There’s nothing constructive to say to that.
In the cauldron view, the merpeople fall silent. Expectant. Anna and I grow silent too, waiting.
I shift the view to confirm Ragn did me one better than attaching it to the sea king’s belt—instead, he wears it clasped on a chain of sea pearls around his neck. A token for the world to see. And one that lets me both see the crowd and hear him—sound I couldn’t get when summoning a view of the girls above.
The sea king twists, and the view shifts to the stage behind him. Sitting there, lined up in a formidable row, are his daughters—the first five with their long hair and children of their own, the three younger ones wearing long strings of pearls atop their heads as if it will disguise their shorn hair. It doesn’t and they know it, their faces colored with nerves they’re trying very hard to disguise along with their bare necks. Between the groupings are the queens—Ragn, sitting proudly as queen mother, and the sea king’s second wife, Queen Bodil.
The view changes again as the sea king positions himself at a large, cut-coral podium, its red strands reaching for the stars like the antlers of a twelve-point buck. Applause greets him. From the way my tentacle is tilted, the swell of his cut-marble chin comes into view. He nods and gestures, and I can just see the tip of his eel-mouth crown—sharp and shiny as he tosses out his thanks until the ruckus dies back into silence and expectant stares.
“Dear citizens of the sea kingdoms, you honor yourselves, your fellow citizens, the royal family, and your king by gathering here tonight.”
Predictably, the crowd applauds itself for showing up. Then, the sea king pauses for a key change.
“Citizens, your sense of urgency is important in this crucial moment because, make no mistake, we are a people terrorized.”
Again, the crowd shifts, from self-appreciation to stern nods.
“Humans have always made our world dangerous—threatening to murder us, expose us, exploit us. And now they attack each other, poisoning our waters with bombs that explode daily—littering our precious world with both their dead and the moral decay of humanity. Though we all know morality has never been humanity’s greatest strength.”
I roll my eyes. This is a man who magically changed a human into a mermaid and then married her. Hypocrite. Moreover, his sense of empathy is nonexistent.
“There have been numerous close calls since these mines appeared this summer—we’ve been fortunate that merperson injuries from these weapons have been scarce.”
He pauses. Behind him, his daughters white-knuckle their chairs.
“Today, our fortune ran out.” The sea king lets that news sink in. The silence sits leaden over the crowd.
When the sea king has wrung the most out of that pause, he speaks again—if anything, he is quite the orator. “A human-laid mine went off this afternoon, killing a humpback whale and injuring ten merpeople who’d been hunting it to provide food for their families.”
There’s a commotion and then applause—the king rotates toward the clatter, and the injured merpeople enterstage right. They’re bandaged and bruised, the worst one helped along by two others, clearly missing the majority of his tail fin.
When they’re settled, the king returns to the crowd. “Pray for these brave souls to heal. And pray that we do not lose another whale this way—we cannot feed our people on animals riddled with shrapnel.”
The people clap gently as the injured are shuttled from the stage.
“Many of you knew of the mine explosion before tonight and urgently gathered your family, friends, and neighbors to this arena to pay your respects—it is best that we seek each other in times of great suffering.” When he speaks again, the sea king’s voice has grown quiet, heavy. “Yet what you may not know is how much more we have suffered this day. How much my family and I have suffered this day.”
There’s an audible gasp from the crowd. I gasp too, his intent crystalizing in my mind in a way that I hear the words before he says them. “No, you can’t, you wouldn’t...”
But he would. The bitter man he’s become. He definitely would.
“Today, we had our first death from a mine explosion, and it unfortunately hits very close to home.”
People in the crowd are craning their necks now, counting the women behind the king. Murmuring.
“There is no easy way to announce this... PrincessAlia has died from her injuries in a mine explosion.”
The crowd inhales at once, their faces stunned.
“I am told her death was almost instantaneous. She didn’t suffer. She may not have even known what happened. And I take solace in that. I want you to take solace in it too.”
He pauses, and now it’s pin-drop silent.
“Unfortunately, that is not where this story ends. As you may have guessed from the presentation of the royal family tonight, my Alia was not alone when those humans tore her limb from limb. No, she was with my youngest, Princess Runa.”
White-hot anger shivers loose in my gut. Lies on lies on lies. Explaining away a truth—two daughters unaccounted for—with a story meant to feed the fear he’s worked so hard to build in the last fifty years.
The crowd whispers panicked questions.
