Reincarnated as an Ugly Step Sister

Chapter 31

The water is ice cold, my legs sting a bit where they hit the water, and I only have a few seconds to collect myself before a wave smashes me into the rocks. I start to swim and suddenly I feel myself jetting away from the cliff. At first I'm not sure what's going on so I freeze, look down, and realize I have a beautiful tail. A few yards away there's a splash and I know that Chase has jumped in too. For some reason, I'm surprised that this worked. Part of me assumed the mermaids were lying and just trying to get us to jump off a cliff.

Chase swims over to me in such a calm, graceful manner that it's almost like he's been a mermaid before. I look up to where we jumped off and see Nicholas standing there, still holding his injured hand to his chest. "You'll be fine!" I call. "Look, it worked!" I try and flick my tail out of the water. He nods, closes his eyes, and jumps. There's a large splash, a little closer to the rocks than I would like. I look nervously at the spot where Nicholas fell, waiting for him to come up for air. After his disappearance lasts too long I look over to Chase. "Do we need to look for him? Do you think he's okay?"

Chase is opening his mouth to respond when we hear a voice behind us. "He's fine."

I turn around and see Nicholas, smiling proudly. "Oh my gosh, you scared me! Don't do that! You were underwater for so long."

"Yeah, but I'm a merman so I can breathe water."

"Oh, right," I say, a little embarrassed.

We swim back to shore to meet with Adella and her sisters. We were pretty far out since the tide pulled us further away from land so half way there Nicholas reminds me, "Hey, you can open your eyes and breathe underwater. You don't have to keep coming up for air."

"Ugh, force of habit," I say with an eye roll. I duck my head underwater and slowly open my eyes. The water doesn't feel weird at all, it feels just like air. Then I take a careful breath in. The water feels as light as oxygen in my lungs. I breathe out and somehow, no bubbles emerge.

"This is crazy!" I exclaim. My voice isn't garbled by the water at all. With a giddy smile I swim as quickly as I can to shore.

Chase and Nicholas are already sitting in the shallow water by the time I catch up. The water doesn't feel as cold as it did when I first jumped in, probably because of some mermaid magic.

"I'm glad that worked," one mermaid says.

"I can hardly believe it did, it was so simple," another replies."If only it worked for Adella. Sadly, after giving up her tail, this sort of magic doesn't work on her."

"We need to get going, it's a long journey to our kingdom and Father will be suspicious if we're not home by sunrise. See you later Adella," Ione says, before leaping gracefully into the water with hardly a splash. The rest of the mermaids follow suit. I give Adella a wave goodbye before swimming off.

The mermaid kingdom is far away and deep but we move at a comfortable pace. I spend a good half hour jumping out of the water like a dolphin and spinning around under the waves. Finally, I'm too out of breath to continue. Most of the group gets ahead of me and I find Nicholas at my side. We don't say anything for a bit, I'm still trying to catch my breath, but I notice he's sulking. Not quite pouty, it's more as if he's sad.

"Are you alright?" I ask softly.

"I guess," he says.

"I don't think you are. What's going on?"

"I'm ashamed of my behavior tonight. I acted with such cowardice during the ritual and I regret that. I should have done what needed to be done without batting an eye, like Chase," he says with sigh.