But there was always the chance of an unscrupulous crew, and nets, and the potential prize of a mermaid wife or trophy to present the king.
（Considering some of the nets that merfolk had found and freed their underwater brethren from, it was quite understandable that Triton believed humans might eat anything they found in the sea—including merfolk.）
Interested and curious sea creatures passed Ariel and Flounder, bowing when they thought to, staring when they didn’t. Even without her crown, the queen was well known by her red hair and her friend’s constant presence. It was a good thing she had warned Sebastian not to mention her mission; gossip swam faster than tuna.
She stuck her head out of the water and was delighted to discover that she had kept their direction true. They were at the entrance of the Bay of Tirulia, just beyond where spits of land on either side had been extended with boulders by the Dry Worlders to keep their ships safe. Inside these two arms the sea grew flat. On the southern side of the bay, the land was rocky and grey like southern islands where octopuses played and olives occasionally fell and floated on gentle waves. For a very brief stretch, in the middle of the shore near the castle, the rocks gave way to beach. North of that were tidal flats where the sea became land more slowly, gradually invaded by grass and rich brown tuffets of mud where all sorts of baby sea life began: mussels, clams, oysters, crabs, eels, and even some fish. Beyond that were the marshes proper, brackish water that mixed with a river that went, Eric had once claimed, all the way to the mountains.
And between the mermaid and the shore were the ships.
Small fishing boats with bright blue eyes painted on their prows to ward off bad luck. Fast and sleek whalers. Tiny coracles for children and beachcombers, for puttering around the marshes and low tides, for teasing out the eggs, shrimp, shellfish, and tastier seaweed eaten by the poor but prized by the rich.
Towering over all of these were mighty ocean-faring tall ships, giant white sails unfurled, ready to cross the open water and come home again laden with spices and gold, chocolate and perfumes, fine silks and sparkling salts.
Ariel regarded these last vessels with a twinge of jealousy. They carried their human riders farther away than she had ever been, to places she had only heard of in legend. They probably sailed right over the heads of the Hyperboreans, without even realizing it. It seemed unfair somehow.
Then she noticed one tiny boat—no more than a rowboat, really—that floated apart from the rest. It was by itself and farthest out, right at the edge of the bay, closest to her.
A person sat hunched over in the prow of the boat, gazing gloomily out to sea. Ariel frowned, squinting to see better. She was tempted to paint over the blurry details with her imagination: a patch-eyed pirate or stump-legged old sea captain, chewing on a pipe stem, dreaming of his glory days and looking out for a storm that would never come.
But there was something about him…his hair was a little too glossy and black. And though he sat bent over, the curved angles of his back seemed still sleek with the muscle, sinew, and fat of youth. His hand reached up to pull his coat tighter in a strangely familiar gesture—
Ariel gulped. If she had a voice she might have yelped.
It was Eric.
Without a splash she sank beneath the waves: soundlessly, immediately, eerily—like any sea creature that didn’t want to be seen. No drama, no excited tail thwap.
She hovered just below the surface, blinking slowly, heart pounding.
“Ariel…？” Flounder asked, nervous at her behavior.
She looked at him, chagrined. She made the sign, spelling out the runes:
Eric.
“WHAT?”
She held up a finger, translatable into any language: one moment.
Keeping her motions small and efficient, she swam closer to the boat, around the back, and silently poked her head above the water. There were, of course, sharp-eyed sea widows and captains, girls on the shore hoping to see something great and boys who wanted a prize for spotting a whale or its ambergris. But on the whole, humans were oblivious to the quiet world around them. She counted on that, and the sailor’s eyes on the horizon, to keep her invisible.
It was indeed Eric.
His eyes were still the same dreamy sky blue—or sea blue, right before the sea becomes the sky. But they no longer looked prone to crinkling up in smiles of confused delight. Now they stayed wide, focused on things she couldn’t see, miles and hours and worlds away from the bay.
His face was thinner, his appearance paler than that of a man who liked spending his days on a boat should have been. Still too healthy to be haggard, but not carefree.