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“Am I an ocean lady? I’ve never been near an ocean,” she nearly said, “Never sailed,” but she was quick to realize it.
“You look like an ocean lady!”
Fragments of a dream came to mind at once: the mermaid ship, the glow from the hold, the two joined maidens. Lilophea felt dizzy.
“Home calls to you,” her dance partner admonished. “Your home is definitely in the ocean.”
“You’re confused about something.”
“I never get confused, that’s why I was made mentor to the local heir. I have the gift of knowing everything about everyone. I catch all enemies in my net.”
Lilophea has only now noticed that his fingernails, sharp as black blades, are not fake, but very natural.
“I am like a spider, entangling the states in nets of darkness, catching all attackers and even ambassadors in them. To a strong power, everyone is an enemy.”
Who has she become entangled with? She should have found a less aggressive partner to dance with. But did she have a choice? She doesn’t know anyone here, and everyone around her is wearing masks.
Lilophea noticed a long wet trail following one guest in a long garment of astrologer. So beneath the cap and mask hides the ugly head of a morgen.
“Shall I tell you in confidence?” The partner put his arm around Lilophea’s waist and pulled her toward him. “I’m going to take over soon. You want to keep me company on the throne. I am not the king of Aquilania. Oceanids are welcome. I find oceanids much better than capricious elves, proud fairies, or ordinary earth women who grow old with time. You oceanids are the standard of beauty for me.
And what makes him think she’s from the ocean? Well, let him think what he wants. Lilophea wasn’t going to tell him about herself. She was only here for an hour. She needed to entertain herself, dance, and then go back to the bridge. Her legs were tired from dancing. This had never happened to her before. Apparently, being underwater had taken its toll on her earthly abilities. It was easy to be frisky on land when she hadn’t yet gotten used to the ease and freedom of floating in the underwater realm. You don’t have to move your feet there at all, the water current carries you forward by itself. In general, both walking and dancing had become unaccustomed to her. Lilophea considered herself almost crippled by it.
“It is wine!” Lilophea noticed decanters and goblets on the tables and, forgetting all manners, she rushed to pour herself some wine.
“Be careful, it’s strong!” Shouted after the black elf, but she did not care. No wine on the seafloor, and such a variety of vintages here. She’d had three glasses in a row before she spotted the crystal decanter of water. It hadn’t been here a minute ago. Or was she seeing double after drinking it?
In the carafe floated a small turquoise fish with a puffy tail overgrown with small pearls. It looked from behind the crystal wall with amber-colored eyes, and then suddenly surfaced and clearly said:
“Come back, fugitive! They are waiting for you at home!”
Lilophea backed away. You have to get to the point of hearing a fish talking to you. But on the other hand, in the underwater kingdom she had not yet seen fish that can speak in human language?
There were several more morgens among the guests. Lilophea only now noticed them, and it didn’t even take a wet trail for that to happen. The morgens arrived in their usual form. Though their creepy faces, heads with patterned blue outgrowths, and long spiky tails could well be mistaken for elaborate masquerade costume. The tridents in their webbed paws gave them away as guards. They had most likely come to look for the king’s runaway wife.
And such guards could have been sent after her to every corner of the world. Not to mention her native Aquilania. Lilophea felt sick to her stomach. What had she done by running away? What if her father was already in trouble because of her?
The hour must have expired, for the spirit called to her from the bay window, which was visible again. Lilophea rushed over there.
The spirit sighed in relief and stopped gesticulating. The hourglass in his hands, on a stand of two water snakes, showed that time was running out. The blue sand in them was already almost all the way down into the lower compartment.
The bay window leading to the bridge was a loophole that could save her from any pursuit. After all, it’s so easy to get lost in the maze of bridges.
Lilophea gasped as she found a black net growing on the passage at the speed of the wind. Someone was deliberately blocking her way to the bridge. Thankfully, the spirit of the bridge clung to her and managed to drag her across the bay window.
“It’s the black elf,” Lilophea complained to the spirit, who must have been watching.
“Yes, I hadn’t considered it. I’m sorry. He’s strengthened his position in the country since I last flew here. Not long ago he was just a mentor, and now he’s gone so wild. Too bad the Jasper Bridge is beyond me. I don’t come here much. I only took you to the ball.”
“Will Morgen’s black net hold him for a while?” Lilophea was agitated.
“Weren’t they sent here for you?”
“What is it for?”
“Why should they? The underwater tsar has his own politics. There is been a lot of maneuvers. I’ve been flying here for centuries, and I’ve seen it all.”
“And Seal destroyed whole fleets?”
“What’s it to you? All your wealth is in the underwater kingdom. The more ships with valuable cargo are sunk, the richer you will be, Your Majesty!”
“But it’s cruel!”
“But it’s profitable.”
“You sound just like Seal. And like my father’s second minister Baldwin. And also like… Morrin.”
He was a privateer, so he thought profit was worth a man’s life. Only as she looked into his kind, youthful face, she never once thought of that.
“Don’t worry! Aquilania’s ships, barques, brigantines, caravels, and even little fishing boats are safe. Your husband has a treaty with Aquilania until you escape.”
“But I’ve already escaped.”
“All you did was go for a walk. That’s what I call it, and the other bridge spirits will agree with me when questioned. I’m friends with everyone here, and we’ll all support you. Just don’t go back. It’s so boring here without you.”
