Now she was forced to notice them, to keep an eye on them, to be aware of what ulterior motives they had: to wed the queen, maybe to become king.
Ha, she thought bitterly. If only they knew what a pain it is to rule.
She hadn’t been even a tide-cycle into her new office before she had begun to understand her father’s temper and moods. He had been a firm leader who rarely smiled, presenting the perfect image of an old god: stony-faced, bearded, permanent. Prone to glowering and frowning. She and her sisters always teased him, trying to win smiles from him, trying to get him to steal an hour from his duties to play with them. Mostly they had to content themselves with his presence at official functions, banquets, and performances like the one Ariel had skipped—the one that had started the whole thing.
She wished she could tell him she understood. Being a ruler was hard. It made one frown, turn pensive, grumpy.
It should have been an easy job; the merfolk and their allies were the happiest, most carefree peoples in the world.
Well, until a tribe of branzinos moved a little too close to the viewing garden of a royal cousin.
Or the shark-magister insisted on expanding his people’s hunting rights all the way to Greydeep Canyon.
Or, far more importantly, a reef suddenly turned white and died for no apparent cause. Or the diamondback terrapins couldn’t make it to their favorite nesting place because there were houses there now. Or the humans had managed to catch—and eat—an entire delegation from the northern seas. Or the number of fishing vessels was getting too large to ignore, to relegate to the unwritten and ancient Dry World–Sea World laws of yore.
Yet despite these much more pressing concerns, cousin Yerena still complained about the branzinos and her garden and “their ugly faces.”
It made Ariel irritable just thinking about it.
Besides general grumpiness, there was another more serious similarity between the king and his daughter. Any joy Triton had taken in life, even with his daughters, was constantly shadowed by sorrow over his dead wife.
Any respite Ariel took in her new life was constantly shadowed by her sorrow and guilt over her dead father.
And so she ruled, firmly and well, but silently and with much melancholy.
She cleared her throat, one of the few noises she could still make, and was leaning forward to give the little crab a piece of her mind when Flounder came swimming up.
Her old friend was larger and happily fatter than when they had first set out to the surface years ago. He had a medallion around his neck to show rank; the imprint of the trident meant he was in the innermost ring of the royal circle. But unlike the adorable little helper fish and servant seahorses, he didn’t turn his chest into the light or waggle to make the golden disk extra obvious. He remained, despite the years and accumulated wisdom, likable, down-to-seafloor Flounder.
“My Queen!”
He swooped in front of her, ignoring Sebastian, and gave the low bow that was required of all but Ariel usually tried to stop—at least from him and Sebastian.
Ariel cocked her head at him: go on.
“I’ve just had some strange—really, really strange—news from a plaice, who heard it from a turtle, who heard it from a dolphin…Wait, I think it was the plaice from the turtle. There might have been another messenger in between. A bluefish, maybe?”
He felt Ariel’s impatience before she even displayed it.
“There is a seagull on the surface who claims to have news for your ears only.”
Ariel’s eyes widened.
She signed carefully, spelling out the name.
Is it Scuttle?
“No, My Queen,” Flounder said, trying not to show his own disappointment. “It was hard to make out through all of the…parties involved, but I believe it is a younger one, and a female.”
Ariel practically wilted.
Seagulls were useless. Scuttle was a rare bird. Scattered but goodhearted, prone to flights of exaggeration, but a true friend. It should have been him coming to visit.
For several years after the day she lost her father, Ariel had tried to return to the land to see Eric and to take revenge on Ursula. But the wily sea witch had used her now very prosaic powers as a human princess to set guards all along the coast—officially, in “case of an enemy kingdom attack, or pirates.” In some cases, close to the castle, guards were literally stationed in the water, up to their calves.
With Scuttle’s help Ariel had tried to evade the guards, sneaking in while the gull whipped up a distraction. But it was never enough, and the men were all on high alert for strange, witchy red-haired girls.