Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(66)

“I believe you were, as they say, of sound mind and body when we made the deal. No one forced you into it and you knew exactly what you were doing.”

“I was a dumb, innocent girl!” Ariel snapped, disappointing herself.

You’re a queen now, not that innocent girl. Do not sink to her level. She is beneath you.

“And it’s been—what? Five or six years since then?” Vanessa asked innocently. “Nothing in the span of a mermaid’s life. The tiniest fraction of a percentage. But I suppose you’re all grown up now?”

“I have grown,” Ariel said frostily. “And I am queen. And I suspect that if we were to go back and reexamine those three days from all sides, like a god, we would see that you had cheated somehow. Even before you used my own voice and someone else’s body and your magic to steal Eric from me!”

“There was no noncompete clause,” Vanessa said, almost reasonably. “I never said I couldn’t go after the same lovely human. He is lovely, by the way.”

Ariel knew the witch was trying to get a rise out of her.

…and she was succeeding; the mermaid could feel warmth rising to her cheeks.

“Please. He has no tail or tentacles. I doubt you find him attractive at all. He’s just a pawn in an elaborate game to punish me and my father.”

“You got me there,” Vanessa sighed dramatically.

“Thank you. Now give me my father.”

“He’s not in the carriage, sweetest. He’s not anywhere you can get him. I have other plans for the King of the Sea—none of which involve you or the zoo of the king of Ibria. Both of you fooled…It’s quite delicious, really. The king is getting a gift, a lesser member of my pretty polyps. Not that the stupid human could tell the difference.”

“Very cleverly done,” Ariel said coldly. “I suppose you have to resort to plain trickery since your powers don’t work on land.”

“Well, perhaps my magic doesn’t. Not yet,” Vanessa allowed—but a quick twist of fury that came and went like lightning across her face spoke of something that irked her deeply. That definitely merits further investigation later. “But I have other powers, you know. Power over the infinite corruptibility of humans. Power over absolute sacks of gold—which you and I couldn’t care less about, but these people worship more than their gods. Power over life and death in that castle where your darling prince lives.”

“Ursula. I know Father exiled you from the kingdom, and you wanted revenge on him. But why involve me?”

“Well, you were a pawn, dear, of course. Another lovely pawn,” Vanessa said with a sensual shrug. “The best way to get at Triton was through his favorite daughter.”

“I’m not—”

“Please,” Vanessa interrupted sharply. “The youngest. The prettiest. The one with the beautiful voice. The one who looked the most like his own dead wife. Everybody knows it. Humans do the same thing—have children who are their favorites—but they constantly rail against the habit in their religions and laws. They try so hard to defeat their own base natures. It’s one of many things I find rather attractive about them.”

Ariel didn’t answer immediately, processing this. She almost wished she still had no voice so she could vamp for time while coming up with the right signs.

“Is that why you’re still here, causing trouble?” she finally asked. “Because you like the humans you live among?”

“Well, yes.” Vanessa put a finger to her lips, seriously considering the idea. “They are so rash and easily manipulated and full of feelings and quick to agree to anything—more like a race of children than a real race, if you ask me. You know, I almost understand your fascination with them now. Before, I thought it was because you were just a dumb bored teenager looking for a way to shock your father.”

Ariel opened her mouth to respond but Vanessa cut her off, coming near. She lowered her head and hunched her shoulders, like Ursula preparing to attack, and Ariel was pretty sure that if there had been shadows in the alley, the one behind her would have shown tentacles waving high, poised to strike.

“You will never, ever get your father back. You, the merfolk, everyone under the sea—you have all lost the great King Triton forever. And you will lose so much more….That is what you get for exiling Ursula. That is what happens to everyone who crosses her!”

Ariel said nothing—she just raised an eyebrow, as if to say, Are you done now?

“And you can just forget about ever getting Eric back, too,” the sea witch added snidely. “Whether or not he remains devoted to me, he is oddly devoted to his people.”

“It’s not odd,” Ariel responded, a little sadly. “A good ruler—a successful ruler—loves her people and governs at their will. She doesn’t use them up for her own selfish purposes. Someday you might actually learn that, even if you triumph against me now. The humans will not put up with you forever.”

Vanessa’s face dissolved into another Ursula-style snarl.

“If I catch Eric helping you in any way, Grimsby will die.”

Ariel almost said, I know this already, but stopped herself just in time.

She wasn’t a great actress and couldn’t feign last-minute surprise. So she spoke the truth.

“You’re a monster.”