Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(50)

“Ah. Well. She cast a spell on you. On all of you, I think, somehow. But primarily you,” Ariel said bleakly. “I think she knew her stolen looks and voice wouldn’t be enough when coupled with her, um, very original personality. So she…”

“Stolen looks?”

“That’s not what she looks like. At all. Even as a cecaelia. She’s much older. And shaped differently. Her arms are shorter.”

“She’s…half…octopus?”

“No, she’s half god,” Ariel said impatiently. “And what’s wrong with octopuses? You don’t seem to mind girls who are ‘half fish,’ as you say. What’s the difference?”

“There is a difference,” Eric said, looking a little sick. “It might not be logical, at all, but for some reason, there’s a difference.”

“Well, you’re married to a person who is old enough to be your grandmother—at least,” Ariel said with a smirk. “With or without tentacles.”

He looked sicker.

“Besides,” Ariel said. “Octopuses are some of the smartest creatures in the sea—only dolphins and whales and seals surpass them. And dolphins have frightfully short attention spans. Octopuses are creatures of great wisdom, and ancient secrets.”

“All right, all right. Octopuses are great. I’m a bigot with tentacle issues.” He leaned against the boat for support, resting his head on his arm. “I knew my marriage was a sham, but this…surpasses all of my nightmares. I guess in my clearer moments I just figured she was a pretty and somewhat vicious enchantress.”

“She is a witch. She is incredibly vicious. I can’t speak to her looks objectively…” Ariel replied crisply.

“Oh, you’re much more beautiful than Vanessa.”

Eric probably really meant it. But he was still breathing funny and his eyes were turned inward. Contemplating marriage and tentacles, no doubt. He ran a hand through his hair and looked like a wild creature for a moment, trapped and ready to bolt. To go mad and die quietly in the wilderness.

Ariel felt a wave of sympathy for the anguished man. If her life had been hell, at least she had been aware of what was going on. He was just now dealing with truths that were even uglier than he expected, and that had been his life for the past few years.

She put a hand on his shoulder. He immediately took it, like a lifeline. He didn’t look at her yet, though, still staring into space.

“Octopodes,” he finally said.

“I…beg your pardon?”

“Oc-to-poh-dehs.” Eric took a deep breath and finally looked up. “The real plural of octopus. Because it’s third declension in Latin, not second. Pus, podis, podes.”

“All right,” Ariel said uncertainly.

“There was a thing going around last year. Everyone was—well, all my old university mates were—talking about it. Hard to explain. Latin jokes. Volo, vis, vulture, and so on…oh, never mind.”

“Romanorum linguam scio,” Ariel said mildly. The look on Eric’s face was very, very satisfying. “They were known to us—at least in the very earliest days, before the Republic.”

“Of course they were,” Eric said, rubbing his brow with his palms. “You know what? This would make a real amazing opera on its own. This marriage of mine. A horror opera. A new genre. A man wakes up one day to find he’s been spending his whole happily married life with an evil octopus witch.”

“Were you happily married?” she asked, curious despite her other concerns. I sound like Jona.

“Mother of God, no,” Eric swore. “Actually, it’s like many state marriages, I suppose. It could have been worse. We show up for formal functions together, pose for portraits, and spend most of our days and…private time…apart. You know—she runs the kingdom and plans our next military venture, and I write operas everyone loves,” he finished disgustedly. He reached into the deep pocket on his jacket, pulled out his ocarina, and glared at the instrument like it had been the sole cause of all his problems.

“You love music,” Ariel pointed out. “It’s sort of what brought us together. Almost.”

“Ariel, I’m a prince. I should be ruling. It’s my responsibility. If I had been more…awake over the last few years, or less of an idiot, I could have prevented the mess we’re in now. You wouldn’t understand,” he sighed. “I have responsibilities.”

Ariel regarded him with steely amusement.

“Prince Eric, since my father went missing and presumed dead, I have taken his place as high ruler of Atlantica. I am its queen. Informally known as Queen of the Sea. All of the sea. This one, at least. Queen.”

Eric looked, quite understandably, dumbfounded. She felt his gaze change, felt him searching for—and finding—signs of a queen where his playful little redheaded girl had been. She drew herself up taller and pointed her chin, not quite unconsciously.

“Oh,” Eric said. “Oh. Right. Oh. I should be—I should kneel to you then, shouldn’t I? Foreign royalty of a higher station?”

Ariel laughed. The second real laugh since getting her voice back, and this one was far more burbling and not brittle at all.

“Oh, Eric, it’s a little late for that,” she sighed. “But…you do love music. Of all the things that should upset you about this situation, getting to do what you love shouldn’t be one of them. I love music, too. I love singing. Taking that away from me was the cruelest form of torture Ursula could have devised—well, next to making me think I was responsible for my father’s death.”