Protagonist Bound (18 page)

Like a mermaid with two legs instead of a fishtail, or just a super cool, ocean-oriented human.

However you see it, it’s a pretty epic princess power. Unlike my own princess powers of sass, snark, and screech-singing. Which (let’s face it) are far from being worthy of admiration.

Sadly, this princess’s story did not end as magically as her abilities or bloodline would have suggested. One night about a year and a half ago when she was home from her final year at Lady Agnue’s for Spring Break, Ashlyn vanished without a trace. No clues, no witnesses, nothing. She just flat-out disappeared.

Both the entire realm and the entire ocean were searched for months on end. But she never turned up. Nor did any solid evidence of what had happened to her. All the Godmothers in charge of the investigation found were a fanny pack with Ashlyn’s name embroidered on it at the bottom of the ocean thirty miles off the coast, and a trail of footprints outside her bedroom that disappeared when they reached the edge of the cliffside. Beyond that, though, absolutely nothing. Whatever must’ve happened to Ashlyn that night at sea was shrouded in as much mystery as it was morbidity.

Everyone had their own theories about what fate had befallen the princess in the depths of the ocean. Personally, my money was on a shark attack. Which I felt bad even thinking, seeing as how that would’ve been a pretty awful way to go for such a nice person.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of affect all this had on the king and queen.

My eyes wandered over to the far left side of the stage where the rulers of Adelaide and Whoozalee were seated.

The human queen of Adelaide sat in her throne—no longer a mermaid, and certainly no longer little. Instead she seemed old, tired, and more mortal than most. Her formerly bright, flowing hair was pulled back tightly in a restrained up-do with a tiara constructed of gold and seashells. Her facial expression was blank. And even from my nosebleed seat in the amphitheater I could see the emptiness in her deep blue eyes.

No. It was clear she was never the same after losing Princess Ashlyn.

She and the king did have another daughter—Princess Onicka. The young princess was seven years old now and apparently had the same powers as her older sister. Of course, it was not like she was ever allowed into the ocean to use them. This was partly because of the Sea Silence Laws, but anyone sane knew that it was mainly because her parents would never let her out of their sights.

The tiny, auburn-haired Onicka presently sat in a mini-throne next to the queen. She fidgeted relentlessly and was clearly bored and wishing she were elsewhere. I could relate.

I shifted my attention back to center stage.

Good grief, was this women really still talking?

I just had one of the longest mental tangents ever and the end of Ms. Steinglass’s speech didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. As a consequence, my vision and mind began to grow blurry.

Yes, in retrospect it was a bit rude of me to nod off in the middle of someone’s presentation. But in my defense, I had held on for as long as possible.

My ill-timed nap was short and filled with choppy dreams. I kept seeing all these small, different-colored Xs popping up against a white backdrop. There were blue ones, yellow ones, and red ones, and their numbers were multiplying quickly—eliminating the empty areas across the washed out background of my subconscious.

The space of my dream was almost entirely filled with their various colors when one, sole black X appeared in the center of the dreamscape. It was the same size as the others at first. But then it began to grow larger and larger, moving at an angle that made it seem like it was headed straight toward me. In fact, I was almost certain that the now giant, black X was about to crash into my metaphysical face when suddenly—

SMACK!

No, the X in my dream had not actually hit me, but someone else certainly had. I woke up from the jolt of the impact at the back of my head and discovered that people were beginning to file out of the auditorium. My friends stood around me with bemused, surprised expressions on their faces. I looked at them, perplexed, rubbed the base of my skull where I had been struck, and turned around to find its source. Daniel was standing in the row behind me with his eyebrows raised and his smirk aimed in my direction.

“Did you hit me?” I asked in disbelief.

“You were asleep and it was time to go. Somebody had to wake you up.”

“I can’t believe you hit me in the head!” I hopped up from my seat—my cheeks hot with anger and embarrassment.

“Calm down, Knight. It was more like a friendly swat.”

“Oh yeah? Well in that case, come here. Let me give you a little friendly swat in return.”

“I told you their truce wouldn’t last a day,” Blue said to Jason. “I win.”

“It only counts if she hits him back,” Jason clarified.

“Fight, fight, fight,” Blue chanted under her breath, egging me on.

SJ, however, swiftly intervened before the situation could escalate to that. “Relax, Crisa,” she said as she patted my shoulder. “He did not mean anything by it. Besides, you can get him back later. It is lunchtime.”

Lunchtime?

My stomach growled again and I decided that for now I would practice restraint for the sake of my hunger.

“Fine,” I huffed as I walked past SJ and into the aisle. Then I glared at Daniel. “But smack me again and you’re gonna need a whole lot more than a row of chairs to ward off what you’ve got coming.”

I ended up being wrong; we had chicken-fried-steak for lunch, not fish.

Go figure.

When mealtime was over, my classmates and I were escorted out to the cliffside for an outdoor lecture on Adelaide’s economic structure.

It was a bit messed up that we didn’t get to go down to the actual beach, but the guards insisted that it was against Sea Silence Law policy for any unauthorized personnel or fishermen to be that close to the ocean.

Which to me, of course, translated as a challenge to find a way to get down there later despite that.

SJ hung out with me at the back of the group during this particular portion of our itinerary. It was unusual for her to sit so far away from an instructor. Just as it was unusual for Blue to be sitting toward the front with Jason and Daniel. The only classes she ever sat up front for were the fairytale history ones. Yet, there she was.

I watched her pass a note to Jason, which he read quickly when our teacher wasn’t looking. He tried to suppress a laugh at whatever joke Blue had shared with him and then scribbled something back to her in return.

SJ leaned close to my ear. “Crisa?”

“Hmm?”

“You know I am not the type to pass judgment on others, but does Blue’s behavior strike you as odd?”

I figured she must’ve been observing Blue too. Which was a bit of a relief to be frank, because I was beginning to wonder if maybe it was just me who was weirded out by how our friend had been acting.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” I whispered back. “Nothing against Jason, but I thought she would loathe him now, or at the very least be distancing herself from him. The idea of prologue prophecies in general ticks her off. Now that she has a specific one of her own to hate, you’d think she’d be rebelling against it.”

“I agree,” SJ stated slowly. “Jason is a wonderful boy, but knowing Blue, it is a wonder she has not broken his jaw with one of her right hooks by this point.”

I shrugged. “Maybe your nagging has finally gotten through to her and she’s replacing her anger with kindness.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Not even a little. But it’s all I’ve got. Anyways, I would think you’d be proud of the way she’s handling the situation. Why do you seem just as worried as me?”

“Crisa,” SJ muttered. “You, Blue, and I may disagree on a lot of things. But you have known me for many years and are well aware that, despite how it may appear, I too wish our lives were different. That we were not forced to live these . . . assigned roles.”

I blinked like a startled deer caught in carriage headlights.

I recalled SJ having expressed sentiments like this once or twice before. Even so, it was kind of easy to forget that she felt that way. She was such a natural princess. And she did such a good job of embracing her designated identity and what was expected of her that, to most people, it would’ve seemed like she loved every bit of it.

Truth was though, if you got close enough, and paid enough attention, behind her gray eyes you could detect something quite contrary. You could sense the same sadness about our fates that I’d known my entire life. The difference was that she concealed how she felt about it nearly all of the time.

I didn’t know if that was bravery, denial, or a bit of both. Either way, in rare moments like these it was nice to be reminded that—despite my extreme lacking in the princess department—my best friend and I still had more important things in common. And, bearing that in mind, I should have always been able to trust her . . .

Mermaids Like Taffeta

n behalf of all female-kind, I would like to say that a great majority of the most fabulous outfits in the world are super uncomfortable.

At present, SJ, Blue, and I were on our way to attend Friday evening’s ball at Adelaide Castle. Ordinarily such occasions did not make me feel particularly excited. However, after a week of fishing talks and dreary guest lecturers that attempted to make up for their lack of charisma with ocean-themed business attire, I was ready for at least some kind of semi-stimulating activity.

Moreover, since neither Blue nor I were given the chance to sneak away and get any combat practice in this week, sashaying about in our epically aquatic outfits was all the action we had to look forward to at the moment.

Which brings us to our ensembles for this evening.

The dresses that had been delivered to our suite earlier this afternoon were both gorgeous and sea-themed. They were also too tight around the waist, long enough to trip on, and itchy in places you didn’t want itched. But, in spite of their lack of comfort, the fact remained that they looked nothing short of spectacular.

The gown SJ wore was crème-colored and had a seashell pattern sewn into the lace at the top of the corset and at the bottom of the skirt. It also had a layer of shimmering gold fabric underneath the lace, which made the whole thing glitter like it was made of pure stardust.

Tonight my elegant friend had her hair in a bun, which allowed her to show off the dangling golden earrings she was wearing to perfectly accent the dress. And her graceful, matching crème-colored shoes—well, they almost made me rethink the boots I was wearing.

Almost.

Blue’s dress, meanwhile, was bright turquoise and strapless. It was lovely, but the real stunner was the hairstyle she was sporting. Earlier that day SJ had somehow convinced our rebellious friend to set her hair in curlers. How SJ had managed to accomplish this, I did not know. Blue once said she’d sooner rip out a raven’s uvula with her bare hands than go all “salon-girl.” Yet, there she was—her natural, dirty blonde waves transformed into such radiant curls that she would’ve given any princess a straight-up run for her money.