The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) (14 page)

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Serena
took to magic with ease and exceptional skill, just as Moira had
suspected she would. Triton encouraged her lessons, even designating
a room on the second floor for them with shelves all along the
walls, top to bottom, for holding books and potion ingredients.
Plants of medicinal, magical, and aesthetic purposes grew in pots on
the floor and on the wall. Triton’s enthusiasm allowed her to
cast aside the last of her doubts about delving deep into magic, and
she threw herself into the lessons with excitement and
determination, and endured Moira’s hovering stare and bad
attitude.

“
Lesson
number one,” Moira said on the first day of lessons, standing
behind the cauldron she had bewitched the stone of the floor to
shape itself into. It looked like a belly-up jellyfish, just like
the one in their old home. She’d also brought her starfish
chair. “Never do magic for free.”

“
Isn’t
that a little hypocritical, Mother?” said Serena. “You
sound like Amphitrite.”

“
Amphitrite!”
Moira shrieked, her hair writhing. “Don’t speak that
name to me in here again, or I won’t teach you anything!
Compare me to her again, and I’ll leave a mark on you that
will help you remember who you’re dealing with. Amphitrite had
no magical power. She demanded payment and adoration for a power
outside of herself, a power she controlled only because she batted
her eyelashes at Poseidon as a teenager. Your magic is special. Use
it to your advantage, and don’t let anyone take advantage of
you.”

“
I
will not make the merpeople pay for my magic,” said Serena,
her voice loud and commanding, the voice of a queen. “I will
not write shady contracts or deal with ill-gotten ingredients.”

Moira
stared hard at Serena. Slowly, her hair fell back naturally around
her shoulders.

“
Are
not the adoration and loyalty of your people payments of a sort?”
said Moira. “That’s all I meant, darling.”

“
Good,”
said Serena. “Now, I would like to learn healing spells and
potions first, and I’m not talking about anti-aging creams.”

“
All
in good time, darling,” said Moira. “You have to learn
the basics first. That’s why lesson number two is controlling
and summoning your magic.”

By the
end of the week, Serena could summon things to herself seemingly out
of thin air. By the end of the month, she felt totally in control of
her inner power. Her emotions did not control it anymore; her mind
did. When Triton surprised her with a sudden kiss, she no longer
feared she would shock or burn him. Alone in their bedchamber, she
could summon that pleasant, warm, and tingly sensation—produced
by their very first kiss— at will, much to Triton’s
delight. When she caught Moira bargaining with a young mermaid who
wished to make her rival for a merman’s heart ill, she did not
crack any more balconies or shake the items in the room.

It only
took her three years to master all of the spells and potions in
Moira’s books (at least, all the ones that were helpful rather
than harmful). She crafted her own cauldron to look like a flower in
full bloom, the petals curving up to form the lip of the cauldron
and then gracefully bending down around the thin pedestal holding it
up off the floor.

Hazel had
been correct. Moira no longer bothered to teach her magic, calling
it a lost cause, while at the same time bringing up Serena’s
ability and how fast she was learning. Hazel often peeked into the
room during Serena’s lessons, rage and hurt and shame storming
inside her. She would swim off angrily and then return minutes later
as if drawn to her own torture chamber by an unexplainable force.

If Moira
saw her eavesdropping, she did not let on in any way, perhaps just
to torture Hazel more. Serena, on the other hand, often caught a
glimpse of her sister’s tail or glaring eyes darting out of
sight of the doorway.

One
morning, when Serena was only a two months into her lessons, she
decided to try and help Hazel.

“
Hazel,
I’ve been thinking,” she said that morning at breakfast
when Hazel gave her a gloomy hello. “I think the reason you’ve
had…troubles with magic in the past is because you didn’t
have the right sort of teacher.”

“
Oh
really?” said Hazel, her nose wrinkling in disdain.

“
Yes,”
said Serena, ignoring Hazel’s ugly tone, “and I know
I’ve only been training for a few months now, and I haven’t
gotten nearly as far as you have in lessons, but maybe once I get
farther along, I could start teaching you. I think it would be fun,
and it will be low pressure, unlike lessons with Mother. Maybe we
could even piss Mother off a little bit and start learning new stuff
on our own. How does that sound?”

Hazel
nibbled on her algae cake and kept silent for so long that Serena
almost sighed and left the room.

“
Are
you being serious, or are you just messing with me?” she
finally said.

“
Of
course I’m being serious.”

“
Alright
then.”

After six
months of lessons, Serena was already flying through Moira’s
spell books and brewing new potions daily (some on request of
Adamarians). She kept her promise, and twice a week, she and Hazel
trained together. To Serena’s chagrin, after about two months
of lessons, she was starting to think Hazel’s plight was
hopeless. The damage had already been done. Moira had instilled the
idea that she was worthless so deep inside of Hazel that she didn’t
seem able to overcome it, even with Serena’s patient
instruction and gentle encouragement. When Hazel tried to coax her
very own cauldron from the stone floor with a song-like spell, the
ensuing explosion shook the whole second floor and left a deep gouge
in the stone, cauldron room floor. Serena and Hazel were tossed
backward, end over end, and crashed into the shelves on the wall,
shattering vials of ingredients. Serena had to fight to keep from
shouting.

“
Hazel,”
she said, the name coming out quick and huffy as she massaged her
neck and surveyed the damage, “I think we should hold off on
lessons for a little while. Clearly, I’m not well enough
equipped to teach you.”

“
Clearly
I’m an idiot, you mean,” said Hazel, sounding close to
tears.

Serena
could not hold in the frustrated sigh. Why did she always have to be
such a whiner? She was always pouting when she messed up instead of
trying to fix it or learn to make it better. “Hazel, you’re
only as good as you think you are. Quit feeling sorry for yourself
and whining that you can’t do it because you’re not good
enough, and maybe you’ll surprise yourself.”

“
Forget
it. I quit!” said Hazel, and she fled the room, leaving Serena
to clean up the mess.

Over the
years, Hazel changed her mind a few times and asked for Serena’s
help, all with the same result. Something went wrong, and Hazel
bowed out. Serena caught her in the cauldron room a few times,
trying to teach herself.

Serena
excelled as much as Hazel struggled. The merpeople came to adore
her, though at first they had their misgivings. Her first decree as
queen, only a week into her reign, was abolishing Amphitrite’s
law forbidding dealings with sea witches. She made the decree a
public affair, just as Poseidon had made his announcement of
Triton’s impending engagement.

“
And
for the few of you who do not already know,” she had said from
her place beside Triton on the outer balcony, “I, myself, come
from a long line of witches, and I too have magical power. From this
day forward, I will use my magical power to help the citizens of
Adamar.”

A
suspicious murmur had run through the crowd. Sea witch magic was
seen as untrustworthy, even dark. To have a queen who could not only
perform it, but wished to use it in the merfolk’s affairs made
many nervous.

“
Queen
Serena’s magical services, along with the magic of the
Trident, shall be free of charge from this moment onward,”
Triton had said, swimming forward to drown out the murmurs, “so
long as the request is deemed necessary. If you want to be thinner
or look ten years younger, you will have to pay for that service
elsewhere.”

A cheer
and many laughs had risen up from the crowd, and a good number of
the Adamarians (mostly the poor) had cast their doubts aside right
then—free magical help should never be frowned upon, whether
it came from the Trident or a sea witch.

“
We
only ask that you be patient,” Triton had said. “Now
that magical services are free, I am sure they will be in high
demand. You will have to wait your turn on audience day, and you
will have to wait for either the queen or myself to make the rounds
to come to your aid, if your request is granted.”

Triton
and Serena kept their word throughout their marriage, and they
quickly became the most adored royals in Admarian history. Four
times every month, an open, mass audience was held. Merfolk all over
Adamar would flock to the throne room in lines that sometimes
wrapped around the palace to kneel before the king and queen and ask
them to heal a sick loved one, rebuild a destroyed home, save
failing crops,
etc.
Special audiences could be scheduled through
palace liaisons if an emergency arose before an audience day.
Sometimes Triton and Serena could help the citizens right there in
the throne room—a quick spell to restore strength, a golden
beam from the Trident to heal an injured tail or limb. Other
requests, like rebuilding a home, had to be scheduled. Triton and
Serena made these rounds together, always hand in hand.

Floating
beside Triton, speaking to their merpeople, performing magic side by
side, and seeing the looks of joy on the merpeople’s faces
were some of the happiest moments in Serena’s life. She was
proud of her accomplishments as queen. She was respected and adored
and known as “The Queen with the Golden Heart” because
she cared for her people, and because she was never without the
golden heart-shaped locket around her neck.

By the
time she began pardoning some of the banished merpeople she had met
in Arcanus—a year into her reign—she was already so
loved that no one questioned her decision. Over the next few years,
she, Triton, and their advisors perused the banishment records in
the record room of the palace and debated whether or not banishment
had been a suitable punishment, or if perhaps a sufficient amount of
time had passed for a fitting punishment.

Triton
had been hesitant at first. “It’s like I’m defying
my parents, and I can’t even face them when I do it. It feels
almost cowardly,” he had said.

“
I
understand,” Serena had said. But her eyes had looked so sad
and pleading and the little smile she flashed him to let him know it
was alright was so sad that it made Triton’s heart hurt, and
he came around rather quickly.

Alec,
Serena’s friend from Arcanus, had been the first merperson she
had pardoned. Annabelle, her fellow nurse in Arcanus, had come back
to Adamar when she heard that Serena was on the throne, and the two
remained good friends.

Casius
had been the most delighted with Serena’s decision to pardon
those wrongfully banished, and with her deliverance of her promise
to do so, his loyalty grew. In fact, as the years went by, those
closest to Serena began to notice that Casius’ mood and the
color of his skin began to change with her mood. When she got angry
because she’d caught Moira in another unsavory exchange with a
citizen or because Triton forgot to inform her that he would be late
for dinner, Casius’ skin would turn from his usual bright,
reddish-orange to a deep crimson. When she was sad because she had
not been able to administer a healing potion in time or the ailing
merperson was just too old or too sick to recover, his skin turned a
chalky grey. He was her closest companion besides Triton, and since
he lived in the palace, he was almost always by her side or
somewhere close by. Even though she had made Moira her chief
advisor, it was Casius’ advise she valued most. If his opinion
clashed with Moira’s, she usually went with his. He remained
an avid fan of her magical skill, and always fought Moira when she
inevitably brought up asking for payment for large magical favors at
an advisory meeting.

The only
things Serena was more proud of than her reputation as a loved and
talented sea witch were her children. The first came a year after
her marriage. Her name was Maren, and she stole her parents’
hearts immediately.

“
She’s
the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” said Triton,
floating above the baby’s crib and running a finger along her
soft, pink cheek. Maren closed her eyes at his touch, but when he
pulled away, she opened them again and studied her parents with eyes
the color of the sea.

“
She
has your eyes,” said Serena.

“
And
your hair.”

“
It’s
a striking combination,” said Casius. He had his tentacles
wrapped through the crib bars. In the coming nights, Serena found it
impossible to remove him from this post, though she didn’t try
all that hard. She liked the idea that her child had a guardian to
watch over her at night.

“
We
should be able to tell if she has powers in the next few months,”
said Moira, swimming into the nursery with Hazel at her fins.