z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

Chapter 10 of Princess of the Sea

by lelu


One week passed. Things happened in it, obviously; that's why it's called time. However, it was standard for the Golden Palace. Not all of it has to be told. Henry suffered through being fitted for a new outfit, Silira was given a new dress for the party by the kindly housekeeper, and Corwin helped Wintress make the invitation list. Princesses from far lands were either engaged, married, or too far away to come on such short notice, so only relatives and friends in the nobility were invited. Another reason was that Wintress was trying with might and main to find out who the blonde on the beach was. Oh, and there was one notable incident.

Silira was walking down the canal steps as usual, no longer secretly watched by Henry from his balcony, and the bells were ringing all over the city for evening church, which was for people who slept in in the morning. As I said, she was walking down the canal steps, when suddenly she saw her father's golden crown glinting offshore. There was no doubt about it. He was there, and her sisters were with him, one, two, three, four, five...six?! Her grandmother was there. No, no, no...now she came up? Silira had been badgering her for years to go up and learn more about the land, and now she ascended once again? She ran down the steps, lifting her skirt above the waterline. Yes, her sisters were coming. But her father and grandmother were staying behind.

Eltress swam up, screeching to a halt, nearly bashing her brain out on the sea-washed marble. The other four were close behind. "Silira!"

Silira didn't need to speak for her sisters to know she was surprised. Nyrie, breathing hard in the transition from breathing water to breathing air, panted, "You...You were...Corwin...on the long balcony overlooking the sea..."

Silira started, then smiled and shook her head. She wasn't even going to try to tell them the story. Levana's eyes went wide. "He's not in love with you?" The other four smacked her with their tails, and they had powerful tails. Levana subsided, rolling her eyes. Silira shrugged. She had no idea which girl Corwin remembered, her or the other one.

Rika raised her eyebrows. "You don't know? But you were hugging--" Silira shrugged again. She really had no idea. "Well, you do know that there's some sort of commotion in the palace? Some dinner for the prince's birthday?" Silira nodded, trying to look eager and expectant, meaning she was looking forward to it.

Eltress turned and looked at their father and grandmother. Both were waving, and no doubt wanted to speak to Silira, but they couldn't come close to land because the waves were rough that night and if one of them was seen things might get problematic. "They didn't want to come too close, but they missed you so much," Eltress said. "Both of them said to apologize to you about not coming closer, but they distrust the land and its inhabitants. Not you, of course. And not really Corwin. Although I admit Father seems rather cagy about him. If he ever realizes he's madly in love with you--" Silira rolled her eyes-- "then you have to bring him down here sometime, so he can meet us. We'll tell him the whole story. And Father can approve him." Eltress paused. "Would Father approve of him?"

Silira considered seriously for a moment, then nodded. He would. Corwin was a good man and true. She couldn't blame him for not knowing about her pain. How was he supposed to know who she was?

She heard a distant call. It was the housekeeper. "Lady Silent? I've found the perfect dress, dear!" Silira stood up quickly, resisting the pain in her feet. She nodded to her sisters, waved to her father and grandmother, and left, hoping no one had seen her. She always chose the most secluded part of the steps. However, for once, Henry had seen. But he wasn't telling. He really was excellent. He would keep her secret as well as she did.

It was sunset, and the carriages were arriving. Silira was wearing a black gown and her luminescent hair was done up behind her head, so she blended in with the shadows behind a high window, looking down on the arriving guests. A candle flickered in its sconce behind her, but she was standing next to a long, heavy brocade curtain that was patterned black and white, so her dark dress and pale hair made her invisible to Corwin, who ran past without noticing her. She turned around and closed the curtain so Corwin would hear the rings rattling on the curtain rail. He did, and spun around, eyes wide.

"Who's there!? Oh." He smiled, relieved to see Silira after a long week of planning. "It's a good evening, milady. Would you come with me? I would stop, but I have to be in the hall with the fountain in five minutes." She came and walked alongside him, trying to ignore the ever-present agony in her feet. "So," he said, straightening his tunic, "all my old friends are here. All are expecting me to be looking for a girl tonight, but I'm not, as you know. And you know who I'm looking for."

She nodded. She knew the mystery girl better than he thought. He pushed his hair back, looking at his reflection in a window that had not yet been curtained. "Wintress didn't...really...understand. She says I have to find a wife, and soon. But that girl...Silent, there's no one else for me. Someday I might find her, but until then I don't flirt, and I definitely don't attach myself, to any woman." Silira nodded. If she only knew which of them he had seen, her or the girl from the cathedral.

He stopped before a door and laid his left hand on the silver handle. He put his right hand on her shoulder. "Silent, they'll think you and I are a couple. Now don't get me wrong, you're important to me, but I...well...I'm not really sure what I feel about you...Mother wants me to either ignore you or fall in love with you. Therefore, one of us has to act aloof, and if it's you, then everyone will still think I could fall for you. However, if I ignore you, then people won't try to ship us. But I cannot in good faith ignore you. I love you too much."

Her eyes went intense again, but he didn't see it because of the dim candlelight. "I'm sorry. I...there's nothing I can do." He looked miserable. "I can't just leave you alone. Even just for this one evening. Not after I've been away for three months. I missed you so much, and I looked forward to tonight. There's no way out."

She could have been mad. But the whole reason he was in love with her was that she was the kind of girl who was not. She smiled at him and straightened his hair, standing on tiptoe to do it. She could stand to ignore him for one night.

He looked so relieved, he might almost have melted. "Yes! Thank you, Silent. This means more to me than I can say." He started to open the door, then hesitated. "I'll cut around to the stairs. We don't want to be seen coming in together. Oh, and I'll pass you off as a visitor from parts unknown again. Is that all right?" She nodded, and he dashed off.

She would have insisted on taking the stairs herself, not only to save him trouble, but also to make a dramatic entrance, except for the fact that her feet were really paining her tonight. She pushed the door open and slipped into the hall. She had meant to go unobtrusively to some chair and sit down until the dinner began, but her otherworldly looks made that highly improbable.

Silira slipped into the dining hall just before the master of ceremonies said the blessing. As you may imagine, when he did say it, he wasn't very sincere. As he mumbled the words of grace, glances were slipped sideways at Silira, the mysterious lady from parts unknown. Corwin's cousins, an agreeable lot, kicked each other under the table and whispered about eligibility. Corwin heard them and hoped it wouldn't last. Silira, in spite of herself, hoped it would.

"And we are ever thankful," Montayne finished, and sat in his seat with an audible thud. Conversation started up around the long table.

"So," a girl cousin of Corwin's on his right said, "who is that girl? Her eyes are huge. Is she some kind of fairy?"

Corwin panicked, but tried to seem disinterested. "Oh, she's not a fairy. She can't speak, and she can only write in another tongue."

Unknown to anyone but Henry, Silira had been trying to learn to write, but no one was available to teach her and she was making slow progress.

"She is Lady Silent, an ambassador from a far-off land."

"You have no idea who she is, do you?" an uncle of his, the father of the girl on his right, said from his left.

He sighed. "I'm not interested in her in the way you think."

"Fair enough," the girl said into her cup, sipping water and waiting for the servants to bring the food in. Flutes played behind curtains in a corner of the room. "But tell me, is there anyone?"

"No," Corwin said quietly, hoping his mother wouldn't hear.

Silira was doing well. Somehow she had managed to convince two handsome Russian twins, on each side of her, that she couldn't speak, and they were flirting outrageously. She handled it well enough. Back in the sea there had been plenty of handsome young mermen who liked her better than any of the other five--and with good reason. Eylee was regal and unapproachable, and nobody dared to flirt with Eltress, and Levana being absolutely white tended to creep guys out, and Nyrie's genius was sadly unappreciated.

So Silira managed to interact socially with them, even though she couldn't speak, and tried not to laugh at their amusing compliments. Corwin saw her down the table, and shivered, even though the hall was warm. Wintress caught his eye and gave him a look. He turned away and purposely looked at Silira for a few seconds. His cousin tried not to laugh.

The dinner went on easily, with good food, the smell of which nearly drove Silira mad because she couldn't taste it, and good conversation, some of it one-sided--or two-sided, counting the twins as two. Silira was quietly commented on, but taken for granted, as it was seen that she was sitting apart from Corwin and he paid no attention to her. She survived well enough without him, as she had hoped.

Eventually, it got late, and the dinner ended. If you were expecting more accounts of the socializing, read the works of Jane Austen. Those of the guests who lived too far off to return home that night were shown to guest rooms in the higher stories, and Marge and Tina shut and locked the door on those who left.

Silira flopped down on her bed, arms spread out. The whole agony-every-time-she-took-a-step thing was starting to get on her nerves. She had changed into her nightgown and brushed her hair, all the time trying to walk as little as possible. She rolled over and pulled the covers over her. The summer blanket was no longer thick enough to keep out the cold, she noted.

The leaves were beginning to fall...oh, they were so beautiful...she had always loved autumn, even if it meant the sea would be freezing soon. Even now they would be gathering around the vents, the holes in the seabed that had molten rock or something under them. There was a whole field full of them outside Twilight. It was beautiful, and everyone gathered around it in winter. The leaves on the trees looked just like the faint fiery lights from the vents, only brighter. Everything here was so much brighter.

Oh, vomit, she had left the balcony door open. She got out of bed, walking to the door and closing it as quickly as possible. Then she had an idea. She went down on her knees and tried to get to her bed on them, technically not taking one step. But it still hurt just as much. Apparently, the witch was cleverer than she had thought. And she couldn't exactly walk around on her knees all day.

She got back into bed and smiled. Then it turned into a grin. Corwin loved her. Maybe not romantically, but he loved her. She almost didn't care who it was, just as long as someone on the land cared about her.

Important to him. And he had missed her, and he had looked forward to tonight...

She drifted off to sleep. As it happened, it would be the last good sleep she would have in a long time.

Of course she dreamed again.

Silira turned and swam out of the hall, speeding out the door and through the dark water, in a tempest of longing for the land and the prince and maybe even a soul. She skirted the palace, hearing the servants inside chattering about the party and how many people had shown up, and the princess must have just sung and didn't she sound lovely, and swam into her garden. The round plot of red flowers, growing up to tangle into the boughs of her red sea willow, surrounded and contrasted with the bright white statue. Algae was growing on it, coating that finely formed face in a thin layer of green. She wiped it off, remembering the time when she had pushed his hair off his face. Hunting horns echoed above the water.

He's going out to hunt...

How am I supposed to live three hundred years here, knowing all I have in the end is nothing?

That sunset is probably the most beautiful one yet, and I'm missing it...the palace up there will be glowing so bright in the light...

I can't do this any longer...

She was as close to crying as merfolk ever get, when her sisters swam up. She turned, furious, and was about to hit them when Eltress put a hand over her mouth. "Shhh! We want to help you."

They all embraced her, then turned and sped away, leaving her in the dark. Silira turned, looking ahead. A small plain of grey sand lay before her. Around it, cliffs of black rock blocked all ways save one. She swam slowly into the black cleft. It was silent and almost entirely dark. If not for her natural night vision, Silira would have been feeling her way. She was the only live thing there...so far, though. So far, so good. Silira tried not to think of the madness of this thing. She couldn't let her emotions control everything she did, but what else could she do? Stay home and wish she could cry? The only trouble was that the sea would miss one princess, but, really, there were five others and she knew this was the only way she could gain a soul.

She stopped. There was something pulling her in. She had never been here. Silira knew what was in front of her, though, forcing her to swim back a little and grab onto the cliffs to keep from being drawn in.

A whirlwind of water, an underwater whirlpool, led down to who knew where. But she knew what went down there. It was where they buried their dead, those who didn't live their three hundred years, but were killed before their time. Her mother's bones were down there, and those of a thousand others. Dying prematurely was very rare. Who knew what might live down there? Serpents? Colossal squid? A kraken? The whirling current was there in front of her, pulling at her hair. One stroke of her tail and she would be pulled into the darkness. If the witch made it, so can I. And if she didn't, I don't care if I make it or not. She flipped her tail and drove forward, and she was dragged into the tempest.


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Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:46 am
Panikos wrote a review...



Hi, lelu! Pan back again to help you kick a few more of these chapters from the Green Room. I did critique chapter nine so I just about remember where we left off, but it's been a while since I read this so I apologise if I forget some details. Let's get to it!

One week passed. Things happened in it, obviously; that's why it's called time.


Like ShadowVyper says, I don't think time is called time because things happen in it, so the bolded part feels kind of weak. Contrary to ShadowVyper, though, I actually quite like the rest of the quote; it does give me the sense that Silira has been out of sorts and not paying attention to anything around her.

As I said, she was walking down the canal steps, when suddenly she saw her father's golden crown glinting offshore.


I don't like the intrusion of a first-person pronoun on what is usually a third-person narration. It's jarring.

Both were waving, and no doubt wanted to speak to Silira, but they couldn't come close to land because the waves were rough that night and if one of them was seen things might get problematic.


Why would it be any more problematic than one of the sisters being seen? If the sisters can come closer and risk being sighted, why can't Silira's father and grandmother?

She nodded to her sisters, waved to her father and grandmother, and left, hoping no one had seen her. She always chose the most secluded part of the steps. However, for once, Henry had seen. But he wasn't telling. He really was excellent. He would keep her secret as well as she did.


Hang on, does Silira know that Henry has seen her? I'm assuming not, but the way you segue into this makes it seem like she does. I'm not fond of how you randomly step outside of your characters' POV to tell us things that they aren't aware of. It's quite confusing.

"Wintress didn't...really...understand. She says I have to find a wife, and soon. But that girl...Silent, there's no one else for me. Someday I might find her, but until then I don't flirt, and I definitely don't attach myself, to any woman."


I know this is a fairy tale sort of story, but I do find it tiresome that Corwin is so fixated on a woman who he doesn't even know. It means that Silira's rival love interest doesn't even feel like a character in her own right. She's just a plot device.

However, if I ignore you, then people won't try to ship us.


It's weird to see fandom speak in a story like this. I think it would flow better if he said something like 'if I ignore you, people won't suspect a relationship between us' or 'if I ignore you, that will quell the rumours about us'.

But I cannot in good faith ignore you. I love you too much."


She could have been mad. But the whole reason he was in love with her was that she was the kind of girl who was not.


Jeez, is this man in love with Silira or not? We keep being told he isn't, but then we get lines like these that just confuse everything. Silira might not be mad at him, but I'm losing patience for Corwin. Has he not even entertained the idea that he might be toying with her emotions by behaving like this?

Even now they would be gathering around the vents, the holes in the seabed that had molten rock or something under them. There was a whole field full of them outside Twilight.


I like this little insight into how her people live. It's an interesting detail that the sea freezes in this world. I really like how casually you talk about the oddities of the setting, making them seem like everyday facts. It makes the world of the story feel a lot more real and authentic.

Overall Thoughts

This is a pretty decent chapter. The first part of it is pretty nicely paced, though I think the dream sequence at the end is a little rushed - though I suppose that contributes to the confusing nature of dreams. As always, it's nicely written, with some good description and nice aspects of world building. You still head-hop between perspectives quite a bit, which sometimes works but sometimes feels disjointed.

Plot-wise, this chapter doesn't stand out to me. It feels like the story is chasing its tail a bit, because every instalment seems to involve the same pattern: Silira talks to her sisters, pines for Corwin, then laments that she can't have Corwin. I don't really feel like the plot is moving on. Nevertheless, my feelings may be somewhat coloured by the fact that I'm not a romance-lover in general.

The ending was a bit puzzling. I can't figure out the significance of the dream. Is it just a dream, or is it more important than we realise? If it really is just happening inside her head, it feels strange to spend so much time on it, because it doesn't have a real bearing on the actual story. Still, I might get a clearer answer to that in the next chapter.

Keep writing! :D
~Pan




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Sun Feb 25, 2018 4:54 am
Shady wrote a review...



Hey lelu,

I see you've got quite a few of these chapters hanging out in the Green Room. Since I'm already jump-started in on this story, I'll follow it along for the next few chapters until I either run out of steam or run out of time ;)

Jumping in...

Things happened in it, obviously; that's why it's called time. However, it was standard for the Golden Palace. Not all of it has to be told.


Hmm. I really think you could make this a stronger first paragraph. Firstly, I don't think the definition of "time" is that things happen. And also, you lead into this paragraph with the "Not all of it has to be told" which makes it just feel dull and dreary to read. Instead of being excited to hear a summary of the week's events (obviously not expecting a full on narration, with the way you started with "One week passed" but assuming we will get a bit of explanation), now you have me thinking they are boring and unimportant.

Which you don't want. You want me to keep reading, cause otherwise I might be like "Ehh, this seems like a slow chapter. May as well stop reading now and go do that other thing I need to get done. I'll come back to this later. Maybe." sort of thing. You want to keep the reader engaged. My suggestion would be to cut out a few lines, but keep it as the general overview. I'll show a corrected suggestion below:

One week passed, and through it the Golden Palace was as active as ever. Things happened in it, obviously; that's why it's called time. However, it was standard for the Golden Palace. Not all of it has to be told. Henry suffered through being fitted for a new outfit, Silira was given a new dress for the party by the kindly housekeeper, and Corwin helped Wintress make the invitation list. Princesses from far lands were either engaged, married, or too far away to come on such short notice, so only relatives and friends in the nobility were invited.


And finally, the last little bit:

"Another reason was that Wintress was trying with might and main to find out who the blonde on the beach was. Oh, and there was one notable incident."

If Wintress was trying to figure it out, why would she intentionally only invite relatives and friends? Or is that what Corwin was trying to prevent? It's confusing.

As I said, she was walking down the canal steps, when suddenly she saw her father's golden crown glinting offshore.


You already said, so you really don't need to repeat it, and you definitely don't need the "As I said". When you are verbally telling a story, then using "as I said" is a helpful way of reminding your listeners of important details you've already given. In a story, it is utterly unnecessary. We read what you said literally moments before. Just move on with what you have to say.

Is that all right?" She nodded, and he dashed off.


Alright. One word.

As you may imagine, when he did say it, he wasn't very sincere.
~ Why might I imagine that? You should give more showing attributes rather than telling. Maybe have him sigh or roll his eyes as he started. Or maybe have him puffed up and strutting around, reveling in his publicity rather than humbly doing his job of offering the blessing.

If you were expecting more accounts of the socializing, read the works of Jane Austen.


Hmm. I am torn between finding this amusing and not liking it lol. You don't have to go deep into the socializing, obviously, but by phrasing it like this you yank your readers out of the scene you've set. In my opinion, we, as writers, have the goal of making ourselves as invisible as possible in our writing (unless you are specifically going for a Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams effect). Here you yank us from your story and remind us that we are reading, rather than actually present in the scene. I would caution against that.

The round plot of red flowers, growing up to tangle into the boughs of her red sea willow, surrounded and contrasted with the bright white statue. Algae was growing on it, coating that finely formed face in a thin layer of green. She wiped it off, remembering the time when she had pushed his hair off his face. Hunting horns echoed above the water.


Your descriptions are absolutely fantastic. That is a serious strength of yours I've noticed. When you take the time to set the scene, you do a phenomenal job of it. I enjoy reading your descriptions and imagining your setting. Well done!

~ ~ ~

Okay! I hope my review wasn't discouraging to you. You do have an excellent story -- awesome story premise and great characters to go along with it. I think you have a ton of talent and a lot of potential in this story. I'm just trying to point out weaknesses as I notice them, to give you a chance to strengthen your writing. You remind me a lot of where I was when I was a younger writer, and while I certainly haven't arrived in my writing, I was able to improve it a lot through suggestions I got here on YWS and I want to pass it along ;)

Keep writing!

~Shady 8)





Always do what you are afraid to do.
— E. Lockhart, We Were Liars