On the one hand, certainly reminded Adella of her homeland, for here, too, sea people of all origins came together. But Atlantica, despite its welcoming culture, was nowhere near the scale of this city of faith. On the other hand, the holy metropolis also seemed very strange to the young princess. Something was omnipresent in the water. Something that she had not yet been able to place properly.
Ever since she had swum over Shayan, she had felt a feeling of dizziness that would not subside. When she thought about it now, a feeling of unease had already spread through her before, but she had dismissed it for the time being as a sign of her own excitement and paid no further attention to it. But now it was pushing itself further and further into the foreground. She had probably not questioned her senses for no reason at all. It strained her immensely to concentrate on her companion and her new surroundings. The sea around her seemed perfectly clear at one moment, but a split second later her vision became blurred, as if she were sponging through a veil of oil.
She could not quite put her finger on the reason for this. Her companion did not seem to suffer from any dizzy spells or the like. He swam back and forth, back and forth, sometimes circling her to the left, then to the right again, sometimes swimming above her or turned on his back below her, his arms folded behind his head and talking, talking and talking. Adella could not believe how many words flowed from the other's mouth without a full stop or comma. But even though he spoke so much, Adella felt she still hadn't really found out anything about himself. He told her about the city, its temples and priests, or about other inhabitants of Octolae unknown to her.
As soon as Adella tried to ask about certain points, he quickly changed the subject again and did not answer her questions. Finally, the princess gave up. Shayan himself would hardly be the one to diminish her confusion, rather he probably contributed to making her head hum even more.
Adella could not remember having travelled such a long way when she had fled the High Priestess's remote temple, and after the fourth change of direction at the latest, she was finally aware that there was no way her companion was leading her back to the other by a direct route.
"Shayan, I'm really exhausted, can't we cut this short, please?" she whined, quickly realising that she sounded like a tadpole.
"We'll be right there," the other replied between two more comments about their surroundings.
Adella looked around searchingly, but with all her love she could not make out the temple anywhere. Was her orientation really playing tricks on her? Another wave of dizziness came over her and she instinctively grabbed the first thing near her. That it was the other's arm only became apparent to her when the world had stopped spinning around her again.
"Sorry," she returned his irritated look.
"Are you all right?" he asked her in response, tilting his head, which didn't help Adella's confused sense of balance much.
"I..." she began, grabbing her head.
"Do you want to sit down? Come on, here's a good spot," he offered, leading her to a suitable rock.
"Thank you," she said as she felt the cool stone beneath her.
"Where are we, Shayan?" she asked, again trying to take in her surroundings.
"I already told you," he remarked, giving her a critical look, "aren't you listening to me? What have I been playing tour guide for all this time if you're not paying attention at all?"
"That was not my intention," Adella apologised quickly.
"Then I'll just repeat it again. You should be able to see it, after all, we're almost there and it's hard to miss our destination," he once again didn't dwell on her misstep.
The princess started another attempt to get a closer look at her surroundings and this time it worked thanks to her firm seat. She realised what Shayan had meant. They were only a few flipper beats away from Mazu's huge statue. Up close, the image of the god was even more awe-inspiring than before in the centre of the city. The seven fish tails rose high and from their swimming point it seemed as if the god's head reached just below the surface of the sea. Adella had never felt so small in her life.
"Well, did I promise too much? The view is amazing, isn't it?" Shayan asked, making Adella take her eyes off the statue and focus on the view he had mentioned. She was amazed, the view over the city was breathtaking. The processions moving through the streets made for a mesmerising spectacle. The pilgrims moved in swirls from all the streets, one by one, towards the largest of the temples, built right in the centre of the starfish-shaped city.
"Just look at all these fools. Looking for Mazu in this crowd when you can be much closer to him up here," Shayan commented and Adella finally understood what he had been trying to make her understand before. At first she had doubted his faith, but now she realised that he was probably much more one of the few who knew how to recognise Mazu's true workings in everything that surrounded them.
"Thank you for showing me this, Shayan," she complied with the urge to express her gratitude that he had helped her to see for herself what he must have been seeing through his eyes for a long time.
"You're welcome, princess. But now we should hurry and swim back to Ashera. Not that she'll start worrying about us yet," he noted, holding out his hand to her invitingly.
"Worried?" inquired Adella, still unable to completely put aside her prejudices. The horrible memories of Ursula's actions ran too deep.
"Of course. She wanted me back with you before sunset. If we were late, she might... Oh, let's just not let it come to that. Come on!" actually started to give her an explanation to one of her questions at one point, but then broke off as if he had already said too much.
"What would she do to you? Would she do anything to you?", Adella inquired, startled.
"Forget what I said. Come," he tried to stop her from worrying about his words. Adella knew all too well by now from experience that once he had decided he had said enough about a certain thing, she could expect no more answers from him. So to try to force something out of him that he so obviously did not want to tell her about would amount to one of Mazu's miracles. So with a heavy heart she left it at that and hoped that she would not regret it.
She took Shayan's still offered hand and finally let him lead her back to the temple of the high priestess.
The further they moved away from the city centre, the more Adella noticed that her senses were slowly clearing and the dizziness was subsiding. Thoughtfully, she glanced behind her. Was it something to do with the centre? She decided to keep this question in mind for a later time and turned back towards the entrance of the temple, in front of which they were now again.
The princess' heart was beating up to her throat as she carefully made her way back inside the temple behind Shayan.
"We are back, Ashera!", Shayan drew the priestess' attention to her.
"That's nice. Welcome back, your highness," the priestess replied.
"I apologise for my previous behaviour. Would you still offer me your help?" asked Adella meekly.
"Certainly, my dear. Forgiven and forgotten," replied Ashera graciously, "how can I help you further?"
"It's like this...", Adella started to try to explain the situation, but at that very moment another wave of dizziness overcame her and she sank to the ground fully overcome by it.
"Adella!" cried Shayan in shock, rushing to her side.
"What happened, Shayan?" the blind woman asked to be explained.
"She collapsed. Adella had been so wobbly on her fin all the time," the merman described.
"I'm not surprised. Here, give her this to drink. Then she should recover quickly," the high priestess replied and handed Shayan a small vessel with a violet liquid.
Shayan followed the instruction without hesitation and indeed Adella recovered instantly. She began to blink and turn her head to make out what had just happened. When she realised she was being held by Shayan she recoiled in embarrassment.
"Sorry," she mumbled, letting herself drift away from him a little.
"No problem, princess," he simply winked teasingly at her, however, and laughed at the blush Adella couldn't stop from shooting into her cheeks.
"What have you given me?" she tried to deflect.
"A remedy to take away the dizziness caused by the unfamiliar holy water. I should have guessed you might get into trouble with it. The priests have been overdoing it lately," Aschera explained.
Now it all made sense. That was why the feeling had grown as she approached the centre. That was probably where most of the rituals were performed and it seemed to have far-reaching effects on the water.
"How do you feel now?" inquired Ashera.
"Like a changed man, this potion leaves nothing to be desired. You really seem to be a capable mage," Adella replied, pleased that she was finally rid of that annoying dizziness.
"Thank you," replied Aschera.
"Do you possibly know of a protective spell that could be cast over my family, or better yet, over all of Atlantica? And if so, would you be powerful enough to invoke it?" asked Adella hopefully.
"I know of such a spell and yes my power would probably be enough to perform it, but I still have to disappoint you. A protective spell such as you imagine would in the end only be a deceptive security that would make you careless. It would have been easy for Ursula to circumvent such a spell and Morgana will have similar knowledge. I assume so," Aschera explained, nipping the princess' hopes in the bud.
"So you can't help me after all," Adella scowled.
"I think I can," the High Priestess replied with a soft laugh.
"How?" asked Adella in amazement.
"Your biggest problem right now is that you can't find her. She is hiding from your soldiers for a reason. I am sure she needs more time to carry out her plan. Provided you get ahead of her plans, you would have the better cards," Aschera continued, sneaking around Adella. Meanwhile, her tentacles kept gently stroking the princess' form, sending shivers down her spine. But she allowed the priestess this interaction, recognising that her touch compensated for her lack of sight.
"Then you can track Morgana?" advised Adella.
"Not without first narrowing down the possibilities," Aschera admitted.
"Oh great, then we're not getting anywhere here either," Adella vented her disappointment.
Again Aschera laughed and Shayan joined in this time.
"You're not exactly the most patient mermaid," he observed.
"Says the guy who can't swim still for ten seconds," Adella countered, but it bounced off the other's wide grin as it had so many times before.
"I can reassure you, Princess. There is very well a way to encircle Morgana's hiding places," Aschera reassured her.
"How is that going to work?" echoed Adella.
"Ursula had secret hiding places all over the seven seas. I am convinced that after her death, Morgana is now making use of these hiding places," the octopaedess explained.
"And you know these hiding places," Adella concluded.
"No, unfortunately I don't have that knowledge," Aschera confessed.
"So we would need someone who knows Ursula's hiding places," Shayan clarified.
"Exactly," the priestess agreed with her protégé.
"But surely Ursula won't have been peddling that knowledge," Adella noted, "I doubt anyone but her sister and her henchmen knew about her grottos."
"You're right about that," Aschera agreed with her.
"Then we're screwed. Ursula's two moray darlings now eke out the rest of their existence as worms who can't tell us anything," Adella voiced a good reason for her concerns.
"Meerschaum and scum weren't her only helpers, though, dear. She had another helping hand at her side all along. Someone she had, however, probably knowingly kept out of Atlantica's waters. Her last ace in the hole, so to speak," Aschera finally revealed a fraction of her valuable knowledge.
Adella looked at her with wide eyes. Ursula was supposed to have had another ally? This information seemed so absurd to her. She was sure she had heard every little detail about the story after her little sister had decided to get a foothold - literally - on land with her prince. The historians had recorded everything and her sisters and she had talked about it over and over again in the following days, weeks and months and had thus come to a comprehensive picture. She simply could not imagine that someone else had been involved in all this, but had been able to disappear unnoticed afterwards.
"That's nonsense," Adella therefore also spoke out.
"Oh, it's not that, dear. I thought you didn't know anything about him, but he exists and, fortunately for you, I know exactly where he is. Besides, I think I know exactly how we can convince him to work with us," Aschera opened up to her.
"An aide to Ursula who will swim to me, a member of the Atlantean ruling family she hated to the core? I'm sorry, but I don't believe in that," Adella was not easily persuaded.
An amused smile settled on Ashera's features.
"You'll see," the blind woman gave ironically.
"You just have to believe," Shayan added and Adella couldn't help but be carried away by the optimism of the two.
If this chance really existed, she wanted to be the last to let it pass.