Salt & the Sisters: A Mermaid Fantasy (The Siren's Curse Book 3) Read online

  The two-headed dogs were native only to Atlantis and forbidden to be traded or sold outside the city. Only royalty and aristocrats had the right to own the breed. One of the reasons they were so expensive was because they were reputed to have magic, though only those who owned one were told of this magic by the breeder––Tesya.

  “He was not cheap, but Tesya and I have been friends a long time. He wanted you to have the pup as well. He’s the smartest of the litter, or so Tesya says.” Valgana smiled widely as she watched her daughter kiss and stroke the puppy.

  “I shall have to think of a clever name for you,” Shaloris told the puppy. “Show me your nature and within a week, I’ll have the perfect name. I promise.”

  “If the myths are to be believed, the Atlantean hound lives as long as the one it bonds to,” Valgana said. “He’ll protect and love you for your entire life.”

  Shaloris gasped in amazement. “Is it true?”

  “Tesya says yes. King Bozen has had his hound Lia for twenty-three years already and she’s still as spry as a pup.”

  “How marvelous!” Shaloris put her forehead to the foreheads of the puppy and stroked his ears. “What other magics do you have, wee one?”

  “They are fierce in battle, as loyal as it is possible to be, and they never get lost. No matter how far apart you may become separated, he will always be able to find you. He will protect you with his life.”

  “And does he like to swim?” Shaloris asked.

  “Naturally.” Valgana laughed. “He is Atlantean.”

  Shaloris put the puppy down and watched him sniff her feet and wander around exploring his new home. She hugged her mother.

  “Thank you, he’s the most spectacular gift I have ever received. I’ll take good care of him.”

  “I know you will. Every monarch of Atlantis has had an Atlantean hound, and you shall be no different.”

  “I’m not a monarch yet.”

  “No, but the King gave me permission to give you the hound early,” Valgana answered and her voice glinted with something hard.

  Shaloris watched the puppy sit on his haunches and one of the mouths open wide in a yawn. “Are you sure this is not rubbing our victory in Eumelia’s face?”

  “You should not concern yourself with what Eumelia or Hypatia will think or feel or say,” Valgana replied. “Eumelia is nothing more now than the king’s bastard daughter, and Hypatia nothing more than a past dalliance.”

  “They are confident that Eumelia will be queen,” Shaloris murmured, “I would not want to be anywhere near them when they find out.”

  Valgana rose and dropped a kiss on her daughter’s head. “You won’t be. You’ll be standing beside your father the king. Now get some rest. It’s a big day tomorrow and you need to look well-rested and beautiful.”

  The day of her designation was hot and the air was still. Not a breeze flicked the leaves on the fig trees or lifted the water to lap along the stone canals of Atlantis. It was still not yet noon. A songbird could be heard outside the window, and calls from the flower sellers in the street below.

  “You must wear white today.” Valgana bustled happily about Shaloris’s rooms, sifting through dresses and hair pieces.

  The Atlantean hound sat under the window, both tongues lolling out and both heads panting as he lay on his side in a sliver of shade.

  Shaloris sat nervously watching in the mirror while one of her ladies wrestled her long hair into coils of braids on top of her head. Teasing out a few of the curls softened the sharp planes of Shaloris’s face. Valgana had directed the maid to leave some long waves hanging down Shaloris’s back.

  “Why white?”

  “White says purity, integrity, virtue…” Valgana’s voice dimmed as she disappeared inside the room that held shelves of dresses, wraps, and sashes. She returned, holding up a simple sleeveless white gown of layers of gauze. Even the fine spiderweb fabric barely stirred in the close air. “It will say you are a clean slate, ready to learn and stand at your father’s side as he prepares you for your future.”

  “All that from a color?” Shaloris replied with a smile.

  “All that and more,” Valgana replied, laying the dress out on the bed. “Never underestimate how powerful an impression your physical person gives to all who lay eyes on you.”

  Within the hour, Shaloris stood as her mother tied a thick belt of leather discs rimmed with orichalcum at her waist. Shaloris’s skin dewed fetchingly with a light layer of sweat, but Shaloris thought that another hour or two and she’d look more like a greasy rat than a glowing young woman.

  “Why must they always have these things under the hottest sun of the day?” Shaloris grumbled, brushing a damp curl back from her forehead.

  “High noon is a moment full of promise and power,” Valgana explained. “And speaking of which, let’s not delay.” She ushered her daughter from her rooms and down the long halls leading to the palace foyer where a carriage waited to take them to the center of Atlantis.

  It was a day for celebration and anticipation. Happy citizens lined the streets to wave as the carriages trundled by. Shaloris and Valgana rode in a carriage pulled by four horses. The prancing beasts had been dusted with crushed marine powders, changing their white hides into glittering blues and greens.

  Valgana waved at the crowds, but Shaloris remained in her seat, under the shadow of the carriage-top, too shy still to show her face to the people.

  The carriage took them through the long, curved streets, over a bridge toward the innermost circle of Atlantis and the gates of the central temple. Citizens crowded against the yellow gates of orichalcum but were not allowed inside.

  A long line of similar carriages moved slowly along the temple front. Beautifully dressed aristocrats and council members were helped down from their coaches and walked slowly between the tall narrow trees. Some of them waved to the cheering citizens, others remained unsmiling with gazes forward, solemn and serious.

  When her feet alighted on the stone and she began the long walk beside her mother, Shaloris craned her neck in search of the red hair of her half-sister.

  “Do not gawk.” Valgana tugged on Shaloris’s hand. “A princess of Atlantis does not goggle like a common person.”

  Shaloris returned her gaze demurely to the head in front of her and made the long walk in silence and stillness. At the top of the temple steps, Valgana and Shaloris were directed to the far side of the intimate amphitheater where some of Atlantean law was discussed and debates were held. It was the same room where King Bozen’s name day had been celebrated.

  Servants holding massive feathered fans stood at every pillar, waving continuously and lifting the air in the room to cool the guests. Seats had been erected in semicircular rings not unlike the layout of Atlantis itself. Valgana and Shaloris made their way to the far side of the front row.

  It was then that Shaloris spotted the red hair of Eumelia, at the other end of the front row. Her sister looked every bit a queen. Her unruly curls had somehow been humbled and forced slick against her head. Her hair was tied up and back and topped with a circlet of orichalcum glittering with aquamarines. She too had chosen to wear white, but her gown was anything but plain. It caught the light and shimmered and was tight to Eumelia’s body even as it twisted around her like a column from chest to knees. Lace dangled from the hem in delicate floating trim and the same lace dangled from the back of her head. The bodice of her gown was encrusted with aquamarines and diamonds, glittering as she turned this way and that. Kohl lined her eyes and colored powders accented her cheekbones and lips.

  Eumelia’s eyes drifted about the room until she found Shaloris, but they lingered only a moment. Though Shaloris smiled, Eumelia did not.

  Hypatia took her seat at her daughter’s side, resplendent in a green gown of heavy fabric which must have been baking her body inside it.

  King Bozen was the last to enter, and just as everyone had found their seats, they were required to stand again. He was smiling and nodding
at friends as he passed through the crowd, around the pool in the center and up to his seat upon the dais.

  This was not only a day for announcing the chosen heir to the Atlantean throne, but also a day for acknowledging the contributions of other citizens to the betterment of the nation.

  Shaloris felt herself wilt as two council members whose names she’d already forgotten awarded titles, lands, and gifts to various people in the room. She wanted to whisper to her mother that she wished she’d been warned the ceremony would be so long, but she knew better than to complain. Her mother would have no tolerance for whining, especially today.

  King Bozen barely spoke during the first hour of the proceedings. He rose to kiss his citizens on the cheek, to grasp elbows, to hug. Sometimes Shaloris could hear the deep rumble of his voice as he murmured something only the one being recognized could hear.

  Shaloris felt herself grow sleepy. She fought to keep her eyelids from drooping and her mind from wandering.

  Suddenly, out of a long drone of toneless words, someone had said her name in an authoritative voice. Her mother was pressing urgently on her elbow, almost lifting her from her seat. People were getting to their feet all around her and the sound of applause and some shouts of her name injected her with adrenaline so powerfully that her limbs shook as she got to her feet.

  She took the steps up to the dais on quaking legs, to where her father stood with his arms open for her. Stepping into his embrace, she blinked numbly as he kissed her cheeks and murmured words she could hardly comprehend in her ear. Her father laughed and gently turned her to face the room.

  Before her, every face was alight, and she felt her heart thrumming in her chest. Her shallow breath made her feel dizzy.

  Someone had her by the hand and something cold was being slipped onto the index finger of her right hand. It was her father, slipping the heir’s ring on her finger. Bright yellow orichalcum cradling a large flat stone of aquamarine bearing the seal of Atlantis––an upright trident. Only the king had a ring like it. His was slightly larger, and his trident had a crown imposed behind it, blending its forks with the tines of the crown. Shaloris could use this ring to seal letters, give commands. Even before she became queen, she would have a breathtaking power.

  Her body grew warm as she looked up into her father’s smiling face. He held her beringed hand in his, turned to face the crowd, and lifted the ring to shoulder level, holding it above his own.

  The glittering eyes and teeth of the crowd caught her gaze as it flitted around the room. She never expected the previously solemn crowd to come to life, to fill with excitement on her behalf.

  It hit her square in the chest then, like a soundwave from the blast of a war-horn. The citizens of Atlantis had wanted this. They had wanted her. And they were her people now, as much as they were her father’s.

  She felt her heart grow full to bursting, and her skin prickled with determination. She would do everything in her power to make King Bozen proud and to do right by her people. She was not only his chosen heir, she would be the first queen. Even when she took a husband, a foreigner chosen to strengthen Atlantis’s position in the world, her husband’s power would not equal her own.

  As these thoughts flew about the edges of her consciousness, Shaloris did notice a few faces in the crowd whose smiles seemed frozen and uncertain. Most were the elder men of the council. They were not ready for a queen. Shaloris made a silent promise that she would be ready for them. She would show them that a queen could and would rule justly.

  But there was another face, another set of eyes, and these ones did not make an attempt to disguise their ire for and jealously of the new heir. She had almost forgotten about Eumelia in the blur of celebration. The siren’s beautiful face had turned ugly, and there was poison in her eyes. Her own mother’s expression could not match Eumelia’s face in hatred.

  Shaloris swallowed and looked away, her smile faltering. Blinking back tears, she focused anywhere but at her half-sister, but her body felt like she had been struck with ice water, despite the heat of the day.

  The hubbub lessened as the crowd settled into their seats again. Servants began to move through the crowd carrying trays of red wine. The real celebration could begin now. A group of musicians stood waiting to set themselves up to play.

  But as the citizens took their seats, one redhead remained standing. Eumelia’s glare iced first Shaloris and then the king.

  The conversation faded further as people noticed the king’s other daughter had not sat with the rest of them. Even Hypatia, who had at first taken a seat, glanced up at her daughter unhappily, and then got to her feet to stand beside her.

  The room grew quiet, then silent.

  Shaloris had been seated beside King Bozen on the dais, and now the king leveled his dark gaze on his other daughter.

  “It is a time for celebration,” King Bozen said directly to Eumelia, his gaze troubled. “Will you not take a seat and drink with us?”

  “The king is in error,” Eumelia replied, with a voice like cold iron.

  A murmur went through the crowd.

  King Bozen’s face turned thunderous and he got to his feet. “You will be gracious. You will apologize. You will sit. And you will drink.” Each direction was a command. “So soon you disappoint us?”

  “Us?” Eumelia spat.

  Hypatia put a hand on Eumelia’s forearm, her growing alarm apparent. Eumelia shook her mother off.

  Eumelia’s eyes took on a faint glow and Shaloris felt a prickle of fear at the look she cast. The siren stepped forward into the space in front of the dais, her eyes only for King Bozen and Shaloris.

  “You shall rue this day,” Eumelia hissed. “Do not make this mistake. I have done and been everything you have asked of me.”

  King Bozen looked taken aback at this and Shaloris thought she knew why. King Bozen had never asked anything of his girls. Only that they grow up well, behave, and be studious. It was expected of royalty the world over.

  “This is not becoming of a princess of Atlantis,” someone shouted from behind Eumelia.

  It was slight––tiny, really––the twitch in Eumelia’s fingers. But Shaloris did not miss the motion.

  A loud crack sounded through the room and several people cried out in surprise.

  “You dare humiliate me!” Eumelia’s voice began to rise. “Do you not know who I am, what I am?”

  A crack appeared in the floor between Eumelia’s planted feet. It shot forward toward the dais and back toward the pool. The water in the pool sloshed in the still air, splashing up onto the floor.

  King Bozen’s eyes were alight with rage.

  “Do not threaten your king!” he bellowed, louder even than Eumelia.

  Eumelia bellowed back, and her voice became the sound of trumpets. “You will die for this! You will all die!”

  Shaloris cringed into her seat as Eumelia’s eyes lit with a white-hot light and she spun, looking at all of those in the room. Her hands had become stiff, her fingers talons.

  “Take her away,” King Bozen called to the guards.

  Atlantean guards materialized to surround and take hold of Eumelia. The crowd drew back, some leapt to get away from the apoplectic siren.

  A sound like rolling thunder cracked miles from Atlantis, then barreled across the sea, growing closer and closer.

  Eumelia was taken from the room. She did not resist the guards; in fact she looked up at the sky through the oculus, which had grown dark with clouds.

  Shaloris shuddered at the look of euphoric rage on her half-sister’s face.

  Twenty-Three

  A deep, grievous groan of heavy stones being shifted out of place reverberated through the temple. It was as if the stones that held the city of Atlantis above the ocean were being rearranged.

  Valgana bolted from her place in the front row to her daughter’s side.

  “Move, Shaloris. It’s not safe here.” Taking her daughter by the elbow, she led her toward the arch through which
they’d entered.

  “What is it?” Shaloris panted as she was swept along. “I don’t understand!”

  Startled and confused expressions crossed the faces in the room. People murmured, asking one another to confirm that they were all hearing the same gritty protestations vibrating under their feet. Dirt and mortar spattered against the stones as it fell from supports overhead. Puffs of dust shot from the seams in the floor.

  As she reached the arch, Shaloris heard people begin to move. Suddenly, people were running across the wide walkway leading from the temple, pouring over its steps. Though there was no visible threat, panic spread like the shadow of storm clouds sweeping across a prairie.

  The groaning grew louder, then a hissing sound expelled from the temple behind them. Shaloris looked over her shoulder as her mother dragged her toward the front gate, calling ahead in a loud voice for them to be opened. A bright white column of water exploded from the temple top, directly through the oculus. It belted toward the sky in a great geyser, catching the sunbeams that had broken through the gathering clouds—beautiful in the strength of it.

  Shaloris’s jaw dropped and her neck creaked as she followed the water’s trajectory, watched it slow. It appeared to stand almost perfectly still before it began its fall back to earth. A loud crack like the sound of cannon fire brought a trembling hand to her mouth as a fissure appeared in the temple roof. Water sprayed from the wound. A column tilted. The entire roof went off-kilter like a tilted hat. Then she lost view of it as the geyser crashed around the temple on all sides, sweeping away Atlanteans as they ran for their lives.

  “Just move!” Shaloris heard her mother shriek.

  The gate had opened only a few feet, abandoned by the guards who’d begun to push it inward. Valgana and Shaloris squeezed through the space, ripping their clothes as they caught on the locking mechanism. Shaloris left a long strip of fabric hanging from the metal. A moment after Shaloris passed through, the gates slammed shut as the weight of the panicked crowd trying to get out hit the orichalcum-coated iron at full force.