Rebirth14 min read
The Mermaid I Used Like a Mask
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I woke in my throne room with a booklet on my face and an afternoon of unread reports stacked like lazy soldiers on the desk before me. The tapestry smelled faintly of smoke, like a hearth gone cold. My gold-encrusted chair creaked when I shifted. I always hated waking with paperwork across my eyes.
“Where are you, boss?” a voice boomed so loud the banners flapped.
I snatched the booklet away and bared my teeth in what everyone assumed was a smile. “TIGER,” I snapped.
“You in here, boss? We thought someone stole your crown,” Tiger—an oafish brother-in-arms—said as he stomped in, dust scattering at his boots like small, choking storms.
I tossed the reports aside. “You’d better be sparing my time,” I said.
“You won’t believe it,” Tiger stammered. “Heath Mendoza—our old patriarch—has been struck by lightning. They say he’s dying.”
A poisonous delight rooted warm and bright in my chest. That old patriarch had been my blessing and my chain. I had once knelt to him and learned subtle cruelties that shaped the three realms. When the sky favored a man and the sky took him, what remained for slaves was freedom or a throne.
“Good,” I said, and left the throne room before Tiger could ask whether I was being serious.
I went to the temple gates of Upper Clear Sect in a red robe, red enough to shame the autumn maples. They tried to stop me. Their disciples lined up like spears. “Who are you to barge in?” their head said.
“My master is dead,” I lied to sharpen the knife of rumor. “Tell me, where is the casket?”
A lean elder barked. “Don’t be ridiculous. The patriarch is alive.”
I laughed out loud, then cut him off when he grinned like a cat. “Then bring me to the one who thinks he can sit my throne.”
They led me to the mountain peak. There, in the jade hall, sat the thin, silver-haired man who had once tutored me in iron patience—Heath Mendoza. He looked small as paper when the light was hard. He lifted his hand and the staff fluttered with old power. He smiled at me like he once had when I’d succeeded at a cruel test.
“You should be dead,” I said.
“You always liked a dramatic entrance,” he said. His voice was dry as old parchment. “Elisabetta Yamada… you’ve grown complacent since you left me.”
“Am I to stand and be lectured?” I asked. “Or can I take my throne now?”
Heath laughed in a way that tasted like the past. Then he did something ridiculous: he pulled me close and kissed my mouth—soft and sudden. I felt the sting of his hand on my wrist.
“You plotting?” I spat.
“You were my blade and my charm,” he said. “You never forgave me for giving you too little. Now you can learn to accept less.”
I ripped free and raised a palm. The world forgot to breathe.
Heath closed his eyes. When the spell settled, I thought I had ruined him. He smiled as if he had been struck by the wrong luck, then—slow as a falling lantern—he reached, drew near, and whispered something I could never have imagined.
“You can live again,” he said. “But not here. Swear.”
I laughed hard and cold. “Swear what? To your corpse?”
Heath’s hand found mine like a net. “Finish what you began,” he said. “Take the path of many worlds. Wear another life as armor. You will return—to finish me.”
I blinked. He was always the kind to set traps with velvet.
Then the world slid and a mechanical chime cracked inside my skull: System bond beginning. System bound. System active.
A small, chirpy voice declared itself behind my eyes. “Welcome, host. Mission one: The Sea’s Daughter. You must save the tragic merfolk, avoid the original bubble ending, and claim the throne.”
I stared at Heath as if he had become glass. I hated systems. I made them when I was young and bored of restraint—little machines that hummed to my mind and obeyed my cruelty. Now, one nestled polite and loud inside me like a guest who would never leave.
“Where am I going?” I asked.
“To a fairytale,” the system said. “To a kingdom by the sea. Your avatar is the royal heir—named Colton Hu in the old readout. Other names: a merfolk named Lucas Gentile, a Count named Chester Dudley, a maid named Joan Vogel, and a golden-haired noblewoman named Cecelia Weaver.”
I blinked. Of course the world filled itself with faces ready to be bruised.
I accepted the readout and the world spat us out: a marble palace, a silver rose brooch pinned on my chest, a tidy bed I did not own. I tested my reflection. I was a “prince” on paper—fine linen, gold braid, short sun-straight hair. Everyone called me Colton by blood and law. In my skull the system sang when it could.
“You must remember the plot,” it said. “The heir falls into a storm, a merfolk saves him and falls in love. If the merfolk is betrayed, he dies a foam death. Save him, make him inherit. And the throne.”
My lips curled. I had taught armies to kneel and watched nations burn. I had no use for foam. I wanted the gold crown.
The housemaid—Joan Vogel—rapped at my door. “My lord, Count Dudley invites you to a dinner on the sea.”
I had other plans. The map told me the Count would try to drown me to take the throne. I could afford theatrics. “I will attend,” I told Joan. “Prepare my cloak.”
At the ship, the Count came wrapped in oily charm. Chester Dudley—narrow eyes, greying mustaches, fingers like hawks—bowed and put forth a smiling girl with a sea-blue dress like wind-blown feathers.
“This is Cecelia Weaver,” he said. “She is enchanted by your virtues.”
Cecelia curtsied like a moth and smiled that small polite smile of people who practice being bright.
I could feel the system tick. “Plot node: storm and merfolk rescue. Expected betrayal by Count.”
I let the game move. We set to the sea. The wind gathered the way a fist gathers muscles. The sky tore. Water rushed. The Count moved like a man who remembers where cruelty lives.
The deck wrested and the ship folded on itself. I grasped a railing and the world went slanted. Someone shoved me—gentle or cruel I could not tell—and I flew out. The sea gulped me.
I could not drown. I felt a hand—cool as a coin—grab my wrist and drag me toward light. He had silver-white hair, eyes the color of deep water. Scales glinted under the moon like small coins stitched with stars. He swam like a man on strings taught to fall properly.
“Who are you?” I managed to ask when his face bent close.
“My name is Lucas Gentile,” he said. His voice was small as a bell and made my chest go hollow. “You are my prince.”
He left like wind after he saved me. But then he did something I did not expect: he followed me to the palace, hiding himself as a maid. He moved like a shadow on silent feet, and I watched him and I did little. I had plans that threaded the world.
“You owe me,” I told the system. “Make him grateful.”
“Mission note,” the system said. “If you love him, you risk original timeline. If you betray him, you risk the ocean’s wrath.”
I smiled. I was a demon who had outlived my own choices. This world was a board and every pawn had a crack. I would choose what I liked.
We danced at the ball. I held Cecelia then, and the Count watched like a spider wary of the web. I let the words slip and the ring glittered like bait.
“Colton, will you honor the first dance?” Cecelia asked.
“With pleasure.” I steadied her hand.
I felt Lucas watch, small animal and wide-eyed. He kissed my forehead like a child and I let him. The system buzzed angrily. “Dangerous emotional entanglement!” the mechanical voice squealed.
I made the right public moves. “I choose Cecelia,” I told the room in the high hall. “She has my heart.”
Voices cheered. The Count exhaled like someone heaving a net full of fish.
But Lucas followed me to the sea pool that night, small and trembling. “Why?” he asked later. “Why would you choose another?”
“Because I must,” I said. “Because the throne wants a bride who can anchor it.”
Lucas’s face broke like thin glass.
“Stay close to me,” I told him, because I wanted a thing and preferred it obedient.
He smiled with the same pure trust that made him useless as a weapon. “I will wait.”
I let him.
Days later, at the hearing when I claimed the right to rule in my father’s failing hours, the Count tried to speak. I let him. I made the chamber sit and watch.
“Why did you push me to the sea?” I asked him without raising my voice. “Because you thought I would die?”
Chester Dudley smiled like someone who kept a collection of small knives. “Prince Colton, you make accusations that will disturb sleep.”
“Cecilia!” I called. “Tell them how you came to this ship.”
Cecilia, face pale as a petal, swallowed. “I—I was told by Count Dudley that it would be an honor, my lord.”
She trembled. I watched her like a hawk watches a vole. I wanted to see how a small lie curves under pressure.
“You lied,” I said to Chester. “You tried to murder the heir. You would have killed your sovereign and thrown the kingdom open like a feast.”
Chester’s face changed, but not from fear. It moved like oil drying. “Ridiculous. Who would believe such theater?”
I snapped my fingers and the steward wheeled in the ship’s ledger and the Count’s ledger. Old receipts. A letter slid out and landed near the dais. It was a strip of paper, the Count’s calligraphy to a certain sailor to make the ship “sudden” in storm and ensure “no witnesses left.” The room smelled of iron.
Chester went pale. He tried to reclaim his iron smile. “This is—fabrication!” he sputtered.
I pointed to the palace windows. “You were not careful. You always assume others are lazy. You spelled your crime in enough ink for an entire court to read.”
Chester’s arrogance began to crack. He lunged for the steward. Men moved to restrain him. “Let him speak,” I said.
He sneered, then the sneer dissolved into confusion. “Why—why would you show this?” he cried.
I only smiled. “Because I know how men count their coins,” I told the hall. “And I know how you borrow their loyalty. You plotted to rule by a secret, not by law. The throne does not belong to murderers.”
He tried the usual denials. “This is a trick. I am loyal! I would die for the kingdom!”
The room took a breath and the breath sounded like a thousand knives being sharpened.
“Count Dudley,” I said. “By your own hand, by your own ink, you plotted. Arrest him.”
They dragged him to the square.
That was the beginning of his public fall.
I made sure the square was full. I wanted witnesses like salt. Town folk, palace attendants, scribes, visiting merchants—five hundred faces that could name and repeat what they heard. The bells were rung, and the square filled until the sun bruised like an orange into dark.
Chester came dragged and hooded, still trying to hold to his robes like a man clinging to a lie.
“Count Dudley,” I called up from the dais. “Hear the charges in the light. You conspired to kill the heir. You bought storms and hired sailors. You sought a crown with blood on your hands. Speak.”
He looked at me and in that look there was that old arrogance—then surprise—then a stubborn denial. “You cannot—this is treason,” he croaked. “You—Elisabetta—Colton—who are you to declare me?”
“That you refuse to bow does not erase fact,” I said. “You placed your coin in a sailor’s palm and the sea was meant to take the heir. You planned blood.”
A scribe read the letter aloud. The crowd gasped, some hands rising as if to clutch at their throats. The sunlight pressed and everyone could read the ink with their cheeks bunched like sailors’ nets. Chester’s mouth moved, forming words that had the stale taste of rehearsed lies.
The sequence that followed is a memory of hot iron: first survivor delight; then swift shock; then the villain’s decline. Chester’s eyes narrowed to match the edges of the paper and he tried to laugh. It hit his face like a thrown thing and crumpled.
“No,” he said. “This is not—do not believe her. I would never—”
His voice was small. The crowd closed ranks like tides. Someone in the throng hissed, “He did it for the crown.” Another said, “A traitor sells his country.”
A merchant reached for his parcel and ripped the cloth free; he recorded the moment on his slate and sent a runner to the scribe’s house. Someone else took up their new magic—the small boxes with glass that captured movement—and recorded with a thrill.
“Look,” a woman behind me whispered. “He always wanted our land.”
As the first denials came, the next wave hit. I had the steward produce witnesses—sailors who survived because they were paid to throw others to the sea. One by one they told the tale, each voice a small stone thrown. Their hands shook. They remembered the cold rope, the nod, the fear in the nights they sold out.
Chester changed then. The smugness fell off like a rotten husk and left a man in decline: eyes hollow and sudden, lips as though he had been sipping poison for an hour.
“You lie!” he cried, at first loud. The sound broke into thin, frightened gasps. “You cannot—these are lies!”
The first step—triumph. He still hoped the crowd would flip. He thought to stagger back into a posture that would regain sympathy.
Then a child from the crowd, a little stable-boy with too many freckles, spat out what his father had told him in tavern eaves: “My father says the Count promised him coin to make the storm. He said it with his own mouth.”
This was the echo that made reality tremble. The crowd mumbled, then shouted. Voices overlapped into a living sea of accusation.
Chester’s face went pale as boiled fish. He grasped for words: “This—this is perjury. You—witch—”
“Did you send men to our ships?” a widow cried, stepping forward. “Did you plan to take our sons? My boy was at sea that night.”
His legs tightened as if a noose had looped around them. He tried to deny, but the building chorus had drowned him. He began to babble. “No—this is false—my family—my honor—”
Panic became the outline of his voice. He moved from denial to pleading in a breath: “Please—my house—my name—my status—please—”
Some low, ugly laughter barked from the crowd, because the laws of power are brittle when the sun hits them. Others recorded, gasped, cried. A woman snapped a thread of a veil to a scribe and sent it to the town crier. Messages grew like mold.
Chester knelt, then stumbled, then fell with the grace of someone whose stage curtains have been yanked. “I did not mean—” he begged, voice thin. “I only wanted order, a crown—please—”
By then there were people with torches and with scribes and with the little glass boxes and with children whispering into mothers’ ears. Some began to clap—not for him—but in the bleak astonishment that a man could fall so quickly.
“Please!” he wailed finally, tears and mildew of desperation across his cheeks. “I’ll give property—ten houses—no, I’ll give coin—”
A hand from the council grabbed his shoulder and hauled him to his feet. Guardians did the merciful work of making his collapse public. They stripped him of ribbons and jewelled pins. The crown of a man’s dignity is the first to be taken in public.
They bound him and walked him toward the gate of the tribunal. People parted and the sound of footfalls had the cadence of a funeral march, because everyone knew what falls like his had done to towns before. Some sobbed quietly, remembering broken trust. Others shouted accusations.
Chester’s transformation ended in a set of steps by the scaffold the town used for the worst of crimes. He moved swiftly through shock, through fury—then denial, and then the final collapse—into humiliating, animal pleading.
“I never—never! I will confess to anything but this! Please! I am not a murderer! I—” he hissed.
The crowd rang with voices: “Traitor!” “Shame!” “Counted murderer!”
At the final moment, he looked up at me, and his gaze stopped for a breath. There was the difficult, ugly corner where arrogance meets certainty, and he tried to spit a last false cry for mercy. “You will be sorry,” he said, his voice a cracked promise. “You will be—”
No one answered. They had already seen him change from a man with a plan to a man with nothing. Some individuals filmed, some took notes, some crossed themselves. Some women cheered. The chronicle ran live.
I watched him fall into the public ruin he had built, watched the way his body betrayed him and the way the crowd—my people—changed like ocean under moon. He had been arrogant at the start. Then he tried to deny. Shock bloomed on his face like mold. He wept and begged and crawled. The crowd watched and webbed themselves into memory.
When the final verdict came—banishment and forfeiture and loss of rank—he knelt and tried to bargain for life, for status, for anything that stood between him and the public scorn he had earned. He crawled across the cobbles and the town guard hauled him away like a sack.
I left the square before the last hiss of laughter died. The system whispered, “Mission nodes cleared: Count exposed. Political stability increased.”
I answered nothing. I took Lucas to the royal pool and watched him dip his head and let salt water stitch back the frayed edges of his soul.
“Why did you come back?” I asked him later, when the moon lay like a saucer on the water.
“I was afraid you died,” he said, simple and honest. “You were cold and the sea is wide.”
I wanted to tell him that I had never been afraid of dying. I wanted to tell him that all my grand gestures were measured calculations, but my body told another story—my hands shook when I touched his scale, my heart climbed like a child up a ladder it had no right to climb.
“This is temporary,” I said. “Things must happen the way they must.”
He looked at me with those clear, deep eyes. “No,” he said. “I will wait.”
I drove the kingdom with iron until the days blurred into law and the law blurred into more law. I learned the dance of court: smiles as shields, kindness as traps. I felt the system pulse for every outcome.
I married Cecelia Weaver in soft music and gold. I kissed her because the crowd watched and I kept my social web tight. Lucas watched from the pool, a single tear making a track down his cheek like rain on a window. That sight was a stone in my chest and a secret I kept like an amulet.
But stories do not end where you plant the flag. The ocean keeps secrets. A man who once was a boy with moonlight in his hair would not forget. He tore up the map of my mercy and became a storm.
Half the world believes a betrayed love either forgives or perishes. Lucas chose something else. He drank from the dark well of the deep and returned as a thing of dominion. He took the sea like an old debt, and he came for me with a god’s weight.
He sent a dragon-breath of a fleet and sky-heavy things from foreign coastlines. He raised a darkness that made even my seasoned guards question the sky. He marched against my court with the slow fury of tides that do not care for men’s laws.
And I saw my life replayed in the eyes of the one I had used like a mask.
He came to the shore and I stood, crown weighing like a stone. He wore shells like shackles and pearls like accusations.
“You used me like a toy,” he said. His voice was a sea-bell tolling stone. “You pretended to love me and then nailed your flag to a woman like her.”
“You would drown a kingdom to punish me?” I asked.
“I would drown your memory if it had to be done,” he said, and the three-pronged fork of his trident hummed like a promise.
People looked to me for counsel and to him for retribution. The kingdom had to bend or break.
I wondered, almost with affection, what my old master Heath would say if he saw the puppet strings in my hands twitch now.
I chose the blade that night. I had been a teacher of clever, cutting things: lies, bargains, soft and cruel. I had promised myself I would not bleed for a thing that began as a whim. But the sea was not a thing I had planned to scald and ignore.
So I did what I had always done. I played the story until the story grew teeth.
I told Lucas a truth and a lie: that the prince—my prince, Colton—still lived in a house near the cliffs. If he killed me, he could have closure. If he spared me, he could doubt himself forever. The truth was a messy knot.
He believed me. He screamed and his voice split the air. He fell to his knees and I watched as a man asked for a sign of life and got instead the salt of revenge.
By then the country had learned what I taught it well: how to measure whose hands fit the crown. They looked on as kingship shifted like a shoreline. Men who once smiled at power now shook like shells in a storm.
At the end, when the last bell rang and the law found its balance because I forced it to, I went back to my space—back to the system’s quiet voice.
“Mission unresolved,” it told me. “Timeline variance detected. Secondary ending engaged. You may re-enter to attempt repair.”
I closed my eyes and thought of Lucas beneath the waves, of sailors and their little children and a count who became a skeleton of his own decency. I thought of Heath Mendoza and the kiss with which he sold me a future.
I was a creature that did not easily feel regret. But I felt the sharpness of what I did—like a blade with someone else’s name on the handle.
I spoke into the small mechanical voice. “Then take me back.”
The system hummed, satisfied and pitiless, and the world folded like a curtain. We stepped into the next page of a story that would not stop twisting.
In every new loop the same elements waited: the sea-pearl that let me breathe under water, the brooch of golden rose I wore at coronation, the system’s chirpy dictation. They became my markers—my way to know where the world had bent and where I had broken it.
I have learned many things since I was a demon who ruled by sleeve and by shadow. I have learned that people can be used and can be righteous. I have learned that the sea remembers what you owe. I have learned that the system will punish you for errors with a patience like frost.
I placed the sea-pearl into a drawer. Tonight, when I close the lid, I hear Lucas’s voice like water against my ribs.
“I will come again,” he said once, like wind that never leaves. “I will find you.”
Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. If he comes, I will greet him—because by then I will have learned to be cunning enough to survive his justice and kind enough to try and make amends.
I wind the small mechanism the system left me; it ticks like a tiny heart in my hand. The next world waits. The next name will arrive on the wind.
But whatever world comes, whatever ocean wakes, one thing will be true.
I remember the white hair and the small hand that saved me. I remember the way his eyes believed when I did not deserve it.
And, when the sea calls, I will answer. I always do.
The End
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