Awakening by Kitty Thomas Page B

knew what fire looked like. This wasn’t fire. It was a light contained in a circle of glass that couldn’t be snuffed out in the normal ways.
    Humans seemed to also have very complex irrigation systems and a way to make water move through pipes. Or this was something I’d heard anyway. So far I hadn’t seen the evidence of it. There was a shiny black square mounted on the wall and then something near it with buttons. I wasn’t sure what it did, but it looked somewhat out of place with the rest of the décor.
    Time passed, and I heard music and loud noises drifting up the stairs: clanging pots from the kitchen down below, partying, and merrymaking. The door had been left ajar, and I was afraid someone would come in. But the other side of that was … maybe there was a way out.
    I slid and wriggled to the end of the bed, my arms going out, my hands bracing against the floor as I walked my way down with my hands. I dragged myself on my belly to the door and then out into the hallway. I tried not to think about how this looked. Humiliating. Undignified.
    A side stairway seemed like it might lead to an exit. I didn’t know if a door would already be open or how I would manage to get a closed one open, but the hope flared inside me that somehow there was still a way out of this mess, and that I’d be swimming in the sea in an hour or two.
    I somehow made it down the stairs and to a back door. People came and went near it, so I scooted behind a large potted fern to watch and wait for my moment of escape. But it never came. Nobody opened that door.
    Hours passed and a weakness began to overtake me, not only because I hadn’t had anything to eat in a long time, but because I was drying out. We can breathe in both air and water. A special mechanism in the human-looking part of us closes when underwater where we breathe through our fins. It’s our primary way of breathing.
    We can be out of the ocean a long time if salt water is poured over our fins every few hours. It had been longer than that. My scales were dry, and I was desperate for nourishment and for water to swim in so everything inside me wouldn’t feel so tight and wrong.
    More time passed and then the castle was silent except for the sound of my sobbing. Crying wasn’t helping the moisture situation, but I was so scared I couldn’t stop. With all of the revelers gone, the noise I was making quickly drew Kyros to me. I looked up when his boots entered my line of sight. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he gave me a disapproving glare, as if I were inconveniencing him. He could have thrown me back in the sea earlier. It had been his choice not to.
    “Why aren’t you in my chambers?”
    It was the first time he’d spoken directly to me. Earlier he’d spoken around me and near me and about me. But never to me. For the first time, I felt like another sentient being in his presence instead of something he might cook later for a party.
    “I-I-please … ”
    He arched a brow. “Please what?”
    “Please spare me.”
    His lips twisted in a smirk. “I believe I already did that. Were you not present when I announced we would not be dining on mermaid fin tonight?”
    “Yes, but why didn’t you put me back in the ocean? I need to be in water. Please put me back. I haven’t had water on my fin in hours … I’ll … I could die.” I wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t his purpose anyway. I also wasn’t sure lack of water would kill me. I only knew it was very uncomfortable, and growing more so. So whether or not it could kill me, it couldn’t be good.
    “I have another purpose for you,” he said, enigmatically.
    That purpose was unlikely to come to pass if he didn’t get me into some water. But I wisely kept that thought to myself.
    He was silent for a minute as his eyes roved over me. It almost felt as if his gaze caressed my skin. “I propose a trade. I will let you swim, if you give yourself to me without reservation to do with as I