getting stronger and higher. The water is getting darker and darker. Soon it will be pitch black.
Desdemona had sailed so far that the shores of Aquilania were no longer visible behind her. She had only been at sea for a few minutes. Can mermaids really swim so fast? She hadn’t been a mermaid all her life and suddenly she was. It was just before her nineteenth birthday.
Alarm bells went off in her brain. What if her transformation was a birthday present, followed by a deadly ritual? A voice, coming from an unknown place, was calling her to the temple. Which temple, she somehow never doubted for a moment. The sunken one!
But how was it to get there? And should she go there at all? She’s not crazy enough to willingly sacrifice herself. She has Moran, her lover and her king. She should go home to him. He’s more important than some creepy deity demanding tribute in girls’ lives.
In defiance of the calling voice, Desdemona turned and swam back to the shores of Aquilania. Someone was very angry with her. She felt someone’s fury gathering over her like a black cloud. As luck would have it, there was a thunderstorm. It was the beginning of a storm. A gust of strong wind literally threw Desdemona under the water. In the depths was a little calmer. Jellyfish and swordfish tried to swim away from Desdemona. Probably they feel that she is an enchanted mermaid, not a real one. But who bewitched her? Was it an ancient god who’s been waiting for her for a long time? She’s not even sure if he even exists or if it’s just a scary legend to scare the people. She’s never seen Darunon with her own eyes. And she’d do well not to in the future.
One living sea legend, Moran, was enough for her. Desdemona came to the surface with difficulty. It was like a counterweight had been attached to her tail. Some force was pulling her down.
Being a mermaid is good and pleasant only as long as you feel weightless in the water. Then the waves carry you forward like a grain of sand. Desdemona tried to regain the feeling of lightness and swam a little. The sea was getting stormier and stormier. It darkened rapidly. Soon it would be night, and she was alone on the open sea, with a scaly tail instead of legs. She wondered if the mermaid packs would mistake her for a tribeswoman if they saw her. So far there were no other mermaids or newts around. Desdemona came upon a log bobbing on the waves and was stunned. It was the same carved figure from the bow of the ship that the magic mirror had shown her that morning.
Up close, the wooden queen appeared beautiful and sinister. The empty eyes seemed cunning for some reason, as did the wooden lips curved in a sneer. Desdemona felt as if she had stumbled upon the corpse of a drowned woman, or worse, a sleeping magical creature. Moran had said something about oceanids being able to harden themselves to escape persecution.
“Are you alive or wooden?” Desdemona touched the exquisitely carved face. Every wooden curl, every prong of the crown was carved so skillfully that the figure seemed asleep. Curious as to which of the queens of Aquilania it was made in honor of? It was not Lilophea. She never became queen of Aquilania because she went to the sea kingdom. Could this wooden queen be a copy of her mother?
“Swim back! To me!”
Desdemona missed the last call. It could have been just an illusion created by the howling of the storm wind.
Suddenly, something pulled her harder to the bottom. Her tail seemed to split. The scales on her chest began to disappear. Desdemona gasped as she realized she was drowning. What a bad time to be a girl again. It would only take her five minutes to swim back to shore.
She tried to grasp the wooden queen, but her fingers only slid across its surface. She seemed to have picked up a splinter. It didn’t matter! Another wave hit her head.
“The Queen is drowning!” squeaked the suddenly awakened ring.
How belatedly it had awakened! All it took was to turn back into a girl to rouse its vigilance.
Something like an octopus limb wrapped around Desdemona’s ankle and pulled her down. And the storm was getting worse. This is the end! Desdemona prepared to drown before her fateful nineteenth birthday, when suddenly someone incredibly strong grabbed her around the waist. He swam up suddenly, just surfaced from the stormy wave and embraced her.
“Hold on!” It was Moran’s voice. It was sweeter than heavenly music in the stormy sea.
How long did it take Moran to swim to her? Was it a minute? How long had it been since the ring had given voice?
Something like a huge kraken was pulling her to the bottom, but as soon as Moran tugged her toward him, the something receded.
“There’s a wooden queen floating in the water,” Desdemona whispered, eagerly snuggling into Moran’s cold chest. “Do you think she called me here?”
“It is surely not her!” Moran turned to the wreck of the ship, which the waves had already carried far away. It’s a wonder it hasn’t sunk yet.
“I just turned into a mermaid! Do you believe me?”
Obviously, no one could believe such a thing, because there was no answer.
As it turned out, Moran didn’t need his hands to swim. He held Desdemona tightly. Only his octopus-like limbs were shoveling water. In a fraction of a minute he reached the shore, but he did not enter the usual way through doors or loggias, but climbed straight up the wall to the window of the king’s bedroom. It seemed to Desdemona that they both flew.
Livia and Bersaba instantly realized they needed to light the fireplace and heat the wine. Moran laid a shivering Desdemona on the bed. She felt light kisses on her neck and lips. They were sweet, but they sent a chill through her.
“Ariana’s warming elixirs have run out today,” Moran whispered, pulling away, “but tomorrow she will fly in and bring new ones. In the meantime, sleep!”
The pearl on the ring mumbled something unhappily, but Desdemona did not listen to it. Her consciousness sank into sleep as into a dark swamp.
Troubadour
Desdemona dreamed that she was lying on her mother’s grave in a quiet, marshy garden near the family crypt. The honeysuckle-covered coffin slab is cracked, and something is swarming underneath it, as if some monster were tearing its way out of the earth and mire. Something is pounding with a clawed claw on the other side of the slab, and she lies on her back and cannot move. She’s wearing a wedding dress. But for some reason it’s purple instead of white. Are there any wedding gowns that are red in color? Or has the dress turned purple from the blood? Her head hurts like hell. That’s because there are many red roses in her hair. These roses are supposed to be jewelry because they blend so well with her blue-black curls, but the flowers have such sharp thorns! These roses were definitely brought by Dodger. Somehow she knows that. If only she could pluck them out of her hair and feel the reassurance that the thorns are gone, but she can’t move an arm or a leg. It’s as if she’s paralyzed by some magical force. And someone standing over the grave had already swung a sickle at her. The smell of roses became suffocating. Desdemona had time to think only that the gilded sickle looked like a month glittering in the sky. And then the sickle sliced her neck. The head, adorned with roses, flew away and rolled across her mother’s grave.
Desdemona awoke in horror and touched her neck. The head seemed to be in place. In the dream, the sensation of being beheaded was painfully real.
Moran wasn’t in her bedroom. Apparently he had left during the night. Desdemona vaguely heard, as she fell asleep, some voices calling for him from the water. It was a whole chorus. Or had she just dreamed it?
Life had turned in such a fantastic way that soon she wouldn’t be able to distinguish dreams from reality, or fairy tales from reality. Moran promised he’d get a visit from a real sea fairy. She wondered what she looks like and what she can do? Desdemona had only read about fairies in fairy tales, but she could guess that seeing a fairy would definitely be much more pleasant than running into a Copycat in the corridors pretending to be someone