The Sea Witch (The Era of Villains Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

mind, maybe from the moment he swam away from her the
day before.
    “ Look
at me, girl, not him!” said Amphitrite. “From now on you
keep your eyes on your work and that’s it. You are not fit to
look at him. Your kind is not fit to lick the ground he swims over.
You will abandon your foolish romantic notions for my son. You will
remember your place, or you won’t even be able to call
yourself a maid anymore. Do you understand?”
    “ Yes,
your Majesty,” said Serena, trying in vain to choke down
another sob.
    “ Don’t
just float there. Get back to work.” With a flick of her tail,
Amphitrite turned to look at her son. “Triton, make better use
of your time elsewhere. You mermaids go home. You’ve had
enough fun for one day.”
    The
mermaids stifled giggles behind their hands as they swam by Serena
to the palace doors. Triton spared Serena one last apologetic glance
that she caught out of the corner of her eye before he headed down
the corridor that would lead him to his battle training grounds.
Amphitrite did not turn back to look at Serena. She pumped her tail
in a graceful arcs and swam back up to her chambers on the fourth
floor.
    Serena
scrubbed slowly, not making a sound, as they all left. Her heart was
no longer aching with desire or pounding with excitement. Her heart
felt nothing at all. There seemed to be a hole in her chest, and in
the place where her heart used to be there was only an uncomfortable
pressure from trying not to cry. When she was finally alone in the
atrium, she dropped her sponge and her barnacle scraper and punted
them across the atrium with her tail with an angry yell that turned
into a cry of anguish.
    Now it
felt as though her heart had returned, but in pieces, and it was
crying out in agony. She yanked open the palace doors and swam with
all her might. She swam blindly, not knowing where she was going and
not caring, as long as it wasn’t her home. She swam all the
way to the outskirts of the city. The city was built on an elevated
piece of land that had once been a coral reef that stood only about
two-hundred and fifty feet below the surface of the water. The edge
of the city dropped off suddenly into Deep Ocean. The water below
the edge of the city was a darker blue. Eventually, as it went down,
it would turn black.
    Serena
laid herself out on a stone outcropping overlooking the drop and
finally allowed herself to weep. Her back shook up and down with the
force of her sobs as she let herself feel the worst of the pain. One
image kept forming in her head, renewing her tears and her sobs each
time. Triton’s genuine amusement. The easy smile. The brisk
laugh that meant everything she had dreamed of was just a joke to
him.
    Over and
over, behind her lids, she rose and said, “Me! You should take
me.” Over and over his beautiful face split in a smile. Over
and over that “Ha!” crashed against her eardrums and
dashed her dreams to pieces. She had been a fool to think one flirty
smile could change everything. Of course he hadn’t meant
anything by it. He was charming. He was raised to be. He was polite.
That was all he had been doing yesterday, living up to his
upbringing. He didn’t remember her name. She was sure of it
now.
    The jeers
of the mermaids were just unpleasant background noise in her head.
Queen Amphitrite’s words stung, all the more so because there
was truth in them. Yet again, her mother’s reputation marred
Serena no matter how hard she tried to escape it. Moira was also the
main reason why Serena was a maid, and thus so far below Triton’s
station. Moira had wealth (though nothing like that of the
bubbleheads, since half the time she asked for potion ingredients as
payment instead of money), but she did not share it with her
daughters, especially not with a daughter who did not follow in her
fin strokes. Serena would not have cared—she didn’t want
her mother’s ill-gotten money—but Moira’s
reputation had followed her into the job market as well.