Everything You Are - Orm Marius/Ocean Master

Chapter Thirteen - Painful Truths

Aurelia awoke hacking up water and sand, once again in the great hall before the king and prince, and most of Atlantis.

Beside her, Mera was in a very similar state.

"W-what happened?" Aurelia slurred.

"Aurelia, they're tracking you."

"What?"

"They were tracking you-" Mera nodded to Aurelia's wrist.

She looked down. Orm's mother's bracelet was staring her in the face. "You son of a bitch-" In one swift movement she slipped it off, it falling to the floor, and raised her fist above it-

"NO!" Orm's cry came too late.

Her fist came down upon the piece of jewelry, crushing it with one blow.

When Aurelia looked up, she was met by the devastated look of the prince as he stared at the shards that had just seconds ago been his mother's bracelet.

He gently and with great care scooped up the pieces.  "This was my mother's bracelet.  I trusted you with it."

"And I trusted you.  And you were tracking me!"

"You see, I knew she couldn't be trusted," spoke-up Orvax.

But Aurelia and Orm were too busy shouting at each other to pay the king any attention.

"Spoiled brat!" she spat.

"Dirty, rotten half-breed," he shot back.

That hurt, she felt it strike in her chest like a wound.

"Enough." Orvax rose to his feet. "You saved me a lot of work. Because of you I am now one step closer to recovering Atlan's trident." He held up the bottle she and Mera had found in the Deserter Kingdom, giving a smug grin.

"You don't deserve it. I hope you never find it! I don't care though, I just want out of here. I hate it here!"

"My banishing you and forbidding you to return failed before."

"I'll leave - forever. But first, I want to see my mother."

The silence following her request was broken by the chuckle of the king. "Oh, you foolish girl.  So hopeful. Your mother is dead."

If Orm's words had hurt, these words were agonizing. For years, unlike her father's ability to see the truth, part of her had accepted that her mother wouldn't be returning to them. But hearing it confirmed with such certainty and smugness knocked her breath from her body and left her feeling limp and frail.

"Atlanna was a deserter, and closely associated herself with the surface dwellers. She abandoned her home, people, and duty."

"Duty? Cause she wouldn't marry you? So you killed her?"

"She had to pay for her crimes. She was sacrificed to the Trench, left to the mercy of the savage creatures there."

The room spun before everything became clear in striking focus - all she knew was rage.

She began heaving heavy breaths, gritting her teeth, eyes narrowed. With a roar, she dove forward. Orvax seemed strangely calm despite her attack, like he had anticipated it, and simply waved his trident towards her.

The next thing she knew, she was struck by a burst of water and swallowed up by a whirlpool.

------------------------------

Both she and her mother's trident shot up from the depths, landing hard on the sand of one of Amnesty Bay's beaches. She coughed up more water, throat and chest burning, gripping the trident in a firm grip, sensing a presence behind her.