The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

I’m sitting in the ‘salon’, or so this is what the maiden’s call the gargantuan room walled by mirrors and stuffed full of plush seating. It’s all very pink, very girly. Powders and pastes are scattered around the metre-long boudoir that lines the walls of the room and behind me is a colossal wardrobe filled with corsets and undergarments that fit under specific dresses. There are women everywhere, elegantly limbed, shiny skinned, long-haired women, each as beautiful as the next in their own unique way. They’re all clad in corsets and panties running around with faces half made and hair falling out of rollers. I watch them flurry about, caught up in a self-made energy and excitement.

“OW!” I scold as Alannah snags another knot. I am so not cut out for this high maintenance crap.

“I know it hurts, Princess. Just sit still and it won’t pull so much.” A maiden called Rose who stands behind me with long, muddy blonde hair rolls her eyes, she thinks I can’t see her.

“I can see you rolling your eyes, Rose.” She looks instantly confused and mortified. “In the mirror…” I enlighten her pointing toward the reflective surface before me with an unimpressed sigh and watch her blue eyes dart from left to right guiltily before she scurries away. I hear a cacophony of girlish chatter behind me as Alannah begins to straighten my hair with irons before she intends to start re-curling it. I personally don’t understand why she can’t just leave it naturally curly, but when I suggested this she rolled her eyes too. Apparently I’m an eye roll inducer. I hear a familiar tone and then a large amount of successive gasps. I crane my neck and Alannah tuts as she quickly has to turn with me, continuing to straighten my hair and beginning to pull them up into those big rollers you see on women who were born in the fifties. I turn to see what the gasps were regarding. Marina has entered the room with my dress, the one Orion paid for, the one I’ve been waiting to see for months with relish.

“Oh my Goddess…” I hear one of the mermaids breathe as they glance through the clear panels of the garment bag. I stand and Alannah sighs at my lack of cooperation in playing Barbie for her, ignoring her I step across the plush plum carpet and walk toward the gathering of mermaids.

“Hey back up girls, let the Princess through.” Marina makes the request and I wonder when everyone started calling me Princess.

“It’s Callie, Marina,” I say to her and she bows her head, lustrous black hair falling forward.

“Of course. Now come see this dress, darling. It’s perfect.” The maiden’s part and I move past envious and admiring eyes. Marina takes the bag down and pulls the zip over metal teeth, pulling out the dress and hanging it on the curtain rail that lines the top of the room’s walls. I step back and admire the work of the seamstress, this dress is nothing like the gown I wore to my initiation ceremony, nothing like the dress I was murdered in. This is not a Princess dress, but rather a dress fit for a Queen.

ORION

I stand at the foot of the staircase of the Lunar Sanctum on the jade green runner, I never liked the colour personally, thought it looked like mould, but today it’s particularly bothering me. Mainly because I’ve been staring at it for longer than I should be. I’m the man of the hour and for some reason, after everything that it’s taken to get here, I feel calmer than I thought. Well mostly calm anyway, except for the fact that I can’t quite understand why women are always late. It can’t take that long to get ready, can it? She’s beautiful anyway. It’d be like asking an art student to recreate the Mona Lisa. Pointless and completely unnecessary. The other maidens have been gathering in the ballroom for hours… where the hell is she?
 

I noticed the maidens watching me beneath blushes I had not seen from them before. Did they know something I didn’t? Had Callie even turned up? I wonder if I can blame her if she runs. Probably not. I’ve had half a millennium to prepare and I’m still not ready. I sigh and look down at my watch. Not one for ever wearing watches before, I had found it in the pocket of the robe I had asked Georgia to deposit, a gift for the coronation from a human. I remember the inscription on the underside of the face now. ‘A show of thanks for your sacrifice. The sacrifice for all time.’ I tap the face again. Can that really be the time? It’s so late? Why isn’t she here? I wonder if this is similar to how I’ll feel waiting for her to come down the aisle. God I hope not.

I hear a cough as I’m absorbed in the ticking hands on the dark blue face and my head snaps up. I back away from the railing and stand in the centre of the moss runner as Marina stands at the head of the staircase in a torrent of scarlet silk with a knowing smile and flushed cheeks. What the hell is everyone so flustered about?

“Your Highness… Your Queen,” she says the words in a simple breathless gush, stepping aside as the two double doors at the top of the staircase which lead to the salon open wide. Callie steps forward out of the dim light and into the glare of the chandelier. I do a double take and feel the hairs rise on the back of my head. Oh… my…Goddess.

She stands, a sparkling, shining, shimmering edifice of beauty. Everything I have waited for. The dress, worth every penny, is a ball-gown like no other. Midnight blue silk makes up a sleeveless, diamond embedded bustier bodice before pinching in at her miniscule waist. The skirt poofs outward in a waterfall of light, each of the gossamer layers of dark weightless net are covered in hand-sewn diamonds, hundreds if not thousands of diamonds at every layer, the very embodiment of the weight which she is about to bear with me. The weight of the sorrow of our people. She does not seem phased by such responsibility, but rather wears it as her crowning glory covering her from head to foot in a galaxy of tear shine. She is beaming, her blonde hair falling in angel curls around her shoulders, pinched back into a thick curled cascade with more diamonds clinging to each ringlet subtly. Her arms are clad in white silk elbow length gloves that make her skin glow like the moon and the aquamarines of her eyes shine. I sigh outward. It is no wonder she was destined to be a Goddess. She is too good for this world.
 

She descends the staircase, not walking but gliding beneath the layers of fabric, her bedazzled high-heeled shoes peeping from the skirt at playful intervals.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late,” she whispers to me, looking through thick black lashes.

“You look…” The words fail me under the thrall of her perfection.

“Yes?” She looks at me too seriously. As if I could possibly utter a marring remark. The dark red of her lips making me want to possess her, wade through a galaxy of diamonds to find her bare and waiting.

“Transcendent.” The word is not enough. I am stunned and shocked to my core. Any man may call me shallow but that was because he had never seen such a godly beauty walking toward him, reaching out to touch his mere mortal flesh.

“It’s just make up. I’m still me underneath.” She giggles touching her white gloved hand to her red lips self-consciously. I don’t have a response. I just stand watching her. I kiss her cheek.

“That dress… worth every penny.” I find myself having trouble putting my words in order. Pull it together man!

“You still haven’t told me exactly how many pennies though.”

“Well… real diamonds cost.” I look her in the eye and she gasps slightly.

“Real? These are real diamonds? I thought these were like… diamantes. Are you nuts!?” She looks at me with horror and I shrug. It’s hard for me to even think about arguing against her. Her looks have reduced my brain power to nil.

“It’s a special night,” I reply and she narrows her eyes.

“I’m going to be having words with you about this later.” She rolls her eyes and kisses me on the cheek, wiping away the lipstick residue as Marina descends behind her. Poor Marina, I had forgotten she was even there. Callie completely overtook my field of vision.

“Come on you two. We have a coronation to get to. Wait until you see what I’ve done with the décor!” She sounds upbeat and excitable, just like everyone else. I wonder if it’s novelty, or the spectacle and the grandeur. Then again, what do I know about grandeur, I just spent six figures on a ring the size of a quarter. “It’s time,” Marina nods with a large smile as we move toward the double doors and I hear our names being announced behind the thick mahogany. I shuffle in my midnight blue suit and correct my aqua silk tie, shaking out my legs as I feel nerves clutch at me. I take Callie on my arm, push my back poker straight so it strains across the tapering of my suit and breathe, standing tall like a male peacock in mating season. The doors open and, with a Goddess on one arm, I step forward into the light.

CALLIE

The double doors swing forward and Orion and I move into the light. My feet step onto an icy blue runner, speckled with silver, and mer stand on either side of me, lining our path. Orion is holding my hand, which is looped through his arm, like his life depends on it. I know deep down he’s scared, I am too.

Marina wasn’t wrong when she had told me, while binding me into my dress that, much like my attire, no expense had been spared when it came to the ceremony. The ballroom has been stripped of its usual burgundy and gold trim and replaced with platinum and glacial pastel blues, the colour of Orion’s eyes. I can’t help but wonder if that’s why she chose the colour. Maybe I’m not the only one who has noticed how distinctive they are. Eyes follow us as an eerie hush settles over the room before, in a stroke of pure elegance, a half orchestra begins to play some song I’ve never heard before. As the song progresses we move, step by painful step, along the frosty velvet path, heading toward the stage at the head of the large dancefloor. Two silver thrones sit, side by side, the arched tops looking like they’ve been constructed from silver coral. Behind them comes a familiar face, one I had not expected to see and I turn to Orion, wide eyed with a gentle comforting happiness. He smiles back as Shaniqua stands before us in robes of lime green, beaming and genteel.

“Shaniqua is here?” I whisper to him and he nods slightly, acting ventriloquist to an invisible dummy, trying to keep his lips unmoving.

“Yes. She’s performing the ceremony.”
 

“I’m glad she came,” I whisper again, pretending to cough to cover my mouth, meeting the eyes of the vast crowds that fill the entire room. I hadn’t realised there were so many mer I hadn’t met before. I guess some only come on land for special occasions. I look past a man with violet eyes and silver hair slicked back against his skull like an eighties rocker, his cheekbones defiantly protrusive against his pale white skin, trying to spot Sophia but I can’t see her. She said she would try to be here, but I guess she couldn’t talk Oscar into leaving the ocean. We reach the stage and climb as Shaniqua bows to me and I return, pulling the sparkling tresses of my skirt up slightly and crossing my ankles. Orion lifts his right fist over his heart and she curtsies back, her lime robes unmoving in stiff silk.
 

“Please… kneel,” she commands us and so I bend my knees beneath me, my skirt pooling around me in a puddle of crystal droplets.

“We gather here today to anoint these two people in the salt of the sea. To place on their shoulders, the weight of its beating waves, and the pleasures of the life held within. To charge to them the sole responsibility of the protection of this realm from within the depths of the ocean, an ancient responsibility and one which is not bestowed lightly,” Shaniqua speaks clearly and I can tell she’s broken. Her voice lacks the lustre it had once spilled. My knees are beginning to ache as I keep my head bowed toward the ice blue of the carpet and feel eyes in their hundreds baring into my spine. I see Shaniqua’s feet move briskly and then feel her sprinkling what I assume to be salt water. I shudder as the droplets trickle over me.