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I swam to Squiggles’s home and crouched near. “Squiggles, you’re coming with me this time.”
A petrified squeak came from the leaves and I shook my head. “Nope. You didn’t have to last time, but you need to get out of here once in a while.”
Squiggles poked his head out, a woeful expression in his eyes. How he made them bigger was a mystery to me. I stared him down. “You used that last time,” I said. “It’s not working today.”
The lie worked, and Squiggles heaved a sigh, swimming to me. He settled on my shoulder and I opened the door. Nerus and Gal bowed to me immediately, then straightened.
I ignored them both, swimming out and flicking my tail behind me, sending a current of water toward their faces. Immature, I knew, but I did not want to be doing this, not when it caused me pain, too.
We headed out with me leading the way. Squiggles shuddered uncontrollably when we crossed the city limits, but thankfully calmed down when I put a hand to his head. There would be nothing to fear.
At least, I hoped.
Chapter 3
The sick ward was not unfamiliar. I’d been there many times to volunteer. Part of my training, Mother insisted. No matter what I did, though, every time I left, it was with a fistful of anger.
Sure, we had the occasional injury from a shark, or an accident from a fight between merpeople. Most injuries, though, were at the hands of those barbaric humans. The last time I came here, there were ten merpeople with broken bones and bloody limbs when a ship had sunk into the sea, crashing into their village.
I gritted my teeth as we swam in. The building was large enough to hold a hundred merpeople, but most of it was closed off. We expanded when needed, keeping the beds to thirty. Fortunately, it’d been a long time since that had happened.
A nurse greeted me, abandoning her stone tablet at the foot of the merman’s hammock, swimming toward me with a push of her deep blue fins. “Princess Allura, a pleasure as always.”
“Nixie, how are you?” I reached out and hugged her. We’d grown close, having seen each other almost daily last year. I hadn’t been able to stomach the sick ward after that, and took a much needed break.
She grimaced, pulling her long blond hair to one side of her head. “Busy, unfortunately.”
Nerus cut in. “What happened?”
Her cheeks were tinged red as she eyed the guard, her bright blue eyes shining. “Humans found a small merpeople village near the reef. They had a mage.”
My face flashed with rage. If humans were our enemies, human mages were even worse. Something about having large stores of magic when no one else did drove them to be selfish, murderous creatures, incapable of doing anything on their own.
Merpeople had their own magic, but not killing magic, like the human mages. We worked with the sea and its creatures. Not plowed our way through them with no thought of what we destroyed in our wake.
Nixie escorted me to the first soldier, who had a giant slash across his chest. Another nurse was busy packing it with seaweed and other plants. When she was done, she sealed it with her magic. I took the hand of the soldier, squeezing it, and said to him, “Thank you for your service, brave soldier.”
I brushed my hands over his eyes, drawing out the pain and thoughts of battle, leaving peace and the sea instead. The images would stay with him until he healed, and the relaxed state would speed up the process, too. He’d remember the incident, but later, when he could handle it, and without the pain.
The images held in his mind were now in mine. His fear. His pain. His anger. They were all mine now, sitting in my chest. My body tensed and I sucked in a sharp breath. My hands shook as I withdrew them. I tucked the images into a corner of my mind for later. There were still others to help. Squiggles crawled closer to me, wrapping a tentacle in my hair, providing comfort even though he trembled.
Gal and Nerus remained near the entrance, their faces stoic. I drifted to the next merman. He only had small cuts along his arm and seemed jovial enough. “What happened?” I ask him.
“We were swimming about, as usual, when a ship appeared. It had no markings, and we thought we’d be safe.” He grimaced, his eyes taking on a faraway look. “The mage used his magic to clear the water. We barely escaped.”
Anger gripped me, but I soothed it down quickly, before it drained my much-needed energy. Some of it was remnants of the last merman. The rest, my own.
If mages were the worst, water mages were devils. I put a hand to his eyes, treating him like the one before. He smiled and thanked me before I moved on.
Nixie accompanied me from wounded merperson to wounded merperson as I drained any lingering pain the nurses hadn’t absorbed, making it mine. My power was not unique; many merpeople, who usually ended up as nurses, were able take pain away. The amount I could take, however, was unusual. Also, the peace I could leave them was mine and mine alone. The queen did the same, but for a whole crowd of merpeople at once.
After the tenth merperson, I knew I needed to be done. My body shook, entirely drained. I could barely manage the slight push of my fin to drift toward Nerus. “Home. Now.”
I felt a slight pang of regret at sounding so harsh and abrupt, but pain covered my body. I felt every scratch, every break, every ounce of pain from those merpeople.
Nerus lifted me up and carried me home. As we left, I saw a deep look of longing on Nixie’s face as she stared at us. Too tired to think about it, I put it away for later. There were no rules preventing her from making any advances, anyway. If she wanted him, she should tell him, in my opinion. Maybe she needed a little push.
Squiggles climbed onto my chest, wrapping his tentacles around my neck and squeezing in a tiny octopus hug. I grinned and patted him on the head. “Home soon, Squiggles. Don’t worry.”
