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“You haven’t eaten much of your fish.”
“Not hungry.”
“Want to play a game of truth or dare?”
Amazing how his dark mood had cleared now that Fin had left.
I welcomed anything to get my mind off my troubles and to get past the awkwardness of earlier. “Sure. Truth.”
“What frightens you?” said Nemo, sucking the meat out of another crab.
Good question. “Not being in control or having a choice when it comes to what to do with my life.”
He nodded. “I hear you. As a soldier, it sucks when you disagree with an order.”
It was nice to hear that we had things in common. Who’d have thought a soldier and a princess would have anything relatable when our lives were so vastly different? But then again, maybe we weren’t so dissimilar.
“One time,” said Nemo, “the commander forced my squadron to attack an innocent village to smoke out a pirate. Whispers through the seaweed vine said the pirate owed him money. We got the bandit in the end, but loads of humans were hurt in the process.”
Bile rose in my throat. The idea of being married to such a pig revolted me. I hadn’t thought his crimes could get worse, but apparently, I’d been wrong.
“That’s horrible,” I said, snapping a twig I’d picked up. “My father would be outraged if he found out the commander abused his merarmy so.”
Nemo nodded. “Yeah. Fin’s butted heads with the commander over quite a few operations. If he quits the merarmy, I’m going with him. He’s the only thing keeping me there.”
I was glad to hear Nemo didn’t hold a grudge against Fin for flirting with me. But how was Nemo going to take the news when he found out I’d lain with Fin? Given Nemo’s jealous behavior where Blade had been concerned—and how moody Nemo had been all evening over Fin’s flirtatiousness—I imagined not well. The words “gutted fish” came to mind. The coral dust cemented in my gut.
Nemo sharpened a branch on the end of his trident. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the army. But the commander corrupted it. I don’t like to dwell on that.”
A serious edge captured his voice, and I knew better than to ask anything more about his current military life.
Based on my assessment of him, most things didn’t bother or upset him. That was one of the things I loved about him. If only I could be more like he was. Then nothing would worry or upset me. But I had to tread carefully with his jealousy. If I didn’t, we were going to have a problem. I didn’t want him hurting anyone the way Faraall had.
Sea god!I should never have encouraged their affections. By doing so, I had inadvertently pitted two friends against each other. I didn’t want to be the merwoman who came between Fin and Nemo.
“My turn,” said Nemo, moving to the water to rinse his chin. “Truth.”
I threw another log on the fire, as the flamed had begun to dwindle. “What are your post-army plans?”
“I’m not leaving until I get a medal and make my family proud. It’s a family tradition,” he replied, wiping a hand across his face to brush the water off. His muscles rippled with every moment. Despite my wariness of his behavior, my eyes were glued to his amazing physique.
I liked his simple philosophy. It made me wish I was someone like him. Without the expectations and obligations I bore. Wanting to win a medal for his duty as a mersoldier was a great honor in the merealm.
“Then I’ll go back to my family’s farm on the seaweed plains,” he added. “We harvest all the fresh seaweed for the kingdom.”
My father had settled hundreds of refugees from my uncle’s kingdom in the seaweed plains. It had all started back when my grandfather had stepped down from his throne and given the kingdom to my father, not my uncle, and a war broke out over who was the rightful heir.
“Were you a refugee in the great war?” I scooted closer, eager to hear his story.
“Yeah.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten,” he replied.
Which would have made me seven years old at the time.
“Your uncle destroyed my father’s crops.” Nemo’s voice took on a sad edge. “Brought in the whales to clear them all so he had land to fight on. All of our family’s source of income was wiped out. We were homeless and starving.”
