A Mermaid's Heart

Chapter Ten.

Aurella.

Doubt is a dangerous thing, a thing that had to be eradicated before it could take root inside a person or in this case Mary. She was still unsure of being the box in which Neptune was to be trapped so I decided to show her just how serious the situation was but one thing I hadn’t been planning on showing her was Faolan. The Sillvan girl had a way of drawing more out of a person than just what lay on the surface. By opening the link to my memories, she herself delved deeper, wanting to know more, seeing as much as she possibly could. It was part of the reason why she had seen her own memories in the forms of visions prior to discovering her true identity. Her mind was very susceptible which meant that Neptune could reach her at any point. It was also why she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from falling in love with the god once he had been entrapped inside her heart but I couldn’t tell her that, not when the fate of the world, not when the memories of thousands hung in the balance. I leaned over the open books, eyes scanning the various pages and words for any sign of a spell powerful enough to transfer the magic inside the jewels to Mary so that she could seal Neptune away within her. I pushed away from the table and began stalking around the room, the sky overhead the ship growing dark with clouds just starting to roll in. They gave away my presence on the vessel. Each of the seven witches had been gifted with an element, each natural to the earth in order to protect it from the humans and gods that desired to destroy it. Mine was lighting. Thunder rumbled above as if in sync with my frustration, echoing how I felt. It was then that the visions started to occur, most likely caused by my having opened the link between my mind and Mary’s. I turned to start pacing the length of the room when I noticed that a man was stood there, watching me. He had dark brown hair that hung quite low but that didn’t reach his shoulders, the curly strands covered the tops of his ears and hung into his cognac eyes, a color somewhere between brown, orange and gold. His gaze was much lighter than his hair, making them stand out more especially against his dark, tan skin, burnt from days spent working out in the scorching sun. His hands were scared from pulling weeds, planting seeds and harvesting crops but it was the silver armor that decorated his body that caught my attention. The plates looked to have been forged to fit his frame perfectly while red and white fabric hung down between his knees and reached his calves in the back. He clutched a helmet beneath his right arm, one that had a strip of red fabric fastened to its crown. I could picture how the fabric would dance in the wind when he rode on horseback, signaling all of his whereabouts because of the vibrant color. I knew this man, I knew him all too well, from the familiar sword that was fastened to his back down to the polished shine in his armored boots or the chainmail that clad his exposed areas, layered above white fabric. The sight of him brought forth many emotions such as sadness, love, pain and desire. He was so vibrant, so real that it couldn’t have been an illusion nor could it have been magic but as soon as I blinked he was gone, replaced by an empty room lined with walls of books and maps. I shook my head, unable to stop the memories from playing out before my eyes. The memory of a younger version of myself stood before a knight that had mounted a horse. I could see his taunting smile, so gentle yet so sinister and playful before he greeted me. His words were branded like scars in my soul ‘Wait for me’ I remember seeing him ride off into the distance, the stallion beneath him galloping, the motion causing his body to rise and fall in time with it. I could remember his letters, telling f war and bloody battles, his letters that said he loved me beyond measure and that he would return to me even if it took decades to do so. I could remember walking among the towns people on the day they had come to announce the dead. Names were called, one after the other with women falling to their knees around me, weeping and pleading for their loved ones to return but they knew their knights never would. Then the name that I had feared hearing reached me and I grew cold, so cold that the heavens began to cry for me, thunder and lightning appearing all around us. I remember reaching for his helmet, holding it in my arms as if it was a child, as if it was the one thing I could never possibly have. I mourned for years, the storms never ending, the rain constant, so much so that the crops began to die, the people began to starve, the cattle grew sickly. There was hardly any sun, no hope in a drowned, grey world that I had found myself trapped in. I was curled up on the floor of my cottage, clinging to the helmet, screaming and thrashing when the buildings were being struck, catching fire that burnt houses and fields to the ground. The town’s people began to rebel, saying that I was the reason why their loved ones didn’t return and that I had caused misfortune to befall the village. It was true but the deaths were the king’s doing for sending them off to fight against England. I was driven away, forced to leave the only place where I could still feel his presence, taking only the helmet and the book of the seven treasures with me when I left. I had spent many decades wondering the earth in search of something to breathe life into me, to stop the pain that was consuming me and after finding myself contracted to the god of the seas, I realized that my purpose was to destroy the gems, to ensure that the actions of those of higher status would not damage the world or its people. I had hated mankind, grown to loathe them but after having watched them weep for their loved ones as I had for mine, there was a connection between us, a connection strong enough to make me care for them enough to not just protect the earth but the humans that inhabited it. I stared at the wall before me, my gaze hard and my lips spread in a thin line across the bottom of my face. The memories would once have brought hours of endless mourning but not after more than two hundred years, no. They hardly brought sadness anymore which made me think that I was some type of monster, one who couldn’t feel the raw, powerful emotions that mortals could. Was that the price of immortality? Was it the curse that would come in exchange for magic? I raised my hand to peer down at my palm, a black trident marking forming in the center of it, a symbol of my contract with the god, a contract similar to the one Riona had made many centuries before with Amun. Oh, how times of weakness can benefit the gods by letting them trick us into being their slaves. I balled my fist as if to crush the mark but all it did was disappear back into my skin, beneath the surface where no one but myself and the holder of the contract could see. I turned swiftly, slamming my palm down onto the nearest book then watching as the pages began to flip over, faster and faster, my eyes glowing white while they scanned the words within seconds, the books being abandoned in a pile that stood beside me. I had to find a spell even if it meant sacrifice, even if it was far too powerful a spell for me to perform.

Evangeline.

Setting foot inside the town was like walking into a graveyard. You couldn’t see the tombstones or even the bodies but you could feel the death that lingered there. It was as though the grim reaper himself had taken it up and called it home. I rubbed at my exposed arms when goosebumps started to rise but not from cold or the storm that seemed to be rolling in, no, they were caused by the earie feeling that overwhelmed me all the more, the deeper I dared to venture the ruins of Martin’s Port. It was different from Corner’s Coast, the buildings were destroyed, not just crumpled and abandoned, the streets had blood stains in some areas and weren’t just overgrown with weeds. I could remember the Port town from Claudia’s memories, how beautiful it had once been, inhabited with people such as Caleb and Rebecca. I came to a stop, my bare feet stained black with ash and soot when my eyes trailed up a street that branched out from the rest. There was a building with its door hung on its hinges, the wood burnt charcoal and the street before it was stained red but my eyes barely glanced at it when they noticed the sign that half hung above the door reading ‘Brothel’ in bold, black letters. Caleb’s mother was harlot. Was that building perhaps where she worked? Or even more chilling, was that where he had lived along with his mother? No matter how badly I wanted to wonder the town, to see what he had seen, to feel the pain he had felt, I couldn’t. Caleb moved past me, heading toward the manor where I knew the sword was kept, not bothering to stop or look up from the cobblestone roads as if the world around him would remind him of a time he would rather not remember. I forced my feet to move, placing one foot before the other but even though they followed the Captain, my eyes roamed my surroundings. My gaze went from the bell tower to the various houses and businesses, some completely destroyed, others just a shell of what they used to be. The buildings began to fade, leaving a burnt field in the center of which sat a familiar manor, the walls of which stood standing but the windows, doors and furniture had been charred. The iron fence hung in some places, making it easy for us to enter the property. To my left was a garden where various roses and other flowers had once blossomed along with a garden table and gravel. I froze to take in the area, my mind going back to the first time Caleb and Claudia had met on the night of the ball when she was to be betrothed to Edmund. I was drawn back to reality when Caleb broke down the charcoal remains of the front doors, causing them to crumple to his feet. He stepped over them, crunching the burnt wood beneath the soles of his heavy boots. Black dust sprung out around the leather footwear as he ventured deeper into the building, his eyes daring to scan his surroundings for the first time since he had left the ship. I followed him inside, being more careful not to step on the fallen debris as I ran my fingertips along the walls, taking in the burnt black stone that painted my fingertips ebony “Where is this sword the crone keeps talking about?” Caleb asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance with the situation or his irritation toward Aurella for dragging us into a war between gods and witches. I lowered my hand back to my side and started in the direction of the staircase that seemed to be falling apart, barely still standing. I reached out, gripping the hand railing and even the faintest of grip caused it to crumble into dust. My gaze locked onto the painting on the wall that sat beyond the stairs, a painting of the lord and lady along with their daughter, Claudia who was much younger in the painting than she had been in my visions. I began walking, not thinking about what would happen if the staircase was to collapse or if the second floor was just as unstable as the first. We had to retrieve the sword even if it meant injuring ourselves in the process “It’s in the study on the second floor” I explained, calling out behind me when I nearly made it to the top. I heard Caleb mutter something under his breath then moved follow but stopped when a portion of the stairs began to fall away beneath me. I screeched, reaching for the railing beside me and grabbed hold of it just in time to stop myself from falling the entire story down “Evangeline!” my fingertips were burning, my knuckles turning white as I tried pulling myself up only to fail. I wasn’t breathing properly, the muscles in my neck tightening when my arms began to shake. My head shot down to the floor beneath me, expecting it not to be as high up so that I could just jump but the floor below had caved in from the falling portion of staircase. I couldn’t see the bottom which made it that much more dangerous to jump. If there were large stones below or even old nails that had been used to build the staircase, then I could potentially fall onto them or break a leg. I had to pull myself up but I didn’t have the strength, my elbows bending but never quite enough for me to reach something to use as leverage. My left hand slipped and I yelped, eyes going wide with fear of what lay beneath me. I could feel the fingers of my right hand starting to slip and I wished that I was just jumping off a balcony with Caleb below to catch me but he had disappeared sometime after having called my name. My eyes searched the hole around me where I hung, trying to catch a glimpse of him. Where was he? Was he alright? Did he fall? I squeezed my eyes shut when I felt my fingers sliding ever closer to the edge, knowing that a fall was imminent but just as my fingers gave way, a strong hand grabbed hold of mine and I was pulled from the hole. Being forced to stand on the stand floor with my back pressed to Caleb’s chest, eyes staring at the hole that caved in further the moment I was pulled away from it “Careful, love” his voice whispered into my ear, his hands slipping away from my waist, around my hips when he turned to head down the long hallway. I could barely control my breathing at the thought of nearly falling but his voice and his touch had somehow managed to calm me, drawing my gaze away from the stairs and onto his retreating back. I was confused. The way his fingers had felt on my skin, lightly lingering for just a moment too long was enough to tell me that something was bothering him, knowing at his mind but no matter how badly he wanted to be rid of the burden that he carried, I knew he would try to hide it as best he could, rather wanting to suffer in silence then admit his weaknesses. I glanced in the direction of the painting that hung overhead and the small girl stood in between her parents with curly black pigtails and big golden orbs. Those eyes, those alluring eyes were so distinct, so unique to the Campbell family bloodline. They were proof that Caleb was indeed half noble although his hair wasn’t the same raven color, it was brown like that of his mother. I could see the older version of Claudia in the back of my mind, the one from my vision. She was so elegant and majestic, so fearless and witty yet at the same time she could be fragile and sensitive like fine China. She appeared so strong and beautiful but when dropped she would easily shatter into a thousand pieces. She was a woman who had stared death in the eyes and hardly faltered yet at the same time she had faced the thoughts of losing the man she loved and wept because of it. I wished in that moment to see her and Theo’s love story from where it began to where it ended so tragically but the beginnings where the memories I hadn’t been able to see. I could only imagine how powerful and passionate it had been, their shared times within the walls of that very manor “This be it” Caleb called down the hall, drawing my eyes to him. He stood in front of the door to the study, his head turned to take me in with furrowed brows, confused by my sudden distraction. I spared Claudia one last glance, an image of her running her fingers along the cages of her horse’s stalls in the stables the last thing I saw before I traced Caleb’s steps, the black soot rising with my every step like smoke in my wake. Claudia leaned against Hyperion’s stall and smiled at me, the orange light of the setting sun framing her tan features and making her eyes seem as though they were the very source of the light. When I looked up from the floor at my feet to the man before me, I paused “You look so much alike” I muttered, not sure why but wanting to say it since she had been smiling at me just moments before, the image having faded to his face stern features, the worry having faded from them when he processed my words. I wondered whether Caleb’s smile would resemble hers but he rarely truly smiled, mostly just tilting the corners of his lips upward “You have the same eyes-.” I uttered, searching their swirling liquid gold depths and knowing that he already knew that from when he had first met her, the night she had been murdered. They grew hard as he clenched his teeth, choosing to remain silent while I continued “The same skin tone-.” my hand reached out to trace his cheek, feeling the smooth flesh turn to rough stubble before he turned his face away from me, tearing it away from my touch as if I had burnt him. His eyes stared at the floor below, refusing to meet my gaze when my hand dropped back to my side “And you both pretend to be strong when all you want to do is break” his back muscles tensed at my words, his eyes widening when he looked at me, pupils shrinking then expanding in the briefest of eye movements. I gave a sad smile at the thought of him wanting to hide everything from everyone, including me when I could see right through him. I knew he felt guilty for what he had done in the past, for the choices he had made and that it was weighing him down “Your sister was killed, this city burnt to the ground and the people tortured-.” I announced, causing him to flinch, a minor reaction that I caught out of the corner of my eye while not looking away from his. Caleb was a blunt and straight forward man so beating around the bush would only waist our time and confuse him even more “But you weren’t the one to do any of it” I declared, my hands balling into fists at my sides, gripping the material of the shirt that I wore, the plain, striped black and white fabric acting as a means to keep me grounded in place when all I wanted to do was drown in the man who stood less than three feet away “Yes, you played a part in all of it but it was Solstice’s doing” he unclenched his teeth to part his lips, wanting to speak but the words caught in the back of his throat, causing him to think twice before he actually spoke them “Ye must think me a monster” along with his guilt there was the worry, the fear that once I saw everything, that I would run from him, that I would blame him and stay far away from him but I knew that I could never do such a thing. I wouldn’t be able to live without him “I think you are human-.” I argued, my eyes drifting further down the long hallway that seemed almost endless with shattered windows and burnt down doors that left only open doorways “And human’s make mistakes” I felt a knot form in the back of my throat at the thoughts that raced through my mind, I too have made mistakes, ones that I deeply regretted and were about to leave bare for him to see. I took a deep breath in through my nose “Take me for example-.” I could see the gears turning in his mind through the windows of his eyes, the thoughts that raced through them. Does she think that I’m a mistake? Does she regret falling in love with me? “I took my own life, thinking that it was the right thing to do when really all I did was cause you so much pain-.” it was the one thing that continued to bother me, the one thing that had haunted me ever since I had learned of my true identity as Mary. I carried that guilt, that sadness and shame with me wherever I went, always regretting it despite standing there before him in that manor “If I hadn’t been awakened, if I really had died then I wouldn’t be here right now-.” my bottom lip quivered and for the first time I realized that my eyes had filled with unshed tears, tears that I refused to let fall for fear of showing too much weakness. I had to be strong, strong enough not just to control my own emotions but to carry Caleb’s burdens along with them “Every day, I regret the suffering that I put you through-.” my voice lowered with my next sentence, eyes cast down in shame when my arms raised to wrap themselves around my torso, stained black hands gripping at my exposed arms, leaving behind handprints “I wish so desperately to go back and take it all away but I-.” that last word, a single word that was barely there, barely audible left my lips along with a breathy exhale like a weight had just been lifted from my shoulders “Can’t” I felt a finger underneath my chin, tilting my head back and forcing me to meet those familiar gold eyes that always managed to take my breath away, to cause y heart rate to pick up and my lips to tremble with a need to taste his. He was so close that I could smell his breath, a mixture between mint and sweet wine “We all make mistakes-.” he repeated, using my own words against me. I had been trying to comfort him but somehow he was the one to start comforting me. It was a reminder that he was my rock, my safe place, my strength even when he himself felt weak and defeated “It’s what makes us human” I met his gaze, the guilt and pain starting to disappear from their gilded depths. It was like he was starting to realize that I too had my regrets and that he wasn’t alone. I was sure that Ben regretted meeting Sonja, that Rebecca felt guilty over the death of her parents or that Nolan too regretted many things. Perhaps even the gods and witches had a few things they wished they could change “Don’t continue to blame yourself for what happened here-.” I whispered, turning the conversation so that it was once again focused on him. I could handle my guilt as long as he no longer blamed himself. I reached for his hand that still gripped my chin, taking it and intertwining our fingers, feeling the rough, working texture of them against my soft and delicate ones “Because all of us, me, Rebecca, Claudia-.” that familiar pain in his eyes returned at the sound of her name, the woman he had kidn*pped, the one he had met in the garden that night when she was furious about her upcoming wedding and the engagement. All she wanted was Theo and all Caleb wanted was to keep his mother and Rebecca safe “We don’t” he nodded his head, turning to gaze into the study beside him where the furniture had been burnt and the fireplace still stood where I had seen his father standing in the vision when he had told Claudia of the sword “The sword” he muttered, pushing everything aside. I knew that my words had managed to reach him but I also knew that it wasn’t that easy to let go of your guilt just from a few reassuring words spoken by a loved one. He pulled his hand from mine and stepped into the room, his gaze roaming over every inch of it. It was his way of telling me that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore “Your father had a very large sword collection” I explained, following him inside. There hung two swords on the wall opposite us but neither of them were the Leandros sword despite how Caleb studied them, wondering if the burnt metal could possibly be a weapon forged by the gods “He kept them scattered across the manor to distract from the real sword-.” I headed over to the fireplace, running my fingers along the detailing of the mantel above it that had also been burnt black from the fire that had devoured the entire town “Which just so happens to be very well hidden” my fingers came to a stop on a circular portion, pressing down hard like I had seen in the visions through Claudia’s eyes. A door clicked open on the side of the fireplace and I took it in before turning to Caleb, motioning to the door. He moved toward it, kneeling in front of the stone door to pry it open all the way. His eyes shot me a glance before he reached for something and stood. In his hands he held the sword of Leandros, a stainless steel blade, forged paper thin with a golden hilt, carved with two wings and tipped off with a roaring lion’s head. His eyes marveled the object as I stared at my own reflection in its untouched blade, free of all burns as if the fire was too afraid of its power to dare lapping at it. My eyes were round with curiosity when I reached out to trace the blade with the tips of my fingers that were painted in soot. I instinctively wrapped my hand around the hilt of it when Caleb let go. It cluttered to the floor, feeling as though it weighed as much as the manor we were in. My hand let go in time for me not to fall along with the weight when it’s loud clang echoed throughout the building “It’s so heavy” I breathed, staring at my hand and wondering if it was just I who was weak but when Caleb knelt to take hold of its hilt and lift it as if it were no more than a sowing needle, I knew it was because of his blood that bound him to it and the fact that only he could wield it. He twisted the blade back and forth, studying the curve of it for a moment then stood upright, allowing the weapon to fall to his side when he looked to me “Let’s return to the ship” was all he said before he began making his way back the way we came. I glanced down at my trembling hand, the weight I had just held enough to cause my core to shake then moved to follow. The sword was overwhelming, the power that radiated from it suffocating making it harder for me to breathe the longer I stayed within its presence but Caleb didn’t seem to notice, treating it as if it was just another sword that he could use like the many he had used before it.