A mermaid and a corsair. Natalie Yacobson

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      “Did someone tell you we were in trouble?” Desmond wondered. How quickly these sea creatures react to everything.

      “I smelled it myself,” the morgen took a quick look at the damage and became enraged. The sight of the sleeping mermaid had stirred a storm of emotions, from anger to worship.

      “What’s the matter with you? Would you like some rum to calm you down? It always makes pirates feel better,” Desmond didn’t think that one day he’d have to comfort a ruthless sea monster.

      “This is the first time I’ve seen her not in a sea temple or palace,” it hissed.

      “And who put her in the chest if not you?”

      It was probably a stupid question. The morgen poked his tentacles at the runes on the shell-like walls of the chest. Apparently the rune signs explained everything without words. Cassandra would have understood such an explanation, but Desmond was almost illiterate in magic. He only knew what he had been taught by Cassandra herself and an old court wizarde from Mirid.

      “What is her name?” Desmond began to inquire.

      “It is none of your business!”

      “Yes, it is, if she’s sailing to Opal on my ship.”

      “It would be easy for me to sink your ship,” the morgen threatened, his many amber eyes flashing.

      “If ‘The Triumphator’ sinks, who will take her to Opal?”

      “I’ll drag her to the oncoming ship and hypnotize the captain to be more cooperative than you are,” the morgen immediately found a compromise. Apparently, his powers aren’t in the dozens.

      “I doubt there’s a fool enough to bring such a dangerous cargo to Opal, even under hypnosis. She reeks of death. Are you sure she’s alive?”

      “She’s asleep!”

      It was as if the word “sleeping” meant something magical. Cassandra had told him that the ocean dwellers became dull when they hibernated and were easily mistaken for statues standing upright in the water. But touch a statue like that and it would grab you with its many tentacles. So Desmond never touched the carved figures standing like pillars on the water. The ship always sailed past them without hitting them, even if it came straight at them.

      He explained to his pirates that such figures were mile’s poles for morgens, and it was forbidden to touch them. He would not tell the crew directly all of Cassandra’s secrets. Sometimes you can make things up as you go along. Once, an oncoming sculpture winked at Desmond. It was alive, though it seemed carved from white wood.

      But the purple mermaid didn’t look like a sculpture at all. The jewels on her were magnificent. If they weren’t attached to her skin, the crew would have tried to take them off and split them up by now.

      “Is she asleep under the influence of some magical elixir?” Desmond guessed.

      “If you know too much, you’ll grow old,” the morgen said sullenly.

      “It’s an Earth proverb,” Desmond caught his eye.

      “Sometimes it pays to borrow something even from Earthlings.”

      “I thought you morgens were too proud and independent. You’d rather drown an Earthman than imitate him.”

      One morgen’s tentacle wrapped around Desmond’s neck.

      “Don’t make me angry!”

      Desmond didn’t have time to answer. The tentacle bumped into the amulet and burned. Morgen had to let the corsair go.

      “So what’s her name? Yasmin? Aisha? Mirelle? Lorelei? Anemone? Mirilla? Etea? Amirana? Elegy? Foletta? Morelia? Serpentina? Korephea?”

      “How do you know the names of the sea king’s daughters?” The morgen hissed indignantly. “Surely there must be spies in the Underwater Kingdom. This is outrageous! The man knows the names of the entire list of sea queens!”

      “Which one is she?” Desmond insisted.

      “She is none of them. You don’t know her name.”

      That’s right! He didn’t know it. Unless…

      “Her name is Merediana,” Desmond made one last attempt.

      It was clear from the morgen’s doomed hiss that he was not mistaken.

      “She is Princess Merediana,” the morgen corrected. “She is her underwater highness.”

      “She is a future hostage of the King of Opal, who dreams of conquering the seas with magic. What are you going to do with her?”

      “Why do you care?”

      “I have a right to be curious, because I’m transporting her. And that’s risky! The ship’s already been attacked.”

      “If you hadn’t broken the instructions, there wouldn’t have been an attack,” the morgen poked his tentacle at the open lid, tried to close it again, and couldn’t. Even he didn’t have the strength.

      “The underwater creatures wouldn’t have smelled it on your board if the top defenses hadn’t been removed.”

      Desmond had already realized that himself. Curiosity is a bad thing. That’s what Cassandra was saying. Some newt, supposedly in love with her, had been playing on his shell whistle for a long time, calling Cassandra to go down to the bottom. Cassandra was hesitant, though she was curious to see the underwater world for herself.

      Cassandra knew the recipe for a potion that would help her breathe underwater for a couple of hours, but she was still hesitant to follow the newt to the bottom. He might not be so good-natured in the sea and would not let her go back.

      Cassandra wouldn’t have advised Desmond to open the chest, but then he wouldn’t have seen Merediana. Seeing her once was better than possessing all the treasures of the sea kingdom.

      “Are all princesses of the sea so beautiful?”

      “You must have thought her jewelry was beautiful. You pirates are only attracted to expensive things. Alas, they cannot be removed. They’re part of her body. But the King of Opal will reimburse you for their value.”

      Desmond would have been better off keeping the mermaid’s chest. Even if she doesn’t wake up, it’s a pleasure to look at her. When she’s around, you feel like you’re in a realm of magic. But something strange is happening on board. A bloodstain is spreading all over the sail. The blood is even visible on the other sails. It’s as cold as an icy desert. A crust of ice stretches across the masts and hoarfrost on the ropes.

      “The morgens of the royal family know how to freeze the sea. Didn’t you know that?”

      “No, I didn’t,” Desmond shook his head in denial. How could he know such intricacies? He didn’t know the rulers of the sea, and he didn’t gossip about them.

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