This Drowning Kingdom

Chapter 6

She'd been tracking him all day—or trying to, at least. After overhearing his conversation with his sister, Ariel had followed him all the way to the palace, where he had disappeared behind its walls. So Ariel had turned right around and had set about finding the Benbow Inn he and his sister had mentioned.

After wandering around for an hour and having seen no signs whatsoever about the Inn, she'd taken to asking the locals for directions. Unfortunately for him, the first man she'd asked had been a little too friendly for her liking. He'd been drunk, and his clothing had told her more than enough about his spoiled upbringing. The man was now knocked unconscious in an abandoned alley by the docks (air resisted far less than water did when one threw a punch, Ariel realized quickly), and when the man awoke he would find himself with a broken nose and a considerably lighter coin pouch. Ariel's small splurge on breakfast that morning had left her own savings running low, and she figured that he would replenish his lost coins in no time.

Of course, it was only after Ariel had punched him that she realized she had never actually gotten the directions she needed, so she'd had to go up to yet another person. Thankfully, the next woman—a fisherman's wife, if Ariel had to guess—had given her directions without any hassle.

So Ariel had found the tavern, sat down at a forgotten table pushed to the side, and waited. She'd been anxious all day—she only had one shot of getting aboard this expedition, and was still unsure about how she would go about doing it. But when the Crown Prince had snuck away from the festivities in the main room, when he'd stood alone at a large map across the tavern, she knew that this would be her one and only shot. So she'd swallowed down her hatred, her anger, and approached.

He was now staring at her with a mix of confusion and suspicion, but Ariel only jerked her chin at the map and said, "This is beautiful."

He turned back to it, his eyes softening. Ariel hadn't been lying—the map was one of the best she'd ever seen. It had been embroidered in a mix of golds, blues, and greens. Each kingdom, each territory, had been painstakingly labeled by hand, and each ocean had a unique symbol to mark it. Her own ocean, Ariel realized with no small amount of dread, had a golden seashell right where Atlantica sat.

Almost against her will, her eyes jumped to the Drowned Sea—Douglass's territory. It was fitting, she thought, that a skull should represent her betrothed's ocean.

"I heard," Ariel said suddenly, her voice quiet, "that you're looking for... an expert, of sorts. For your voyage."

The prince glanced at her sidelong. "Maybe. What do you know?"

Ariel shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

He pointed to a section of water not far from Atlantica. "What do you know about mermaid territories around here?"

"Well," Ariel said, studying the small portion of the sea, "I know these waters are too shark-infested for many mermaids to survive there. The sharks—they hunt in droves, and mermaids would need to travel in groups to survive getting from place to place. It doesn't make for a very good living spot."

She refrained from glancing down at her left arm, where three long, jagged scars stood out against her pale skin. Just a few months ago, Ursula had sent her to those waters to hunt down a group of rebels residing in the dark caves surrounded by sharks. She'd gone expecting to convince the rebels to flee, but they'd ambushed her before she had the chance to even find their hideout, sending a pack of sharks chasing after her. She'd killed the beasts, but the fight had exhausted her, so much so that when the rebels came for her, she could not fight them off.

So she'd spent two days in their caves, chained to a rock and tortured for information about the Sea Queen. She'd told them nothing, even as they cut her arm open and sewed it roughly back together more times than Ariel could count. And when she had finally shattered her chains, had finally freed herself from her shackles, the bloodletting had begun, and she'd slaughtered them all.