Eamon

I miss Blossom.

This morning I woke early and went to buy cheese pastries. I took them out in the boat with me, knowing what she said and yet unable to completely give up hope of seeing her again.

But though I sailed out to Shark Fin Island and sang myself hoarse, she never came.

It’s past noon, now. I eat cold cheese pastries in the rain, looking glumly at my empty boat. I really ought to put my nets down again, but after a fruitless morning, somehow I haven’t got it in me.

I turn my ship back to shore and return home early after stopping to buy a few books. Home, I change out of my soggy clothes and take up a place by the fire.

“What are you reading over there so seriously?” Mother asks me as she weaves baskets in her corner chair.

“Just a primer. I bought ink to practice writing too. I’m going to put Blossom’s name on my boat.”

“You don’t need to write for that. Just paint a flower on the side. She’ll recognize that more easily. Or will she? Do they have flowers under water?”

“I don’t know,” I answer with a frown. I don’t recall seeing anything of the kind when we dove to view the wreckage, but perhaps out in deeper water…

Really, Blossom’s a funny name for a mermaid, no matter how I think about it. She ought to be named Sandy or Pearl, something more beachy. Rather, she oughtn’t to have a human sounding name at all. Sirens look like humans, but it would make more sense if they communicated like dolphins, with clicks and calls under water.  

“Ah, what do I know?” I grumble, messing my hair.

Don’t think too hard about it, I tell myself. For now, just focus on perfecting my letters, so I can paint them proudly on the side of my boat.

I view my sorry attempts so far with pessimism. I have a long way to go, and two weeks to get it exactly right.

Thus I work, on into the evening and late into the night, while outside the wind howls and the rain beats fearsomely against our seaside shack.

I hope Blossom’s not out in this weather. Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, I hope she’s safe, warm and happy. But not too happy, I think with a frown.

I hope my cheeky mermaid is missing me, even if it’s just a little bit. Because for me, though it’s only been one day, already I miss her so much I think I could die…

Giorgos

It’s late and the rain is coming down hard. The stairs leading into the lower reaches of the city are poorly lit. I carry a lantern with me and walk alone, hooded, face covered.

At last I reach my destination, a nondescript house on the edge of the city. I knock six times and wait, then knock once more. I hear locks click; the door opens.

Inside are two trusted soldiers standing on either side of a young gypsy woman. She dresses colorfully in many layers, her black hair is plaited in curling braids, interwoven with beads and bits of string. She smiles up at me invitingly as I lower my hood and face mask.

“This is the witch?”

“That’s right, Sire.”

“Meladia at your service, my king,” she murmurs.

Nice manners, for a vagrant, I think disdainfully. 

“Tell me, what do you know of curses?”

“A good deal,” she answers with another little smile. “I come from a long line of magic women. I will be happy to provide my king with whatever service he requests of me. For a fee.”

“Can you lift a curse that is connected to the moon’s phases? If a person were to, say, change form with the waxing and waning of the moon, is it in your power to undo such a curse?”

“Of course,” says Meladia, and my fist clenches at her words. “Such a curse is not uncommon, nor is it difficult to break. One needs only to identify—”

“Enough,” I cut her off sharply. “Are there any others among your people who possess such power?”

“Perhaps,” she answers vaguely. “But I will do the job quickly, and for a fair price. You will not find such courtesy from the other gypsies, Sire. Not for an outsider such as yourself, if you’ll forgive the expression.”

“Their names?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m asking you their names!” I thunder, and the woman recoils, her eyes widening only now in comprehension of the danger she’s put herself in by agreeing to come here. Her mouth clamps shut and I snarl with impatience.

“Torture her until she gives you the names of the other witches,” I order the guards. “Then kill her. Dispose of her body in the usual way.”

Meladia starts to scream but the guards are quick with a gag.

I replace my hood and mask and leave the guards to their work, stepping back out into the pouring rain.

That’s one less troublesome witch to worry about.

I have many such men on the case, scouring the land for anyone with powers similar to Lyssandria’s, the witch I first paid to curse my daughter two years ago.

After the deed was done I hired her to ‘explain’ the curse to Delphine, then left her down by the sea for my guards to drown only minutes later. They told me she went without a fight, laughing the whole time. Mocking me, even in her death.

Perhaps she guessed all along what I intended to do. She even gave Delphine that troublesome hint at how to break the curse, though fortunately my daughter assumed she was only speaking nonsense.

Break the moon, she said. And again, this witch Meladia, she also knew the secret. I assumed I’d paid Lyssandria to concoct a powerful and complex curse, but it seems it was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill variety after all. If someone were to figure that out, if Delphine were to learn how fragile the spell binding her really is—my plans would be ruined.

But I needn’t worry about that. Delphine is too carefree, living too much in the moment to trouble herself with ways to break the curse. She trusts I am doing my best to find a cure, and that is enough for my foolish daughter.

She lost her temper with me today. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. And this time like every other she will come to me, tearful and apologetic, embarrassed by her outburst.

I will use this to slowly, carefully make her see the wisdom in my plan. She is angry with me now, but she will get used to the idea eventually. New brothers and sisters, future heirs to the throne capable of taking over after I’m gone. Not my dead wife’s dynasty, but my own. The era of Giorgos Siculus.

How anyone expected me to hand over the power I’ve enjoyed to that irritating little girl is beyond me. Oh, Delphine has her uses, no mistake. If she did not, I’d have killed her outright and not bothered with this curse business. In spite of her reputation for being moody, lazy and difficult, she is actually an incredibly capable and intelligent young woman, and I rely on her more than she or anyone else knows.

But I’ll be damned if I let Delphine become queen while I fade away into obscurity.

No, the arrangement we have right now suits me down to the ground. And soon I will have a beautiful, nubile young wife I can be sure will look to me in everything, a perfect bride I can mold and make to my own liking. Not like Delphine’s headstrong, entitled mother. That woman kept me under her thumb for years before she finally kicked the bucket, helped along to the afterlife with a slow dose of poison administered by my own hand…

Queen Lydia has been dead six years now. The people look to me for the continued smooth running of the nation, and not my daughter. With careful orchestration and help form an ally in the temple, I have slowly been undermining her image in the eyes of the palace staff and even in the minds of the commoners, so no one is clamoring particularly for her to assume the throne.

And soon, no one will even think of her at all. I’ll have her reduced to a mere decoration, a spoiled princess too self-absorbed to commit to her duties till she finally passes them on to her capable father once and for all.

Then all of Sanos will sing my praises as I come into my position as rightful and official king. And Delphine, like her mother, will fade into obscurity.

Never to be thought of or heard from ever again…