Thank you to judygumm for your review, I'm glad you like the story so far, but there is still more to come.
To anyone else who's read the story, I hope you all liked it too. :)
Well anyway, here is the next chapter, so enjoy. :)
Chapter 2: The Message
The ship sailed for hours until finally, it arrived in the Prince's kingdom. A huge welcome party was prepared for the Prince's return and he joyfully introduced his bride to her new home. By the end of the day, there was joy everywhere in the palace for the Princess had already won the hearts of all those who served her and her new mother and father-in-law were overcome with love and warmth for their daughter-in-law. In their eyes, she was an angel. However, joy was quite absent from one soul in the palace. The sadness and sorrow the Prince held over the loss of Marina had still not left him and he could not help, but still grieve for her. When sunset came, he took a bouquet of hand-picked flowers to the steps where he had met Marina, where he had found her naked and alone, washed up from the sea. He sat on the stone steps and his mind drowned in thoughts and memories of his dear little foundling; how he missed her and would always miss her. He had held so many questions about her that she could never answer; who she was, where she came from and now, he had more, but those questions would never be answered either. She was gone forever and he would never know everything about her that he had wanted to know. Tears were falling from his eyes and when at last, he stood up again, he stared at the waters of the sea and threw the flowers onto its surface.
"Goodbye Marina," he said softly, "you will always be in my heart."
He stood there for a few moments and watched as the waves carried the flowers out to sea that had been made golden by the sunset. The Prince looked on at the glorious sight and believed it was a sign telling him that Marina was with God in his most high kingdom that looked down upon the world. He finally turned away and walked up the steps back into the palace. The sun soon disappeared behind the sea and darkness was now covering the land, but as soon as the sun was gone, a figure silently rose from the sea and stood on the steps of the palace. It was Marina the Rusalka. She stood on the steps, her long hair draped over her dress and her beautiful face shone in the moonlight. Marina absorbed the familiar surroundings, but she could not feel anything; no warmth, no coldness, nothing. She could no longer feel the wetness of the sea or the breeze carried in the air or the dryness of the land; it was all gone. Undead spirits cannot feel what living beings can. Looking at the palace, she knew where she wanted to go and she walked up the steps and inside the palace. In silence and unseen, Marina walked through the familiar corridors and hallways, passing many of the people she had known for a brief time, but they did not even know she was there. Walking through the palace and up the grand staircase, she finally came to the Prince's room and through the doors she walked. Just like on the previous night, he was asleep with his bride and Marina approached him. She attempted to touch him, but found that she could not, so she traced his face with her pale fingers. Then she looked at his bride and a hard feeling of resentment suddenly overcame her.
"You are an imposter," Marina said bitterly, but she could not be heard, "a fraud, a deceiver because it was I who saved his life, not you. It was me he was meant to love, not you. It was me he was meant to marry, not you. And it should be me lying here beside him, not you."
She gazed cold and hard at the Princess and then, she looked back at the Prince and her cold gaze softened to one of tenderness and sorrow.
"My dear Prince," she said softly, "if only you knew; if only you'd known when there was still time. Well now, you will know the truth; you will see the truth in your dreams and you will know that was me, Marina, who rescued you from drowning."
And at this moment, Marina would work her first bit of magic in her new existence. She placed her hand over the Prince's heart and thought of what she wished to use her magic for, hopeful and confident that it would work as she planned. Within moments, the Prince began to toss and turn in his sleep and Marina smiled because she knew it had worked. She stood there and watched as he dreamed what she wanted him to dream. In the dream Marina had bestowed upon him, the Prince saw Marina in her former life as a mermaid and he saw all those who had been part of her life in the sea - her father, her sisters and her grandmother. Then he saw all of Marina's adventures to the surface and finally, the night of the storm, where he saw himself fall into the sea and Marina swimming to his rescue, carrying him back to the surface and to the beach where he met his bride. He saw everything that had happened afterwards - Marina's despair at not seeing him again, her sisters showing her where he lived, her grandmother telling her all about humans and their immortal souls and finally, Marina's visit to the Sea Witch. He saw it all; the deal she made, the loss of her tongue and voice, the potion she took and her transformation into a human. The rest the Prince already knew and what was shown to him next were memories that were very dear to him, except for one he didn't remember. When it reached his wedding night, he saw Marina with her sisters as they appeared to her from the sea and heard every word exchanged between them. He saw the knife they gave her and heard them telling her that she had to kill him if she was to be saved and live. Then he saw Marina take the knife into his chamber, but saw she could not kill him and instead, kissed him goodbye and threw herself into the sea, where she dissolved into the foam. And it was then that the dream ended and the Prince woke up in his bed beside his bride. Marina was no longer there, for the sun was already in the sky and Rusalki must return to their waterways at sunrise. The strange dream hit the Prince hard and he sat up, running his hands over his face and through his hair as he deeply questioned everything he had just seen; what did it all mean? Did it mean anything at all? Why did he dream such a dream of his dear little foundling?
