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A rden pressed her back to the wall just inside her suite’s door, squeezing her eyes shut.

She meant to hurry into her bedroom. Maybe even lock herself in her bathroom and turn on the water so that she didn’t have to hear whatever they were saying, whatever chiding Father Enoch clearly wanted to give Seidon over her.

“What are you thinking?” she expected him to say. “Arden? She’s not what you need.”

Truth. Father Enoch would always, of course, speak the truth to the king he loved like a brother.

And she could recognize it as truth too—but she didn’t want to hear it spoken.

She knew very well that hearing that particular truth articulated into words and tossed out into the world would crack what little composure she was still clinging to.

But she had heard his first words—and they’d frozen her to the spot. Destroying that girl’s heart.

He was concerned…for her?

She shouldn’t listen. Mama had said a million times that eavesdroppers never heard anything good.

But the warning had never kept her and Jade from pressing their ears to cracks when they were children trying to learn what gifts they were getting, and it couldn’t convince her legs to carry her away from the door with its noise-admitting glass now either.

Her lips still burned from Seidon’s, and his voice, when he spoke, made her throat close with yearning.

She wanted, even now, to wait until Enoch left and go back out there.

Wrap her arms around him again. Kiss him until, for a minute anyway, she could believe that she was someone who… that…just someone .

“Enoch,” Seidon was saying, horror in his tone. “I wouldn’t. I would never hurt her.”

“Not intentionally. I know that. I know you genuinely like her—”

“I love her.” He said it so…so certainly . Easily. Calmly. As if those three little words didn’t completely undo her, turn her knees to mush, and make her slide down the wall until the floor stopped her descent.

How could he love her? It was miracle enough that he wanted to kiss her, that somehow he looked at her and saw something that made him want to keep looking. But love?

Fingers resting at the base of her throat, she stared into the darkness of the suite’s living room, with its familiar, nondescript shapes that were couches and chairs and tables. Solid things. Discernible things. Things that did nothing to convince her this wasn’t all some dream.

Father Enoch sighed. “I know. And if this were any other situation, I would rejoice with you. I would pray with you that this time, love would be enough. That marrying her would give you nothing but happiness and joy. But you need children, Seidon. You need them now, in this generation, not in the next. The people need to know that you aren’t the last Sea King, especially with the mer growing in power and building walls you can’t tear down. ”

Not until an ache pulsed through her head did Arden realize she was frowning intensely enough that it was a wonder that furniture didn’t splinter under the weight of it. She made an effort to smooth out her features, relax her muscles, but it did nothing to relax her tangled emotions.

Children. He needed children. And though he’d had four wives over the course of two hundred and fifty years, none had been able to give him that.

Because magic as strong as his needed magic of equal strength to be able to create new life.

Hadn’t she heard that somewhere? Papa, that was it, talking hypothetically to Mama.

There had been gossip a few years ago musing whether the king would abandon his mourning when a very pretty, non-magical daughter of an ambassador from somewhere-or-another had come on the scene—quickly to leave again without so much as turning the king’s head.

Papa had said Seidon would never even consider an Unawakened again.

That he couldn’t. Because he needed an heir from his next marriage, and no normal human was strong enough to give him that.

The couch blurred into the table. Of course. Of course that made sense.

She heard the sound of Seidon’s steps, pacing one way, then pivoting back. “You don’t know that it would be impossible.” He didn’t sound so certain now, nor so calm. More like he was begging his friend to grant the point. “The Triada could make a way.”

“He could.”

“He’s given the miracle of life where it shouldn’t exist before.”

“Of course he has.”

A beat of silence. Then, “I’ve never loved anyone like this, Enoch. I can’t…”

A heavy sigh. “My friend, it is just that this is the love you feel now. If Kerina were here—”

“No.” The firmness was back.

Strange, because the very mention of his last wife, the one he’d mourned for Arden’s entire life, made her feel about as firm as jelly.

She squeezed her eyes shut again. It wasn’t fair, falling in love with someone who had lived so many lifetimes, loved so many others before she was even born.

She couldn’t compete with them, not even with their memories.

“You know very well my memory doesn’t fade like that.

I know exactly how I felt about Kerina—I know how she helped me heal from Emilia’s betrayal.

Helped me believe again. I know that she taught me so much about life and faith, and that I loved her to the point that I wanted to grow old with her.

Tried to, and tried to keep her young. I remember how I wanted so much to please Emilia but couldn’t.

How Tora and I enjoyed decades of peace and companionship.

I remember thinking, the first time I took my first wife in my arms, that our love would be strong enough to overcome the very world. ”

Arden’s breath shook its way out.

He wasn’t finished. “But none of them compares to this. Put together they don’t compare to this.”

Impossible. Wasn’t it? He couldn’t love her like that. Why should he?

Father Enoch sighed again. “I’m so sorry, Si. So sorry you found her now, when you can’t keep her. I wish it were otherwise. You know I do. I would love nothing more than to officiate at your wedding again, to watch this love between you bloom. I wish it were possible.”

“It is possible!”

“It isn’t.” He sounded as certain as Seidon, and a good deal more sorrowful. “You’re forgetting that I saw your face that day, when you swam into the lagoon after sensing her sister.”

After…what? That day? Those words could only mean one day—the day Jade had been taken. But…but he’d never said anything about sensing her in the water. How could he have?

They were miles away from shore, after all. She’d bled, yes…but…but he…

Had he? Had he sensed Jade from such a great distance? Sensed something more than simply blood in the water?

Had he felt that, for her own sister, and never told her about it, despite claiming she was one of his best friends?

Enoch hadn’t paused to let her take it in.

“I saw the wonder in your eyes as you told me how it had felt. I saw the connection. A connection, Seidon, from one drop of blood, miles away. How will you withstand that when Jade is back here? How will you not break Arden’s heart when your blood pulls you to her sister?

Think about it, man. She’s lived her whole life thinking she doesn’t hold a candle to Jade.

What will it do to her, to think you love her, only to have you choose her sister in the end, because you can’t help it? ”

Arden squeezed her eyes shut. It had been one thing to think it likely that Jade, when Awakened, would indeed steal his attention, even his heart. It was quite another to realize it was…fated.

Of course. Of course it was. They were. It made so much sense that she couldn’t possibly deny it.

“I will not be a slave to the nanites in my blood.” Seidon’s voice wasn’t loud, but it packed enough fury into each syllable that she jumped a bit from the intensity. “I don’t want Jade. I never will. I want Arden . ”

“Seidon does. Yes. But you’re not only Seidon.” A shuffling sound, like the old friar’s steps had grown tired. “I know the burden of the crown is heavy, my friend. But the Triada gave it to you because you are the one he wills to wear it. He will give you the strength you need to do what is right.”

“Then he can give me the strength to be ruled by my heart instead of my blood. He can give me the strength to keep ruling until he grants me a miracle child or sends me an heir to train up some other way.”

“Oh, Seidon.” Father Enoch sounded almost amused as he breathed the words. “I’ll be praying for you. Praying comfort into your broken heart.”

“Mine?” Now Seidon sounded confused. Perhaps even outraged. Because of course, he would have no broken heart, not really. He would regret abandoning her, yes, but when he met Jade, when that fire consumed him, how could he really mourn it? Her? All he’d see then would be Jade.

Father Enoch’s voice came from farther away.

“You think she’ll ever agree to marry you when she knows you’re meant for her sister?

You can’t keep this from her forever, Si.

Certainly not once you find Jade. Arden is too good.

Too strong. Too determined to love her family above herself.

The very reasons you love her are the things that won’t let her love you , not fully. ”

She rubbed her fingers over her aching forehead, her eyes, her damp cheeks, not sure when she had started crying.

Enoch gave her too much credit. She wasn’t that strong. Wasn’t that good. Wasn’t that selfless.

He had to know it. In fact—that was probably the point.

He must know she was listening. Those words weren’t a warning to Seidon—they were a challenge to her.

He’d given her information he’d known Seidon had kept from her, and now he, as her spiritual leader, challenged her to choose the right path. Do the right thing.

To give up her own chance of happiness for the good of the kingdom.

No. For the good of the people she loved most in the world. The people who would be happier without her between them, even if they didn’t know it now.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t—because she did love Seidon fully.

How could she not? She’d known within hours of meeting him that he was all her father had always said he was, and more besides.

And within hours of meeting him, she’d started this tumble into love.

Because he looked at her. He made her laugh.

He flirted with her and held her hand and called her his best friend.

She wasn’t all those things he said she was.

But she was his. Always would be. She would love him to her dying day, even when he was her sister’s.

Even when she had to go somewhere where they weren’t, so that she could figure out how to build a wall like the mer’s, strong enough to keep him out.

Even when she’d learned how to smile and laugh with them again and bounce a future niece or nephew on her knee and praise the Triada with the rest of the kingdom for that miracle.

An eventuality that she knew couldn’t be avoided, no matter Seidon’s intentions.

It was so clear now. He was meant for Jade.

She for him. It was how it was always supposed to be, and this thing between him and Arden—this was a hiccup, brought on by the mer.

Had they not kidnapped Jade, she’d have been the one to catch his eye as she came down the stairs into the ball, she’d have been the one stealing his breath every day since.

Their blood would have mingled in the Awakening bowl next week, and they’d likely have been engaged before the day was out, and all of Daryatla would have celebrated their next queen.

If Arden tried to stand in the way, they’d all suffer for it.

And she couldn’t do that to them. She’d have to be content knowing that somehow she’d held his heart, at least for a little while.

If ever so briefly, he’d been hers. He’d loved her.

He’d forget all that when they found Jade, but that didn’t make it less true right now.

Enoch was wrong, even as he was right. She loved Seidon fully. Completely. Man and king, both. And it was because she loved him so much that she would do the right thing.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would be strong. Tonight, she would sit here and cry and hold on to that impossible truth while it lasted.

Today, he loved her. And that knowledge would surely be enough to fuel her for a lifetime.