Fated To The Sea King

The Room He Built for Me

Fernando guided me through confusing corridors. I couldn't have found my way out even if my life depended on it.

Coral arches. Twisting paths. Doors that looked like solid rock until they shimmered open. Everywhere we went, heads lowered, hands pressed to chests. Whispers faded the moment I looked their way.

I tried to remember the route. Left at the glowing pillar. Right at the shell fountain. Through the archway with the carved serpents. But after the tenth turn, I gave up.

They could keep me here forever, and I'd never find the exit.

Not forever, I reminded myself. Just until I get the ring back.

Fernando stopped in front of a door made of smooth white stone, inlaid with silver veins that pulsed faintly.

"Your quarters," he said.

He didn’t open it. He just looked at me, waiting.

I looked back. "What?"

"Aren't you going to say thank you?"

"For imprisoning me?"

"I prefer hosting."

"You prefer lying."

He tilted his head. "I haven't lied to you once."

"You said I'd understand if I stayed."

"You will."

"And if I don't?"

"You will."

His calmness annoyed me. It felt like he knew something I didn’t. Like he had already seen the ending, and I was just trying to catch up.

I pushed past him and opened the door.

The room was... impossible.

Glass. Everywhere. Walls, ceiling, and even the floor beneath my feet was glass, letting me see down into a garden of glowing plants that swayed without wind. But outside the glass just beyond the walls was water. Fish drifted past as if they were flying. Coral grew in spirals I could touch if the glass weren’t in the way.

It felt like being inside a snow globe a beautiful, terrifying snow globe at the bottom of the ocean.

I turned slowly in a circle. My reflection stared back at me from every angle.

"How is this possible?" I asked.

Fernando floated in behind me. His voice was soft, almost shy.

"I built it."

I turned to face him.

"The day you left," he said. "After you swam away. I knew—" He paused. "I knew you'd come back. For the ring. So I made this—somewhere you could be comfortable. Somewhere you could see the sea without being in it."

I didn't know what to say.

"You built a glass room," I repeated. "Underwater. In one day."

"I'm a king." He almost smiled. "I have resources."

I walked to the wall and pressed my hand against the glass. A fish swam up to meet my palm on the other side. It hovered there, watching me with one round eye.

I pulled my hand back.

Fernando was still watching me. Something unreadable crossed his face.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

He blinked. "You're welcome."

Then I noticed.

His tail.

It was gone.

Where his tail should have been where the blue-green scales had curved and shimmered were now legs. Pale and bare.

He was standing on them.

I stared.

He noticed my gaze. He looked down at his own legs and then back at me.

"No water," he said simply. "No tail."

"That's—" I shook my head. "That's how it works?"

He nodded. "I'm not a creature of the air. But I can use its form when I need to."

"How?"

"Magic." He said it like it was obvious. "Prophecy. Blood. Pick whichever answer you prefer."

I didn’t know which one to choose. So I chose none.

"Can you walk?" I asked.

He took a step. Stumbled. Caught himself against the wall.

"I'm learning," he said.

I almost laughed. Almost.

Food arrived an hour later.

A plate of roasted potatoes, fresh bread, and some kind of fruit I didn't recognize. A servant set it down without meeting my eyes and then swam away faster than I could thank her. Through the glass, through the water. Like it was nothing.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Fernando glanced at the food before looking back at me.

"Eat," he said quietly. "Then get some rest."

I frowned. "That's it?"

He nodded once. "You've had a long day."

Before I could think of a reply, he turned and left, the door sliding shut behind him with a muted click.

I ate alone, staring at the glowing garden, the impossible room, and the king who built it for me.

I'm underwater. I'm breathing. A mermaid king kissed me, and now I'm his prisoner.

I took another bite of bread.

The food is actually good. What is wrong with me?

I didn’t sleep well.

The bed was comfortable. The room was quiet. But my mind wouldn't shut off.

Chloe's face. The ring falling. Fernando's lips. His voice saying mine.

I turned over. Punched the pillow. Closed my eyes.

I dreamed of drowning, but the water was warm and I wasn't scared.

I woke up in the dead of night, the dream clinging to my skin like wet fabric. The glass ceiling above me had gone dark, the garden beneath the floor dimmed to embers, and for a second I was confused about my location. Then the silver veins in the wall pulsed, slow and patient, and it all came rushing back.

The ring.

Fernando had it. He wore it like it belonged to him. The longer it stayed on his hand, in his palace, surrounded by his people bowing and whispering about prophecy, the more it would feel true. Like I had never possessed it at all.

I sat up.

No guards stood outside my door. No one stopped me from leaving they had only assumed triumphantly that I wouldn't find my way on my own.

They hadn’t considered my stubbornness.

I slipped out of bed. The glass floor was cool under my bare feet, and the glow of the garden beneath it dimmed to a soft underwater hush. I eased the door open and stepped into the corridor.

It was darker outside. The strands of light along the walls pulsed slowly, like the palace was breathing in its sleep. I had no idea where the king's wing was, but mermaid logic seemed simple follow the grandest hall and find the biggest door.

I chose a direction and went.

The first turn led nowhere. A dead end of solid coral, smooth and curved like the inside of a shell, with no give at all. I turned back, my heart racing more than it should have for someone technically allowed to be awake.

The second turn opened into a moonlit courtyard. Fish drifted in place as if they had forgotten how to swim, their scales catching faint silver light from somewhere above the water I'd never see. Beautiful but useless. I kept moving.

On the third try, I found it.

Light spilled gold and warm from an archway ahead, and as I rounded the corner, I saw why. Guards. Four of them stood at the end of a corridor lined with carved pillars, their spears crossed at their chests, eyes scanning the darkness as if they expected this some human wandering where he shouldn't be.

I pressed myself against the wall before any of them looked my way.

There's no way I'm getting past that.

I backed off, slowly and carefully, pulse loud in my ears, and tried again further along.

It took two wrong turns before I found the right hallway the one that had to be the king's wing. Nothing else in this palace looked like it. The doors gave it away. They were twice my height, carved with waves, crowns, and creatures with names I didn’t know. The silver veins running through the stone glowed brighter than anywhere else I had seen.

And in front of those doors stood two guards.

Not like the others.

These were huge. Broader than every mermaid I had passed, their scales darkened to something close to black, arms crossed over their chests like they were made of stone. They didn't shift their weight, blink, or turn their heads when a fish drifted lazily between them and the wall.

I stood frozen in the shadows, staring at them.

Basically impossible to get past.

"Well," I muttered under my breath. "That's unfortunate."

I sagged back against the cool stone behind me, the carved edges biting faintly through my shirt. So much for that plan. Whatever Fernando kept behind those doors, he kept it well guarded. The ring wasn’t going to just be lying there, waiting for me to stroll in and take it back.

I needed another plan.

I turned to head back the way I'd come—

—and froze.

Someone was coming.

A pale shape moved at the end of the corridor, gliding closer, unhurried. I didn’t think. I ducked behind the nearest pillar, pressed my back to the stone, and held my breath as if that would somehow make me invisible too.

The water stirred beside me.

A hand brushed against my chest. Light and curious, right over my heart.

I opened my eyes. A mermaid stood inches away, head tilted, fingers resting flat against my sternum like she was reading something written there.

"Your heart," she said quietly, "is racing."

I stepped back so quickly I almost tripped. "Personal space."

She didn't seem offended. If anything, she looked amused. The corner of her mouth curled up, and her eyes flicked down the empty hall and back to me. It was as if she already knew what I had been doing and found it entertaining rather than alarming.

Before I could decide whether to run, a second voice broke through the darkness.

"You. What are you doing here?"

A guard. He was older than the others, with deep, weathered blue scales. His expression was unreadable as he examined me from head to toe, weighing whether I was a threat or just foolish.

Probably both.

"I'm just looking around," I said.

It sounded as weak out loud as it had in my head.

The guard studied me for a long moment. I braced for something I wasn’t sure what. Alarm bells. A blade at my throat. Fernando storming out of that big door to find out why his human had been caught lurking outside his private wing in the middle of the night.

Instead, the guard's shoulders relaxed.

"It's late," he said. Not unkind, just final. "You shouldn't be wandering alone. Let us walk you back."

It wasn't a question.

I didn't argue. There wasn't much point not with the woman still watching me, not with two silent statues at the king's door probably listening to every word.

They escorted me back through corridors I had completely failed to remember. The woman glided ahead, while the older guard followed behind, making sure I didn't bolt into another hallway the second his back was turned. No one spoke. The silence pressed against my ears, louder than any conversation could have been.

By the time we reached my door, my heart still hadn't slowed. If anything, it pounded harder, like it had just caught up to how close I had come to serious trouble.

"Rest well," the guard said, and then they vanished into the darkness as if they had never been there.

I stood in the doorway for a long moment before I forced myself to move.

Inside, the glass room glowed faintly blue. The garden beneath the floor pulsed slowly and steadily, indifferent to the fact that I had nearly gotten into serious trouble for nothing.

I lay back down and stared up at the fish drifting across the glass ceiling like clouds I could never reach.

I wasn't sure if I slept.

I only knew that, somewhere between one blink and the next, the light beyond the glass had changed. It was now paler and softer, like morning breaking somewhere far above the water I would never see.