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When Anna opened her eyes, it was to a low, curving wall of dark stone, studded here and there with trailing seaweed. She was lying on a sandy shelf, feet trailing in water. She drew them up onto the sand, body screaming in protest at the movement, and closed her eyes again.
They had been on the ship, bound for Corona, when a storm had blown up out of a clear sky. She remembered that. She remembered the First Mate’s nasty look and crude curses, and how the sail had snapped and then torn free in the wild wind. Even as he grappled with ropes and tried to wrest the sails back into place, the man had spared the time to give her an evil eye. It was bad luck to have women on board, and Anna and her mother and her sister made three.
She remembered the sails ripping free again, and the ship shrieking under the strain of the seas around it, and then a wave had come up behind her-
But she was safe. She was on land. She had been thrown overboard, had seen a wall of water rise up above her, seen the ship listing towards her- and then blackness. Nothing.
Anna dug her fingers into the damp sand and took a shaky breath. She was alive. Perhaps the others had made it to land, too. She blinked back tears, and forced herself to sit up. She was only in her shift, which was wet through and clinging, and she wrapped her arms around herself while she took in her surroundings. There was a black pool of water in front of her, lapping against the little beach she sat on. There was a sliver of sky above her, peering down through a hole far above her. Anna was surrounded by stone on all sides.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she made out a pair of shoulders, cocked sideways, and the silhouette of a face- she squinted at the figure, confused. He wasn’t moving a muscle.
"Hello?" Anna said.
The man didn’t react. Perhaps he was dead. Her eyes widened.
"Hello?" Anna said again. Please don’t be dead, she thought.
She reached out for him and her fingers brushed against carved hair, a high brow, unseeing eyes, feminine lips. It was a figurehead from a ship. A pearl necklace hung haphazardly from it’s head.
Remains from another ship, she thought, heart sinking.
Where was she?
Now that she was used to the faint light, she could pick out more objects- treasure chests, plates, a broken mirror, a pile of precious jewels stuffed into a cranny in the rock- she looked at the figurehead again.
Someone had slung a pearl necklace over it, carelessly.
Someone?
If there was a way in, there must be a way out. Perhaps she was in some sort of tide pool. She eyed the black water in front of her. It couldn’t be very deep, if someone was using this cave as a hiding place. She dragged herself across the small sand-spit, gritting her teeth, and slid her legs into the water.
"I wouldn’t do that," a voice said. It floated through the air and bounced off the walls of the cave, melodious and rich and otherworldly in the darkness.
Anna froze.
"Where are you?" she asked, casting about for anything she had missed. The cave was tiny; there weren’t many places for someone to hide.
The water rippled, and a white hand appeared on a rock that was rising up out of the water. It was soon followed by a pale shoulder, and then by a masculine face topped with a shock of red hair.
"It’s deeper than it looks," the owner of the beautiful voice said, peering around the stone.
"So help me," Anna said. "I don’t know how I got here, I was-"
The ship was gone-
"I was on a ship," she said.
"I know," the man said. He came out from his hiding place, arms floating at his sides. There was something strange about him-
"Please," Anna said. She was starting to shiver. Why wasn’t he helping her?
"You can’t swim out," the man said, treading water. His sea-green eyes were wide and sad. In any other circumstances, Anna would have been admiring him.
"But-"
The man braced his hands on the sand, and, back muscles rippling, heaved himself out of the water. Anna screamed.
He had a fish’s tail where his legs should have been. It shimmered faintly in the light, coppery and smooth.
"Look-" he was saying, hand raised to calm her.
"You’re a-"
"Yes," he said. "And-"
"-mermaid!" Anna said. "Mermaids aren’t real. No."
"I’m sorry-" the man said, moving to slide back into the water.
"You have a tail," Anna said.
The man paused, halfway into the water.
"Yes."
"Did you save me from the ship?" Anna asked. He looked confused.
"I found you floating on a board and I rescued you," he said. "I didn’t see your ship."
"Oh…" Anna said. She buried her face in her hands, and tried to remember how to breathe. When she looked up, the man- the merman- was back in the water, head bobbing with the motion of the waves.
"Thank you for saving me," she said. Her chest was tight and her throat felt like it was collapsing in on itself. "You didn’t see my family?"
The merman shook his head sadly, and reached out for her face. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"Don’t cry," he said, eyes wide. Anna took one shuddering breath and then her grief overcame her. Her family was at the bottom of the sea. Her sobs choked in her throat. Elsa would never do her hair again. Her father would never dance with her again. They were lying at on the ocean floor, cold and alone and-
"Mama," Anna said, sobbing. She wailed aloud, and her sobs reverberated in the small space. A large hand touched her face again, hesitantly, and she turned away from it, wracked by grief.
They were gone forever.
"Please don’t," the merman said. He had hauled himself out of the water again, and was leaning over her, propped up on one strong arm. He touched her hair, patting it helplessly, and then he gathered her into his arms and lay down again.
"Shhhh," he said, holding her close. He laid her down on the sand, shaking with grief and panic, and pressed his head against her chest. The weight of his body on top of hers did nothing to calm her, but he didn’t seem to care. Perhaps, she thought, it was his version of a hug. She laced her hands in his hair and let the tears come.
+
When she woke up, she was still in the grotto. The merman had gone. There was a glass bottle beside her, corked and filled with clear liquid. Her throat was raw and scratchy and her tongue was dry, so she wiped her hands on her shift, which was almost dry, and uncorked the bottle. It didn’t smell like anything.
She took a cautious sip.
It was fresh water. Anna tipped the bottle back and gulped it down almost in one go.
He had brought her water. She wiped her mouth, making a face at the grains of sand on her fingers, and put the empty bottle down. At least she had that. But it didn’t help her to escape from his strange little cave. She dragged herself to her feet, and staggered along the wall. There was a necklace hanging from a slightly rusted candelabra, and she stopped to finger the shimmering stones.
"Opals," the merman said, and she spun around. He was bobbing in the water again.
"You can have them, if you want," he said.
Anna blinked at him. Was he trying to cheer her up?
"What’s your name?" she asked, dropping the necklace.
"Hans," he said, pulling himself out of the water. Now that she took the time to look at him, she noticed how big he was. His shoulders were broad, and what she could see of him stretched over seven feet. His tail disappeared into the dark water. She wondered how long it was. He was taller than her father had been, bigger than any human she had ever seen. But he was well-proportioned for all of that, slimly muscled and pleasing to the eye.
"My name is Anna," she said.
"Anna," he repeated, rolling the syllables around in his mouth. He smiled at her. She had never imagined a merman with sideburns, but he had them. His red hair was short, too, as neat and groomed as any soldier’s. His shoulders, now that she looked at them, were flecked with scales as well. She reached out, curious, and then jerked her hand back when she realized what she had been doing.
"Sorry," she said. He smiled again.
"You can touch," he said. "I haven’t been close to a human in a long time." He held a huge hand out to her, and she took it cautiously. It felt like a hand, just a normal human hand.
"I didn’t know mermaids were real," Anna said. He was still smiling. It made him look like an idiot. Perhaps he didn’t understand how sad she felt. She faintly remembered from the stories her nurse had told her that mermaids were heartless creatures, cruel and capricious. He couldn’t possibly understand the grief she was feeling.
He smiled at her again, guileless and sweet, and watched curiously as she pressed her palm against his chest. His body rose and fell under her hand, breathing air like any human, and his heart pounded between his ribs.
"You have a heart," Anna said, to herself. His smile was faintly puzzled. She let her hand drop into her lap.
"So do you," he said.
"Please take me home," Anna said.
"I can’t," Hans said. His smile had disappeared. "If I could I would, but-" he shook his head. "You can’t."
Anna shook her head sadly. There had to be a way out.
"I brought you food," Hans said, after a moment. There was a huge shell full of what looked like seaweed by the wall, and another bottle of water.
"I could bring you a fish?" he asked, when he saw her face. "Or a seahorse?"
"No-" Seaweed was preferable to raw fish. "Thank you," Anna added.
"I’ll be back," Hans said. He stroked her cheek, just briefly, and then slid soundlessly back into the water. Anna forced back tears as she watched him go.
She was trapped. She reached for the bottle of water and curled up against the wall and watched daylight flicker down through the gap in the ceiling.
+
When Hans came back the next night (Anna guessed- she could only track time through the light that seeped into the cave), he looked more serious.
"I know how you can get out," he said.
"How?" Anna asked, pulling herself upright. She had been slumped against the wall, staring into space. Her head hurt and her stomach hurt and she had started talking to the figurehead across the room.
Hans hauled himself onto her beach, and she caught a glimpse the gauzy fins at the end of his tail before it splashed back into the water. He had to be nine feet from crown to fin. He settled against the wall beside her, muscles flexing as he moved. Anna leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Marry me," he said, so quietly that she had to strain to hear him. She jerked away from his shoulder to stare at him.
"What?"
"Marry me," Hans said, turning to face her, "and I can make you my queen- I can make you into a mermaid."
Anna gaped at him.
"Anna," he said, "marry me?" His hands cradled her face, and then held her in place as he kissed her. His lips were dry and cracked, and Anna squirmed under his attentions.
"No!" Anna said, when he pulled back. She shoved at his bare chest with one hand, letting her nails dig in, and the amiable mask that he had been wearing dropped away.
"Anna," he said, darkly. A huge arm wrapped around her shoulders, pinning her arms down, and he put the other arm around her waist, pulling her close. Anna writhed in his grip, pushing at his chest, but Hans barely seemed to notice as he bore her down to the ground.
"Marry me," he said, pressing kisses to her neck, "be my queen."
"Queen?" Anna gasped. He pinned her arms down and nuzzled at her breasts, pushing her ripped shift down with his chin. Her breasts slipped out, nipples hardening in the cold air.
"No!" Anna said. She kicked out, encountering slippery scales, but it made no impact. He pressed in between her legs, heavy and insistent.
"Shhhh," he said, when she shrieked. "Don’t worry about that," he said, pumping his hips. "I couldn’t fuck you if I wanted to. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted a woman," he added. He swiped his tongue over her nipple.
Anna spat at him, and he shook it off with a growl.
"Anna," he said, pulling back to look her in the eye. "I’m your only chance."
"No," Anna snarled. She twisted under his hands, trying to pull free.
"Don’t turn down the king," he said, "think it over." He smiled at her, and she shuddered at the malice in his gaze. And then he was gone, sliding back into the water like an eel.
Anna shuddered again, and then curled into a ball on the ground. Her nurse had been right about mermaids being heartless creatures. A ruby glinted in the sand beside her, and she flicked it into the water, petulant and shaken.
The figurehead watched impassively from her corner of the cavern.
Anna’s stomach flipped over in her belly, slowly and sickeningly, as the realization crept up on her.
She was part of his hoard.
+
She wasn’t going to escape.
Anna had come to terms with it, sometime in the endless night after Hans left her. Thunder was rumbling somewhere far off, and the roar of the sea was audible even in her little prison.
She wasn’t going to escape from here, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take him with her.
It had been dumb luck more than anything else. She had been going though his hoard, systematically dumping it into the black water at her feet. Rubies, emeralds, opals, a thousand precious gems disappeared beneath the rippling waves. It probably wasn’t gone forever, but she took small satisfaction in the knowledge that he would have to hunt his treasures down. She tipped a broken spinning wheel into the water, enjoying the splash it made as it went under, when a gleam of silver caught her eye.
It was a dagger, laying in plain sight on top of a pile of brightly dyed skeins of thread. It was long and thin, with a plain hilt and a stiletto blade, and it gleamed strangely in the half-light of the cave. The thread was rough and dry to the touch when she reached for the knife, springing up under her hands and clinging to the blade.
It was human hair.
She shuddered and pulled the dagger free of the pile of hair, and then kicked the hair into the water. It floated for a moment, a tangled net of brilliant colors dotted with pearls and shells, and then dissolved into seafoam. Anna clutched the dagger with numb hands, ignoring the bite of metal against her palms.
She would be ready, when he came back.
Thunder cracked overhead and she tilted her head back to taste the rain. It didn’t come.
+
"I would suggest you make up your mind," Hans said when he surfaced, not bothering with niceties. He tossed an emerald back onto the sand. "If you’ve finished your temper tantrum?"
"I’m sorry," Anna said. "You frightened me," she added, eyes downcast.
He held out his arms to her, inviting, and she crawled over to him. She shivered when her feet slipped into the water, and let him pull her all the way in. She could feel his tail moving underwater, supporting them both. A fin brushed against her bare legs.
"Anna," he said, gently. "It’s for the best."
"I know," Anna said, avoiding his gaze. She let the dagger slide out of her sleeve where she had been holding it, close against her arm, and took a deep breath.
"Kiss me?" she said. His eyes softened, and he leaned in towards her. As soon as his eyes closed she pulled her arm back, dagger hidden under the water, and thrust it into his side.
The point glanced off of slimy scales and he jerked away from her, startled.
"Anna!" he said, "Really?" His hand closed around her wrist in an iron grip, and dragged it up, inexorably, above the water. Hans stared at the dagger in fascination.
"Oh, Anna," he said, pulling her shaking body against his with his free arm, "So close. If you had aimed a little higher-" he twisted her arm, viciously, and she shrieked and opened her fingers. He plucked the dagger out of her hand and pressed the point to her throat.
"You’ve never killed anyone, have you?" he said, tracing her neck thoughfully. "No- don’t move. Wouldn’t want to cut your throat."
"Have you?" Anna asked. Hans’ gaze was fixed on the knife, which was trailing along her jaw now.
"It was my job," he said. If only he would stop paying attention- if she could get the dagger- she wasn’t brave enough to lean into the pressure at her neck. She closed her eyes, and then forced them open again.
"Job?" Anna repeated, and then, "Was?"
"I was an Admiral in the Southern Navy," Hans said. "I went down with my ship forty years ago. I should have died, but a mermaid took pity on me." He scored a line along her clavicle. Anna clenched her teeth.
"You see, Anna," he said, "Mermaids aren’t born. We’re made." The knife slipped out of his hand and disappeared into the murky depths below them.
"Oops!" Hans said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. "There goes your last chance." He heaved her back onto the beach and drifted away from her, jaw set, eyes glittering.
"There is going to be a storm," he said. "The tides will rise. You will drown. So I’d suggest you make up your mind quickly." He gave her a broad, sweet smile, and dipped in a mockery of a bow.
"Scream if you need me," he said, and he was gone.
+
Anna tried to be brave.
"Conceal, don’t feel," she whispered, remembering her mother’s lessons as she huddled against the damp wall. There was a storm, as Hans had promised. Thunder cracked overhead, louder than she’d ever heard it in her life, and lightning snapped across the sky with enough force to light up her cave. The water was choppy, and rising.
Rainwater was dripping into the cave, a steady thin trickle that grated on her already shaky nerves, and all she could think was that it was more water. Less time.
"Be brave," she said.
Water surged into the cave and licked at her bare feet.
"Be brave," Anna whispered. The water swirled around her ankles, rising faster than seemed possible.
"Help," Anna whispered. The water was up to her waist now. She should stand, she thought, but she couldn’t find the strength to move. The figurehead stared out, unblinking, over the rising brine.
"Be brave, oh god-" Anna slid up the wall, searching for a handhold or a ledge to climb on.
"Oh god-" Anna said, breathlessly. Thunder rumbled above her, almost drowned out by the slap of the waves around her.
"Hans!" she screamed. She got a mouthful of saltwater and spat it out.
"Hans!"
For a long moment the only sound was the roar of the water rushing into the grotto, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Seawater splashed against her chin and knocked her head against the wall behind her.
"Hans?" she said. The water would reach her chin soon. Her hands scrabbled against the slick wall of the cave. She closed her eyes.
"Anna," someone breathed in her ear. Strong arms curled around her waist and behind her shoulders, and a familiar hand curled in her hair.
"Please," she said. For an agonizing moment nothing happened, and then Hans pulled her into a deep kiss, sealing his lips over hers. She twined her arms around his neck, clinging for life, and let him pull her under the waves.
Something flared her in the chest, burning hotly for an instant, and she jerked in Hans’ grip. The pain in her chest burned out, and a chill crept through her body. Hans pinched her nose shut with one hand and covered her mouth with his own. She barely noticed, because the ice had crept into her lungs, and started shooting down her legs.
It hurt. Of course it hurt, Anna thought a little desperately. Of course it felt like the skin was being peeled off of her legs, inch by agonizing inch. Her feet were being shredded by a thousand daggers. Of course it hurt. She was dying, after all. She couldn’t feel her legs at all after a while, and she realized that she had stopped breathing completely. Hans pulled away from her, letting her float freely.
Anna took her first breath underwater. Silver scales were appearing on her legs, spreading like winter frost, and she ripped her shift away to watch as her legs transformed into a shimmering tail.
When the last trace of her old life had disappeared under a coat of silver scales, Anna looked up to meet Hans’ gaze.
"Your majesty," he said, smiling at her. Anna twitched her fins, feeling the current rush past them like a summer breeze. The water cradled her like a mother.
"My king," Anna said. Her hand flew to her throat, where she found what could only be gills. She had been afraid, before, but she couldn’t remember why. Thunder rolled overhead, distant and faint, and she recalled how the First Mate had looked at her, with hatred and fear in his gaze.
He was dead now. Anna smiled.
"Let’s go home," Hans said, reaching for her hand.
She followed him willingly, out into the open ocean.