Some nights, when Signy had taken no lover, she would come to Ulla’s room and they would wriggle beneath the covers, feet tangled together, chafing each other’s hands, and laughing themselves warm. Those were the nights when Ulla did not dream of her mother or father, of the apprentice’s teeth, or the cold blue silence of the deep.
But as the days passed, Roffe’s temper changed, and Ulla saw his brothers become watchful and secretive too. They dallied less with mortal girls and spent long hours in the Prophetic’s Tower. Ulla knew they were all searching the pages of human books for mortal magic, for a gift they might bring back to their father—the thing that might change their fortunes forever.
As Roffe’s mood grew darker, Signy became restless and skittish too, endlessly twining her bright hair around her nervous fingers, her teeth worrying her lower lip until it bled in tiny garnet beads.
“You must stop,” Ulla told her beneath the blankets, dabbing the blood away with the sleeve of her nightgown. “Your misery won’t fix this for him. He’ll find his way. There’s still time.”
“When he does, he’ll seek you out.”
“Both of us,” said Ulla.
“But you are the composer,” Signy said, pressing her feverish forehead to Ulla’s. “You are the one he needs.”
“He needs us both for any song of worth.”
The tears came then and Signy’s voice broke. “When he truly understands your power, he will want you for his bride. You will leave me behind.”
Ulla held her close, wishing she could shake Signy from these thoughts. Neither of them were fit to be a princess, no matter how powerful their song. “I will never leave you. I have no wish to be his bride.”
Signy’s laugh was bitter in the dark. “He’s a prince, Ulla. He will have what he wants.”
As if Signy’s own small hands had set a secret clock ticking, Roffe approached Ulla the next day. It was late afternoon, and a long, languorous meal of cold fowl and chestnuts with citron had been served on the terrace overlooking the gardens. Chilled bottles of yellow cherry wine had been emptied and now, as the servants cleared the table, humans and sildroher drowsed in leafy alcoves or chased one another through the turns of the hedge maze.
Ulla stood at the terrace’s edge, looking down at the gardens, listening to the bees hum. Her mind had already begun to build a song that might transform a corner of the undersea garden she and Signy had raised for the royal family into a maze like this with a whirling pool at its center. It would be a trick of the eye, of course, a gesture toward human fountains, but she thought fish could be made to swim in a circle if she could simply build a strong enough pattern into the melody.
“I need a gift like Rundstrom’s tiger,” said Roffe, coming up beside her and leaning on his elbows. “A horse. A great lizard if I could find one.”
The tiger was a legendary gift, but it was no simple spell. The creature had to be enchanted to breathe underwater, to endure the cold, and then to obey its master. Rundstrom’s tiger had survived barely a year beneath the sea. Long enough to make a second son a king.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” she murmured, the sun warm on her shoulders. “Or you’ll look no better than a cheap imitation.”
“Kalle and Edvin have already found their gifts. Or so they say. But still I falter. An elixir of strength from the alchemist? A bird that sings beneath the waves?”
Ulla huffed out a breath, a human gesture she’d learned to enjoy. “Why does it matter? Why do you even want to be king?”
“I thought you of all people would understand.”
Hungry Ulla. Maybe she did. A song had made two lonely girls friends. A prince’s favor had made them worthy of notice. What might a crown do for that prince?
“You want to spend your days negotiating with the other sea folk?” she asked. “Your nights in endless ritual?” She bumped her shoulder against his. “Roffe, you can barely be counted upon to rise before noon.”
“That’s what advisers are for.”
“A king cannot simply rely on advisers.”
“A king bows to no one,” Roffe said, his blue eyes trained on something Ulla could not see. “A king chooses his own path. His own wife.”
Ulla shifted uneasily, wishing she could be weightless for just a moment, caught in the saltwater arms of the sea. Was Roffe making the very offer Signy had feared?
“Roffe—” she began.
But as if sensing her discomfort, Roffe continued, “A king chooses his own court. His own singers.”
How easily princes played. How easily they spoke of dreams they had no business offering. But Ulla could not help the yearning she felt as Roffe bent his head as if to whisper endearments.
“I would raise you so high, Ulla. No one would gossip about your birth or your wayward mother ever again.”
Ulla flinched. It was one thing to know what others thought, another to hear it spoken. “They will always gossip.”
Roffe smiled slightly. “Then they will do it far more quietly.”
What might a crown do for a prince? What might a king do for a girl like her?
Signy’s laughter floated up to them from the maze below. She was easy to spot, her hair burning like banked embers, a red banner of war streaming behind her as a mortal boy pursued her down the row. Ulla watched her let the boy catch her, spin her around.
“You want to win the throne and impress your father?” she asked Roffe.
“You know I do.”
Signy tossed back her head and threw her arms wide, her face framed by curls like living flame.
Ulla nodded. “Then bring him fire.”
As soon as she said it, Ulla realized her foolishness, but from then on, the prince could think of nothing else. He left off chasing human girls entirely, cloistered himself in the Prophetic’s Tower, barely ate or drank.
“He will drive himself mad,” said Signy as they shivered beneath the covers one night.
“I doubt he has the focus for it.”
“Don’t be unkind.”
“I don’t mean to be,” said Ulla, and she thought that it was true.
“Could the mirror be a gift for the king instead?” Signy asked. Ulla had told her of the strange mirror and the room full of odd objects in the tower.
“He might be amused by it.” For a time.
“Roffe thinks only of fire, day and night. Why did you put such a thought in his head?”
Because he made me dream of things I cannot have, she thought, but said, “He asked and I answered. He should know better than to think it’s possible.” It was one thing to bring a creature of the land beneath the sea and make it live and breathe for a time. That was powerful magic, yes, but not so radically different from the enchantments that allowed the sildroher to walk on land. But to toy with the elements, to make a flame burn when it had no fuel to do so … It would require greater magic than the song that had created the nautilus hall. It could not be done. “He must turn his mind to something else.”