They came to a reef wall out in the middle of nowhere, teeming with sea creatures that had no interest in what they were doing. The wall extended beyond the depths Yemi could see in any direction around her and turned to sharp cliffs above the surface. Ursla stopped them at a tunnel spewing warbled, warmer water out of its mouth.
“This is where I leave you,” said Ursla. “You’ll find Abyssa through there, but I can’t follow.”
“What? Why?” said Yemi.
“Hardly relevant, is it?”
Yemi scoffed. “It’ll be relevant if I’m turned away because your magic brought me here.”
It was Ursla’s turn to take offense rather than dish it for once. “Mysweet, treacherous little urchin, if you don’t get what you want here, it won’t be on me.”
Yemi groaned. The last thing she could afford was to be turned away after coming this far.
What could keep as powerful a being as Ursla from going wherever she damned well pleases?
And then it dawned on her. “Wait.Kindred spirits. You’ve been banished.”
Ursla shrugged it off. “Think of it less as ‘banishment’ and more of a separation of church and state. I am the church.”
Yemi laughed. “I didn’t know gods could be banished. If you created Abyssa, why is someone else ruling it in the first place? And how are they able to banish you?”
“How indeed.” Ursla chuckled grimly. “That deal is ancient. You can ask Helene all about it. But suffice it to say the throne has to be given by someone of royal blood. It cannot be taken.”
“Right,” Yemi said, not particularly caring. “Well, how does this work? How do I find you when I’m done?”
“That direction.” Ursla pointed west. “Look for a cave in the sand flats. Follow the bones.”
Yemi’s glee over Ursla seemingly having gotten what she deserved floundered at the idea of crossing a graveyard to find her again. She was likely who had killed the things that lay there.
“You should know, before you meet her, that the Mer queen isn’t the most… stable of creatures,” Ursla told her. “It isn’t her fault, poor thing. She was never suited to rule, but it was the position your grandmother’s departure left her in after Triton died. She does her best. But as a result, the world I created for our people is faded. It’s vanity that keeps your line in power. Our people could flourish under me, but they would rather crumble.”
Familiar,Yemi thought, mind drifting to Dahlia and Ixia.
“I’m curious how receptive you think she’ll be to this alliance. Didn’t you call yourself the Mer Queen? See, I might find that offensive. ‘Who is this girl with legs to take my title?’ I’ll bet you didn’t evenknow the real Mer queen’s name. If someone like that had come to me, there’s not a trick I wouldn’t have you turn to gain my favor.”
“I’m better at diplomacy than you might think,” Yemi replied, though hearing it out loud, it did seem like a problem.
“You’ve been a joy thus far,” Ursla said with a laugh. “Off you go.”
Yemi left her, tightening her grip on her spear in case she was being directed into the mouth of some legendary creature. The other side of the reef wall was a labyrinth of giant fan coral in shades of orange and violet that formed a series of walls between the city and the rest of the sea. She zigzagged between the massive screens, diving ever deeper and finally losing the sunlight inside a tunnel rimmed with glowing anemone. Hydrothermal vents belched clouded pockets of warmer water that stung her unadjusted eyes. She blinked furiously, barely dodging the rocks narrowing the path. Her humming became wildly, anxiously staccato in hopes it would keep her from spearing herself on a stalagmite. It was entirely possible she was being led into a lair of some sort; the tunnel was too narrow to bear the traffic of a city.
A spot of light appeared at the end of the tunnel, and she emerged through it to find a sprawling turquoise metropolis made bright by the glittering sunlight far overhead.
“Oh,” she gasped to herself. She was hovering over a trench that might have been a road, lined with sandstone buildings built into or carved from the surrounding rock. These were not the caves of lesser creatures. This was the inspired architecture of a people with a concept of art and aesthetic. Their clean lines stood out against wild gardens of coral and sea greens. All avenues led to a massive pink honeycomb structure the shape of a rosebud at the center of the city. She knew a palace when she saw one.
She clenched her fist around her spear. Part of her regretted this experience without Nova. And yet the stillness of the life here, the sheer absence of it, alarmed her. It was beautiful but not vibrant in the ways her grandmother had described. It felt like a mirage, and Yemi wondered if Ursla was capable of such an elaborate illusion.
She bobbed to the distant surface of the water to get some sense of where she’d ended up. Tall, jagged rocks formed a ring around the city as if it were at the heart of a giant crater. If it was enclosed with the only entrance deeper than any Man could ever discover, it was as protected from the elements as it was from their imaginations.
There was still little movement in the world below her, though, as she made her way to the palace. Save for the dozen or so heads that peeked curiously upward out of windows and doorways after her, the city from this angle seemed almost deserted.
Was she so obviously an outsider? She thought she knew this feeling—the sneers disguised as smiles, whispers in the streets, rumors of her gills, her animal teeth behind her human lips. She thought she knew what it was to be Mer in a world that insisted she was. And now that she looked the part down to her bones, she was still quite clearly something else.
The closer she got, the more the palace seemed to morph before her eyes, splitting apart until she realized it was not a single bulbous structure, but a network of coral towers reaching for the water’s surface like branches of a great pink tree.
She navigated toward what appeared to be an entrance, a hollow the shape of a lotus petal manned by a single broad-chested guard with an obsidian trident and a spotted whale’s trunk. His dark eyes flicked past her in a bored sort of way before returning with an aggressive squint as she approached.
Yemi plied her best smile and nodded to him in polite deference as she introduced herself. “I am Yemaya Blackgate, Me—the queen of Ixia, great-niece to Mer Queen Helene. I need to speak with her.”
