena
could hardly breathe. It couldn’t be happening again. “Moira!
That’s it, Moira. She gave me a potion and fixed me right up.
Cost me an arm and a fin, though, but by that time I was already
taking care of my grandson, so getting my voice back to put food in
his mouth was worth the price. You alright, dear?”