Ursula's Beginning

30. When I lived in the palace

Four months of unbridled happiness—of meeting new interesting merfolk almost daily, of holding power in the temple and influence in the palace, of frequent parties and nightly lovemaking—gave Ursula an exuberance that surpassed even the gifts of the vitality spell.

After glowing pure white for countless decades, the temple began to turn a faint lavender. Ursula's force was beginning to replace Ephram's. The coral labyrinth reflected this also: the tidy masculine geometric patterns it had displayed for an eon gave way to feminine swirls and spirals.

The only thing that troubled Ursula—when it surfaced in her consciousness at all—was Cosmas. After being put off for four months, he was angry with her. He avoided her as much as possible to conceal it. She didn't really care; the true worry was how Ephram might feel once he discovered she didn't follow his training orders. But surely he would understand how busy she had been? Ephram had said nothing about the mass immigration into Atlantica before he left, so there was reason to assume he knew nothing about it. And Ephram was reasonable.

In truth, Ursula had settled into a routine after four months as High Priestess and could have easily trained with Cosmas. The housing situation was under control, so the length of her workdays returned to normal. She was done planning parties for the royals. There was now an empty stretch of time between the end of her workday and the beginning of her nightly rendezvous with Triton. But she couldn't bear to devote it to the study of prophecy because a new obsession had seized her.

The nautilus shell.

It had come on slowly enough that Ursula wasn't aware of it until she was locked in its grasp. In the beginning of her tenure as High Priestess, she would wear it now and then when she was alone at home. It was pretty, and after all, she had told Siddikah she would. Siddikah had done so much for her, too.

After some weeks of occasional wearing, she began to crave it. She wanted that cord around her neck and that shell just under her throat. She didn't know why, but by the end of the day she was desperate to get to her quarters and put it on. She started leaving it on for her nightly meetings with Triton. His initial shock gave way to fondness, as it looked so nice with the pearls she always wore for him.

Before sleep, she'd remove all other ornaments and slumber with the nautilus in place. Eventually, she was removing it in the mornings with great reluctance before heading to the temple. She felt incomplete without it—anxious, even. She liked to touch it, especially when thinking something over.

In the middle of the fourth month of her reign, something remarkable happened. Ursula was relaxing in her sitting room with Flotsam and Jetsam, stroking the nautilus absentmindedly. She was thinking about her birthday, which coincided with the end of her six month turn as High Priestess.

"Will Ephram show up at my party?" a peculiar voice said.

Ursula broke out in chills. Someone—or something—had just spoken her thought aloud. She looked around the room for the source of the sound. Jetsam, who had been curled up with Flotsam on the floor a moment ago, was now careening toward her with a panicked expression.

"It's ok, baby," she assured him.

Jetsam looked into her eyes and said, "But where in the hell is it coming from?" It was the same voice that had spoken a moment ago.

Ursula sprang up and away from her pet, shaking and clutching the nautilus still.

Ursula heard her thoughts expressed out loud a third time as Flotsam screeched"what's happening?!" from across the room. It was identical to the voice that had come from Jetsam.