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Kaerius shook himself.What?

“The lost prince, Alexander Rafael de Gracey. He disappeared a little over two hundred years ago. His younger brother, Tobias Ulrich de Gracey, ruled in his place, but always maintained that if his brother returned, he would give his brother the crown that rightfully belonged to him. All Elerian kings have followed this tradition.” Brighton pointed at another portrait. “That’s King Tobias’s son King Richard, and his son King Corentin.”

Kaerius walked a little farther down the hall, examining the portraits in turn. The clothes and styles of their hair changed in each painting, and he wondered how quickly human fashions changed.

If Marin never loved him, would his people remember him as the Elerians remembered their lost prince?

He laughed to himself, silent and despairing.

“Do you need anything before I leave? How are your feet?”

Can we go outside?Kaerius turned toward the exterior of the palace.I need to smell the sea.

“What? You need… smell… water?” Brighton obligingly turned with him.

A few minutes later, they stood with arms leaning upon the wall.

What a horrible mess for Her Highness. The wind off the sea smelled of kelp and salt, of home and freedom, and for a moment, longing pierced the Mer prince’s heart so sharply that it brought tears to his eyes.

Clouds scudded across the sky, hiding the full moon and then letting the silver light spill over the empty street. It cast deep shadows against the palace behind them and on the cliffside that fell away before them, and the sea was a dark, seething shadow that rustled and murmured below.

“Do you really love the princess?” said Brighton abruptly.

Kaerius looked at him in surprise.Yes.

“I know why our people do, and why I do, and I know you have reasons to be grateful to her. But there’s more, isn’t there? You look at her like you’ve loved her for more than the last few days. Why?”

The Mer prince swallowed and hesitated.When the princess fell into the sea, I found her, he finally signed.

“Something about the princess in the ocean?” Brighton stared at him. “When?”

Last year.

“Do you mean when the ship capsized and the king was injured?” Brighton’s voice was tight. “Were you there?”

I brought her to shore, and I sang life into her lungs.Kaerius smiled a little to himself as he remembered. It had been a strange moment, face to face with the unconscious princess, with her soft human skin and her dark hair all tangled and fullof sand. The Mer folk could take shallow breaths of air, but it did not sustain their life the way water did. He had expelled the water from his lungs, taken a huge breath of air, pressed his lips to hers, and sung of life and hope and courage to live.

She had coughed into his face, curled up, and vomited water and bile all over him. Her eyes were closed against the blinding sunlight, and if she had seen him at all, it could only have been as a dark silhouette against the brilliance.

“Can you breathe?” he’d asked. His own voice was strange in the air, and his lungs burned without the familiar saltwater to fill them. As he inhaled air again, his vision grew a little dimmer.

She’d coughed again and rasped, “Thank you.”

Then there were human voices far too close, and he’d slipped into the water and watched as they had wept over her, wrapped her in warm clothes, and carried her away.

Brighton stared at Kaerius in the shifting silver moonlight. “You saved her life that day, didn’t you? You brought her to shore?”

Yes.

“I always wondered,” Brighton murmured, looking back out at the sea. He leaned his forearms on the wall and sighed. “It never made sense that she lived. She couldn’t swim that far, and she hit the rail before she fell. She always said she couldn’t remember what had happened after she fell.”

Kaerius smiled quietly.

“Thank you,” said the guard sincerely. “I didn’t realize how much we owed you.”

The prince looked at him in surprise.I am repaid in full by the opportunity to show her my love.

Brighton gave a soft huff of amusement. “It would be too convenient if you were actually a foreign prince, with whom Her Highness could make an alliance.”