Mermaid Princess Amelia and the Lost Symphony

The prologue

My friend, nice to meet you.

Let me introduce myself to you. I am Amelia Quintana, the fifteen-year-old elective princess of Antemidia, a mermaid kingdom located in the Caribbean Sea.

It’s been four years since I moved into the palace. Before, I had lived with my adoptive aunt, Alisha. We tried to find my real parents, but the gods effectively hid them from our sight. For a long time, I kept hoping that my parents would show up at Aunt Alisha’s door. Years passed and they didn’t. I felt abandoned, so I rejected them in my mind. I considered Aunt Alisha my only family, and I knew she loved me.

We parted after the death of Tikalie, the previous princess of Antemidia. I took part in the elections, and I was chosen to take Tikalie’s place. I don’t know why—I didn’t have an aristocratic background. I wasn’t stunningly beautiful or particularly extroverted. Good grades at school were my only achievement.

But apparently, General Asvald (the chief of the Council of Generals ruling our country) saw something in me. Some potential I didn’t know I had. He said I would do fine, and with time, I learned to believe him.

*

Although here in the Caribbean we all speak Spanish, Antemidia used to have its own language. We call it the ancient Antemidian. In ancient Antemidian, the verb shine has a special meaning. To shine means to be lost in your passion.

I shine as the elective princess of Antemidia. I love my country, and I want to do my best so that one day we can regain our power in the Atlantic Ocean.

Chapter 1

The twilight of the Antemidian Kingdom

August 2008

Performing the highest functions in a mermaid state was difficult. The foreign policy itself could give one a headache. There are about five times more countries in the seas and oceans than there are on land, and I had to remember the vast majority.

Fortunately, the Council of Generals always supported me.

Okay, not always. But often.

Well, sometimes...

On one particular day, I felt a bit annoyed. I was aware that at times the palace complex and the surrounding city shook dangerously, and the water near the volcano was hotter and hotter. For those reasons, we considered building a new channel that would direct the lava outside the capital. Thanks to the old channel, the city had survived for thousands of years, even though it was all made of glass.

Big projects take time, though, and meanwhile, the Current Oceanic Neighborhood Crisis Helpline (or the CONCH, for short) acted as a scaremonger rather than actually helping our people. It was founded by Ximena III many currents ago (one current being 125 years). If I could have, I would have liquidated it a long time ago, but I hadn’t ruled long enough to acquire such powers.

Early one morning, one of the ladies-in-waiting brought me the sixteenth leaflet issued by the CONCH—that week. It warned everyone of an earthquake in the district of Turquoise Sands. Of course, nothing happened.

“What a waste of cephalopod ink!” Angry, I rolled up the leaflet. I swam to the window, grabbed a gleaming aquamarine shell attached to the curtain rail (it held the curtain in place), and slipped the leaflet in between the two halves of the shell. I was ready to let the CONCH know how much I cared about its useless work.

“Your Limpidity?” I heard a voice behind my back.

I turned around and saw Amida standing in the western doorway, which was lined with emerald and chalcedony. Amida was the seventh of my twelve ladies-in-waiting. Her wavy golden hair spilled from an elegant bun on the top of her head. She was dressed in a dark green gown adorned with beads, and her aquamarine tail was bright green with silver decorations.

Amida composed songs for me, the ones for humming and the ones with which I would open the Coastal Season. The Coastal Season was our informal name for three weeks during which our most famous vocalists, together with the Antemidian Choir, lured sailors near the rocks and made their ships crash so as to loot them.

I liked Amida's songs more than I liked her. I believed she preferred the sound of my voice more than what I had to say as well. She was never unkind to me, no. But somehow, we had not become close friends in the first four years of my rule.

“Your Limpidity,” I noticed her lips and chin were trembling, “the Council of Generals is requesting immediate evacuation.”

“Huh?” I jumped at the news. “Why?” I couldn’t believe it!

“The magnitude of the earthquakes is increasing. We don’t feel it inside the palace, but…”

It happened in a fraction of a second, I swear. A thin line appeared on the floor. I looked at Amida, about to order her to find a glassmaker, but we only managed to exchange glances. The walls trembled, and a moment later a part of the heavy ceiling, bristling with glass from broken green bottles, collapsed on us.

“For Sal-An-Syon’s sake!” I yelled the name of our most important god, covering my head at the last moment. The skin on my forearms was pierced with sharp spikes. The blood spattered as if around a ghost, then melted in the warm, salty water. The weight that crushed my back for a second nearly caused my tail to bend. I was sure my fins would twist against the floor made of glass shards glued together if it weren’t for the fact that it was gone. The floor had fractured into pieces, and now in the middle of my chamber was a huge hole, expanding rapidly. The next parts of the ceiling and the floor were ceding to gravity. I watched with horror as a massive piece of furniture with gilded knobs, which had been standing in the corner of the chamber, slid down into a newly opened hole.