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Claira

T here was a drawing of cecaelia tentacles. Next to that was a mermaid tail. I rounded the desk, my hand hovering over the parched, yellowed pages of the open book sitting out on Abyssal’s desk. Detailed glyphs ran beneath the illustrations, but what really caught my attention was what lay above them.

A magic circle. I tensed, recognition stabbing through me as I studied it. It was strikingly similar to the one Abyssal had scribed in front of my face when he hid my sea witch eyes.

Even though I couldn’t decipher most of the glyphs, my intuition somehow knew exactly what I was looking at. This was a transformation spell.

Cecaelia tentacles into a mermaid tail.

No—it couldn’t be. And yet… what else could it be but a transformation spell?

I turned back a page, and a sharp whine broke through my clenched teeth.

Sea witch eyes stared back at me, drawn by a heavy hand, the white of their centers standing out against the yellowed paper. On the opposite side was another magic circle. This one, I knew. Every curve, every symbol. It was the exact one Abyssal had used.

Of course it was. He’d taken it from this book. They were transformation spells. But more than that, these were both of the spells that had been cast on me. My curses.

Why hadn’t I considered that the new spell Abyssal had placed over my eyes might have been the same as the one that was cast initially? I’d been so relieved he saved me, so caught up in my emotions, that I hadn’t thought about it at all.

My pulse thudded in my ears as I flipped back over to the previous page. So, this spell… It was the reason for my useless tail?

How long had Abyssal had this book?

“No. No, no, no .” I couldn’t believe where my mind was headed. It was ridiculous to think Abyssal had anything to do with my cursed tail. He must have found the book recently, or maybe there were hundreds of old books with these same spells written in them.

My gaze lingered on the image of the mermaid tail, a sick feeling building inside me. He’d had the book when he fixed my eyes. He could have told me it was connected to my spells. He could have even shown me the pages. But he hadn’t.

Why?

I straightened, chewing my lip as I shook my head, trying to push back all the questions threatening to take over. I’d just ask him. Simple as that. As soon as I saw him, I’d ask him about?—

My gaze happened to land on the fish tank, and my breath hitched.

Two betta fish were staring right at me, one frilled sky blue and white speckled male and a smaller, pale lavender female.

I moved, and their gazes followed. The way they’re looking at me…

A shiver rocked through my body. It was the same unsettling feeling I’d had the first time I laid eyes on this tank. Something about it wasn’t quite right.

“You’re not… merfolk, are you?” I cringed as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

Startlingly, both bettas reacted. The male bobbed in place, his fins flaring wide, while the female darted to the bottom, vanishing from sight.

“ Whoa, ” I breathed, leaning in closer. “You’re actually merfolk?”

The female reappeared, mouthing at the male’s frills as if urging him to follow her and hide. But he stayed where he was, bobbing in what could only be interpreted as a nod.

Had I finally lost my mind?

“But this isn’t salt water,” I whispered. “And you didn’t change back when I touched you.” That’s right. I’d touched the male, and he’d stayed a betta. None of this made sense. How could they be cursed merfolk?

I looked around, unsure of what to do, until my gaze caught on the back of the tank where a mess of black lines sprawled across it.

I sucked in a sharp breath. Oh, shit.

That was definitely a spell. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there it was, embedded in the poster taped to the back of the glass. A vibrantly printed seascape on one side, a darkly drawn web of magic on the other.

The lines and the magic felt so familiar, even though I’d never seen a spell this elaborate before. The way it had seeped into the surface made me wonder how long it had been there.

Dammit, no. I backed away, my mind racing, that sinking feeling settling deeper.

Abyssal had done this. Again, there was the question of why?

The speckled betta seemed even more frantic now, probably because I’d moved away.

Logically, they had to be merfolk. There was no other reason for Abyssal to cast a spell on a fish tank. Maybe they were prisoners—captured and placed here for a good reason?

I could ask him about this, too…

But what if they weren’t here for a good reason? What if they were here for no reason aside from simply being merfolk, like how Isola had casually dismissed killing her birth mother?

“ Shit, okay.” My hands shook as I stepped back to the dark threads. “I’ll try. I can’t promise I can break this spell, but I’ll try.”

What were the chances that I’d regret this?

Following the magic, I could feel just how old the spell was, and it took forever to find an end I could grasp. When I finally tugged it, the thread lifted agonizingly slow. I gritted my teeth, yanking harder.

The pulse in my temples throbbed, but I couldn't stop now. I had to know. I had to understand why .

“I’m close,” I warned, wincing through the ache in my head. At last, the final strand snapped free, and all the magic I’d stripped away released in one long, thrumming sigh.

With a crack , the glass shattered, and two figures erupted through the tank.

I caught a glimpse of bare skin, the flick of a blue mer-tail, and the violent thrash of a shark’s tail just before one of the bodies slammed into me. I hit the floor hard, sprawling backward.

Dazed, I struggled to push myself up, only to be met with the sight of two pairs of legs tangled together on the glass-covered floor. A man and a woman, both naked, gasping for air.

But I’d seen what they were—if only for a split second. A merman and a mermaid.

“D-d-d-don’t touch him!” the female sputtered, scrambling to grab the male, pulling him across the shards of glass. She was shaking—both of them were. They jerked and trembled like they’d been in there so long that they’d forgotten how to move.

My hands slipped on the glass, the sharp edges cutting into my palms as I forced myself to my knees. Wincing, I watched as the female struggled to drag the male further from the wreckage of the tank.

“Hey,” I called, my voice coming out shaky, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying to calm them down. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

With a harsh breath, she looked up from the male in her arms. Her hair was a rich shade of deep purple, but it was her eyes that really threw me. They were like gemstones, cut sharp and full of fury.

“Holy shit,” I whispered. Lilac.

I’d recognize those eyes anywhere, but hers were far from kind. She looked at me like she wanted to tear into me, to hurt me like she’d been hurt.

My mouth gaped, my pulse hammering. “You’re?—”

“Stay back!” she hissed, smearing blood over her cheek as she swiped hair from her face. The male in her arms was still gasping, his eyes wide, staring in disbelief at the ceiling.

Considering the state she was in, it felt wrong to hope. But it had to be her, didn’t it? “You—you have brothers, don’t you?” I asked, lifting my hands up so that they might see that I wasn’t a threat. “I saw your spike-tail. You’re from the Pacific, right?”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Leave us alone!” she snarled, showing off the harshly angled tips of her teeth as she pulled the merman closer. “Get up,” she urged him, her voice softening as she tried to drag him upright. “Come on.” Her legs buckled under the weight, but she kept fighting to stand.

This was Kai’s sister. It had to be.

“Freechia?” I whispered from where I crouched across from them.

She jerked her chin upright, baring her teeth at me like I’d just issued her a challenge.

“You’re Freechia, right?” My voice choked up, my throat growing thick with emotion I couldn’t hold back. “Kai’s sister?”

As soon as Kai’s name passed my lips, Freechia’s eyes rounded.

It’s her.

“Thank goodness you’re alive.” I blinked rapidly, struggling to keep the tears at bay. “Kai… he’s missed you so much.”

He was going to be so happy when he found out his sister was still alive. I was overjoyed, too, but the happiness cut like a jagged knife knowing she’d been here all along.

Kai had told me that the cecaelia had her. He tried to tell me. And I—I wouldn’t listen. I hadn’t believed him.

I hadn’t even considered it a possibility.

But now here Freechia was. Here . In Abyssal’s office. The Undersea had her this whole time, and it was his spell that had kept her captive.

My stomach churned, rage boiling up from some deep pit inside me.

A shuddering breath filled the silence before the merman finally spoke. “You… y-you saved us.”

“She isn’t saving us .” Freechia’s voice snapped like a whip. “She’s a dark spawn!”

The accusation stung, even though I knew it was true. “I won’t hurt you,” I promised again, my voice shaking despite my best effort to stay composed. “Please, just listen. Let—let me get you something to cover up with.”

I gripped the edge of the desk, my bloody fingers smearing across the surface as I slowly pushed myself to my feet. My gaze flicked to the wardrobe, but then I froze.

The office door stood wide open, and there, in the doorway, was my sea wizard.

“Abyssal…” I whispered, his name catching in my throat.

His dark hair was slicked back neatly, his suit sharp and pristine, just as I’d imagined. He stood there with an unsettling calmness in his posture, his cold eyes giving nothing away.

I’d spent so many days aching for this moment, the endless hours dragging by as his absence gnawed at my hearts. And now he was here, finally, standing right in front of me.

I should have been happy to see him. Ecstatic, even. But all that longing, all that pent-up anticipation, was tainted the moment that fish tank shattered. Drowned out by something darker, something pulling at my insides in a way I hadn’t thought possible.

“ Why? ” The sudden force in my voice surprised me, raw and unsteady. Confusion burned in my chest, the pain of it bleeding into me like ink spilling into water, clouding the affection that had once filled me so easily.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to hurt this way.

“Princess,” he said darkly. His voice was rougher than I expected, as though he, too, was struggling with his emotions. “I see you’ve been curious.”

That wasn’t an answer, and it certainly wasn’t what I needed to hear from him.

I wanted to shout, to demand that he tell me what the hell was going on, but I bit it back, forcing my voice into something dangerously quiet. “Tell me why.”

The sound of Freechia’s muttered curses filled the silence that followed, the merman beside her letting out soft, pained whimpers. My gaze flicked over, and my hearts twisted at the sight of them. They were terrified of him. Of my sea wizard.

Or, at least… I’d thought he’d been mine.

The last time I’d seen him, his blood had been like fire in my veins. Now, it was barely a spark. Just a stain inside me, drowned by the rising tide of my anger.

I looked back at Abyssal, meeting his steady gaze. There was something turbulent beneath those dark eyes. Hurt? Was that really hurt I was seeing?

He didn’t get to feel hurt—not when he was the one who caused the pain.

“Did you think someone else could have cast such a curse?” Abyssal’s lips barely moved. His hands clenched at his sides, betraying the bitterness simmering just beneath his control.

His chin lifted slightly, the smoke in his voice choking the air around me. “Well, I regret to inform you that my magic has been behind far more than you realize.”

What?

“I… don’t understand.” My gaze burned into his, demanding an explanation. Despite everything, a small part of me still clung to the impossible, hoping—desperately—that he had some way to justify this. “Why would you do this to them? Why would you keep them here?”

“Why?” he echoed. “Because it was convenient.”

There was no remorse within his cold words. Words that froze all the love I’d felt for him into ice.

“Convenient?” I choked out. “That’s your reason?”

So, there it was. Kai had been right. Cecaelia were heartless demons. Every single one of them.

I’d thought Abyssal was different. Thought I had understood even the parts of him he kept hidden. I wanted to believe he was good . But this?

This wasn’t the man I’d fallen in love with. Maybe that man had never existed at all.

His eyes slid over to the merfolk huddling in the corner, trembling under his gaze like prey, and with that warmth inside me gone, the rest of me snapped.

I stepped sideways, my feet crunching over the broken glass as I put myself between them and him. “You won’t touch them.”

Abyssal’s eyes moved down to my hands, where blood dripped down my fingers, and his expression hardened. “Ah,” he bit out, his lips drawing tight. “Afraid I might curse them again?”

Hearing him admit it was a fresh burst of pain.

“I will not let you.” My hearts hammered, every instinct in me screaming for me to back down, but I wouldn’t. No matter how much stronger he was, I’d unleash every bit of magic I had to keep them safe because these merfolk were innocent.

And maybe I wasn’t as much like the rest of the dark spawn as I’d feared because even if it hadn’t been Kai’s sister, I knew I would’ve fought to protect anyone I found here.

Unlike him . Unlike every other damned cecaelia.

God, it hurt. It was the kind of hurt I didn’t even know I could feel.

“I thought you cared—I thought I could trust you.” My voice shook, but I forced the words out. “But now… Now, I don’t even know who I’m looking at.”

Then, it hit me like a brutal wave, knocking the air from my lungs.

“You really are her puppet .”

Abyssal went utterly still. His head dropped forward, his shoulders shaking, and then the laughter came. Laughter. But it wasn’t humor. It was something darker, something jagged, spilling out of him like a wound torn open.

“That spell took me months of careful preparation. And you unraveled it like it was nothing.” When his head finally lifted, a sheen of moisture glistened over his eyes—tears brimming with rage and despair. His teeth ground together, those pale lips stretching around a bitter, twisted grimace. “Won’t your lovers be so proud? Knowing that their beloved mate has broken the curse that plagued their entire kind.”

The curse… was broken? Just because I’d freed them from the tank?

A dark plume of magic smoke swirled around Abyssal’s hand as his trident materialized, the sight of it causing the merfolk behind me to whimper.

My voice tightened with anger. “I won’t let you curse them again.”

“All this talk of ‘won’t.’ Bold words, my dear little captive,” he started, then his voice turned even harder, the words biting into the air, “considering you’ve barely lived a single day without some part of you wrapped up in my magic.”

When that admission fell from his lips, it felt as though the last veil had been ripped away in one violent pull, exposing everything I’d been too blind to see.

“You…” I breathed, my throat tight, my eyes suddenly flicking to the open book on his desk. “ You gave me my useless tail?”

“Regrettably, not my finest work.” His voice came out cracked and strained, as if even he couldn’t bear the sound of it.

It was like the fists at his sides held all of my hearts, squeezing them. So, so tight, I knew it would break me.

It did break me. He broke me. Not just now, but he’d broken me from the very beginning.

“I thought you were the one who understood me, who saw the real me,” I whispered, the words spinning inside me as I pressed my hand to my chest. “But that’s only because you were the one who cursed me in the first place.”

I can’t… I can’t even…

“I—I loved you. But you were just… manipulating me.” I blinked through the hot wash of furious tears, my gaze flicking around—his desk, his office, him—like I was seeing it for the first time. “You controlled all of this.”

The base of Abyssal’s throat worked, though his chin remained rigid as he uttered, “Yes.”

“ Why! ” I screamed, the rawness of it clawing at my throat. “Why did you curse me?”

His knuckles went white over the shaft of his trident. “Because the former princess asked it of me,” he admitted, then, more coldly, “I’m nothing if not an obedient puppet.”

I shook my head, a bitter laugh rising in my chest because, of course, why wouldn’t my mother have wanted that? “You never planned to tell me. You would’ve let me keep loving you. And you wouldn’t have said a damn thing .”

Silently, he held my gaze, but his eyes were hollow, staring at me like he needed me to hate him. Like he wanted to make sure there was nothing left between us but this awful, sinking ruin.

There wasn’t. It was done. I didn’t know if it was rage or sorrow, or maybe both, but I knew I couldn’t stay here. Not with him.

My fingers shook as I reached for the cold, heavy crown resting on my head. He was the only reason I’d worn it, the only reason I’d been able to stomach looking at my tentacles. It had all been for him, but now… I tore it off and hurled it across the room, not even bothering to watch as it clattered to the floor.

Abyssal’s eyes followed the crown, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak.

Coward .

I wouldn’t let him hurt me—or anyone I cared about—again. I reached for the book on his desk, my hand closing around it, and gave him, my sea wizard, one last look.

No—not mine. He was my grandmother’s puppet.

There was nothing left in his gaze. No regret, no apology, no recognition of what I was doing. Just emptiness. A vast, consuming emptiness.

That would be the last time I ever tried to see some emotion in his eyes that had never even really been there.

I turned away, my anger too fierce to let the tears fall. “I won’t hurt you,” I whispered, meeting Freechia’s gaze. Her eyes widened, but I didn’t give her or the merman time to react before I wrapped my arms around them.

Snap .