The Sea King's Daughter (4 page)

"I hadn't meant to frighten you," I said.

Father stroked my hair. In the circle of his arms, I could almost forget my unhappiness. "What was I to think, returning early from my journey to find the whole palace hunting you? When Thetis told us you'd gone off alone again . . . and then night came, with no sign. . . . We were frantic, all of us."

We were alone in Father's cavernous audience room, in the shadow of his mother-of-pearl throne. On my way back to the palace, I'd found myself surrounded by royal guards -- young mermen with grim expressions and iron-tipped spears -- who marched me straight into my father's presence, like a prisoner. But Father seemed more scared than angry. I almost wished he would bellow at me so I would feel less guilty.

Now he let me go and gave me a searching, sorrowful look. "Your grandmother said this is not the first time you've run off. Where do you go, Nyx? What do you do?"

I poured out the whole story. When I told of surfacing for the first time, my father looked grim. By the time I explained about the storm and the ship and the beautiful young man, he'd pulled his bushy brows together so tightly that they ran across his forehead in one unbroken line.

"I'm sorry, Father," I finished. "I'd like to say I'll be good from now on, that I'll never go back, but it would be a lie. Up there -- with the sun, the birds, the human world -- somehow I'm not so miserable as I usually am. It's hard to explain." I kept my eyes on the floor, unable to look him in the face. "Please, Father, don't forbid it. It's the only little pleasure I have."

My father frowned. "Are you so unhappy, then, my daughter?"

Truly, I didn't have enough words to describe my misery. I felt wrapped in layers and layers of sadness that sealed me off from the rest of the world. I feared peeling away the layers because -- underneath all the despair and wickedness -- I might find nothing at all. What if there was no sweet and lovable Nyx? What if there was nothing but darkness all the way down to my very core?

I wanted to tell Father how trapped I felt even in my own body, how all the time I felt a sort of restless hunger that no amount of food could satisfy. I suspected it was not really hunger at all, but something darker. I felt a sudden urge to confess all my sins, if only it meant I could start all over again as someone clean and new. But I couldn't let Father find out what a cruel and petty daughter he'd spawned. I feared seeing the disappointment in his face. I simply nodded.

"Tell me how I can help you," Father said.

My lips quivered. "I don't know. No one likes me. I don't belong anywhere. I can't find a place for myself, a place where I fit in, and I truly don't understand why that should be so."

My father's face seemed to crumble. The creases deepened at the edges of his mouth. His pale blue eyes brimmed with sadness, as if he remembered some long-forgotten grief. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself. He blinked and passed his hand over his eyes.

"You're so young, my dear," he said at last. "You'll soon outgrow these dark moods. You'll find your place, with time. Perhaps you'll fall in love." His face brightened at the thought. "Perhaps there's a young merman you favor already. Of course, you're too young to think of marriage just yet, with your eldest sister only now engaged --" He broke off and snapped his jaw shut.

I stared at him. "Thetis? Engaged?"

Father nodded. "No one was to know of it yet. That was the purpose of my journey, to make the arrangements."

"But you went all the way to the Ionian Sea."

"Thetis will wed the eldest son of King Meros. Now, dearest, don't tell me this comes as a complete surprise. Thetis is almost twenty, after all."

My eyes widened in horror. "Thetis will go away from here, far away. That's what she tried to tell me yesterday. I'll never see her again!"

"Come, come," Father said. "It's hardly that bad. You may still visit each other, on occasion."

He laid his hand on my shoulder to comfort me, but I shook it away. "Without Thetis, I'm all alone," I said. Sobs rose in my throat. I whirled and swam blindly away from my father. He shouted after me, but I didn't turn back.

Outside the throne room, in the hallway, Thetis waited for me. She caught my wrist. I tried to pull away, but she held me tight. "Nyx, are you all right?" she asked.

"Leave me alone," I said. My face twist into an ugly shape. "Get your hands off me. You're going away -- you didn't tell me -- and you're pleased about it, aren't you? You're happy to get rid of me."

Thetis shook her head, bewilderment plain on her usually tranquil face. "How can you say that, little sister? I will miss you most of all."

I used my free hand to claw at her fingers until she let my wrist loose. She gasped as my nails tore her skin. "Leave me alone," I cried out again, and fled down the hallway toward the stairs. When I slowed at last and looked behind me, she hadn't followed.

I took that as proof she didn't love me.

My world was falling apart.

As the days passed, I went through the motions of living. I endured lessons with my tutors, meals in the great hall, afternoons in the gardens or the tower room, without the slightest joy. Grandmother, the servants, and my sisters -- even Thetis -- took pains to avoid me. They didn't say a word about my overnight disappearance, although I often caught them looking at me with strange expressions on their face. I could tell they felt nothing but contempt for me.

The palace bustled with preparations for Thetis' wedding. Grandmother directed the rush and hurry as servants readied the rooms for our guests. King Meros would arrive soon, bringing the young bridegroom and the rest of his court. The fishermen of my father's kingdom worked night and day to supply enough tunny and bream for the marriage feast. Grandmother set me to work gathering bright coral, red gorgonians, and delicate seashells to decorate the grand ballroom.

Everyone seemed exceedingly pleased by Thetis' engagement -- everyone but me. As for my eldest sister, she floated around the palace in a dream. She nearly glowed with anticipation. Small, secret smiles tugged at her lips. She was apt to burst out laughing when the rest of us saw nothing funny. Her pleasure transformed her, until my normally plain and quiet sister became animated, joyful, and very nearly beautiful. 

Her happiness only made me more resentful. How could Thetis prefer a strange prince, someone she'd met only once, to her own flesh and blood? Yet Thetis never hesitated. She never even questioned whether she should leave her family for King Meros' realm.

When, finally, I couldn't tolerate another stifling moment in the palace, I began to slip away and swim to the surface. No one stopped me. My father must have spoken to Grandmother and the palace guards.

In the days that followed Father came to see me several times, in my chambers before I went to sleep, to find out how I felt. I put on a brave face and told him I was better, but I think he knew it was a lie. Once, visiting me, he picked up the statue of my mother and turned it around in his hands, then set it down again without speaking.

I never stopped thinking about the young man I'd left on the beach, never, not even for an hour. As the weeks passed, he came to occupy my mind more and more. I remembered every sensation, every curve in the planes of his face. I wondered if he thought about me. Did he remember my face from that one moment when he opened his eyes underwater?

I imagined us dancing together, his hand laid lightly against my back, but in my fantasies we danced in water laced with light and still he did not drown. I even dreamt about him in the night, and woke with my eyes red and burning, missing what I'd never had.

It was like a sickness, like the time three summers ago when I'd contracted gill fever. For days on end I'd tossed and turned, plagued by strange visions and sharp, stabbing pains. This was worse. I was sure I'd never recover.

Soon I became convinced that seeing him again, even just once, was the only thing that could bring me peace. I had to find him.

CHAPTER SIX

It wasn't as simple as that. I learned, soon enough, that the human world was far larger than I'd ever dreamt.

I went out every afternoon. I scoured the shores of every island, every spit of beach, every place with signs of human life. At first I returned again and again to the beach where I'd left my prince, but I never saw any sign of him. Sometimes I spotted young girls in white robes gathering sea-polished shells and wished I could ask them where he'd gone, but the age-old taboo against contact with humans kept me from it.

I moved on, ranging further and further. Sometimes swimming home exhausted me. The tiredness felt good. It drove my anger and sadness out, and it kept me from thinking too much.

On the day before Thetis' wedding, I swam further than ever before. Ios frolicked by my side. Every few minutes she leapt from the water and crashed down again, flashing her wide dolphin grin at me. I frowned, too tired to appreciate her antics.

At last, when every muscle in my body screamed for mercy, I found myself in a bay that curved like a clam shell. I poked my head out of the water to investigate.

Scattered, barren clusters of rock dotted the water. I clung to one of the larger rocks and examined the small, stony island. A wooded mountain crest stood like a backbone against the hard blue sky. The village's mud-brick houses spilled down the hill toward the beach. A large villa, surrounded by marble columns and a cool portico, perched on its own rocky outcropping to the west. 

I dared swim very close to the shore. I trusted the silver twilight to hide me. When I drew close to the beach, I found it deserted. I'd have to turn back soon. It would take me hours to get back to the palace, and I hated swimming alone at night.

In the day, the sea was my playground. There was no danger I couldn't outswim, no threat I couldn't anticipate -- or so I imagined. Night was a different matter. Even Ios' companionship wasn't enough to keep my fear at bay.

Before I could turn to go, a torrent of shrieks rent the air. Clouds of dust billowed from the path through the village, and from the clouds a group of young men emerged. They wore no clothing. Their sun-kissed bodies glistened with sweat. It was a race, I quickly realized. They thundered down the slope and onto the pebbled beach, shouting and filling the world with their joy. I smiled at the sight.

The leader dashed into the surf, winning the contest. He kicked sea foam before him and shouted with glee. I stared, transfixed. My heart nearly stopped beating. It was my rescued prince. I'd seen his face in my dreams so many times in the past weeks, and now he stood before me, whooping and splashing and wrestling his companions in the glistening waves.

I realized with a start that I treaded water in plain sight. I ducked down and hugged myself with gladness. I'd found him. Finally, I'd found him. I swam underwater to the nearest rocky outcropping, cursing the fact that it lay so far away.

When the young men began to retreat back to the beach, I almost cried out in my disappointment. But my prince stayed behind. He'd grown sober now. He stared out onto
the horizon, his expression dreamy and distant. He frowned. His arms lay at his side. I wondered if perhaps he was thinking of me.

"Hurry, friend," one of his companions called from the shore. "We have a meal waiting."

He didn't respond, didn't even seem to hear. He cocked his head as if he heard far-away sounds -- whale-song or the whisper of scales against stone.

"Lysander, hurry," the young man on the beach called again, impatiently.

This was an unexpected gift. Lysander. I whispered his name and it rolled sweetly off my tongue.

Lysander shook himself and turned to go. He splashed his way to the beach and then walked, with his friend, down the winding path and into the village, where he disappeared behind a mud-brick building.

I watched until the dust had settled back. Scraps of thought swirled around in my mind like a shoal of sardines under attack. Ios nudged her slick, blue-black snout against my shoulder blade. I wrapped my arms around her back and let her bear me up. I'd thought that seeing Lysander again would be enough, but now I knew that wasn't so. I wanted to touch him again. I longed to hold him in my arms the way I had on the beach that night.

I'd found him, only to realize that I could never become part of his life, never, unless he joined me in the sea or I found a way to be with him on land.

And that was impossible.

My father took Thetis' fingers and placed them gently into her groom's outstretched hand. The ceremony was nearly over, the joining ritual now underway. I stood in my place of honor, to the bride's right, my back stiff and my lips pressed together in an imitation of a smile.

Thetis looked radiant. Her plain face seemed lit up from the inside. Pearls gleamed in the dark luster of her hair. To the delighted roar of the crowd, her handsome new husband pressed his lips to hers. They sealed the marriage with that kiss. My father's smile split his face from ear to ear.

I turned away. I kept my face still as stone, betraying nothing. Within an hour, Thetis would leave for her new home in the Ionian Sea, miles and miles and miles away. Impossibly far, it seemed to me. I'd lost my best friend, and my only ally in the palace. Father's busy schedule didn't permit him to spend much time with me. I'd end up all alone, until the day when Father arranged my marriage and sent me off in turn. I had nothing to look forward to but more unhappiness.