Page 9 of Tangled Sails

His brow seemed to be perpetually furrowed, though I wouldn’t call his expression angry. Just…pensive. Perhaps moody, though I was smart enough to know I shouldn’t say that to him. “Don’t be. This is better. Different, but better.”

I looked to the door of his cabin, which had been left open. Several curious sailors lingered just outside. I thought perhaps the open door was supposed to be reassuring, but it wasn’t. The prince was the only one who looked at me without either awe or suspicion. At least half of the crew seemed to believe I was a mermaid who’d miraculously procured legs.

“Your name?” the prince asked.

I returned my attention to him, noting for the first time that I liked his face. “Lyrielle.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lyrielle. And where are you from?”

Should I tell him? I’d escaped and didn’t want to return, but now that my hair and my gift of healing were gone, perhaps going home would not be so terrible. As fear and discomfort surged within me, I immediately dismissed that idea, however. I didn’t want to return. Yet, no lie came to mind. I had to say something, but I knew very little about any other kingdom or land, and lying was not in my nature.

“From Eldmere,” I confessed.

His brow scrunched even more. “I’ve never heard of Eldmere.”

“No? It’s a village in Branfrie,” I said, curious if that name was still known to the outside world. The shroud that had been erected around Branfrie was for the express purpose of hiding it and its existence from anyone but its inhabitants, but before the shroud had been erected, Branfrie had been a kingdom similar to any other.

His eyebrows pinched together. “I don’t know that name.”

That was best. The world outside of Branfrie hated magic, and I had no wish for them to suspect that I had magic—or rather, that I used to have magic.

“And I am well versed in the geography of this area,” he pointed out. His stern expression seemed to suggest that he thought I was hiding something, but I was just as lost as he was.

“Then perhaps you can tell me where I am.” I kept squeezing my hair, the strangeness of the situation coming to the forefront of my mind and beginning to bring panic with it.

“You don’t know where you are?”

“I know I’m on a ship, in the…sea.” Squeeze and wring, squeeze and wring.

His eyes studied me for several moments, then he went to the door, closed it, and returned to me. “What ship were you on before?”

“I wasn’t.” My hands fisted around my hair, trying to hold on to something.

His eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“I wasn’t on a ship,” I reiterated.

“Did you swim?”

I threw the cloth on the ground and the blanket slipped from my shoulders. “I don’t know how to swim.”

“Well then how—”

“I don’t know,” I snapped as all the questions, insanity, fear, and unknown rose up to drown me. “It’s madness. I shouldn’t be here. I’ve never even seen the sea before, much less touched it.” My voice rose with each declaration as my eyes darted about, trying to find anything around me that would make sense. I wanted to see something familiar, something that felt real, but I was unmoored, so I kept rambling as he moved closer. “It shouldn’t be possible. I was in my room. I was finally leaving my room. Leaving that tower. But then I fell and…”

“You fell from a ship?” he interrupted, his voice loud to match the volume of my own even as he pulled the blanket back over my shoulders.

“There was no ship!”

“There had to have been a ship,” he insisted. “Perhaps you just don’t remember.”

“I remember it perfectly.” I burst to my feet, and he had to step back as I ranted, trying to put into words something that I still couldn’t fathom. “I fell from my tower, and instead of falling to my death, I was dropped in the sea. I told you, it’s madness. Impossible. I don’t understand it, but I’m here, and I’m wet, and you’re real, and this room is solid, and I don’t know how that could be when a few minutes ago, I was just trying to get out. I was just trying to get away.” I covered my eyes with the heels of my hands and dug my fingers into the front of my hair, breathing hard.

TAVRIC

She was trying to get away…from who? Despite all her answers to my questions, which truly weren’t answers at all, that was the one detail I was stuck on. It shouldn’t have surprised me. A young lady would not end up swimming—or rather drowning—in the middle of the Lantis Ocean without some sort of trouble putting her there.

Despite the fact that I’d been looking for a mermaid, I hadn’t actually expected to jump into the ocean and save one from drowning.