Chapter 7

EZRA

The quarters set aside for Queen Adriatta’s visits were designed for perfect comfort. Situated within the sea palace’s grandest wing, the room glowed softly in the light of the coral lamps embedded in the walls. The domed ceiling, crafted from shimmering pearlescent shells, reflected dappled light, creating the illusion of stars rippling through the depths. A large, circular window overlooks the vibrant coral gardens outside, offering views of swaying kelp forests and shimmering schools of fish. Flowing, translucent curtains made from delicate sea silk flutter with the gentle currents, letting in still more light.

The centerpiece was an opulent bed, its frame inlaid with intricate patterns of oceanic motifs—sea serpents, waves, and creatures of the deep. To one side, a chaise lounge in the shape of a smooth, elongated seashell sat near a vanity of coral and polished driftwood. The vanity’s mirror, surrounded by small, glowing sea pearls, reflects the light in soft, shimmering waves. A wardrobe, fashioned from the dark, ancient wood of shipwrecks, stands in the corner, its handles resembling delicately carved tentacles, the lone tribute to King Ezra’s part in ownership of the space.

The room was always open and bright, even in the garish, sleepy hours before sunrise, and so, despite the architectural perfection, sleep never came for Ezra. Next to him, Adriatta also rested fitfully. Flashes of her red scales peeked through the sheets as she mumbled and groaned in her sleep, trying to hide from the light pouring into the room. They were used to the shaded palace of Kuroshio, where the outside glare never woke them until they were ready.

Ezra didn’t have to get up to hang another sheet over their curtains. He reached out with his long black appendages, layered the fabrics, then drew the bed curtains tightly closed, casting them both back into shadow.

And then, the shadows spoke.

“Affection? How sweet,” Eris purred from the shadows all around him.

“I thought devils liked when mortals have motives to protect,” Ezra said diplomatically.

Slowly, deliberately, he made a show of slipping away from Adriatta and out through the curtains. He waited until her breathing slowed to address Eris again.

“Who would make deals with you if not for personal interest?”

The shade beneath the bed sighed—a harsh, guttural sound that rippled through every shadow in the room—beneath the vanities and wardrobe, from under doors and inside the keyholes, and from beneath the tiny chips in his wife’s favorite old paintings on the walls. It was a sound that slithered up his dark limbs and through his spine.

“It confuses me,” the shade beneath a service stool complained, “that beings of such a short lifespan can hold so…profound an attachment to anything.”

Ezra sailed over to the chaise-lounge and made a show of biting into a ripe samphire from the fruit bowl there.

“Yes, I imagine it does,” he said languidly, outwardly unruffled, he wanted Eris’ attention as far from his queen as possible. “However, if you could enjoy those sentiments on your own, would you ever make deals with mortals?”

“Mortal sentiment is not what I bargain for, little king.”

“Then I take it you’re not here to discuss my wife,” he said, chewing slowly, as though eating samphire and sea grapes with a devil from the depths were no different than any other negotiation—as though her increased visits of late didn’t set his teeth on edge.

Fortunately, Eris didn’t linger on the distraction. The shadows around the wall hangings seethed as she pounced on the proffered topic.

“I am here to discuss your high king,” she whispered, rattling the shade beneath his seat. “And why is he not dead, Ezra?”

Ezra reached for a handful of sea grapes, but didn’t eat them. He pulled them apart from the stems one by one, letting them fall back into their bowl.

“Titus is not dead because you need him alive… though I cannot fathom why,” Ezra responded, the samphire turning sour in his throat.

“Precisely so,’ she whispered. “Then why is it that his tinctures this morning were poisoned?”

He heard the threat. The suspicion.

Instead of defending himself, he sighed, dropping his handful of fruit, and stretching his tentacles over the shade where she hid. It hadn’t been him to make the attempt on Titus—this time—but he knew there was no love lost between the high king and Eris.

So why was she upset about a routine assassination attempt?

Instead of defending himself, he chose to be intentionally vague.

“Occupational hazards exist in every profession, Eris. The merman is a king, after all. Did you not try to kill me just last decade? Water under the bridge, as they say.”

The scratching of claws grated beneath the vanity. Three long gashes appeared beneath the vanity, running through the fibers of the kelp-strand rug. The ripping rent the water close to one of his tentacles, sending a shudder up the limb.

“Don’t play coy, little king. You tried to have him killed. Do it again, and I may have to pay closer attention to your mortal sentiments.”

Eris’ words slipped away from the vanity, creeping closer through the shadows beneath the bed where Adriatta still slept. He curled his tentacles around the base of the chaise-lounge. The frame of the heavy oak furniture splintered under the pressure.

When he had signed their original contract, Ezra believed that he and Eris’ aims aligned. Ezra wanted the princesses married and out of the palace—far away from where they could make any claims on the throne. Adriatta could have her rightful place, instead of his backwater kingdom where a species never meant to live in groups was forced into the tiny Kuroshio borders—a kingdom where infighting and territorial disputes threatened his people more than famine.

Eris wanted the king gone, and didn’t seem to care who or what took his place…but that was then. It didn’t make sense.

“Has something changed, Eris?”

“The princesses need to be out of the palace before anything happens to Titus, Ezra,” Eris spat. “I want him weak. I want him vulnerable. I want him desperate. Neither of those matter if he is dead. We had a deal, Ezra. The princesses are still here and unwed. Why is it taking so long?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Three days is actually quite fast for mortals to throw a ball.”

“A revelry?”

“This ball is a crucial step. Mortals rarely wed without proper persuasion and fanfare.”

“I tire of mortals,” Eris hissed, though the tone made Ezra wonder if he was meant to hear. He continued as though he hadn’t”

“The king is already persuaded. Let the royals play out their farce. Let the princesses feel they have a choice. Some things are more guaranteed if the princesses don’t get flighty fins.”

Eris scoffed. “You are threatened by the little seamaids?”

“I don’t like complications. Do you?” he rebutted.

“The time limit on our deal grows short,” she snapped. “And I grow impatient.”

Ezra gracefully and wilfully refused to roll his eyes.

“The next few days will hold the arrivals of the princes, their enteurages, and whatever disma courting they choose to inflict on the princesses. There will be fanfare and bluster, but ultimately, the course is already decided. Two weeks, Eris. Perhaps one. Hardly a moment to someone of your lifespan, isn’t it?”

“You guarantee?” There was skepticism in the way the fading dark teint behind the wardrobe writhed.

Ezra held up the shadow-melded pendant that he had bargained from Eris in their deal. Of the many chains and cords that King Ezra kept as part of his regalia, it was by far the most valuable. The plain crystal was unassuming at first glance, but the longer one looked, the more the clouded shadow shifted in its dull interior. With it, Ezra had forced his unruly subjects to accept order during his rule. He had wiped away the worst of his prisoners’ memories of violence and rebellion. He had turned his greatest offenders into empty shells—pawns for his use. Most importantly, he had used it to keep his people alive. Now, he would use it at court. He could hypnotize and control whomever he needed—and the price?

The price would be his to pay only if he failed.

“As long as this works as promised, the result is indeed, guaranteed. Be patient a little longer,” he urged.

The water in the room seemed to wobble around him. The shadows stirred and flickered, and then with a stillness like a sigh, the shades returned to their natural positions, and the eerie tension in the room began to fade. Ezra waited a heartbeat. And then another dozen while the sea devil made up her mind

“Have your ball, Ezra,” Eris breathed at last. “Parade through your mortal traditions—but do it before Titus loses what he has left of his good sense. I cannot afford, as you say, complications.”

Each syllable grew fainter as Eris spoke, until at last, her final hissing ‘s’ hung in the quarters in lieu of her farewell.

Ezra rose from the chaise, fingers gripping at the shadow pendant around his neck.

He blew a stream of bubbles, letting his head hang back as the tension left him. He returned to the bed, parting the curtain on the more shaded side of the room.

“Twelve years, and you think I don’t know when you’re really asleep, Adriatta?” Ezra inquired smoothly.

To her credit, Adriatta didn’t fight the pretense. Instead, she opened her large blue eyes without a hint of sleepiness or bleariness, and not for the first time, he had the impression that she was staring into his soul. He fought the urge to look away as she pushed herself to sit in the black gossamer sheets, her red scales flashing like a warning.

“You knew… then you wanted me to know what that thing said?” she said quietly.

He said nothing, instead taking the risk of climbing back onto the blankets with her.

“Would it not be easier to keep me in the dark than tell me the truth and risk me running off?” she asked evenly—far too evenly. There was no levity. She was angry; that was sure, but she was still deciding how angry to be. He almost smiled.

“You are my queen. And you’re a crafty little slink. What in the depths makes you think I could keep this from you?”

Her mouth twitched downward. “You kept me from leaving the palace yesterday. You thought it would find me?”

And then, she asked a more dangerous question.

“It was you who kept me from leaving, yes?”

He didn’t lie.

“I did.”

“How? Why is my memory of that day shadowed? ”

He held up the pendant. “I made a deal.”

Adriatta didn’t need an explanation. She’d lived in his kingdom long enough to know what a deal with a sea devil meant.

“And you didn’t think to ask me?” she demanded, still quiet, but the emotion boiled closer to the surface.

You would have said ‘no,’ he knew. You never would have taken the risk.

However, Ezra, having a modicum of self-preservation, did not say those thoughts aloud.

“Foreign entities are coming to the kingdom, my queen. We have no other defense.”

“We have me,” she argued hotly. “There was a reason you could never get your defenses through the bermuda barrier, if you recall.”

He barked a laugh, running a hand through his already sleep-mussed hair.

“I will never forget,” he said fondly. “And I will never put you on the front line, as your father did.”

Her anger finally boiled through.

“Is that what this is?” she snapped, pushing herself on her tail to hover over him. The currents around their bed curtains trembled as she lost control of her voice. “Petty revenge? After all these years, all this time, I thought you’d come to terms with the past, Ezra, but this? Deals with a devil? Trying to kill my father? Getting rid of my sisters? I should eviscerate you where you are! I should—where is my knife, Ezra! Where is it?”

Ezra caught her hands where they scrambled under her pillow for the blade he’d gifted her.

“This one?” he asked, pulling her on top of him. One black tentacle dangled the obsidian knife next to his head. She snatched at it and missed, bringing her crashing down into his arms, where he held her fast.

She thrashed, and made another grab for the blade, but he held her fast, limbs curling around her tail. She knew him well enough to know that it was futile, and he knew her well enough to know she would try anyway, until she’d tired them both. But today, she calmed faster, wriggling until she was eye-level with him once more.

“What are you doing, Ezra. How much of this was a lie, and whom are you lying to?” She demanded the answer like the queen she was, and just like every other day in their own palace, he couldn’t help but marvel at her.

“I know what it seems, Adriatta,” he breathed, inches from her mouth. “But believe me, I am not trying to hurt your family. I am trying to save it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Her accusations hurt, but it was deserved pain. He’d hoped that after so long, that she could trust him, much as he realized how unfounded that hope was.

“Then if I fail, you may eviscerate me to your heart’s content,” he promised, running a hand through the hair floating at her waist. “For now, rest. Sleep, my queen, and forget what happened this morning…we have a ball to attend tonight.”

“I will find out, Ezra,” she hissed, fins rising angrily along her spine. “You can’t keep these memories from me forever.”

Ezra swallowed.

“I know,” he replied hoarsely.

He sealed the order with a tap of his pendant, and, with a guilt that threatened to swallow him whole, Adriatta’s bright blue eyes faded into shadow for the second time in as many days. The memories of everything she’d overheard, of his promise, of his explanation, shrouded themselves from view.