Читать книгу A mermaid and a corsair - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 9

There was no escape from the barracks. The walls of the barracks were made up of eyeballed, living jellyfish clutched together by long tentacles.

The multicolored eyes glared brazenly, not allowing the slaves to be left alone for a second. You feel like you’re in a circle of sleepy spies.

“Those bastards snitch on everything, so it’s best not to talk in the barracks,” Tiel confirmed, and went to sleep.

Desmond couldn’t sleep a wink. The amulet began to burn his chest. It burned like a miniature sun pressed against his skin. Cassandra probably recognized that her ward corsair was in trouble. Sea sorceresses have various ways of getting the latest news from the sea bottom. Cassandra claimed she could hear the whispers of the waves. Allegedly, the waves brought her gossip from the sea palace.

Desmond did not believe in this nonsense, but since he had fallen into the claws of a mermaid, he had become more reasonable. The Underwater Kingdom is indeed full of all sorts of wonders. Living algae braid the network of people’s bodies and tear them apart, multicolored eyes of jellyfish sparkle from the wall like a scattering of precious stones. Can a wall of jellyfish be called a hedge?

Instead of the corn tortillas given to slaves on land, bowls of seaweed were distributed underwater. Desmond realized it was best not to eat them. Those slaves who ate seaweed had eyes as blank as a zombie’s. Apparently, the food is not meant to fill the stomach, but to enslave the mind.

Desmond hadn’t felt hunger since being at the bottom. Tiel also gave his portion of food to the other slaves.

“You can go as long as you want without food in the Underworld,” he explained. “Only those who have tasted the local food and become addicted to it begin to feel hungry.”

“And I don’t think anyone in the Underwater Kingdom is thirsty at all. There’s water everywhere.”

“It is wrong! Princesses drink nectar from water lilies and lotuses. And in the royal palace they serve exquisite magical wines, I don’t know what they are made of, obviously not from grapes.”

“I wish I could be in the palace of the sea king,” Desmond sighed dreamily. Surely Merediana lived there.