away.
Cold winds
Moran spoke to the ambassadors in the throne room. These were not spies of the sea king, but the most ordinary of men who began choking on water, barely their speech displeased the king. Moran ignored threats of military attack. It was easy for him to sink another fleet, as he was now sinking the ambassadors, without touching them.
Desdemona lurked behind the column and watched a torrent of salty seawater pour from the mouths of the unfortunates. They were choking. Their skin was turning blue. Moran watched their agony with indifference. He would look on the wreckage of the enemy armada the same way.
He was worth fearing. When necessary, he knows how to be brutal.
It’s best to leave him to deal with the affairs of state alone. The throne room with its huge pool began to frighten her. Desdemona hurried away. At the exit, her maids of honor curtsied before her. She didn’t even know all of them by name. But she could hear them whispering about a prophecy of long ago.
Desdemona herself could see the sky over Aquilania growing darker. The people were expecting the worst storm in the country’s history, when the sea would break its banks and either sink the entire kingdom or retreat, barely spilling the blood of one chosen victim.
In the rational opinion of some, even the blood of hundreds of victims will not pacify the surf. But most people in the island kingdoms that depended on the wrath of the elements were sadly not rational. Ancient superstitions reigned here.
The sea in Aquilania was getting colder and colder. A couple decades ago, the coast had been much sunnier and warmer. Now it was cloudy all the time. It was said that in the days of the old ministers’ youth the climate had been so hot that it was impossible to be near the sea without a parasol. Now the waves smelled almost like ice. Strange, considering that just off the coast there was still a tropical paradise, oranges and bananas ripening under the blazing sun. Their groves are often called plantations. The owners of such plantations have a good income, selling tons of pineapples and tangerines to merchants from neighboring countries. The markets of Aquilania are bursting with fruits that ripen only in the heat. The inland is always warm, but the coast is cold without a cloak.
“They say the watermen are angry,” Desdemona had often heard. Some vagrant by the shore, whom the Morgens did not touch, assured the maidens of this. He had once been an oyster diver, but now he collected shells and tried to sell them. Sometimes they found pearls in them.
He liked Desdemona. He looked at her in some special way, as if he saw her as the sacrifice that would save everyone. Did he decide to kill her himself to save the country from flooding?
It is a foolish belief that sacrifice will propitiate the gods, but the people, frightened and helpless before the elements, are ready to cherish any hope, even the most absurd. Even if Moran were against it, the people would gather in droves, revolt, and slaughter the queen themselves over the edge of the sea to placate the wrath of the waves that threatened to flood their homes.
The god is unlikely to choose another victim in return. He needs one in particular. He’s not changing his mind. We can only hope that the greatest storm in history, the one everyone’s waiting for, won’t happen and no sacrifice will be required.
“Queen of Aquilania!” She was called by a lady standing in the shadow of a deserted loggia.
No one addressed her that way. It was etiquette not to substitute “Your Majesty” for anything else. But the sea lady in the green dress knew no etiquette. Desdemona gasped, noticing the scales on her forehead and neck, which vignettes covered part of her skin and went below her neckline.
“I am a guest and so are they,” the lady waved her green webbed hand at a group of ladies at the other end of the loggia. They were very dressed up, but the scales on their skin could be seen too.
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