This Drowning Kingdom

Chapter 2

She made it back just before high tide. 

 Bullus looked disappointed as she swam up to him. "Well?" he said after dismissing one of his soldiers. "What did you gather?"

Ariel scowled at his dismissive tone. "They're going after the Caspian stronghold," she said, "but they're not sure when. The rebels are meeting at a reef—he refused to say any more than that."

His eyes narrowed. "Surely the Huntress could have gathered far more than that."

Ariel merely shrugged. "He didn't want to talk," she said. "So I killed him."

"And what of the guards? I do believe Alon and Zac should have returned with you."

"There was a shark," she said coolly. "If they cannot handle common predators, they shouldn't be in the ocean, much less palace guards." The statement was true enough, but the shark hadn't been the predator that had led to Alon and Zac's death.

Bullus scowled, eyes narrowing, but said nothing more on the subject. "She's expecting you in the throne room."

Ariel forced down the wave of dread that threatened to overtake her and kept her face schooled into a mask of calm. "And I suppose you're to escort me there?"

Bullus's answering grin was nothing short of lethal.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ursula was waiting when they arrived.

Bullus bowed deeply, and Ariel forced herself to follow suit. "Your Majesty," Bullus said. While he recounted what she had told him, Ariel focused on her sister, waiting attentively by her aunt's side. Althea looked well enough—her pale skin was free of scrapes and bruises, though a scar that began in her back and wrapped around her side was ever prominent. Althea didn't dare glance at Ariel, though her yellow-and-gold tail flicked a little as Ariel drew nearer to the queen.

Ursula didn't deign to look at Ariel. "Send legions to every reef in a ten-mile radius of the town immediately. Any rebel activity is to be put down, but you are to bring back one prisoner."

For the Huntress to torture and interrogate, were the unsaid words that echoed around the room.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Bullus said. He bowed again, then turned to leave the room. Ariel kept her gaze in front of her as Bullus left, staring at nothing.

"I have not forgotten that it is your birthday next week," her aunt said once Bullus was gone, finally turning toward her. Ariel blinked back her surprise. "And as you are turning seventeen, I have decided that it is time to find you a husband." Ursula waved a hand through the water. "By this time next year, you are to be wed, and my kingdom's future secure."

Ariel's nostrils flared, and she finally looked up at Ursula and her sister. Althea's face remained passive, uninterested, at her aunt's side. It wasn't a surprise—she'd been an infant when Ursula's reign began, when Ariel's father and sisters were massacred as Ursula overtook the throne. She'd left only Ariel and her baby sister alive—an heir and a puppet, should she ever have need for one.

Or a replacement, her aunt had hissed at Ariel, who'd been eleven at the time and Althea five. But then, only months later, she'd proved that Althea was not to be used as a replacement, but rather as leverage. To keep the Huntress in line.

And it was around Althea's shoulders that a tentacle now creeped. So Ariel pushed back her shock, her revulsion, her fear, but she could not stop the slight shake of her voice as she asked, "Whom am I to marry?"

Ursula grinned, a lethal, dangerous thing. "You have met him once before," she said. "And despite your differences, he is the one who will make this kingdom stronger." Her aunt paused, studying Ariel for her reaction as she said, "Douglass of the Drowned Sea is to be the future King of Atlantica."