Cruel Tides (Queen of Tridents #2)

Claira

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

M y lungs burned as I fought to swallow down drags of air. “Papa, please . I can’t breathe up here, Papa.”

“After all you’ve put me through, you know you don’t belong with the rest of us.”

What was he saying? His voice sounded strange above the waves, unfamiliar. It was no longer the gentle voice that lulled me to sleep by weaving soft melodies of shipwrecks and the swirling deep. Something had changed. It was now as piercing as a barnacle and icy enough to chill me to my very core.

I jerked my head up from the wooden planks of the pier to look at Papa’s face, but he had already turned away from me, a spray of sea-foam cloaking his back and shoulders. Would he really dive back into the dark water without me?

“No, Papa,” I gasped, my panic causing me to choke out the words. “You can’t leave me here! I—I want to go back home with you and… and—”

A pointed growl sliced through my pleas.

Cords of gray hair licked across the sharp angles of his face as he turned, a feral look darkening his once gentle expression. “I’m not your papa anymore, child.”

His words struck me, boring a wound through my heart that stung more than any spiked tooth or poisonous barb ever could.

“Eight years I’ve dealt with you, praying to Poseidon that one day you would learn to be anything other than a burden. I am one of our king’s captains. Do I not have my honor to think of?” The higher his voice rose, the more frothy salt water erupted with each vicious lash of his tongue. “ A daughter who can’t even swim is no daughter of mine. ”

Bile mingled with the air I had been desperately forcing down my throat, propelling me into a coughing fit. I needed to stop him. He—he wouldn’t leave me here. He couldn’t leave me all alone like this.

His pearly gray tail lashed over the water’s surface, whipping up bubbles of sea-foam. Before I could find it in me to scream, he shot down into the water.

“Papa, wait!” My voice cracked as hysteria clenched my throat.

Why was he doing this?

I needed to reach for him—to dive into the water after him—but I clung to the slimy, wooden planks, knowing full well my worthless tail wouldn’t be enough to take me back home.

Papa was right.

I was useless.

No matter how many times I’d tried to move it, my tail wouldn’t work.

My fingertips bit into splintered wood as a frigid mist of salt water sprayed over me, causing me to tremble. “What—what did I do wrong, Papa?”

My palms prickled as I clenched the wood. Nothing could change this. There was nothing I could do to bring him back to me.

Completely powerless, I sobbed in breaths until my lungs adapted to the bitter sting of taking in air. How long had I been alone? Minutes? Hours?

Curling up into a ball, I rocked on the wooden pier, back and forth, back and forth, letting go of the timber to hug my tail close to my heart and moan into my damp scales.

When the waves crashing against the pier finally died down and the sun’s rays broke through the horizon, my tail began to shudder underneath my arms.

“ What? No!”

Scales melted away beneath my palms, giving way to smooth skin hidden underneath. I let out one last desperate cry.

“Papa, please!” I pleaded, but he had already left me here all night, and I understood enough to know he wouldn’t come back to reclaim me now. Pinching my eyes shut, I sobbed as the last connection to my former life left me, Papa’s words ringing in my ears.

“No daughter of mine… No daughter of mine…”

I was stiff, nearly frozen through, when the pier started shaking and a warm hand swept through strands of my hair, its fingers curling over my forehead. I moved closer to its source, grabbing on to an arm so that I might soak up more of its irresistible warmth.

My eyes opened slowly, swollen and weary from so many hours of sobbing. A stranger had crouched over me, his kind eyes swirling with emotion—either pity or concern; I couldn’t tell which.

“What are you doing alone out here? Where are your parents?”

His accent sounded strange, the words lacking the reverberating, melodic quality my ears were accustomed to. A chill spiked through me, and I trembled.

When the hand on my forehead retreated, I couldn’t stop a sob from wrenching up my dry throat.

No, wait —

Something rustled above me, and heat enveloped me, the warmth draping over my shoulders like a thick blanket of seaweed.

“Poor little thing, frozen right through,” the voice muttered as I greedily wrapped myself in the covering.

“Let’s get you warmed up inside before we look for your parents,” the deep voice soothed, and arms drew around me, lifting me up. They weren’t as vast and sturdy as Papa’s arms, but I latched on to them regardless.

My breathing calmed as I huddled close to the stranger’s chest, each steady thunk against the wooden planks drawing me further away from the only life I had ever known.