What Lies Beneath the Water

The Accord (1)

*Aqua's POV*

"We have put this off for too long Aqua! You are 1245 years old, and the heir to my throne! You should have been married five hundred years ago when your brother abdicated his right as the heir. I have been far too lenient with you! You will be marrying Duke Kion Lagunov's son by the end of the month!" He shouted.

"You can't just force me to marry not only someone I do not know but someone I do not love nor am I mated to!" I shouted back, with equal volume making sure he could hear the hurt in my voice.

He struck the floor with his trident sending vibrations my way. "I can Aqua Marie Okeah, and I will! I am your king!"

"You are a father and a husband before a king! What would Mom have thought about this if she were here! Would she be proud to call you her husband? You and mom were mates and fought against your father to be together. You fought for love, and you won't even give me a fighting chance to find love." His face softened at the memory of mom. He always said that I look too much like her but from pictures that I've seen, she's so much more...radiant.

"Aqua, this is not up for discussion." His voice even more stern than before.

"You pushed Kai away to the point of him abdicating his title, if you do this I swear that I will run away just like he did." There were two untold rules that Dad and I always obeyed to allow us to go about our days. Number one, don't mention mom's death. Number two, don't mention Kai leaving. I broke both in minutes.

He took a step closer to me with eyes glowing with anger. "That is enough Aqua! People are asking questions as to why you are not married and others are spreading rumors about it. One of my servants informed me that they heard someone speculating that you were a man!" It finally all clicked as to the actually reason why I was being forced. Dad was always very weary of rumors after mom died. He heard rumors of someone trying to go against the crown and didn't listen to them which resulted in my mother's death.

"Was it Lady Quidnunc because she has been trying to get me to marry her son for the past two hundred years! When will she realize that I do not want to date her licentious son!" I said, and my father's laughter ripped through the air thick with tension.

I joined in on laughing with him until little by little the laughter died down and was replaced by the thick tension. We just sat there in silence, waiting, begging for the other to say something. "There must be another way, Dad."

"There isn't my little Seahorse. There just isn't." He sat down stiff in his chair.

I stood up from my seat, slammed my hands on the table, and said, "No, ever since I was little you told me that there is always another way. Things are never just black and white, and you can't expect me to give up on that way of thinking now." I started pacing back and forth until my topology teacher walked in and told me that she was ready for me. I told her to wait for me in my study, and that's when it dawned on me: school.

"Do you remember the Academy that Earl Antony was talking about in which all supernaturals attend in attempt to create a world where chaos isn't erupting at every second? What if I go to that school? Education is a worthy enough cause to postpone a marriage. It would allow me to meet other super naturals and give me a chance to find my mate."

"That is not an option, Aqua. It is simply a matter of your safety. There are thousands of people who would love to kill you and take your powers. I am not willing to risk your life. I would rather have a living daughter in an unhappy marriage than no daughter at all." I could see his lip tremble at the thought of my death.

"If my safety as Princess Aqua Marie Okeah cannot be assured, then can't we just take my title out of the equation?" My father opens his mouth to speak, but I quickly said, "Just listen to me. People don't truly know how I look. I've appeared at court maybe twenty times in my entire lifetime, and you were quick to keep me out of cameras' eyes. The only way I am recognized is because of my hair. If I used a spell to drain all of the blue from my hair, virtually no one would recognize me. And if I disguised myself as a human with a pseudonym, no one would know. You could say that I went to study advanced war strategies with Uncle Gillard for a year. No one would know."

He stood back up again and said, "No. The risks are far too high. Your life means more to me than anything else. You are my only daughter, and I'd be damned before I see you die." His fist slammed on the table.

"But don't you see, by making me marry someone that I don't know, nor I am mated to is going to kill a part of me. I will be a shell of a mermaid, and I do not want to succumb to that fate. Please Dad, I don't ask of much from you, but I ask you this." I looked him in eyes knowing that I inherited my mother's eyes.

He released a sigh and said, "Fine, but you have to agree to my two terms. Number one, if you have not found your mate by the end of the school year, you will come back here and marry him that exact day. Number two, under no circumstance are you allowed to show your true identity. You must seem like a naïve human just there to learn about supernatural creatures."

There was not one ounce of hesitation in my body when I complied to the accord.

Dad and I went about our normal routines of him going to court and reading proposals from various royal families while I went on to do my various studies and practiced my violin which I have been playing ever since my brother taught me when I was little. It was the one instrument that Kai refused to play after Mom passed away. He said that it was her favorite instrument, and a constant reminder of her passing. I naturally felt drawn to the instrument as a way to get to know my mom in a way that I never could.

Regardless of how busy Dad would get, he would always make sure to have both breakfast and dinner with me. It was our thing, and so when dinner came around, I waited for him at the table. I waited for a few minutes before my dad rushed in holding a small ring box.

"Hey Seahorse, I'm sorry that I'm late, but I had to pick something up for you." He handed me the small ring box, and I opened it to find a ring that consisted of a mermaid tale and blue sapphires. "Your mother picked it out when you were a baby and charmed it so that it glows whenever your brother or I am around. I was going to give it to you for your two thousandth birthday, but with you leaving to study, I wanted you to have this ring."

I stared at it in awe and was almost too scared to put it on. Too scared that I would lose or damage it, but my dad took it out of the box and slid it on my left hand middle finger. It started glowing as did his wedding ring.

I didn't even realize that a tear was coming down my cheek until dad wiped a tear with his thumb and said, "Your mother would have been so proud of you." I gave Dad a hug and said, "I wish she was here."

"Me too, Seahorse. She would have shut down any rumors about you and laugh at my face if I tried to tell her that you were going to marry someone without even meeting them. Then she would have taken all of the papers on my desk and threw them away saying, 'Go spend some time with our family.'" I released dad from our hug and looked him in the eye.

"No, she wouldn't have. Dad, she was a queen. She knew the importance of some of those papers." I didn't know my mom, but from what I was told she was a rational person.

"That never stopped her from doing it before." My mouth dropped at the audacity that my mom held. I could never do that. I would cry myself to sleep with stress trying to finish the papers over just recycling them. My god.

Dad sat down in his chair across from me and said, "You know, you are more like your mother than you will ever know." 

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What did you guys think? First published book so feel free to tell me your thoughts! Looking forward to see what you guys say!