Talen

A Mother's Love

I began to study two things with single minded focus. I absorbed every speck of knowledge in the royal library on magic, learning all I could about the strange hands I saw nearly every time I cast a spell. I learned that magic would conform to the personality of the user, and because mine had become one of consumption and intake, the magic to me appeared as a pair of hands that took, stole, changed things. I learned that it would take a source of magic more powerful than anything I could comprehend to change Talen's fate, to keep his body from being ravaged by its own magic. And I learned that the only nearby source of such power was the Trident, handed down through generations of Merman kings controlling the sea and all its inhabitants.

So I began studying the Trident. I learned where it was kept, when Neptune took it from its stand and when he put it back before he went to sleep. I learned the pattern of the guards roaming back and forth and around the stand. I learned everything there was to know about the Trident, except the most important thing.

Two months after Talen's birth, I decided I was ready. I would seize the Trident and give my son the chance to live. Not only that, I decided, but I would be the new ruler. And why shouldn't I be? Because I was born with tentacles instead of fins? Because my skin was purple and my kind cast aside? Not good enough. I could feel it now, the resentment. The hot, writhing resentment buried deep in my heart the very first time I was called a "pet". I'd turned away from it for so long, kept it at a distance as long as it was just me. But it was no longer just me, it was Talen too. His future was at stake, so I embraced the poison I'd kept simmering for so long. Embraced it, and let it burn hotter, preparing me that night for my destiny.

Everything worked perfectly. I watched from the shadows, cloaking myself in a spell that cost me the color of my eyes as Neptune set his Trident in its stand. The three guards stood at attention until he left, then began their patrol, swimming in a precise circle around it. As they passed around and around it, never taking their eyes off, I lay myself down on the ground and crawled forward. It was easy to crawl and roll with all my flesh, and I had kept to the ground most of my life. The guards, I had noted, swam several feet off the floor of the palace, leaving me plenty of room to wriggle underneath.

I had just passed beneath one of them, when I heard a faint mewling noise. My innards clenched as the circle of shadows halted, and the guards turned toward the disturbance. In the archway, barely inching forward, was my son. My mind raced. How had he gotten there? Was he old enough to have moved himself? I reached back in my memory, searching for clues. He had been more restless lately, been stirring his weak tentacles and tail in an effort to move. He was almost of age to begin swimming... he could have made it this far.

One of the guards broke the circle and began swimming toward Talen, drawing a sword. In that moment, I saw a choice. I could swoop up my son under the cover of my spell and hide him away, or I could seize the Trident. If I went after my son, I would reach him before the guard did, but I would lose my chance to save him from a horrible death. If I grabbed the Trident, the guard might reach my son first.

For a moment, I lay within the circle, staring up at the trident. The gold of it gleamed brilliant, almost blinding, but all I saw was my son's salvation. I stretched out my hand to take it.

When I woke, my wrists were bound behind my back and my tentacles were wound with thick strands of kelp. I lay on my back, staring up into the face of Neptune. I had never seen an expression more terrifying on the face of any creature in my entire life. Beside him, Triton hovered, staring a little to my left, a mortified and disgusted look on his face. I turned my head to see what he was looking at, and saw the most pitiful sight in my life. Talen, already barely able to crawl, had been wrapped in seaweed so tightly he could do nothing but cry. They had bound him so tightly that the strands cut his fragile skin, and blue blood stained the water.