Coral, the glowing kind. Small pearl like decorations; basically crystals. Every few steps, they had bright coral lights, illuminating the pathway in various colors. The floor, despite most of them never using it, was made of black marble, reflecting my shadow back like a mirror.
But above everything, was the scale. I felt like a mouse in here. Looking up at the ceiling, at the floors above, at the intricate highways inside the palace was straining my neck. “Sol?” Roksha pulled my hand. “We’ll have time to wander. But for now, let’s hurry to the court. We shouldn’t keep her waiting,” she said.
“Right.”
Her mother and the rest were already ahead. We were left unsupervised. We didn’t have any guards or maids leading us. We were on our own, or so I thought but Roksha’s mother, Tirba, really knew her way around and she made us take one set of stairs that led straight to the third floor.
I thought it was odd at first, odd how I could properly breathe here. But no, everyone else had been breathing too. “What grade would this safe zone be?” I whispered.
“Grade 1,” Roksha said. “Only one of three.”
And it wasn’t just my breath either, the closer we got to the golden double doors, the more normal I felt. At one point, I couldn’t even tell I was in water.
Twenty or so guards patrolled the area, and one came straight for Tirba. They exchanged words and the mermaid spoke something at the far end of the door, near a small round orb.
Inscriptions. Various inscriptions. A mermaid with a trident was impaling a giant fish. In another corner, she was impaling a squid. In another corner, she was fighting a dragon. And in the last corner, a massive snake slept. In the middle though, the same mermaid had her hands on her chest, as though praying, and emanating a gentle light.
Huh… maybe Sortan wasn’t fucking around.
Squeak. The door opened.
My heart pounded all of a sudden. I felt weak, my legs trembling. Calm the fuck down, my body! I kept telling myself, I was excited, but nope, I was nervous.
Gulping hard, I tried to keep my thoughts straight. If I started shivering, what would Roksha do?
Trying to control my breathing, I focused on the room, instead of the far end. There were some fishman and mermaids in here. And the room was pretty big. Calling it a ROOM was disrespectful because you could probably fit the whole of the white house in here.
Let’s be the country bumpkin later.
My heart had settled down somewhat, so I finally, finally stared ahead. At the single women on the throne. Her glittery tail rested at the helms, while she rested her round, symmetrical face on her hand, her elbow on the handle. Red hair, flowing, greenish blue eyes, and a neutral appearance. Yet, for some reason those eyes… calculating.
She was fairly beautiful. I’d rate Lin more beautiful but I was probably just biased.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
And would you look at that, Mermaids did wear clothes! At least she did; she wore a sparkling cream robe.
“Your majesty,” Tirba said, taking both her hands and placing them near her head: saluting!
Woah! I was taken aback. She’d told me we’d be saluting but hadn’t expected a salute like that!
The rest of them did the same, so I just imitated.
Anyway, afterwards, Tirba exchanged some pleasantries while her son and daughter didn’t speak. The fishman, he kept his gaze on the floor the entire time. Apparently, he wasn’t allowed to look, let alone speak to the woman.
Tirba was done. And I thought her son was next.
However, “Right then,” the queen said, “Sol, was it?”
“Yes, my lady,” I said, offering a noble bow. Our customs were different but I was still a noble, sort off. “Soler A. Barack. Son of Viscount Sharmon Barack. Baron under the rule of Duke Alzania.”
“Surface manners,” she said. “Is your father… really Sharmon Barack?” She questioned.
No, it didn’t seem like she knew the man. And it didn’t seem like curiosity either. Can she like… detect lies?
“So, you saved,” she paused, seemed to rack her head for a while. “Rokshana?”
“Roksha,” I said. “Yes, I saved her.”
“My full name is Rokshana Sol,” she whispered. Good thing the mermaid was near me cause I really felt like crying. The queen got her name right, and me, her friend, didn’t. Fuck!
Couldn’t she have corrected me?
“Anyway,” the queen said. “So, you saved her?”
“If you mean I fished her out of the ocean, yes.”
Gasps.
Some were visibly fuming.
“My lady,” Rokshana sighed. “He means he fished me out of the water to save me from the Hermon patrol.”
“I’m speaking to Sol,” The queen said.
Rokshana shut up.
Meanwhile, “At the time me and my sister were just bored. So, we decided to fish. We didn’t know there would be any mermaid in the area. We were told not to fish in two regions. We were far from those regions.”
I wanted to lie and move on, but my gut told me that wasn’t a very wise thing to do when the person you’re talking to knew if you were lying. If I was going down, I was going down with the truth.
“How could he!” Shouts.
Lots of shouts.
Maybe I really should have just lied.
“Even so,” a shark-face man near the queen spoke up. Probably a minister of sorts. “According to our treaty, we either have to trial you and kill you, or take you in as a prisoner for such a crime. Even if it wasn’t intentional on your part.”
“Despite knowing that, I spoke the truth,” I said. “Look, I don’t really care about what politics you have with the upper world. I fished her out of the ocean, I forced the others to not eat her, and because of that, ended up getting kidnapped myself. I came on this journey to search for my parents. And if I have to go the cursed islands or even the forbidden continent, I’m willing to go there. If I have to fight the whole mermaid empire to leave, I will do that,” I said, lifting up my shirt, showing them my emblem. Or rather, Rexen’s Insignia. “For anyone who doesn’t know what this is, try me.”
“You speak rather interestingly, surface dweller,” the queen said. “But you inserted a threat you cannot back up here. In the surface, sure. But out here, your deity won’t be able to do much at all. Especially a deity in-tune with fire.”
“Well, I’m not really talking about my deity,” I said. “You see,” electricity arched at my fingertips. And in a split second it arched straight past the queen’s head, not quite touching her, but I was sure she felt it. Holy fucking hell, what the fuck! “I meant to do that,” I mumbled, and cleared my throat. “You seriously think I didn’t come here prepared? If I wanted to leave, I could have. I didn’t. I came here with Rokshana, to get her back to her home. I came to honor my word to her. And now that I have, I will leave. If you want to stand in my way, then please, by all means.”
She seemed more amused than annoyed. Good, good, it paid off. But seriously, how the fuck did it form an electric line like that? I could have blown her head off! Yeah, perhaps I really shouldn’t have used something like electricity so soon after discovering it without proper field testing. But I could have sworn it was only meant to be a small bolt.
“Kill him,” the queen said.
Well, fuck.
[A/N]
This is the official 150th chapter.
I'm both glad and sad. Glad because we got here so soon. Sad because... well, I wish I had more readers lol