Mrythdom: Game of Time (26 page)

She smiled broadly, her beautiful cheeks dimpling and adding to the effect it had on him. Her hand found his upper arm and squeezed affectionately. She held his gaze a moment while they walked, her eyes somehow full of warmth despite their frosty color. “Aurelius, you are unlike any man I’ve ever met! For you I think I can take the time to learn something of your culture before we agree to mate.”

Aurelius’s eyes widened. Her hand lingered on his biceps and his mind grew thick and pleasantly fuzzy once more. He felt a surge of goodwill and desire toward her, and he shook his head to try and clear it away. Thankfully her hand fell from his arm before he needed to say something about it.

Her expression turned oddly sad, as though she could read his mind to see that she was still making him uncomfortable with her advances. “Perhaps we can take the best of both our cultures and meet in the middle,” she said.

Aurelius offered her a genuine smile. “That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day.” Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t believe that it had been only that: one day in Meria.

Talk about culture shock,
he thought.

Aurelius knew they’d reached the ring by the crowds lined up and patiently waiting. There were thousands—maidens and their entourages of men and children. For every maiden Aurelius saw as many as five or ten others in her family. The children were almost always boys, and there were several mates, all of them clothed in white tunics which matched the white their maidens wore. Aurelius noted that only a scattering of men wore green, and they were usually clustered together with no maidens in their midst. When he thought back on it, he realized that green must be the clothing of the vestals, while white was for married couples. If they could even be called
couples
. Some of the more beautiful mermaids were surrounded by dozens of mates and children. Closer to the front of the line it became hard to pick mermaids out of the crowd, and it was very rare to see a young mermaid with her family, adding support to Cardale’s statement that mermaids grew to maturity very quickly.

Now that Aurelius thought about it, he had to wonder how old Lashyla was. He cast her a sidelong glance as they walked by the crowds of people. To look at her, she was in her early twenties, but with what he now knew, she could be as young as two. . . . or younger.

Aurelius’s eyes widened with sudden comprehension. She
had
to be younger if she didn’t yet have a mate. Cardale had said that the maidens were cast away if they couldn’t steal another maiden’s mate before they reached their second birthday.

Lashyla noticed his scrutiny and turned to give him a curious look. He took the opportunity to ask her, “How old are you?”

Her ruby lips parted in a sly grin. “How old do I look?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“But you’re not, are you?”

She batted her eye lashes at him. “What gives it away?”

“One of the vestals told me that mermaids grow to maturity quickly.”

“That’s true.”

“He also said that they must steal a mate before they’re two or they’ll be exiled.”

Lashyla gave him a guarded look. “Who told you that?”

“Does it matter?”

She sighed. “Aurelius you must understand, there are many things that you will find strange, even horrible about us, but we have been living like this for centuries.”

“That doesn’t mean you should go on living that way.”

“And what would you have us do?” she asked, her eyes suddenly flashing in the dim light. “Meria is only so large. There was a time when the ring didn’t exist. A time when mermaids and their families were welcome here no matter how beautiful they were.”

“What changed?”

“I wasn’t alive then, but some who were still tell stories of that time. They noticed the headaches first. Then they found that they were always tired, always out of breath. When the first few died in their sleep, we fled, fearing the city was cursed.”

Aurelius frowned. “It sounds like they ran out of air.”

Lashyla nodded. “The maidens fled to the sea, for they could breathe from the water as men cannot, but they were helpless to save their families as they slowly suffocated to death. The city was uninhabitable for a time, and when we returned, there were laws established to limit the number of people who could live in Meria. Those who did not meet the requirements could not stay here, but at least some of us could.”

Aurelius shook his head. “There should be another way.”

“But there isn’t. Better that a few can live in luxury and ease than that none can.”

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say to that, and a recriminatory silence fell between them as they walked past the remainder of the throngs waiting to enter the ring. They reached the open doors to the ring where a pair of guards stood barring the way with tridents crossed. At the sight of Lashyla they bowed and uncrossed their weapons to let her past.

The ring itself was just that, a massive stadium shaped in a rough circle. The ceilings were very high, clustered with glowing clumps of coral and barnacles, with dark squares of glass peeking out in between. The glass ceiling seemed a pointless waste when the water beyond was too dark to see anything. The center of the ring was filled with patchy golden sand, broken by rising mounds of colorful coral. Aurelius didn’t like to think why the sand was patchy.

They walked through the empty stadium until they reached a large podium built up and over the edge of the ring on cement pillars. It looked like ramshackle construction, but sturdy enough. On top of that podium were dozens of chairs, all clearly scavenged from different parts of the city. More than half those chairs were already occupied, and as they drew near, Aurelius recognized the beautiful woman seated high on the largest chair by the crown of pearls she wore on her head.

Lashyla led them up through the stands until they could walk out onto the podium. They stopped before the queen and followed Lashyla’s example as she bowed low to her mother. Aurelius noted how the men and children surrounding the queen seemed to look on her with reverence and awe, and he felt something of the same emotions welling up inside him, as though her very presence commanded adoration.

“How lovely to see you again, Aurelius,” the queen said with a smile. He felt a reciprocal smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Please,” she gestured to a row of empty seats behind her. “Make yourself comfortable. The challenges are about to start.” Aurelius nodded, inclining his head respectfully, but he said nothing. He was afraid he wouldn’t know how to properly address the queen and be thrown into the ring for some perceived slight.

Lashyla led them around the queen’s throne, conspicuously avoiding the slightly smaller armchair which stood empty to the queen’s right. Aurelius supposed that was Lashyla’s seat, but rather than sit there, she found a spot in the row of mismatched chairs behind the queen and sat down there. Once seated, she patted the chair beside her and sent Aurelius a beckoning smile. He felt physically drawn to sit there beside her, while a more distant part of him absently wished he could keep his distance. Once they were all seated, the queen signaled to one of her guards, and he took up a shell-shaped horns and blew two short blasts. This seemed to be a signal to the guards at the entrance of the ring because the crowds began pouring into the stadium a second later. The stands filled up very quickly and soon the stadium was buzzing with noise.

Aurelius tried to make himself comfortable, but he found himself gripping the armrests tightly, bracing himself for the gruesome spectacle he felt sure they were about to witness. Looking down on the patchy sand, he felt his apprehension rise and turned to Lashyla to distract himself.

She was more than amply suited to distract him. Looking at her lithe, supple figure, all curves and soft, flawless skin, he wondered why he tried so hard to resist her advances.

“And why is that, Aurelius?”

Startled, he blinked twice quickly and frowned. “I’m sorry?”

She hesitated, sent a sidelong glance to the back of her mother’s throne, and then softly replied, “Why is it that you look at me as though you’ve never seen a woman before, and then when I offer myself to you, you resist?” She cocked her head. “Perhaps I have answered my own question. You don’t know what to do with me.” She looked away, satisfied with the answer she’d given herself.

Aurelius’s frown deepened. “You think you’re the first woman to throw herself at me? I’ve had . . .” he trailed off. What was he doing?

She turned to regard him with an innocent smile. “You’ve had?”

“Never mind.”

She reached over and patted his hand with hers. “It’s okay. Inexperience is nothing to be ashamed of, not when it is voluntary.”

Aurelius gritted his teeth and let his ire pass. She was goading him. Anger and passion often ran the same course. If she could enrage him, he’d lose his self-control just as surely as if she’d seduced him. Changing the topic he said, “How old are you really? You didn’t say.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

“I turned one year a month ago.”

Aurelius gasped and jerked his hand free of hers.

“Does that frighten you?”

“Of course it does! I almost . . . you’re just a baby!”

Lashyla scowled at him. “
You’re
a baby.”

“How can you be so young?”

“How can you be so
old
?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, it just takes getting used to. . . .”

“We age differently, as you already know.”

“Then . . .” He looked around him to all the exquisitely beautiful maidens now seated in the stadium. “Why aren’t there any older maidens?”

Lashyla cocked her head curiously; then her eyes lit with understanding. “We age more rapidly, but then we stop.”

“You don’t age at all after you’re fully grown?”

Lashyla shrugged. “It is a very slow process, and not at all like that of your people,” she said with an accompanying frown in Gabrian’s direction. He didn’t appear to notice.

“Then why aren’t you trying to steal a mate?”

Lashyla shrugged. “I have a whole
year
to do that. Besides, I need someone to fight the challenge for me before I can steal a mate.”

Aurelius’s eyebrows rose. “And you want that
someone
to be me?”

Lashyla’s gaze softened and she reached up to cup his cheek. “No, Aurelius,” she purred. “I would never send you into the ring to fight for another lesser mate. You are far too valuable to risk so casually. I would of course find another mate more suited to fighting, and he would answer any challenges for me, just as my mother did with Ringmaster Thorin.”

Aurelius’s brow knitted, and he was about to press her further on the matter when another horn sounded, much deeper than before. This time the sound was carrying up to them from the center of the ring. Aurelius cast his eyes below and saw a very large man, a rippling wall of muscle with long, braided blond hair, clad only in ragged green shorts. Standing beside him were a pair of guards holding a giant shell horn between them. The stadium grew silent and then that giant man spoke in a deep, vibrant voice.

“Welcome Merians! Tonight we have a number of very special challenges for you. The first challenger is this hideous old man, who condemned himself to death by stealing from the queen!”

A collective gasp went up from the audience.

The giant in the center of the ring turned and gestured to one side, where an old man was all but carried into the ring by a pair of guards. Aurelius watched with rising suspicion. That flowing white beard and hair . . . Then he had a flash of déjà vu, back to his first moments after crash landing in Mrythdom, and Aurelius turned to Gabrian, his eyes suddenly wide.”Is that . . .”

Gabrian gave his head a quick shake.

“As you can see,” the ringmaster went on, “he is indeed old, and undoubtedly weak. What do you think? Should we give him a fighting chance? Or a
quick
death . . . ?”

The crowds erupted with a roar, and the announcer cupped a hand to his ear, as if straining to hear them. “What was that? You said a fighting chance? Well, what could be more
fair
than fighting one of the elves, renowned throughout Mrythdom for their sense of fairness!”

The announcer gestured broadly to another side of the arena where a beautiful woman with honey-golden hair was escorted into the ring by not two but four guards, two of whom held long sticks at her back with strange tentacled creatures tied to the ends.