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A pleasant current of water was running over Maurits’s body, teasing out his stiff muscles and slowly infusing him with life

again. It felt marvelous. He couldn’t quite remember why he was here, or how he had gotten here in the first place. Come to

think of it, he wasn’t even sure where here was.

A night bird called softly from above. Tentatively, he cracked an eye open. The light from the moon filtered down through

the brackish water. An estuary; he was in an estuary. He had been walking—on land—until his legs gave out and he was gasping

for water. Clara. He had brought Clara back up to land, and then not even a day later had regretted it terribly and gone looking

for her. He’d searched the canals, the cow paths, and even the carriage roads, hoping against all odds for one more glimpse

of her. But, of course, she was clever, and had taken his advice to heart and fled as soon as he had left her. That hadn’t

stopped him from walking himself dry, desperate to find her again and see her one last time.

He was pathetic; he knew that. He was everything his mother and brother had always accused him of being. If he had spent half

as much time in his kingdom attending to his duties as he did wallowing and pining after a woman he could never have, what

might have gone differently?

Feeling sorry for himself was becoming tiresome. Disgust, that was what he felt. He had lain right down on the ground, determined to let himself die. How had he gotten here? Not just to this estuary, but to this point in his life?

As if in answer, there was a rush of water beside him. “You’re awake,” said a chorus of hissing voices.

If he could have sunk to the bottom of the deepest ocean floor, he would have. Basilisks were the last creatures he wanted

to see in his moment of distress. “Unfortunately,” he told them.

They made a sound, as close to a tsk as a creature with a forked tongue could produce. “You were on land, dried out like a worm in the sun,” one of them said.

Maurits groaned, closing his eyes as if he could slip back into unconsciousness. “You ought to have left me where you found

me,” he told the school of basilisks. He had never liked the serpentine creatures that could kill a human man with their eyes

alone, and breathe fire from their nostrils on land. It was not their remarkably brutal powers that bothered him, rather the

way that they wielded them indiscriminately, whether against foes for survival, or hapless creatures for sport. And of course,

here they were, responsible for pulling him back into the water and saving his wretched life.

“But we did not, and now you owe us a debt for saving your life.”

Their slit eyes watched him, and though they couldn’t kill him with just a look, Maurits was wary all the same. He doubted

he would have died up there on land, but he could have been gravely injured. At the very least he supposed he could grant

them some favor in the future. “Very well.” He sighed.

There was a drawn-out silence which he didn’t like. “We wish to call in our debt now.”

Of course they did, the bloodthirsty pains in his ass.

They probably wanted the right to go into the canals again, to wreak havoc in the cities.

His mother had never had any compunc tion about sending them to do her bidding, but he did his best not to engage with the creatures that would have as soon as killed him as dragged him back into the water.

“What would you have of me?” he asked carefully.

“We could have brought you to your brother,” one of them said, its voice the sound of oil on water.

“Or your mother,” another put in.

“But we kept you here, where the fresh meets the salt.”

He did not like the direction this was taking. “One debt,” he ground out. “I will grant you one debt for saving me, but I—”

“We want your favor, should you take the throne.”

Maurits paused. “You... what?”

“The throne,” one said.

“When you take it, we want a voice.”

“Voices,” another added. “We want our kind represented in court.”

“That could be decades yet,” Maurits said carefully.

Those black eyes shifted, sharing something unspoken between them. “What do you know?” he asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” they lied in unison.

First Thade’s cryptic threat and Neese’s warning, then this. The water turned cold against his skin and scales.

“You’ll have a voice in my court,” he muttered, not bothering to mention that he had no intention of ever taking the throne.

Let the slimy devils think that they were getting a better deal than they were.

“That is all that we ask, Prince.”

“Our thanks, Prince.”

They slithered back into whatever dark little crevices from which they had come, leaving Maurits alone in the marshy estuary

with a sinking feeling in his chest.

The water grew clearer and colder as he swam out to sea, and he allowed his tail to unfurl and stretch now that he was back where he belonged.

He was not particularly concerned about his mother now that Clara was safely on land.

Or at least, he hoped safe. Every time he tried to force himself to think about Thade and whatever grab for power his brother was contemplating, Maurits’s mind would wander to memories of Clara lying sleeping in the cave, her lips slightly parted, her lashes feathered against her cheek.

And those images would lead him to more dangerous memories of when he had given her breath and held her body in his arms.

Diving deeper into the surf, he swam for the palace. Despite his aversion to politics and the mechanisms of the Water Kingdom,

there were matters that should be attended to now that he was back. As the crown prince and heir, it was possible he could

at least mitigate some of the damage his mother sought to bring to the land. And his mother would take her revenge on the

land, now that Maurits had denied her the final child from the bargain. Thade had taken on more and more of Maurits’s roles

in the past few years, but his mother still preferred Maurits, her more levelheaded son. Now that Clara was gone and his mother

had taken her petty revenge, there was no reason to put it off longer.

The castle from which Queen Maren ruled never ceased to make Maurits feel incredibly small and inconsequential.

He didn’t know when it had been built, or who had built it, but it was as immutable as any cliff or crevice carved into the seafloor from millennia ago.

The stories passed down among the sea folk said that it had been cleaved from salt and rock by giant creatures so old that their names had long since been lost to the tide.

Even if he didn’t believe the stories, it was still awe-inspiring to behold.

Glittering turrets studded in pearls and crusted in coral pierced up from the green seafloor, any light from the surface refracted a hundredfold by the silver shells that adorned the spires.

Inside would await spacious halls and towering columns, a calm energy flowing through it despite the many creatures and water folk that came daily to conduct business and manage the affairs of the kingdom.

Maurits slowed as he neared the great doors. A few merfolk watched him, clustered in groups and giving him wary nods of recognition.

He hadn’t been gone that long, but everyone seemed to expect him to shirk his duties, to never show his face here again. Or perhaps they had heard

that he had gone against his mother, been consorting with a human on land. He gave them all a bland, unbothered smile as he

passed.

Ever since he was a boy, the castle had held him in a sort of thrall. It was old, beautiful, and seemingly indifferent to

the folk that came and went and sat on the throne. Unlike the halls of human castles and guildhalls, there were no portraits,

no testaments to the kings and queens who had ruled here throughout the centuries. The occasional improvement or necessary

repair was the only indication that time had touched it. It was a comforting notion, though intimidating when he thought of

what his own legacy would be.

As he swam further down the great hall, his muscles began to tighten, as if they were aware of some threat that his mind was

not. The castle was suspiciously quiet, with none of the usual bustle of envoys or emissaries or whoever it was that usually

were doing business here.

The uneasiness only grew as he swam up to the green doors that led to the throne room. They should have been posted with his

mother’s guards, but there was no one there, and they stood slightly ajar. Pushing them the rest of the way open, he felt

his heart sink.

Every space in the Water Kingdom made allowances for the creatures and folk that could not breathe underwater indefinitely.

Ledges and pockets of air were carved into every space so that there was no need to surface. Maurits could breathe underwater

for hours, a day perhaps if he really needed to. But there were those who required air more frequently.

Maurits stared into the throne room. Those ledges should have been full of courtiers and advisors, but they stood empty. The only creature in the cavernous room was his brother.

“Brother, you have come at last. I know that you dislike attending to your duties here, but I didn’t think you would be quite

so tardy.”

Thade sat on the coral throne, a simple pedestal with a seat that had been worn smooth and shimmering from centuries of use.

His voice echoed through the hall, sending a few stray mackerel scattering.

“Where is Mother?” Maurits asked warily.

Flicking a disinterested look at Maurits, Thade returned to running his hands along the arms of the throne. “Indisposed.”

“Thade, what—”

“King Thade,” his brother corrected him in an icy tone.

If Thade was looking to elicit a reaction out of his brother, he would be disappointed. Maurits wasn’t moved to anger, or

even confusion. Thade had taken the throne, or rather, was playing at taking the throne. There was not a creature that would