Aqua Coral's Arc

Chapter 12 of 16

Aqua woke slowly in the wide four-poster bed. Silk pajamas slid cool against her skin. Her legs ached, a soft soreness from the night before. She smiled and turned her head. Alden lay beside her, blonde hair loose across the pillow, one arm heavy over her waist. Morning light came pale through the tall windows. She was here, in his chambers, and she had not locked a door in weeks. She belonged now. She kissed him. His eyes opened. He kissed her back without a word, the way he did most things. His hand found her cheek, and her scales woke under his fingers. A soft blue glow spread down her arm. "You're glowing again," Alden said. "You keep making it happen," Aqua said. He did not smile, but his eyes did. He pulled her closer. For a long moment they lay still, warm under the blankets, and Aqua felt nothing missing. She had crossed the sea for this man. She had found him. Then a knock struck the door. Firm. Twice. Alden sat up. A maid spoke through the wood, quick and low. Aqua caught only pieces. Guards at the gate. A man asking for the king. "Who," Alden called. "He won't give a name, sire," the maid said. "He says he found something in the sea. He says the king will want to hear it." Aqua's glow faded. She sat up beside Alden. The soreness in her legs was gone from her mind now. Something in her chest had gone tight, the way it did when her scales caught a wrong current far off. "A man from the sea," she said. "For you." Alden looked at her. "You know him?" "No." But she knew the sea. She knew what people carried up from it. She thought of the stone she had found on the floor of the ocean, marked and left, gone when she returned. A current stone. Touched wrong, it could turn the water and drown whole coasts. Alden pushed back the blankets and reached for his cloak. "Then I'll hear him." "I'm coming," Aqua said. She was already up, pulling a robe over the silk. "Whatever he found in the sea, I'll know it faster than you." Alden paused at the door. He looked at her, calm as always. "You don't have to my love," he said. "You're staying now. This is castle business." "It's sea business," Aqua said. "That makes it mine." He held her eyes, then nodded once with a smile. He opened the door. The maid stood pale in the hall, wringing her apron. Aqua stepped out beside him. The warm bed was behind her now, and the glow was gone from her skin. She had come to the castle to win a king and stay. She had done that. But the sea had followed her up the shore, and it was waiting at the gate with a stranger's face.