These Gilded Seas

Chapter Three: All Things Lost

Finn chews me out the entirety of our swim home. Just when I think I've assured him that there's no way my father found out, one of our guards approaches us.

"Princess, your father is looking for you." His tone is just as sharp as the sword strapped to his back. It's also as disapproving as it always is. All the guards dislike me.

Or rather, they don't like the way I disregard their rules. It doesn't help that Papa has named me as his successor, despite the fact that I'm constantly pushing the boundaries he's so carefully laid out for me.

Then again, maybe that's exactly why he chose me.

"What does he need?" I ask, trying to paint a picture of innocence on my face.

"He didn't go into details, Your Highness. Something about a ship?" His eyes flash dangerously, glinting like the silver armor crossing his shoulders.

He knows. They both do.

Blessed Divine.

Finn whimpers behind me as the guard swims ahead. "We're going to be in so much trouble..."

"It'll be fine," I breathe, a reassurance to myself as much as to him.

"That's what you said last time, and I was the one stuck cleaning out the crab nests for a week. I was covered in bite marks and smelled like death! I'm still having nightmares about those little red demons." Finn wraps his arms around himself as we swim toward the glistening blue buildings of my home city—Hygge.

"I won't let him put your back on crab duty," I say with a laugh.

"Promise?"

"I promise, flounder."

He groans. "I said stop—"

The noise of the city cuts off the rest of his sentence. As soon as I breathe in the sight, the anger in my chest dissipates.

I'm home.

Hygge is the center of our empire, the heart of a kingdom that stretches across hundreds of miles of ocean—an amount that used to be triple that before the War. The city itself is laid out in a circle with curling, sandy streets nestled between low, open buildings. Most merfolk don't live in Hygge itself, preferring to scatter themselves across the small stretch of sand we've been allotted instead, but they always come back, day in and day out, to gather in the glittering shadows of Hygge palace.

Light filters through the water and casts a magical pattern on all the hand-carved, white stone. It dances in the waves camouflaging the hundreds of different species of fish that dart through windows and doorways. Tall stalks of sea-plants—mostly seaweed and kelp—stretch their green leafy fingers up for a drink of the precious sunlight. Algae grows on the corners of buildings; sea anemones and coral occupy the windowsills.

It's a rainbow of life, the flora and fauna blending interchangeably.

Everywhere you look, merfolk can be seen. They stand under dyed-seaweed awnings and argue over the price of textiles and produce. Children swim in circles, chasing one another and a sun-bleached rubber ball. Nearby, a man I know as Guisep plays a traditional song on his gleaming harp, and the noise carries through the bustle of Hygge's streets.

Nowhere in the world could match the comfort and energy that Hygge brings. Not even the knowledge that my father waits somewhere in the palace, ready to scold me, can dampen my mood now.

But he does wait. Unfortunately. So, I swim on.

As we pass by a merchant selling sea grapes, he waves happily at me. If I wasn't in such a hurry, I'd stop and see what secret human fruits he has stashed under his stand for me. If he has any. It's hard enough to magic land-fruits into preservation when we live in saltwater, but Papa's restrictions on human trade make them even more taboo. This particular merchant bends the rules for me occasionally, knowing sweets are my weakness.