Ariel took the paper and carefully unrolled it. There were indeed blobs that could have been islands, surrounded by multiple outlines, like mountains that had been cut into slices and redrawn. She turned the map this way and that, trying to make sense of it.
And then it suddenly clicked into place—like when the water is foggy with plankton and a current comes and sweeps it clear so you can see the reef on the other side, or when the sand stirred up by a blenny finally settles.
“This isn’t a map of Dry World islands,” she said slowly. “This is a map of my home.
“Ursula means to destroy Atlantica.”
“Atlantica?” Eric asked. “You mean…your kingdom?”
“Yes, look.” Ariel tapped at the parchment. “This is the Canyon of Dendros. This is the Field of Akeyareh, where ancient mer warriors fell in the battles against the Titans. Their bodies drifted to the seafloor and their bones turned the sand white. This is the Cleft of Neptune’s…uh…‘Back,’ a valley with hot geysers and occasional magma flows. This is the Mound of Sartops, where our priests and artisans tend to live; it looks out into the great depths of the ocean—some say to infinity. I know this map like the ribs in my tailfin.”
If she had her tail right now, it would be tipping and thwapping the water in consternation. Kicking her foot didn’t seem the same somehow.
“The munitions Ursula ordered…” Eric said, thinking. “They’re not to wage war on our neighbors—or even Ibria, as I thought she might eventually do. It all makes perfect sense now! Tarbish’s reluctance, all the explosives, the dynamite. She’s going to drop depth charges—they’ll detonate gunpowder-filled mines down on your city.”
Death from above.
Ariel looked at the map. She had no idea what those extra words meant. She understood explosive and your city. Ursula could direct her ships exactly where she wanted them, and then, thanks to the cursed gravity that made life so hard for Ariel on land, the witch could simply drop the weapons on Atlantica and obliterate it. Eric talked about gunpowder and die-namite with the same trepidation he did her own powers.
“By destroying her fleet you might have saved your kingdom,” Eric said softly.
Ariel was seized by a strange fit of panic. What if she hadn’t? What if she hadn’t lost her temper and impulsively done that?
“Why?” she finally asked, voice cracking. “She’s got my dad, she’s got your kingdom, she’s got me beat no matter what I do! What more does she want? Why does she need to destroy everything?”
“She’s not a rational being, Ariel. She’s like…a walking mouth that’s hungry all the time. She sees something and she wants it. So she does everything she can to get it. She wanted revenge on your father and you. She thought she got it, and was content, and moved on to the next thing—ruling Tirulia. But then you showed up again. To stop her. You’re like an annoying gnat she can’t slap away.”
“I don’t know what a ‘gnat’ is.”
“Um…kind of like a remora? Tiny thing that bites you and sucks your blood and irritates you?”
“I’m a parasitic fish that has latched on to her and won’t let go,” Ariel said flatly, trying not to imagine what the words looked like.
“No, that’s not—look, forget the gnat. And the remora. She hates you, maybe just because you remind her of your dad. Weirdly, I don’t think she’s just jealous of your beauty or youth, which is how it would go in a traditional fairy tale,” he added, looking thoughtful. “That’s sort of how I made it in my opera, and it’s a motive that most people understand. Audiences love that kind of thing; jealousy is simple, it makes sense. But I don’t think that’s all of what’s going on here.”
Ariel mentally replayed the scene of going to talk to Ursula about giving her legs, but from a different perspective—Ursula’s. There she was, a pretty, talented mermaid princess with a voice people would kill for, not a care in the world, and a future paved in pearls. And she had basically told the sea witch she was utterly discontented with her lot and wanted to be someone—and somewhere—else entirely.
And there was Ursula, perhaps rightfully exiled from the kingdom, but exiled nonetheless. Aged. Forced to deal with her fate alone. Bitter and resentful. In swims this pretty mermaid…
“Oh, my cod,” Ariel said, putting a hand to her head. “What an idiot I was. I didn’t even stop to think…She’s a witch. ‘Hello, could you give me a pair of legs? For close to free? Even though you don’t like my father?’”