Page 59

The moment I drifted into my chamber, the last of my strength fled into oblivion. I sank to the seafloor, an empty void wrung dry of every last drop of magic.

Aracos had done well. He played his part, just as I’d been forced to play mine. He’d siphoned my magic, slowing me down so that I might better resist what compelled me forward.

And somehow—mercifully—it had been enough.

The most competent of her lovers had followed my warning. When I’d finally felt the pull of her blood inside me, his illusions had kept her hidden from my magic.

And now it was done, wasn’t it? I’d pushed her away. Forced myself to let go.

At long last, she was safe from those who might harm her.

Safe from me.

My shoulder clipped a polearm, and it toppled, knocking three others down in a discordant clatter of steel.

“Aracos,” I muttered, more of a tired groan than a rebuke. I didn’t have the strength to reach out to his mind, not that it would have gotten him to clean up this mess.

Ever since his little arrangement with the knight, he’d been hoarding weapons—for what purpose, I did not care to know—and he’d quickly filled my chamber with enough steel to outfit an entire army. Temporarily , he’d assured me.

Whatever game he was playing, collecting all these useless things, I wasn’t in the mood for it.

I dropped behind my desk with a louder groan, my tentacles sagging against the cool stone, aching with exhaustion.

After a day of scouring land for the princess, I’d been granted a single hour to recover before my hunt would resume. How generous. This time, I was to search the Undersea.

Ha . As if she had any reason to be here.

But I didn’t mind chasing shadows if it meant buying her more time to break free from that vile woman’s grasp.

Thanks to a careless slip of the tongue, I’d finally learned the full extent of Queen Sagari’s plans for her granddaughter. Now that I knew, I would gladly play the villain to spare my dear little captive from such a fate.

Although… she wasn’t mine anymore, was she?

My jaw clenched as I unwound the ocean silk from my wrist—a black thread I’d found abandoned in the sand, tossed away as if it were nothing. I toyed with it, twirling its silken length between my fingers.

How ridiculous I’d been, pouring so much time into crafting it for her. I gave it one last glance before stashing it far out of sight, a memory of a part of myself I no longer needed.

It was laughable—weeks of careful planning, only for my most desperate, last-ditch effort to be the one that succeeded.

And oh , how it succeeded.

Claira had taken every bait I’d laid out for her. I hadn’t even needed to lure her into my office, hadn’t needed to deceive her with lies.

No. The truth had been more than enough. Truths I’d never wanted her to know, but what other choice had there been?

Now, she was gone from me. And I… I was adrift, lost in the wreckage of my own making.

My soul lay in tatters. Even my hearts had lost their rhythm, as if they, too, resented beating in a world where she was no longer within my reach.

“ Ha— ” I exhaled sharply, the sound escaping like a bitter laugh. My fingers curled over parchment, crumpling the scrolls I’d left on my desk.

She would never forgive me. Not that I had any right to expect her to.

Still, it was maddening the way she’d looked at me. Like I was no better than a mindless beast, capable of mercilessly tearing apart the merfolk I’d taken.

If only she knew the lengths I’d gone to, the careful loopholes I’d worked to keep her beloved merfolk safe.

Queen Sagari had ordered me to poison every last mer, rendering them incapable of protecting their tridents. And in a way, I had. Salt water was their poison, but through a clever twist of transformation, I’d ensured they wouldn’t be killed.

To do so, I’d needed two merfolk to act as the base of the spell—one male and one female, willingly given. Well, willingly enough .

Had I known that Kai would become one of her lovers, I would have chosen a different merman to make a fool of. But even then, the result of my manipulations would have been the same.

Now, my dear captive saw me as everyone else did. An unfeeling puppet.

Perhaps they’d all been right.

These letters before me, written with such desperation, all but confirmed it.

My eyes skimmed them. They were undeniably important, yet I hadn’t opened them until four days ago, when the thought of needing Claira to abandon me and the Undersea had consumed me.

Now that I had, the words had settled into my mind like a curse, etched deep where they would never fade. I’d spent the last few days torturing myself, reading them over and again.

Last night, while she slept, I saw her as she truly was. Please, see what you can do for it. She is the last piece of Leyla I have left, and now, I fear to even look at her.

My frown deepened as I read the last line once more. I could still recall the moment this first message arrived—a tightly wrapped scroll, carelessly thrust into my hands by a courier who’d traveled all the way to Lady Desmona’s territory just to bring it to me.

I hadn’t dared to open it.

I’d always believed that the less I knew of the princess and what had become of her after her mother’s death, the better.

As little as I understood about the inner workings of the Undersea back then, I knew this much: as long as the trident remained inside me, there was no secret I could keep from the crown, provided the queen knew the correct question to ask.

Before I could stop myself, my gaze slid to the next.

I am afraid that soon I will lose her, too. If you cared for Leyla at all, please—know that she would have wanted you to help her daughter.

Please, I beg of you. She cannot stay like this.

Yes, I was a wretched thing. I despised myself for reading these scrolls now just as much as I had for keeping them sealed away.

Had I opened them then, I would have been forced to face the truth sooner. But I’d let myself believe that Claira had been blissfully untroubled, sheltered by her father, far from the darkness of the Undersea.

I hadn’t known her spells had already begun to weaken or that her father feared what he might be driven to do if he ever saw his daughter’s sea witch eyes.

The final scroll lay beneath the others, the longest of them all. I’d considered bringing it to land to leave in plain sight on my desk, another piece of my ruin to carefully arrange along with the rest. Had I thought she could have deciphered her father’s sloppy script, I would have done it.

I forced my eyes to focus over the ink, bracing for what I already knew would cut me open.

The worst has happened, and there is no undoing it. I have done what I must, and now my heart, my sweet Nerida, is lost to me forever.

Leyla would have hoped for you to find your happiness, believing in whatever goodness she thought you had inside you. But to me, you have lived up to your name, leaving only destruction in your wake.

I was right to doubt the magic of a spawnling wielding a trident twice his size. No one so young should carry such magic. May you grow in a way that spares others the suffering you have yet to understand.

You will not hear from me again, for there is nothing left for me now that my sweet Nerida has left the sea.

How could something as cold and wretched as I still draw breath?

Yet still, this body—this cursed existence —endured.

My jaw stiffened as I forced myself to turn the parchment over, though I’d have rather destroyed it.

He’d been right to doubt me. I’d been little more than a child myself when Princess Leylani came to me with her newly born daughter. Barely past my first lessons under Lady Desmona’s tutelage, I’d been too caught up in my awakening as a sea wizard to comprehend the depth of my ignorance.

Had I known then what the spell over her tentacles would do to her—had I known what she was to me —I never would have attempted to cast it.

I always knew the moment my dear little captive understood what I’d done to her, however unintentional the result, that she would never forgive me for it.

She could never be mine again, and I would never be hers.

Poseidon and his trident had seen to that, carving that lesson into my very bones.

Aracos stirred in my mind, breaking through my thoughts. “The crown is calling, Master.”

As expected, that horrid woman would never let me rest.

I’d seen her mere moments ago, still in a fit of rage, shrieking that her precious ceremony had been ruined. If only she knew that her puppet had been the one to pull the strings that orchestrated its downfall.

Lacking the magic to answer, I forced myself up, dragging away from my desk in silence, irritated by how the drain of magic left my body weak and aching. By the time I reached the royal hall, the crown’s command seized me.

Powerless against its pull, I dropped.

“You must crawl along the royal hallway, child, to remind you of your lowly existence.”

Oh, how I detested that woman. But now that I’d torn apart the worst of her schemes, I could endure her cruelty.

Biting back my fury, I crawled the length of the hall. As soon as I was upright, eyes latched onto me, eager to mock the puppet who’d failed its master.

But just as quickly, they turned away.

Queen Sagari was in the midst of a tantrum, her throne trembling under the force of her rage. “You’ve humiliated me,” she wailed, her voice an unforgiving rasp. “Every last one of you! Did you not think it important to keep an eye on her? Now, because of your incompetence, you’ve made me appear a fool before the god of the sea!”

Ah, Poseidon . The god who’d condemned me to an eternity of torment.

Even some of the knights present in the crowd flinched at her mention of him. As they should. He wasn’t just the god of the sea; he was also the god of storms and the god of disasters.

To learn that he’d been invited to the princess’s ceremony and to know that he’d been the force behind all of this…

My body trembled, my teeth grinding in a vicious rage. That deplorable god.

I’d thought him long dead, shriveled and forgotten—banished from the sea to rot.

How wrong I was.

“Because of your failures, we only have two of the tridents to offer him,” Queen Sagari hissed, swiping her arm through brittle coral, sending pieces scattering.

It had been her slip of the tongue days ago that finally made me realize why poisoning the merfolk had become so important to her. I’d thought she was collecting tridents for herself, but no. She’d done it for him .

“They are worthless to us without the girl to go with them!” she continued. “What if he leaves the island before we can find her? How can I expect to bargain without my prize?”

Without the girl to go with them…?

How could she possibly know such things? How dare she?

Queen Sagari was far more aware of who her granddaughter was than I could have ever imagined, but she’d gotten one thing horribly wrong—Claira wasn’t hers to bargain away.

Nor did she belong to Poseidon. That god wouldn’t touch her.

Never.

If Claira were to be lost to me, then she would be lost to him as well, and I would make certain it was by my hand.

“Puppet! You’ve kept me waiting!” The queen nearly sprang from her seat, grabbing one of the pawns beside her and using him to hoist herself up. “What are you waiting for? Come. ”

Her command set my body into motion, each tentacle responding on its own, obedient to her will. “My queen,” I gritted out, bowing low.

“Have you searched the Undersea?” Her voice was sharp, tinged with impatience.

“My apologies?—”

“But you will. Soon,” she interrupted, not quite a command. She snatched a scroll from a pawn’s trembling hands and tossed it at me.

I caught it easily, but when my gaze flicked to what was tied around it, my entire being froze.

What’s this…?

“Looks familiar, doesn’t it?” she said, her voice laced with cruel satisfaction.

I swallowed, wanting nothing more than to deny it, but deception was useless when the truth was already known. “Indeed.”

It was the letter I’d written to my dear little captive, meant only for her, but that wasn’t what was significant. My gaze trailed the long strands of hair coiled around it, replacing the ocean silk I’d originally tied it with.

Claira’s hair. And there was far too much of it.

Oh, how could she be so careless?

She’d likely thought it to be harmless—no other explanation could account for her leaving behind something so dangerous. So easy to use against her.

I could do so much with just one strand of hair. But this much? The magical potential in my hands was almost laughable.

“It was found in the Princess’s chamber,” the vile woman continued. Her tone was sickeningly gleeful, as if she thought she’d already secured her granddaughter’s return to the Undersea.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she pressed. “ Make use of it. Find the girl. ”