Chapter 3

After the sea beast withdrew, Lilia complained that her dress was ruined.

So Reno pushed me along with them to the largest general store in town.

The front hall housed the couture department, where nobles crowded around bolts of fine fabric.

My wheelchair quickly drew a good many sidelong looks.

"Look at that woman in the wheelchair. She's extraordinarily beautiful..."

"Shame she's a cripple..."

Just then an old scholar with a monocle cried out, "She isn't a cripple... Look at the markings behind her ears! She's a mermaid! And more than that... she's a mermaid who has sacrificed part of herself!"

"She gave up her tail? Whoever she did it for must be very happy..."

Lilia listened to the whispers around us, then approached with a smile and pushed my chair toward the fine-wine section. "Heloise... you've been so good to those two brothers. Let me pour you a glass..."

I had no intention of humoring her.

But she gripped my chair hard, and her eyes grew more and more vicious.

The next second, she smashed the wineglass against her own forehead!

Blood mixed with high-proof liquor streamed down Lilia's forehead.

"Help! Somebody help me!" Lilia let herself fall onto the broken glass and screamed piteously.

At the commotion, Oslan and Reno abandoned the counter and came tearing into the wine section.

"What happened here?!"

Lilia sobbed as though her heart were breaking and pointed at me. "Heloise couldn't stand those people laughing at her for being a cripple, so she took it out on me with a wine glass... Oslan, I'm so frightened..."

Oslan's eyes went bloodshot. He glared at me as though I were his sworn enemy. "You're impossible!"

And Reno didn't listen to my explanation at all. He came at me to teach me a lesson.

But the wheelchair was already rolling straight backward!

At the bottom of the ramp stood a vat of unprocessed spirits. The chair struck it, pitching me straight into the liquor!

"Hssss!"

The liquor burned through my wounds. Blinding pain tore into me, and my entire body convulsed so violently that even my scream caught in my throat.

My vision went black and I passed out from the pain.

In the end Lilia and I were both taken to the clinic at the harbor.

When I woke, Lilia was moaning in the bed beside mine.

Oslan and Reno stood around her, anxious.

She had suffered only a few superficial cuts, yet she carried on as though she were dying.

The doctor stood by, at a loss.

Lilia gripped Oslan's hand. "I've heard a mermaid's tears can heal. Oslan, make her give me one tear, please?"

Oslan and Reno turned at the same time, their eyes settling on my bloodless face.

Reno strode to my bedside. "You heard her. Give her one of your tears. It will heal her. You've made enough of a scene. This has gone far enough."

I closed my eyes.

They had no idea that mermaids shed a tear of despair, carrying the essence of their lives, only when pain and hopelessness became unbearable.

And the price of that tear was never seeing color again.

I would never shed such a tear for that vicious woman.

Seeing me lie there with my eyes closed, saying nothing, Lilia began to cry even harder.

"Heloise, my head hurts so much I could die. Shouldn't you sacrifice something to atone for what you did? If you won't heal me with a tear, one of the scales mermaids naturally shed would do..."

I said coldly, "I refuse! And your injuries weren't caused by me."

Oslan pushed up his glasses. "Heloise, Lilia has already compromised. You are always so unreasonable."

With that he came forward and pulled the blanket off my legs.

At the top of my thighs, burned raw by the alcohol, a few silver scales remained that had never fully gone.

Oslan drew the dagger at his belt. Without a moment's hesitation, he drove the tip into my flesh and brutally pried up one of my scales!

"Since you won't, I'll help you."

"No... don't..."

But Oslan ignored my pleas. The wet rip of the scale tearing free came with an agony like being cut open.

I convulsed violently on the bed.

Silver blood ran from the wound, and Oslan only drew back from it in distaste and looked at it coldly.

The torture of my body and the betrayal of the two men who had sworn to love me for the rest of their lives fused into bone-deep despair.

I could no longer bear such overwhelming grief.

A crystal-clear tear glowing faint blue slid from the corner of my eye, struck the pillow, and hardened instantly into an exquisite deep-sea pearl.

Oslan snatched it up, turned, and shoved it into Lilia's mouth.

Once she had swallowed it, Lilia's theatrical moaning stopped at once, and a satisfied smile even came to her lips.

And I lay there while the world in front of me drained rapidly of color.

The happy times I had shared with them turned to black and white.

Every memory turned to black and white.

Reno looked at me, covered in blood and staring sightlessly ahead. A flicker of pity seemed to cross his face.

But his self-righteousness quickly smothered it.

He bent down, lifted Lilia, and carried her to my bedside as though granting me an extraordinary favor.

"Enough. Stop acting as though you've suffered some terrible injustice. You owed Lilia this. Rest and prepare yourself. Tomorrow night is the engagement feast Father arranged."

He paused and softened his tone slightly. "After tomorrow night's ceremony, once you're mine, I'll fulfill my duties as your husband and take care of you. I won't go near another woman again."

With that he carried Lilia out with Oslan, neither of them looking back.

The door closed behind them.

I was left alone in boundless despair.

“Reno, Oslan, just wait! Tomorrow night, you will pay!”