After the Tide

Chapter 2 - AT 2791 - Mako

Salt air. And there's wind in my hair. I fell asleep by the shore again.
I sit up. No on the rocks. I sigh, looking out at the dark water. It's a cloudy day, but the cold wind always blows here. The Rocky islands will never feel like home. But I don't know what does.
I stand up, wrapping my coat around me. The village will already be stirring. So will the palace. I'm glad to be on dry land, the sea at my back.
Not the first time I've fallen asleep outside, and been slipping in the palace gates with the morning workers. Some coming to beg for food. Some just begging mercy for condemned relatives. I feel a flash of guilt, my belly isn't full but it soon will be. And dark skin and hair, I'm no different from most of them. Fine clothes aside I know damn well I fit in more outside the walls than in.
I break the habit of a decade and don't climb the walls themselves, they've gotten higher since I came though I doubt the idea was to keep me in. I go where I like. Like a cat. Or a motherless boy with no past or future.
I dodge past the stragglers and the guards admit me with barely a glance. I'm a fixture if not a welcome one.
"There you are."
"Matthias—we had sparring didn't we?" I wince, spinning to confront my tutor.
A seasoned sailor and former mercenary, he's got better things to do than track down and play nursemaid to a slight boy. But if he's miffed at the assignment, he's not once taken it out on me. Despite this not being the first time he's caught me slipping into the great hall, clearly been out by the ocean all night.
"That we did, do we need to talk?" He asks, folding his arms.
"Just—the ocean. Balor. Didn't come," I mutter, shrugging one shoulder, "I don't even care he's a fucking idiot. Just. My father's back and—you know."
"The General is preoccupied his party got in late last night," Matthias says, some sympathy in his voice, "Double session this afternoon, all right?"
"I can be ready now—let me change," I say, gesturing to my cloak.
"Not now. The Lady Mara wishes to see you," Matthias says, hand on his short sword idly.
"That was fast," I mutter.
"I thought so. Usually takes them a week," he says, dryly. Wife number seven, and she's already wanting to see the bastard boy? Doesn't she have the rest of the wives to meet? Well maybe they spoke.
"Right then—I'll go over to the village," I say, putting a hand through my hair, "Have you seen my father?"
"The General's still meeting with the council. I wouldn't be surprised if he came down this afternoon though," Matthias says. He'd tell me if he knew something.
"Yeah. Thanks. Right I'll go see her—did you—?""
"Get a look at her. No. Just the message," he says.
I nod. My father collected this one a few months ago, in the south. It's not common to take multiple wives but my father knows no customs but his own. He has right of first bed to any woman in the village. And six wives now this one. Yet I have no siblings.
I don't bother to go change. This won't be a pleasant meeting anyway. My father is the only person who wants me inside. His word is law so I am. But I know the way they all look at me. He might as well bring a shark inside and call it his son. Mako. A fitting if sly epithet for his bastard boy that he gives run of his palace. I'm so clearly from the south, swarthier than anyone here, skittish still as a stray. I don't belong here. Their faces say it. But I don't belong anywhere else either.
I know my way around the palace with my eyes closed, which is pretty good given how little sleep I got last night. The village isn't a place I frequent but they ask for me from time to time. It's not really called that, it's what we call where my father's wives live. I was meant to live there too but my father made excuses, instead keeping me by his side when he's ashore.
The village itself is just a circle of stone houses, within the main palace walls. A little garden, and nice grounds surround it, a simple salt water pool at the center. A fine enough dwelling for each wife. And in theory space for children to play.
When I climb over the gates only one wife is out.
"Lady Edith," I say, respectfully. She looks up at me from kneeling in the garden. She's not one that minds me so much. She'll deign to talk to me even if she's from Greenland and can't stand that I'm southern.
"Have you seen the General?" She asks.
"Not yet, I'm her for —," i was about to say the new one, "Lady Mara."
"On you go then," she says, looking away, "Fourth house."
The empty one. Well formerly empty. Lights are on inside and a few servants, oh slaves, are clearly moving in belongings.  The door stands propped open and warm light issues from within.
I step through the doorway, ducking a bit. It's the same as the other dwellings, the main parlor is comfortable though at the moment clearly unpacking is being done. A few slaves are doing that, while a woman sits in an overstuffed chair.
"Lady Mara," I say, wiping any emotion from my face.
She's clearly in the mid stages of a pregnancy. Shorter than me with dark hair, freckles on pale skin. She's wearing a very nice, looks like wool, blue dress that is clearly too tight now. She fell pregnant what at the wedding to be this far along?
"I'm Mako, the General's son," I say.
"I see," she looks me up and down clearly searching for deformity. A hand protectively curled over her gut. She's ill. And the child's miserable. It's dying.
"Wanted to have a look at the one that lived?" I ask, sitting down though I wasn't told to.
"I suppose," she says, softly, "You don't look—they said you—,"
"I'm bound to a sea serpent. Yes. I have been for now eight years," I say.
She looks a bit horrified, doing mental calculations. She's likely closer to my age than my father's.
"I was seven when it chose me. Most humans if they can bond it's not that early. But I'm not all human," I say, the words burning on my tongue. I drag my eyes back to her swollen belly. She deserves to hear it.
"The General said they all died," she says, softly, "He said he had a son I didn't—the others told me of you. There are rumors. They all say you were from before—,"
"He turned? No. It's just not obvious, I got—I suppose lucky," I say. After bonding to his serpent, he's become closer to monster than man. I was sired after he was bonded, but somehow got little enough of it to survive. This one is in pain. Half-human half monster, misformed and suffering as it slowly dies.  "Half bloods don't survive outside the womb. Organs in the wrong places, that sort of thing."
"But you look—human," she says.
I tug down the collar of my shirt to reveal the gills, soft and fleshy, down my neck. Thick black scales are beginning to cluster around them.
A slave steps between us to serve tea. His hands shake as he fills my cup. He's only a boy, about my age. And he just saw that.
"Is it— complete?" Lady Mara asks, slowly.
"Yes, fully functioning. There's more, both sides. And," I hold up a hand, to reveal ever so slight webbing between my fingers.
She clearly wants to recoil. I know my father's worse which is why I'm sure she's concerned for the unborn child. I saw one of the others. More fish than human, twisted, with legs and fins both, no eyes, completely disfigured in attempts to be both things at once.
"Why didn't he have your mother then? Give him more children, you worked out," she says, still staring at me, "Where is she?"
"Dead," i say, the words have been so oft repeated they should lose their meaning. But it's like the first time. "Nearly ten years ago. I came here to live with the General after that."
"She wasn't a concubine?" She frowns.
"No. She was a warrior. I don't know how she met my father, or why she had me. She kept me secret no one was to know I'm like this. She told me nothing of him. And he's never told me anything," I say.
"I don't want it to be a freak," she says, caressing her belly, "It does move. I want—,"
"It won't be human," I say, shaking my head, "It's half blood."
"Like you," she says, "Why—haven't you asked your father about your mother?"
"She didn't want me to know," I say. And I expect she had good reason. I was hardly a welcome child. I know enough to know that. And whatever her association with my father, the General, scourge of the sea, it can't have been good.