LITMIR.BIZ

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birthday.»

      «You don’t look so old!»

      «Fairies don’t age! Didn’t you know that?»

      «Of course I knew it, but when you get to know them closely, you’re still amazed.»

      She looked like a girl of eighteen, except for the wings, webbing, and wide bat ears.

      «How old are you?» Patricia asked Zeligena for the sake of politeness.

      The swamp fairy was embarrassed, realizing that a large age was not welcome among humans.

      «Well, I’m a couple of millennia old,» Zeligena twirled a green strand of her hair around her finger and lowered her eyes in embarrassment. The swamp fairy’s eyelashes and eyebrows were also green. How beautiful! But for some reason, such beauty scares people. Patricia had gotten used to the charms of fairies, having spent time with them on the same pirate ship.

      Before, her company was just her sister and other court ladies. At first they had played fantasy games in the royal garden, but then the fairies had come to Opal and the games had gotten bloody.

      It was a memory that came to mind. Beatrice is dead in the garden, and from her body stretches a thread of magic and mystery. Fairies wind the tangle of bloody flowers. They laugh and dance in the air around Beatrice’s corpse.

      «She is so young, so unwise,» they hum. «She is so sweet! Her fate is beyond the graves.»

      The fairies’ laughter was annoying. Patricia struggled to break free of the memories and went to her quarters. Beatrice’s night visit had been a complete surprise, but she couldn’t think about it all day. It was not enough that her dead brother came to her after Beatrice. Patricia imagined Cassian slipping through the cabin door holding his own severed head. Can dead heads speak? What if the head spoke in his hands? That would be a nightmare. Beatrice is still tolerable. She must admit that after her death she became even more beautiful than she was in life. Patricia always admired her sister. She wondered why the King of Opal would want Patricia back when he already has Beatrice. Did he loves Patricia? Such love was worse than hate.

      Patricia was sharpening her saber.

      «If you could fly, I’d send you into the King of Opal’s heart!» Patricia had heard of magic swords that could be sent flying and go straight to the heart of your enemy, even if he lived across the ocean. Where could she get a sword like that? True, if the sword fails to deal with the enemy, it will fly back and kill the one who sent it. A powerful wizard like the King of Opal could send back magic swords.

      «Better send an arrow of cupid into his heart,» a female voice advised. Some mermaid peered through the porthole. A crown of pearls glistened in her green hair. It seemed to be the queen of the sea.

      «Good morning!» Patricia thought of nothing more than a banal greeting.

      «It’s not good morning! There was a dragon flying over the sea! It could have hurt us,» the mermaid complained. As if Patricia could do anything against the dragon!

      «He’s not evil.»

      «That depends on who he’s mean to. Did you make a deal with him?»

      «It is nothing!» Patricia was honest.

      «It’s a pity. I could have gotten some privileges from him,» the mermaid sighed.

      «Do you mean the dragon or the King of Opal?»

      «You could seduce the King of Opal, too, but he’d never be honest with you and might try to cast a spell.»

      «And what is about the golden dragon?»

      «That’s for you to decide. You know the dragon better than I do.»

      Patricia didn’t know him at all, but she nodded graciously. Better not lose the respect of a mermaid.

      «What’s your name?» She asked the sea maiden.

      «Don’t you remember? I am Mirida, patroness of the island kingdoms.»

      «No, I don’t remember.»

      «Apparently, you are having a bad day today, so the eclipse came upon your memory.»

      The mermaid took offense and waved her actinia-adorned tail. In a moment she was no longer visible, but there was a splash outside the window.

      «Why was the mermaid so offended that I didn’t remember her?» Patricia was upset. She wanted to be friends with mermaids. Could one sail the seas without the support of mermaids and other sea spirits? But now it would be a good idea to have the support of the dragon ship. If it doesn’t change course at the next encounter, the pirates won’t survive. They’ll burn like witches at the stake! How hard it is to be a pirate these days!

      It was said that in ancient times, all pirates and sailors had to pay tribute to the sea king, or else he would sink the ship. Now we have to negotiate with dragons! If only the dragon were still alive and he was a ship! Can a ship be an animated being or is it controlled by someone?

      The burned sea

      «Look!» Shouted Nethopyrina, pointing somewhere to the north. She hovered above the deck and saw something beyond the horizon that Patricia couldn’t see. She had to get a telescope.

      «What an obsession!» Patricia pulled back the telescope, barely peering through the peephole. Inside it, she could see the sea floor, water dragons and sirens coiled in rings, but the surface of the sea was not visible.

      «Morgens had it forgotten!» Zeligena excitedly picked up the telescope and clutched it to her chest. «This is a priceless thing! Through it you can peek at all the secrets of the sea and ocean kingdoms.»

      «But that’s not what I need right now!» Patricia sighed. The danger was not from the depths of the sea, but from the surface.»

      The moth flew above the masts and blew into the sails, creating a tailwind. The ship sailed forward faster, or it would run aground. If only scorched leagues of sea could be called a shoal.

      When Patricia looked at what Nethopyrina was pointing at, she gasped.

      «Apparently, a dragon ship had recently sailed through here!» She guessed.

      The left side of the sea had dried up, with charred fish skeletons and ash at the bottom.

      «Good thing we didn’t get close!» Nethopyrina flapped her gray wings triumphantly. «I can replace the wind.»

      «I’m lucky to have you.»

      Patricia was startled by the burned out part of the sea. The dragon had scorched it to the bottom. Poisonous vapor rose from the empty pit. The gray spirits of the conflagration hovered over the burnt pit. Patricia had once seen the ghosts of fire over a burned hunting lodge near Opal. They hovered over the ashes in a roundelay and frightened passers-by. To see them over the sea was even more frightening.

      Patricia felt as if she were sailing past a huge grave. After all, the bay had been home to mermaids. Now only their skeletons lay on the bottom. Bones blackened by the fire.

      «Mermaids are like sisters to me,» Zeligena sobbed. «The same thing could have happened to me if I hadn’t run away from the swamp to the sea.»

      One mermaid skeleton was wearing a magnificent crown. It could have been removed, but Patricia thought it was sacrilegious. In case the mermaid skeleton came to life and caught the thief by the hand or the ghost of the mermaid would haunt the ship. The Morgen’s treasure was better left untouched. They should have returned the spyglass as well, but Zeligena didn’t want to part with it. She said the Morgens had left it on deck on purpose.

      «They only leave such things for people they want to invite to visit them,» she said.

      «I won’t go to the bottom of the sea,» Patricia decided. «I don’t want the Morgens to lure me into the underwater realm and drown me.»

      The

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