Now her sister appeared sunken. Her lips relayed she was okay. But her face?
Her face was one belonging to a poor, tortured soul.
Except mermaids didn’t have souls.
So why, then, did the emotion behind her sister’s expression suggest otherwise?
Coral caressed the crown princess’s pale hand as if it were fashioned from sea glass. She squeezed it and her sister’s lashes lowered. They stayed there for a moment, just the two of them. When her sister opened her gemstone eyes, she looked straight into Coral’s. The crown princess blinked rapidly, and that’s when Coral saw it.
A single tear, pooling in the corner of one eye.
Coral backed away and their hands disconnected. She shook her head. “Sister . . .” She had no words. Mermaids could not cry. They had no tears to shed. This was impossible. Unfathomable.
Unless . . .
What if the Disease . . .
Could the Disease make a mermaid . . .
Human?
Another shiver racked Coral’s being. She swallowed, focused on her sister, studying the way the tear doubled in size, then slipped silently down her cheek and over her delicate jaw.
The crown princess’s brows were knit and scrunched, her tail trembling beneath the shawl.
“My prince never loved me,” she whispered again. “He never will.”
Coral’s chest tore in two at the shadowed sound of her brokenhearted words. “Sister . . .” She licked her lips and consumed her fear. Waves lapped against her neck and her hair floated around her. Maybe her sister was referring to Father. He was a prince once, after all. “Father loves you. He means well, he—” Coral couldn’t finish the sentence.
The crown princess tilted her head to face Coral. “Not Father.”
“Who then?”
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re too young. What I’ve done . . . It’s forbidden. Now Red Tide comes,” she said. “It seeks out those like us.”
Coral winced. “Us?”
Her sister cupped her cheek with one palm. “You have remained the sweetest of us three, Coral. The most sensitive. If you are not careful, you will fall prey to the Disease as I have.”
“But what if—”
The crown princess hushed Coral again with a single finger to her lips. She shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking. Nothing can be done for me now. Red Tide is . . . inevitable.”
Coral’s lower lip quivered. Why did she feel six instead of nearly sixteen? “You can fight it.” Her statement was a plea. Please fight it, Sister. I can’t lose you. She blew her hair from her eyes, too desperate to bother hiding the fact she had eavesdropped on her sister’s earlier conversation. “I know things with Father are tense, but—”
“Tense?” The hollow sound of her sister’s laugh caught in her throat. “There is so much you don’t know, Coral. Nothing can be done. Father would banish me if he knew. I welcome Red Tide. It’s an easier fate than what he would plan.”
“No!” Coral’s soft cry became a full-on yelp. “I won’t let it take you! We will go to Father together. Whatever you’ve done cannot be as bad as you claim.”
Coral’s throat tightened. She couldn’t find words fitting for the moment. If her sister had lost her hope, what could Coral say to help her find it? She swallowed. “Red Tide. Will. Not. Take. You.” Each syllable required extreme effort. “It can have me, but it cannot have you.”
“I am afraid”—her sister swept away a lock of hair that had been stuck to Coral’s forehead—“you do not have a choice.”
Coral’s eyes burned, but no tears released. The tear her sister shed had long since dried, but a trail down one side of her face left its mark.
The tear had been real.
When the someday queen placed her arm around Coral’s shoulders and drew her in, holding her the way she had so many years ago, the little mermaid wished on every sea star in the ocean that she could cry as humans did.
Perhaps her sister was right. Perhaps Red Tide was inevitable.
Her own hope sank. Was she foolish to believe their curse might be cured or controlled?
“Promise me something.” Slender fingers stroked Coral’s hair, running through the tangles and loosing them with tiny tugs.
Coral nodded into her sister’s embrace. She usually possessed more words than anyone. Now she felt as hollow as an abandoned crab shell.
“If you ever find love, true love, hold on to it.”
Coral gulped against the lump lodged in her throat. “Why?”
“Because,” her sister breathed. “True love makes life, even a broken one, worth fighting for.”
Coral turned her face into her sister’s shoulder and inhaled her saltwater taffy scent, unsure how to respond or what to ask. Coral’s pulse thump, thump, thumped against her skin. She wished the sound wasn’t so red.
Red brought heartbreak. Red brought doom.
“True love is a rare treasure, as mysterious and unfathomable as life on land.” The crown princess tilted Coral’s chin with one finger so they were eye to eye again. “But do not be deceived. Not all who claim to love truly do. Be wary to give your heart away, lest it be tossed into the Abyss, never to beat again.”
Her words began to piece together in Coral’s mind.
“My prince never loved me. He never will.”
Coral wanted to shake her sister out of her current state. To assure her that whoever did not love her did not matter as much as the mermaid floating before her now.
Coral’s love was true. And nothing could change that.
“I love you, Sister.” Why did her words sound halfhearted on her lips? Was it that fear kept her from speaking the mermaid’s true name?
Coral opened her mouth to do so. She wanted nothing more than to honor and acknowledge her sister in this way, even if no one else would.
But the crown princess pressed a finger to Coral’s lips. “I know.” She didn’t say Coral’s love was not enough. She didn’t have to.
“How do you know so much about true love?” Maybe the more Coral knew, the closer she would come to saving her. To saving them both.
“The Sorceress of the Sea told me.”
Coral shuddered, but the spasm had nothing to do with the chill of the night air against her clammy skin. They’d heard the tale since they were old enough to swim on their own. Jordan used it to scare Coral before she went to sleep at night. And their father mentioned it to keep his princesses from venturing too far past their bounds. The waters they resided in were tame, with rarely a predator to be seen. Close enough to the shore, but not too close. Far enough out, but not too far. Too far would be the difference between tame and treacherous.
Deep in the darkest depths, near the Abyss where bones collect, lies the cavern of the Sorceress of the Sea. Wickedly clever, the Sorceress is tormented with more emotion than ten humans combined. It is because of this she rarely ventures from her lair. And why she invites those from the outside to become entrapped within her tentacle-like lies.
Mermaids before you have sought her out for knowledge. They seek answers beyond what they have been given. They search for a way to escape Red Tide.
There is no escape, of course. The Sorceress enjoys deception. She would have naïve little mermaids believe she alone holds the power to provide a cure, an end to the curse. The Sorceress claims power is found within her soul, the soul she does not possess. She would tell you human tears are healing, when in truth they are a sorcery of their own. Tears are what separate us from humans. Without them we are safely stored within ourselves.