Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga, #1)(13)

“What do you think of the princess, Your Grace?” she heard the ambassador ask. “She is very lovely, no?”

Serafina knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but she couldn’t help herself. Curious, she leaned against the sea fan.

“Does it matter what I think?” he’d said. “She’s their choice—my parents’, their advisers’—not mine. I have no choice.”

At that very second, the sea fan—old and brittle—cracked under Serafina’s weight. It fell from the coral shelf and toppled heavily to the seafloor, sending up a cloud of silt. When the cloud finally settled, Sera peered over the shelf. Mahdi looked up and saw her.

“Wow. This is awkward,” she said.

“You heard us,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to,” said Serafina. “I was sitting here listening to a conch and then you swam by and…well, I couldn’t help it. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

“No, don’t go. Please,” Mahdi said. He turned to his ambassador. “Leave us,” he ordered.

“Your Grace, is that wise? There will be talk.”

“Leave us,” Mahdi repeated through gritted teeth.

The ambassador bowed and left. As soon as he was gone, Mahdi swam up to Sera and helped her over the jagged edges of the broken sea fan. They sat down together on a nearby rock.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I know how you feel.”

He turned to look at her. “But I thought—”

Serafina laughed. “You thought what? That because I’m a merl, it’s all just fine with me? Getting betrothed at sixteen and married at twenty? To someone chosen for me, not by me? How very enlightened of you, Your Grace. It’s the forty-first century, you know, not the tenth. And to be perfectly honest, I’d much rather pursue a doctorate in ancient Atlantean history than marry you.”

After that, she often felt Mahdi’s eyes on her. They were beautiful eyes—dark, expressive, and fringed with long black lashes. She would look up at a dinner or during a pageant and catch him watching her. He would always look away.

The next time they were alone together, it was because Serafina had found him hiding. She’d had another history conch to listen to and had managed to sneak away from her court to do it. The only problem was that someone had beaten her to her new hiding place. Mahdi was sitting there, in a copse of kelp, with a knife in one hand and a small, ivory-colored object in the other. When he heard her approach, he tried to hide them.

“Can’t you give me one moment’s peace?” he’d asked wearily.

Serafina backed up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said.

Mahdi’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice. “Oh, no,” he said. “I’m sorry, Serafina. I thought you were Akmal. He never leaves me alone.”

“It’s all right, Mahdi. I’ll find somewhere else to—”

“No, wait, Serafina. Please.” He opened his hand, showing her the object he’d tried to hide. It was a tiny octopus, about three inches long, intricately carved from a piece of bone.

“It looks just like Sylvestre!” she exclaimed, delighted.

“That was the idea,” he said.

“It’s beautiful, Mahdi!”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling shyly. “Nobody knows I carve. I’ve managed to keep it a secret. I don’t even know why I do it.” He looked away. “It’s just…sometimes you want one thing, just one thing—”

“—that’s for yourself alone,” she finished.

It was as if they were seeing each other for the first time.

“I have that with Clio,” she said.

“Clio?”

“My hippokamp. I’m not allowed to ride by myself, being principessa and all. If I want to go out, I have to go with guards. But I always manage to get ahead of them and for a few moments, it’s just Clio and me. All I hear is the sound of her fins beating the water. If a pod of dolphins swims by, I see it alone. If a whale passes by, I hear her song alone.” She smiled ruefully. “Of course, if I fall off Clio and break my neck, I do that alone too.”

When she finished speaking, Mahdi took her hand and placed the little octopus in her palm. “For you,” he said.

A few nights later, she felt him take her hand again—this time in the dark, during a waterlights display in his honor. He’d looked at her, asking her with his dark eyes if it was all right. She’d answered him with hers that it was. And then, one evening while they were playing hide-and-seek with Desiderio, Neela, Yazeed, and the younger members of the court in the reggia, he’d suddenly pulled her deep into the tumbled ruins.

“I found you,” he said, as they floated close together in the water.

“No, Mahdi, that’s not how the game works. Don’t you have hide-and-seek in Matali? It’s not your turn. Desiderio’s it,” she’d said, keeping an eye out for her brother.

“I’m not talking about the game,” he said. “I found you, Serafina. You’re the one thing. The one thing for myself alone.” He’d pulled her to him then and kissed her.