The Priestess, Somewhere Near What Once Was Atlantis, Far Below the Sea, Day 132 After Flood

I'd let them down. Mother and Father had wanted me to make them proud, and I'd failed. It was my duty to protect my people, and I'd failed. I'd failed my country and my people. I'd failed Cyprian. I'd failed myself.

Now, I had the judgmental corpses of what once were my people watching me with accusatory stares. That was before the fish began to pick away at their eyes and flesh.

How I'd survived was an unfathomable mystery to me. The most I could assume was some how Mother had been right all those years ago when she'd told me that I was blessed by a sea god. How else could I be the only one to survive when the ocean I'd loved so much had betrayed me and swallowed the island I called home?

How else could I breathe so far below the surface?

I had blacked out when that boy's yell had blasted through my mind.

When I awoke, I'd found only death and destruction.

The palace where all my people had gathered for my coronation was completely submerged. It was ripped from its foundation and sent tumbling into the sea. It seemed we'd been thrown into some endless abyss.

Not we, Circe. Not unless you're including the fish in that statement.

I'd woken up limp on the palace floor, tons of water on top of me, although I wasn't crushed by the weight. Somehow I'd made it to my room, away from the dead gaze of my subjects. It was as if I was the sea, drifting through the walls. The royal family's wing of the palace must have been tossed into an air pocket in the abyss, stale oxygen entering my lungs as I broke the surface.

Confused, lonely and scared I'd waited, surviving on unfortunate sea creatures that washed into the room. Into my living grave.

If I'd doubted my mental stability before the Flood, the isolation drove me insane. The voices were even louder, echoing in my mind.

-Come, Touch. But you'll pay a price.-

I'd heard that particular voice often, a woman who sounded about my age or a few years younger. There was an alluring draw to her words that made me wonder if whatever price she promised might be worth paying if only for a moment of company.

I wished for Cyprian more than ever, the grief of his death crushing me harder than the water above should have. My heart felt like it had been pierced by the shimmering gold trident suspended on my walls, now growing algae and mussels.

I mourned him with as much despair as I'd mourned my parents, but this was worse. When my parents had died, Cyprian had been there to ease my agony. Now he was gone and the misery consumed me. I'd known I was dependent on him, but I hadn't known how much until now.

He was my best friend. I'd never considered the possibility that I had any romantic feelings for the charming palace guard, but now, as my heart bled internally at the thought of his lips curling into that arrogant smirk of his, I allowed myself regret.

Regret that I'd said no.

Regret that I'd let the most important person in my life sail by me, when I'd been offered a chance to keep him.

~~~~~~~~~~•~~~~~~~~~~

"Circe!" Cyprian stumbled into my room thirteen days before my coronation, while I'd scribbled furiously at my speech.

"Yes?" I asked, not looking up, although I took comfort in his presence.

"I wanted to ask you something." His voice was soft, shaky even.

Catching my attention I turned towards him. Cyp held his hands behind his back, fidgeting. His typically confident eyes darted about my room.

"What's the matter?" I frowned, standing up and placing a hand on his warm, muscular arm.

"Nothing, Pearl," he promised.

Pearl.

Cyp's nickname for me. I'd originally protested it, claiming that a pearl was only sand compressed around a dead sea organism.

Cyprian said that it didn't matter what went into it, so long as it shone as brightly as me, a statement that had caused me to shove him off his chair. Or try to. I hadn't been able to move him and only succeed in making a fool of myself. Eventually I'd stopped protesting the nickname and even looked forward to hearing Cyp say it.

"Then why are you acting so odd?" I pressed. Cyprian was always confident, often times bordering on arrogant. I didn't understand what would make him so anxious.

"Circe." Cyprian knelt at my feet before I could stop him. I wasn't unfamiliar with people bowing or kneeling for me, although I discouraged it. Still, Cyp hadn't truly knelt for me once before. Perhaps in jest, but never seriously. He was serious now.

The guard produced a small ring, encrusted with coral like most Atlantian jewelry. A large pearl glistened in the center. It's beauty shocked me into a silence.

"Circe..." Cyprian looked up at me, no doubt worried I might cut him off. "Don't. Don't. I know you're going to interrupt, but please, just let me talk. Look. We've been friends forever. We know each other. We're good together. I want to keep being good together forever. I want to keep you happy and protect you and just be with you forever... Circe... I'll make you happy, Circe, I know I can. I know this is right; we're right. Please, tell me it's right; tell me I got all this right. Look, I'm not asking you to drop everything to marry me... I'm just asking... Did I get it right?"

My breathing stopped. I felt like a fish out of water, gasping for air.

Cyprian would keep me happy. In my heart I knew that. He might make me happier than anyone else could. But as Princess, I did have a duty... I needed to make my parents proud.

But hadn't Mother considered Cyprian for my betrothed before Father vetoed the idea because of his low class? If that was the case, if Mother had truly wanted me to marry Cyprian, then maybe saying yes would make her proud?

But was I ready to be married, tied down to a man, even if he was as wonderful as Cyp? Was I ready to not only be queen but a wife? Did I even think about Cyprian that way?

"Cyp..." I mustered, voice sounding strangled. "I... care about you... But I'm just not... With the coronation so close... I.. can't."

I watched Cyprian's boots rather than his eyes as he stood.

"Hey," he said, placing a firm hand on my shoulder. "It's fine. We've never been more than friends... I knew it was a long shot... Just--just wanted to see what might have happened."

~~~~~~~~~~•~~~~~~~~~~

But now I was the one caught wondering what might have happened.

Cyprian had understood. His only request had been that we stayed friends and pretended as if nothing had happened. It was a merciful offer I'd gratefully accepted. I might not have been ready to marry Cyprian, but I was even less ready to let him walk away.

True to his word, Cyp seemed to have entirely forgotten that exchange, visiting me every day like he always did. I'd begun to wonder if I'd dreamed the whole proposal. But I knew I hadn't. There was only one difference, one change that confirmed that I hadn't imagined it. Cyprian never called me Pearl again.

Now, drowning in my solitude, I was choked by what might have been.

What if I'd said yes? Cyprian would have stayed for my coronation, being crowned Acting Prince until we were officially married. I scarcely dared to hope that whatever blessing I'd been given over water would extend to him so that we might live out our days together in this aquatic tomb. No. That was entirely impossible, even if my survival seemed to be just that. Wishful thinking. But if Cyprian had been there, at least we could have spent his last few moments together, before the cruel ocean ripped him away from me.

Maybe it was just the perpetual loneliness or the knowledge that I never would have gotten a chance to marry Cyp even if I'd accepted that caused tears to spring to my eyes, as salty as the sea surrounding me.

-Priestess?-

There was that voice again. Whoever the boy was, he was the only voice that ever seemed to speak directly to me, changing what words he said. I'd ignored it as I had the other voices, but isolation was altering my logic, compelling me to respond.

"Who are you?"

-Don't talk so loud,- the voice instructed. - Inside voice.-

Inside voice?

-Good!- he replied. -Much better.-

Who are you? Are you just in my head... Am I really just crazy?

-So much like the Empress,- he chided. -I keep having to tell her that I'm the crazy one. Crazy like a fox.-

Okay...

-I am in your head, though...- he admitted.-And outside it. And everywhere! I am Matthew Matt Zero Matto.-

Matthew Matto? Now where had I heard that name?

-The Game is beginning in earnest now,- Matthew warned. -The Star has fallen. The first Card won. Others won. The Priestess must be played.-

Why did I survive? Why had I been given the right to survive when I couldn't save my people?

-You are the Priestess,- he said. -We play now in your honor. Do you wish to find the Traitor?-

Traitor? I was starting to develop a pounding headache, my eyes drifting closed.

-Cyprian Marsoine.-

That got my attention. I shot bolt up, desperate for any information on the man that held some inexplicable claim on my heart. What do you know about Cyprian?!

-The Traitor misses his Salamander,- Matthew answered. -He wants to find her. He found the Viper instead. You must find him. Free yourself, Priestess.-

I can't. I had tried to escape my watery tomb, but to no avail. Water or rocks, I didn't know which, pressed in on the door, keeping it shut. Even if I could manage to escape, I didn't want to test how far my powers could extend. The surface was so far away...

-You can. Slither out, Salamander,- Matthew urged. -Find your weapon. It's time for the High Priestess to awaken.-

Before I could protest, explaining that Matthew's coded speech meant nothing to me, something caught my eye.

That gold trident had been suspended above my bed since before I was born. Mother had said that it was handed down through the generations, specifically for me. I'd always admired it's beauty, trying to guess the meaning of the strange cryptic symbols engraved into the handle. I approached what I'd always believed to be a decoration, noticing the lethal sharpness of the tips.

Awed, I inspected the symbols. Although I'd stared at them for hours on end in my youth, only now they became legible. The Abysmal Ruler of the Deep.

Me?

Although Matthew had remained silent, I could feel his presence in my mind, urging me on as I reached upward, closing my fingers around the Trident's cool metal.

I gasped as water flooded into my virtually dry chamber, but watched in a shocked stupor as it splashed off the Trident, washing away the blue-green algae that clung to it, until the gold gleamed brightly and illuminated the dim cavern.

An odd sensation reached my forearms, tingling and tickling my flesh. I glance down, my already rapid breath escaping me. Blue iridescent scales trailed up my arms like long, shimmering gloves.

Then there was another sensation. A horrible itching feeling on my elbows. I scratched the skin, only for it to come off in my hands, making way for sharp blue fins.

Mind whirling, I hefted my weapon off the wall, pulling it into my arms. The water shifted, bending to my will. A tugging sensation formed in my stomach as I lifted the Trident, willing myself free of this lonely abyss.

The water swirled around me until I became it. Until I became the sea. I was weightless and formless, but all my senses in place. Willing my Trident into the same liquid state, I drifted through my permeable door and down the lonely corridors, past the decomposing bodies of the Atlantians and out of the palace.

-The High Priestess has awakened,- Matthew whispered in an awed tone.

Yes she had.

I didn't know what I was, or what god had given me these incredible powers, but I vowed to all the gods that I'd use them to find Cyprian and avenge my people, making my parents proud. And if any Viper tried to keep him from me? If anyone tried to hurt him?

They'd have to answer to Circe Moselle and the Terror From The Abyss.

((I thought it was time we checked in on Circe. Any guesses why Matthew speaks both to Ayesha and Circe? What about the Trident and the Priestess? I hope you liked this chapter!))