Tress of the Emerald Sea

The third cup was an enormous solid pewter tankard with heft to it. Perhaps it was from one of those places Charlie had made up, where people always needed to carry weapons. Tress was reasonably certain she could knock out an attacker by swinging the tankard. The latest princess hadn’t been able to withstand an extended conversation about the benefits of various punctuation marks, including a few Charlie had invented.

The fourth package’s card included no letter, only a small drawing: two gloved hands holding to one another. The cup had a painted butterfly on it with a red ocean underneath; she found it odd that the butterfly wasn’t terrified of the spores. Maybe it was a prisoner, forced to fly out over the ocean to its doom.

The fifth cup never arrived.

Tress tried to play it off, telling herself that it must have been interrupted in transit. After all, any number of dangerous things could happen to a ship sailing the spores. Pirates or…you know…spores.

But the months stretched long, each more tedious than the one before. Every time a ship arrived at the docks, Tress was there asking for mail.

Nothing.

She did this for months on end, until an entire year had passed since Charlie had left.

Then, finally, a note. Not from Charlie, but from his father, sent to the entire town. The duke was returning to Diggen’s Point at long last, and he was bringing his wife, his heir…and his new daughter-in-law.





THE BRIDE





Tress sat upon her porch, leaning against her mother, and watched the horizon. She held the last cup Charlie had sent. The one with the suicidal butterfly.

Her lukewarm tea tasted of tears.

“It wasn’t very practical,” she whispered to her mother.

“Love rarely is,” her mother replied. She was a stout woman, with a cheerful kind of girth. Five years ago, she’d been thin as a reed. Then Tress had learned her mother was giving up a portion of her food to her children—from then on, Tress had taken over shopping and had made their money stretch further.

A ship appeared on the horizon.

“I’ve finally thought of what I should have said.” Tress pushed her hair out of her eyes. “When he left. I called him a glove. It isn’t so bad as it sounds. He’d just called me one, you see. I’ve had a year to think about it, and I realized I could have said something more.”

Her mother squeezed her shoulder as the ship drew inevitably closer.

“I should have said,” Tress whispered, “that I loved him.”

Her mother joined her as she marched, like a soldier on the front lines facing cannon fire, down to the docks to greet the ship. Her father, with his bad leg, stayed behind—which was good. She feared he’d make a scene, the way he’d been grumbling about the duke and his son these last few months.

But Tress could not find it in herself to blame Charlie. It wasn’t his fault that he was the duke’s son. It could have happened to anyone, really.

A crowd had gathered. The duke’s letter said he wanted a celebration—and he was bringing food and wine. Whatever else the people thought of getting a new future duchess, they were not going to miss a chance at free alcohol. (As it has ever been, gifts are the secret to popularity. That and having the power to behead anyone who dislikes you.)

Tress and her mother arrived at the back of the crowd, but Holmes the baker waved them up on his steps so they could see better. He was a kind man, always saving the ends of loaves, then selling them to her for pennies.

So it was that Tress had a good view of the princess as she appeared on the deck. She was beautiful. Rosy cheeks, shimmering hair, delicate features. She was so perfect, the finest painter in the seas couldn’t have made improvements in her portrait.

Charlie had at last been able to become part of a story. With effort, Tress was happy for him.

The duke appeared next, waving his hand so the people knew to cheer for him. “I present,” he shouted, “my heir!”

A young man stepped up onto the deck beside the princess. And it was most definitely not Charlie.

This young man was around the same age as Charlie, but he was six and a half feet tall and had a jaw so straight it made other men question if they were. He bulged with muscles—to the point that when he lifted his arm to wave, Tress swore she could hear the seams on his shirt begging for mercy.

What under the twelve moons?

“After an unfortunate accident,” the duke proclaimed to the hushed crowd, “I was forced to adopt my nephew Dirk and appoint him as my new heir.” He gave a moment for the crowd to take that in. “He’s an excellent fencer,” the duke continued, “and responds to questions with single-sentence answers. Sometimes using only one word! Also, he’s a war hero. He lost ten thousand men in the Battle of Lakeprivy.”

“Ten thousand?” Tress’s mother said. “My, that’s a lot.”

“We shall now celebrate Dirk’s marriage to the princess of Dormancy!” the duke shouted, raising his hands high.

The crowd remained quiet, still confused.

“I brought thirty kegs!” the duke shouted.

They cheered. And so, a party it was. The townspeople led the way up to the feast hall. They remarked on the princess’s beauty and marveled that Dirk managed to balance so well while walking, considering his center of gravity must have been located somewhere around his upper sternum.

Tress’s mother told her she would get answers, and followed the crowd. However, when Tress came out of her shock, she found Flik—one of the duke’s servants—waving to her from near the bottom of the gangplank. He was a kindly man, with wide ears that looked as if they were waiting for the right moment to bolt and fly away.

“Flik?” she whispered. “What happened? An accident? Where is Charlie?”

Flik glanced up at the train of people walking to the feast hall. The duke and his family had joined them, and were far enough away that any scowls would lose their potency due to wind resistance and gravitational drop.

“He wanted me to give you this,” Flik said, handing her a small sack. It tinkled as she took it. Inside were broken pieces of ceramic.

The fifth cup.

“He tried so hard, Miss Tress,” Flik whispered. “Oh, you should have seen the young master. He did everything he could to put those women off. He memorized eighty-seven different types of plywood and their uses. He told every princess he met—at length—about his childhood pets. He even talked about religion. I thought they had ’im at the fifth kingdom, as that princess was deaf, but the young master went and threw up on her at dinner.”

“He threw up?”

“Straight in ’er lap, Miss Tress.” Flik looked both ways, then waved for her to follow as he carried some luggage off the docks, leading them to a more secluded location. “But his father got wise, Miss Tress. Figured out what the young master was doing. The duke got right mad. Right mad indeed.”

He gestured to the broken cup she was carrying in her sack.

“Yes, but what happened to Charlie?” Tress asked.

Flik looked away.

“Please,” Tress asked. “Where is he?”

“He sailed the Midnight Sea, Miss Tress,” he said. “Beneath Thanasmia’s own moon. The Sorceress took him.”