Page 23

23

Barren

A s expected, I had no difficulties reaching my sister. Few were privy to the queen’s location, but I was among the select few who knew where to find her. Many assumed she was posted on the highest floor, but no. Queen Javalynn chose to remain on ground level, hidden beyond the final door at the end of a labyrinthine hallway reserved for our kingdom’s wealthiest guests.

Sounds of liveliness came and went with each open doorway I passed—carefree laughter, flirtatious words dripping with glamour, and clinks of overfull glasses. I continued down the extended hallway, heading toward the most luxurious room of all. Queen Javalynn’s office.

The guards posted at her door were two of the Indian Ocean’s fastest swimmers. Favored sons from influential families who had been serving the crown for generations, draped in shimmering silk and lace. Here on land, they served as nothing more than my sister’s decorations. They remained close to her at all times, preening themselves in anticipation of their queen’s call.

The mermen knew better than to stop me, and their quick parting revealed a door adorned with a figure of Poseidon’s likeness on the waves etched in gold. The mermen’s eyes, darkened with kohl, darted away as I passed, as if they feared revealing their innermost secrets by meeting my gaze.

There were rumors in the kingdom that I pried into every mind I came across, and perhaps that had once been true. To survive under my father’s laws, I’d had to sharpen my unique ability. Only the thoughts those around me wished to keep hidden weren’t ever pleasant to see.

But that was a different time. A time when I was meant to be a king. In my current position, I rarely used my ability on the merfolk here unless I was commanded to do so by my queen.

I knocked on the crest of a golden wave—three slow raps—then waited in tense silence as the mermen slid down the hall, further shying away from their post.

Behind me, the beads embellishing one of the guard’s outfits rattled as he shook. He must have held a secret he feared would reach his queen.

Only, I had no interest in their minds. My sister’s secrets were the only ones I cared about, and she kept them tightly wrapped, carefully hidden under layers of falsehoods and illusions. Had I cared to look, it was likely I would find an intricately woven net of lies waiting for me in the minds of her lovers. Information she’d shared directly or allowed them to overhear, giving them a sense of significance, yet ultimately meant to trap and manipulate.

If only our father could see his successor. It was no secret that he’d resented that Javalynn had been born without his unique affinity for reading those around him. If the trident hadn’t stolen his life away, perhaps he’d have lived long enough to realize that his daughter had possessed a unique gift as well. One that she’d honed all on her own.

Although Queen Javalynn couldn’t see into minds, I’d learned the hard way that she had a way of manipulating them. The years had taught me she could make those around her believe whatever she wished, as well as cloak her true thoughts with false ones.

I often wondered if our mother had possessed a similar gift. It would explain her rise to queendom, considering the family she had come from and its poor standing in our kingdom. And while I’d never picked up anything other than love for my father in her mind, I’d always found it odd that she hadn’t feared his gift.

Everyone feared it.

But if our mother could cloak her mind, she would have no need for fear, would she? If that were the case, I assumed Javalynn was aware of it. Either way, I would never know the truth. My sister regularly taunted me to explore her mind for the answers I sought. But I’d allowed her misleading thoughts to manipulate me for too long to fall for it again.

From inside her office, her voice was sharp and direct. “Come in.”

Pushing through the gilded door, I found my queen sitting at her marble desk, papers scattered and her pen hovering over them. While her collection of paintings and the ancient books lining her bookshelves were impressive, it was the giant circular sand feature hanging high on the wall behind her chair that commanded the most attention.

Above Javalynn’s crowned head, a slow trickle of gray and white grains fell, creating ever-changing patterns of dunes. With each second that passed, the sand swirled, building higher. At times, when she commanded me to do something unthinkable, it felt like I was drowning in that sand.

“My queen,” I said, my voice rough as I bowed to her. Upon lifting my head, my eyes settled past her. Better that than looking directly at her.

Despite the intricate silver circlet woven into her black hair, Queen Javalynn still resembled the sister of my memories. My Lynn, who would seek me out to talk and laugh back when no one else in my kingdom dared to speak in my presence.

But Lynn hadn’t cared about my father’s “ stupid law ,” as she’d called it. The law he’d set in place to force me to hone my skill. No one could speak to the crown prince. Not even my mother. So, I’d done what I had to do—pry into the minds around me so that I might learn my lessons and be brought my meals.

Until my father’s death, he was the only one in our kingdom permitted to converse with me outside of a mental link. And that was only because it disgusted him to think of me probing his mind as he did with mine.

But Lynn had never cared about the law.

Once, I’d thought I’d known everything about her. She’d helped me learn to speak using my real voice—not the one I was forced to project into the minds of those around me. But that Lynn had never been real.

And now, as an adult, it was painfully clear that I’d never known her at all.

All of her laughter, her worrying, her love for me. Like everything else in our kingdom, it was all an illusion.

“You’ve kept me waiting, Barren.” My queen spoke in our native tongue. She slid a group of papers over to clear a space on her desk. Her grand chair didn’t make a single sound as she sat back in it.

“Well, go on,” she commanded with a roll of her wrist. “Speak.”

There was something dark and tense about her posture. An impatience she would never let anyone in the kingdom who mattered see.

To her, I did not matter.

I cleared my throat, yet it still felt as parched as the dunes forming on the wall before me. “I have the mermaid.”

“And?” Despite me following her exact command, her tone lacked any hint of appreciation. “Where is she?”

For once, I let my eyes drop to hers. Although my queen didn’t flinch, her long nails curled over her desk.

“First, tell me what you plan to do with her,” I said, deliberately withholding the answer she sought.

This time, she flinched. She punctuated her syllables with a lip-curling hiss. “And when have I ever shared my plans with you?” Even if she had, I knew better than to believe her. Dark maroon eyes—our mother’s eyes—glared up at me. “Have you forgotten which of us is in charge?”

I took a step forward and observed her chair rolling back, moved by instinct.

I hadn’t forgotten who was in charge, but at this moment, I found that I didn’t care.

“Let it be known,” I said, my voice carrying through the room with an authority I had no right to. For once, it didn’t matter that she was the one I was sworn to obey. “I will not let any harm come to the mermaid.”

My sister’s eyebrows lifted in a perfect depiction of surprise. Not once had I ever challenged her, even when my title and future had been stripped away from me.

Composing herself, she inclined forward, setting her elbows upon her desk. “Tell me, Barren. Do you know how Father came to be fused with his trident?”

I stood like a statue. This was a diversion—neither of us could have known, for it had happened before either of us had been born. The kingdom had only become aware when the trident vanished, and their king had gained the ability to manipulate dreams and create illusions.

“Mother turned his own weapon on him.” With a cruel glint in her eye, she curled her fingers into a tight fist that she slashed through the air. “Stabbed him right through his heart.”

“Our mother loved our father,” I said, unaffected. I’d grown used to my sister’s lies, and never once had I caught a single glimpse of cruelty in my mother’s actions or mind.

“Is that so?” Javalynn’s eyes narrowed, blazing with enough confident humor to cause a flicker of uncertainty to spark within me.

I’d never glimpsed the cruelty hidden inside my sister until she let it show readily on her face, as she did now.

“You would be wise to beware the wrath of a mermaid scorned,” she said with a barking laugh, like she thought perhaps her point had been made. “So, tell me, Barren. Which of us did our kingdom permit to pull the trident from his sorry corpse?” she seethed. “Me, or you?”

I let my lips form into perhaps the first smile she had seen from me since our childhood. This wasn’t about authority or control. This was about protecting the one thing that mattered to me.

I bent forward, leaning over her desk. “If any harm comes to the mermaid,” I said plainly, smooth marble cooling my hand as I braced it in front of her, “our kingdom will have another corpse on its throne to pick through.” She knew me well enough to know I refused to entertain empty threats. “That is a promise.”

My sister’s eyes bore into me as I waited for her response. It must have caught her off guard because she immediately changed tactics. “Harm her?” She canted her chair, inspecting her nails as if she thought me hardly a threat. “Well, of course we need her alive and well if we wish to use her.”

As much as I wished to believe those words, I couldn’t. Although it made little sense to harm her, I’d had a feeling that the uncursed mermaid was in danger even before I ventured to the Atlantic.

“Naturally, she will be safe here. Under your protection,” she continued. Her eyes flicked up to mine. “Unless, of course, you happen to be the one to harm her.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Mmm.” Her circlet glinted as she smirked. Rising from her seat, she turned her back to me, one hand rising to the sand feature.

“Since we’ve settled that,” she said with a hum. “Your order was to bring her to me.” With a gentle twist of her wrist, she reversed the heavy glass circle, and the sand sculpture began anew. “Now, fetch .”