A Mermaid's Heart

Chapter Fourteen.

I found myself in the navigation room, seated at the table with four books splayed open in front of me. My eyes scanned the pages, hair pinned up on the top of my head to stop the strands from disrupting my view. Hours had passed since I’d awakened and the sun was once again starting to rapidly fall toward the horizon. I chewed at my bottom lip, having already learned about Neptune’s horrid upbringing. He was born some centuries ago, long before Aurella but his birth had caused his mother’s death, leaving him with a father who was as cruel and unpredictable as the sea. He’d been beaten, strangled, forced to grow up too fast for the sake of his grieving father who resorted to hunting and butchering as a way of coping. He would often be away from home for days on end only to return with a vengeance, blaming Neptune for the death of his wife, saying that he killed her and as a result the god began to blame himself too. The location of his birthplace was unknown, the only clues being that it was near a vast lake that branched out into the open ocean somewhere in Scotland. It’s said that he, much like me, had a strong allure to the water, finding it oddly calming. He would go there to think and fish whenever he wasn’t out sharpening rocks to form arrows or gathering firewood. I flipped the page, my fingertips running along the numerous scribbled words, the candle flickering beside me having been lit when the sun finally managed to disappear. There was the painted picture of a woman on one of the pages. She was beautiful, her hair the color of ivory, done up with twists and braids, decorated in pink pearls and black turrent shells. Her eyes were a stormy grey, the color of a storm that would rage above the tumbling waves. My gaze traveled from her eyes to the white, long lashes that rimmed them, the pale white flesh of her cheeks, the dusty pink curve of her lips and her long neck that was covered in strings of pearls. She was naked, her lower body concealed by black waters while the full moon haloed her figure, causing the black gems encrusted into her cheekbones to stand out against its washed background. In the flickering candle light, the image seemed orange but I could only imagine how vibrant the colors truly were. A name was scribbled in black ink beneath the painting “Salacia” I breathed, the name sounding like some forbidden spell, the name a queen would go by that was equally as enchanting as it struck fear into the hearts of many. Tearing my eyes away from her picture, I decided to read the page that sat beside it. Salacia was the first ruler of the seven seas, despite not being a god. She was birthed from sea foam and salt water and was tasked with finding a suitable human male to take on the role of the god of the seas. In all cases of gods being created, deities such as Salacia first had to seek them out among the human race. Her search led her to a lake in Scotland where she first met Neptune. Overtime he came to fall in love with her but she was incapable of love, incapable of being human. In order for a god to awaken once chosen they had to die by the means of what they ultimately would end up controlling. For Neptune that meant that he had to drown yet he didn’t know of why she had found him or what she was planning. She could venture onto land but he refused to set foot in the water. They had three children together, the first being a daughter named Nereida. She was even more beautiful than her mother and the first mermaid to ever exist, the product of a woman from the sea and a human male. Two more daughters followed, each half human, half fish but because of this they couldn’t live on the land and Salacia took them into the sea. Overcome by grief and mourning not just for her but his daughters, Neptune began to build what would end up being the first boat to have ever existed only to set sail on the water in search of the ones he loved. Salacia knew of her fate and capsized his boat, letting him drown in the waters of the lake where he had spent most of his human life. Her tears became the bubbles of his frantic cries, his struggles to get to the surface and her weeping was the sound of his thrashing in the water. He drowned but awakened as a god and Salacia faded away, her duty of finding a suitable god done which meant that there was no reason for her to continue living. It was the fate of all deities once they had found their gods. They ceased to exist. Neptune had many relations with human women afterwards, trying to forget about his agony by drowning himself in the comfort of many but his pain would only grow worse as more children were birthed with his blood in their veins, with hearts of the sea. The three daughters that Salacia had blessed him with before she died would continue to have their own relations, only able to have daughters that would become more human. The cycle would continue, their daughters would have daughters and when one of the three first mermaids would die, another one from their bloodline would replace their place at Neptune’s side. My back muscles tensed at the sight of the next image once I had turned a few pages. It was an image of three women, their tails the same silver color but it was their faces that captivated me. Two of them had Neptune’s midnight black hair but their eyes were different, one had his sapphire eyes while the other had Salacia’s biting grey orbs then there was the remaining daughter. She had ivory hair and mismatched blue-grey eyes much like mine. The image of her was strikingly similar to my own reflection “You are a direct descendant of Nereida, Neptune’s first born daughter like your mother before you and her mother before her” my head shot up to take in the figure that stood in the doorway. She was dressed in all black, the hood of her cloak having been pulled up over her head, hiding her eyes from my view. I was too overwhelmed by the similarities between me and Nereida to be able to form words in response to hers so she continued “Nothing in this world happens without reason, it is all connected-.” her back muscles straightened, her head lifting when her hands brushed her hood back, exposing her now glowing blue eyes that weren’t their usual, empty white. She looked like the picture of the second born daughter that had been painted on the pages of the book despite the crescent moon on her forehead and her scarlet lips “We are all connected like links in a chain” my bottom lip quivered at the newfound information, realizing that she was the descendent of Salacia’s second daughter, Numiel. Her eyes faded back to their deathly white when the world around us began to warp and images of the seven witches began to appear before me, each with a god looming over them, the similarities between them almost striking. Riona was stood in front of Amun, Morgayne before Zeus. The images continued to flicker until seven had passed and the last being Aurella, haloed by Neptune. I knew what it meant, I knew what she had been referring to when she said that it was all connected. The seven witches hadn’t been picked at random, they were all descendants of the seven higher gods that shadowed them, chosen by Amun and created to protect the earth however they had been too strong, leading to the creation of the jewels “I have been plotting against Neptune for many centuries now-.” she began, the images disappearing and giving way to the familiarity of the navigation room. Her reason’s for conspiring against him were for the sake of others, for her own freedom, to stop the power of the gems from falling into the wrong hands “However to execute the plan was near impossible-.” her head turned to the side, taking in the bookshelf that sat there. I could see her head tilt ever so slightly, listening intently to the world around her, to the connection that she had with the god of the seas “Until you were born” the candle light made the gloss of my eyes glisten like the stars in the night sky. Why was everything so complicated? Why was my life like some master plan to set things right? Why did I have to be a descendent of Nereida? “The timing was too perfect, the mermaid before you had been murdered, your appearance was almost exactly that of Nereida’s and you were raised near the water” my lips parted, my body unable to move, frozen in place, stuck as if I were in some sort of never ending nightmare. I was just a tool, a means of them getting what they wanted ever since the day I was brought into this world “I knew that if you were to drown that you would awaken as a mermaid, capable of gathering the treasures like no witch or human could but-.” my body trembled, a single tear escaping from the brim of my eyes to trail its way down the side of my face. Aurella breathed in deep, rolling her shoulders back to stand tall like a warrior, a ruler addressing her subjects in a time of great sorrow “I needed a Campbell if I were to get my hands on their power and Caleb was vulnerable-.” I wanted to lash out, to rise from my seat and scream in her face. I wanted to demand how she could be so cruel as to use people the way she had, to extort their weaknesses, to manipulate their lives like they were puppets but I was rooted in place by both shock and an overwhelming sense of grief “He had just lost his mother, his sister, his home, everything and-.” I blinked, more tears following the first but they were silent, there was no weeping, no gasping or the rapid beating of my heart. It was like I was dead, unable to react the way that a normal person would’ve “A young noblewoman from Port Knot was exactly what he needed” my nostrils flared when I breathed in, my head turning to stare at anything except her. My tears had dripped onto the open book before me, seeping into the painting of Nereida and her sisters. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting so desperately to go back to the night Caleb had kidn*pped Evangeline, to times when things were simple and my only concern was recovering seven jewels. My connection to Neptune wasn’t because I was a mermaid, it was because I was a descendent of his daughter whom I looked so strikingly similar to “There are many things in this world that you have yet to discover” my hand slammed down on the table, the books causing it to rattle when I turned my glaring eyes back onto her, my fingertips shaking with the thought of what else the witch was hiding from me. She wasn’t effected by the sound nor did she waver “Leave” the single word left my lips like an order, a fierce warning but she stayed rooted in place. I had no power over her, we were related through hundreds of years of bloodlines. Her body moved to turn away from me only to pause, her eyes locking onto mine past the flame of my candle “I had no choice” were her final words before she was gone in the blink of an eye, replaced by the empty deck of the ship that sat beyond the open glass doors of the navigation room. I tried swallowing back the tears, my gaze moving from the doors to the books, the painting and to a sketch of the sea god that was placed off to the side. He looked different in the sketch than what he did in my dreams. His beard was longer, his hair going to below his shoulders. I gritted my teeth, shooting up from my seat, wiping away my tears with the sleeve of Caleb’s red Captain’s jacket. I needed him, I needed to see him, to know that it wasn’t all or nothing, that our love was real. My feet snuffled down the steps that lead to the Captain’s quarters to find him passed out on the bed, his back bare and his face turned away from me. I stopped dead in my tracks, my hand gripping the railing of the steps when I laid eyes on him. What was I to tell him? That our love wasn’t meant anything because it was forced onto us by Aurella? Was that really the case? I began to slowly back away and turned to face the deck, my breathing ragged as I tried calming myself, tried fighting the urge to erupt into a mess of tears and wails. I wrapped my arms around myself, about to crumble into myself when a voice pierced the silent night air “It be a lot, ain’t it, trollop?” I stiffened at the familiar insult, the word Malcolm had used to describe me when I had to seduce Mack and his friends at the bar before riding for Bakewell with Caleb. I glanced in the direction where the voice had come from to find Al perched on the railing of the ship. He was stood with a knife in hand, staring up at the full moon hovering overhead “Love can be somewhat-.” he spun around, one bare foot in the air as he fiddled with the blade of his knife, a crazed look in his eyes with little care for whether he’d fall into the black waters below “Maddening” the single word sent a chill down the back of my spine when his eyes locked onto mine. They were swirling with insanity, the type of madness that I had seen the day Caleb had brought him onboard the Sunken Soul “Hmmm, love” he wondered, pondering over the word he had just used. His gaze returned to his blade that was glistening in the light of the moon, the orange lamps long since having been extinguished for the night “That’s just one of the things ye tend to think about when there be a knife stuck into yer chest” my guard went up when he spun the blade around almost expertly in his hand to press the tip to the center of his chest. He rocked on the balls of his feet, staying balanced “Love, regret, pain but it be the what if’s that get to ye” he pointed the knife in my direction, grinning widely before he tapped the edge of his weapon against the side of his head. His grey hair stuck up in every direction, the wrinkles around his eyes, lips and across his forehead defined “What if I’d had bacon that morning instead of sausages?” he wasn’t making sense. I straightened my stands in case he decided to move toward me or toss the knife. His aiming with the bow and arrow when Sonja had threatened me was on target which meant that despite his deteriorating mental health, he was still as precise and dangerous as he was before he’d been tortured by Darkheart “What if I’d loved her instead of her” he pointed the knife in one direction then the other as if two women were stood directly in front of him, their faces clear like they were really there. For a moment the fog clouding his eyes faded only to be replaced with a crazed cackling. I blinked, realization striking me at the meaning behind his unclear words. What if I’d awakened as a mermaid and had remained in the ocean? What if I’d found myself at Neptune’s side and fallen for him only to later discover that I had loved Caleb first? How would it have affected me any differently? Would I have fought as hard for Neptune as I was fighting for Caleb? My mind was an endless string of question after question as Al spun around on the balls of his heels to face the full moon “Ye may never know the many outcomes of yer life if ye had just chosen differently” he glanced back at me, the maddening glint in his eyes stronger than ever when something inside of him shifted, the sanity fading like the sands in an hourglass, displaying the hours that so rapidly ticked by “But be warned-.” my back muscles stiffened, my hands balling ever so slightly at my sides because of his words “The gods are angry, so angry!” he yelled, raising his arms up on either side of him, eyes staring at the white orb hovering overhead. The winds over the open ocean picked up, whipping past me as if to convince me of Malcolm’s words. He began cackling, hunching over to clutch at his stomach with the knife still in his hands “They be coming for you, coming, coming!” he added, standing upright with his bony back to me. I squinted against the winds to see him past their harsh embrace. His head was thrown back, his arms out stretched as a low howl escaped his chest. It was off key and made my ears ring at the sound of it but it was over as soon as it started and Al began scaling up to the mast until he could crawl back into the crow’s nest. The winds subsided, replaced by an eerily still night without clouds in the sky or tumbling waters. I could feel eyes on me, causing the skin on my arms to rise with gooseflesh when I turned to take in my surroundings. There was no one there, I was the only one stationed on the deck, confirmed by my eyes that are able to see even on the darkest of nights ‘The gods are angry’ Malcolm’s words repeated in the back of my mind accompanied by an image of a tan skinned man, seated on a golden throne with eyes that glow a bright red, gazing down upon me with anger scribbled across his features. He wore bracelets of gold, a headdress that had an eagle engraved in the front of it, his lower half the only part that was covered by a skirt of silver and gold. His hands gripped the arms of his throne causing the veins on his forearms to bulge as a woman wearing a white dress stood at his side, her hair a light platinum blond with eyes the color of ivory and in the center of her forehead sat an onyx shape, that of a crescent moon. The longer I stared up at them, the more her eyes began to glow scarlet much like his “Amun” I breathed into the night, my voice trembling at the sight of the ruler of the gods, so powerful, striking fear into the hearts of those around him. The only thing that stood between him and killing me was Neptune and his affections toward me. Aurella’s words from before returned to me, reminding me just how important it was for me to hold Neptune’s heart if only for the time being until we had managed to finish the spell and entrap him. Amun wouldn’t be able to harm me if I become Neptune’s Pandora’s box since hurting me would mean harming his brother. I realized then that even with the newfound information regarding Aurella’s plan, my connection to Neraida and my pull toward Neptune, nothing could change. I couldn’t do anything about it and would have to continue as I was, keeping secrets from the one that I loved and secretly meeting with Neptune. My eyes locked onto the black horizon, the ocean that stretched on for miles as the night continued to roll on.

Authors Note:

This is as far as I have written the second book. I am currently trying my best to continue writing all while editing the first book (Adding important scenes such as how Rebecca found her way to the island she was stranded on, some Nolan, Ben and Rebecca point of view moments and so on). I will try to upload the next Chapter as soon as possible. ALSO PLEASE COMMENT AND TELL ME IF YOU'RE KEEPING UP WITH THE STORY SO FAR CAUSE IT'S A LOT. Thank you so much! :D :D :D