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She was breathtaking, a backlit shadow glittering with seawater. Her features were as distorted as her words, but the hand against his cheek was so tender that he knew she meant no harm.
He was always Prince Eric first, a citizen second, and—secretly, terribly, through no fault of his own—cursed third.
“If you kiss anyone or they kiss you, and they are not your true love,” she had repeated whenever he asked about the curse, “then you will die.”
“Hair as white as bone, lips red as dawn, and as beautiful as the sea can be terrible,”
He wanted to be struck by true love—a meeting of eyes, a touch of hands, a breathless gasp—as
“Can do.” Eric nodded to the windows. “We have fairly clear skies, and the northern tower is the highest. I can’t say it will inspire poetry, but it’s there if you want to stargaze when it gets dark.”
His mother had been scared of someone finding out about his curse, but wasn’t that why he was in this situation? He was so afraid of letting anyone near that he could barely handle normal situations. What was the point of anything if he didn’t have anyone to share it with?
I dreaded your obsessing over someone’s singing voice rather than their heart.
always wanted to be the hero in a story, but I thought it would be a comedy, not a tragedy.”
“In case it rains,” she said with a wink that made Gabriella swallow. “Can’t leave you out here to rust with your sword.” “For Triton’s sake, Nora,” Sauer muttered as they passed. “Stop flirting. It’s a robbery.”
“Not much,” she said, still looking at the maps pinned to the walls. “It’s a Rivan tale. They used to tell it to kids to keep them from swimming alone in the sea. ‘One single drop of blood spilled in the waves, and the Blood Tide will bring to you someone who will offer you everything you’ve ever wanted. But it comes with a price, and you must never accept.’ One of those tales.”
He had always dreamed of meeting the perfect person atop the waves. Maybe she was a visiting dignitary who preferred sailing to state meetings, or perhaps she would be some runaway noble who sang the sun down each day as they traveled across the world. But whenever Eric wanted to be swept up in the endless, intimate possibilities, he remembered his curse and pushed those desires away.
“She’s out there somewhere,” he said. Knowing there was someone out there perfect for him was the one beautiful thing his curse had granted him. “I just haven’t found her yet.
“Believe me, Grim, when I find her, I’ll know. Without a doubt, it’ll just hit me like lightning!” Eric clapped, and a burst of thunder shuddered through the night. He threw his head back.
If anyone had a spotless soul, it was someone selfless enough to risk their life to save a drowning boy. His mystery girl had to be his true love.
scared you. He’s harmless. Really.” She just smiled and nodded, and Eric glanced up at her, close enough to feel her breath on his cheek. Her button nose wiggled. There was something so familiar about her, but he couldn’t place it. From a shop in the bay, perhaps? A ship passing through?
With the low neckline, Eric couldn’t help noticing the freckles—pale, barely-there things—dusting her shoulders. One was even nestled in the hollow of her throat. Eric felt himself blush and looked away.
She tapped him on the shoulder once for yes, and he couldn’t help leaning into her touch. Looking up, he caught her staring at him, and she flushed. Eric dropped her foot and stepped back. He couldn’t quite pull away from her gaze yet. He was not used to the heat in his chest.
smile spread across her face, and she tore her eyes away from the food long enough to stare up at Eric and touch the rim of his ear before pointing at the dough. Heat pooled along his ribs.
She laughed. He clenched his hands together to keep from smiling back at her. She wasn’t his true love. She couldn’t be. She had washed ashore far too late in the day to have been the girl who saved him, and she didn’t have a voice as pure as her soul.
A few strands of hair fell before her face, and Eric had moved before he even thought about it. He brushed the hair behind her ear. He had never done that with anyone. It felt too intimate, a bit too much like a kiss on the corner of the lips.
“She is alone and vulnerable. I don’t care what else I am, but I will not be the sort of person who refuses aid to someone in need.”
“Oh, Eric.” Even weathered old Grim sounded charmed. “Isn’t she a vision?” “You look…” Eric moved toward her, wanting to reach for her hand, but at the last moment, he pulled away. He couldn’t. “Wonderful.” Pearl shrugged, smiling up at him, and all the words Eric meant to say fled.
Pearl shouldn’t have been any different, and he wasn’t sure why she was.
“I’m sorry, Grim,” said Eric, forcing himself to look away from Pearl. “What was that?”
She tapped him once, moonlight sparkling in her eyes as she laughed, and she looked like how bells sounded, bright and delicate with a promise of depth yet unheard.
“I need a break,” Eric said, pulling them to a stop. His ribs did ache, but it was the sudden desire to pull her closer that drove him to step away.
Eric liked these moments best—the breath before the smile when her eyes crinkled and her teeth peeked out from her lips. She held back sometimes, as if remembering her predicament, and didn’t fully smile, but the barely there dent of her dimples made him smile for her. Here she was, lost in a new land and unable to communicate well, and she didn’t seem afraid at all. She was brave, and it made him feel brave. And all those complicated little feelings smoldered in his chest like a coal. She wasn’t his true love, so why was he feeling like this?
She sunk onto the bench next to him, nestling against his side. Eric, suddenly warm, was aware of every inch of his body that touched hers, and he leaned away slightly. It was only the morning heat. It had to be. He looped his arm around her, though.
Pearl held up two fingers and drew them across her neck. “I really hope that means you’re not leaving and not that you’re about to drown me.” He pulled the oars into the boat and let them drift.
She shook her head, a strand of hair coming free of her bow, and Eric leaned in close. His fingers skimmed her cheek and pushed the strand behind her ear. She pressed against his hand. Her lips parted.
“Ariel?” he asked, voice wavering. Perhaps they should start back at the A’s. She lunged forward and took his hand. “Ariel?” He grabbed her, taken aback by her reaction. “Your name is Ariel?” She nodded, nose scrunched up with a chuckling laugh. “That’s kind of pretty,” he said. “Okay, Ariel.” He said it slowly, testing out the taste of her name, and smiled. Simple and pretty. Concise. “Ariel,” he whispered and held out his hand to her. “It’s wonderful to meet you again.”
She was wild and beautiful, hair damp with the sea. As they stared at each other, her tongue wet her lips, and Eric couldn’t help wondering what they would feel like against his own. They both leaned closer, her eyes fluttering shut. Eric reached for her, and—
He had almost died, and yet he still wanted to reach out, cross the distance between them, and hold her. What was wrong with him?
back home. The thought of her leaving hit him harder than it should have.
“What was that about?” Gabriella asked him. “I know Ariel being here isn’t ideal, but if she was shipwrecked, she at least knows her way around a boat.” “I almost kissed her today,” Eric said, and threw his hands up. “I don’t even know if she’s been on a ship. She can swim, I think, but we are heading to kill a witch. This is just another worry, and—” Vanni held up a hand. “Wait, what was that first thing you said, because I know it wasn’t what I heard?” “I almost kissed her,” whispered Eric. “What?” Vanni covered his face with his hands and screamed into them. “Why?” Gabriella collapsed into
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He could fall in love with anyone he wanted, even Ariel.
Ariel was a threat to him through no fault of her own. He wanted to hold her; he wanted to dunk himself in another lagoon to escape her. He could do neither, though, and knowing more about magic and witches was a necessity.
“I will try to move past my awkwardness as regards to getting close to people,” he said. “To you, really. Everyone else is still exhausting.”
“Look,” she said, “if she’s not your true love, I’m not as picky.” Eric bristled and hated himself for it. “Stick with your thief.” He tugged the green scarf looped around her neck, and she flicked his cheek. “You’re missing the forest for the trees,” she said. “Look ahead.”
Ariel ran back and forth across the deck and threw the untangled eels back into the sea. One hissed at her, and she hissed right back.
“She is drowning,” said Sauer. “Help her.” “I don’t think she could drown if she tried,” said Gabriella. Sauer smacked the hull of the ship. “Then what’s wrong?” “This!” Nora leaned back as Gabriella had, but instead of legs kicking up out of the water there was a shimmering dark blue tail.
feet in the chair. “Why?” “I was—am, until the contract runs out or she dies—retribution for a bargain my sister, Miriam, and her partner, Andrea, broke with the witch.” He laced his fingers in his lap and squared his shoulders, a pose Eric saw constantly in Grimsby. “He was human and she was not, but they loved each other. He sailed out to see her every day for twenty years, and then one day, he decided he wanted to join her beneath the waves. To do so, he had to make a deal with a witch—he would become one of the merfolk, and her price was a single soul, a debt which she would call in at a
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All magic comes with a price, and that price must always be paid. When it’s not, magic will take its price.
Eric looked up as she finished her words. It felt like having the breath knocked out of him or his chest hollowed out. He couldn’t believe how narrow-minded he had been. The answer had been in front of him the whole time, and he had been too focused on the witch to see it. Nora wasn’t even a common name in Vellona or Riva, but Eleanora was. “Kill you?” Malek laughed into his hands. “No, the witch was saying she would come for you if you ever entered her domain. The Blood Tide can’t kill you. It’s just a path.” He lifted his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “You might not be my niece,
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“You’re not,” said Eric. “Right before I was born, my mother saved a child’s life up north, and a witch cursed her child.”
Eric smiled. “No, no kissing at all. I can’t kiss anyone or let them kiss me. The curse was vague, so we were never sure if it was a kiss on the lips or any sort of kiss at all. I stayed clear of anything that could be considered a kiss.”
“Love terrifies me. The concept of it. The reality. Every part of it. How can I find it, enjoy it, want it, when my expression of love is warped by this curse? I know not being able to kiss someone doesn’t make me lesser, but still… the fear is always there.” Ariel made a few gestures he couldn’t understand and huffed. She chewed on her bottom lip. It warmed the cold part of him that felt separate from the rest of people that she was trying to understand and not fix him, though.
Of course—why couldn’t he do the brave thing and love anyway? He wasn’t sure he could take a leap of faith he was always warned would kill him. She had so much more courage than he ever had.
What was the point of bravery if it killed him? He was supposed to be brave—that was what propriety and history and myth said. It was demanded of men over and over, but he didn’t want to be brave like that, closing his eyes and diving headfirst. He wanted to live. What was so wrong with that? Why couldn’t everyone else be patient?
