Treasuring the last mermaid (Now published so sample size only)

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Of all the places I could've swam too, I went straight to the palace. I had heard Byron calling out my name but I'd chosen to ignore him. My old familiar room of the palace, the one place where I learnt all of the languages of the ocean. Where I'd played with friends, had fun and spent my nights dreaming of who would mer bond with me. Now it only remained empty, quiet and desolate.

I cocooned myself within my kelp hammock and lamented my loss. Byron's words had devastated me. I was the very cause of my species destruction, so how could I be it's saviour? My father should've saved one of my older brothers. They were upstanding mer who didn't have strange ideas as I did.

I wallowed in my heart break. My despair gripped me tightly and I couldn't see beyond my own pain and loss.

"Coral?" Byron's voice jolted me to alertness.

How did he find me? I was royal and could out swim any normal mer. Then again, he wasn't a normal mer. Byron was a blue moon mer and human mixture. I still wasn't sure what to think about that either.

"Coral, I know you're here because the animals I could understand told me you came here. I can't enter through all of this kelp. All I want to know is that you're okay." Byron called out to me.

As badly as I wanted to continue ignoring him, I couldn't bring myself to act that rudely. Byron had shown me his honest mer self. He'd shown me someone I never expected to find.

With a deep sigh, I slipped from my hammock and made my way to the outer edges of the palace. The kelp opened for me with a gentle wave of my hand. Byron stood on the other side still struggling with the kelp.

"It's here to protect the palace." I told him.

Byron flew backwards, startled at my sudden approach, "Coral," he relaxed the second he saw me. "You really do have a golden tail. I didn't imagine that."

He swam closer and peered at me. I swam swiftly away, not wanting to have him examine me. After hearing his story tonight, I didn't want him to know who I was. His hand grabbed hold of my wrist before I could go too far, so I stopped.

"You're royal," he murmured, but I didn't reply. "I've got about a billion questions, but I can see that I freaked you out so I'm not going to ask any of them." He stopped talking and the pause between us extended.

"I'm staying here tonight."

I had no clue why I'd said such an inane thing. Maybe it was having his fingers against my skin and warming the frozen parts of me. Maybe it was the awkwardness I received by the way he watched me. I didn't know.

"Where is here exactly?" Byron waved an arm out towards the giant rows of kelp that kept my home secure.

"The palace." I stated.

"Do you mean the palace of the royal mer?" he sounded awed.

"I'm mer royal, not that it means much nowadays." I murmured the last part.

He released his grip on me and tucked both hands behind his back. A couple of swift blinks later, and his shock managed to overwhelm him. I guess he didn't expect one of his employees to be mer, let alone royal mer.

Silence stretched between us. Byron refused to look at me and started frowning. He kept his hands behind his back, gulped in a breath through his gills and his look of awe returned.

"I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to act now." Byron admitted as he stared at the sand beneath his tail.

"What does that mean?" I couldn't understand this strange way he'd started acted.