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Claira

T his wasn’t happening.

The vision I’d seen—it had been a trick, hadn’t it? Some dark magic conjured up by the sea wizard?

That creature I saw in the mirror, its hideous white eyes and tentacles, that wasn’t me .

But had I ever believed that I was actually a mermaid?

Ex-mermaid— that’s what I called myself. I’d always known I was different, but it was easy to ignore those feelings back when I was a merfry. Back when Papa used to act like he… like he actually cared for me.

Could Papa really have stolen me away from the cecaelia? He’d taken me to see my mother at least once when I was a young merfry—that I was certain of. I could remember the grueling length of the trip and seeing her red hair. At least, I thought I’d been certain. But now…

My body trembled with another wave of fear, because I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Short, ragged gasps wrenched from my throat as I fought to make sense of what was happening to me.

Crowned a princess, then immediately dragged off. Taken to this horrid chamber carved with grim imagery of oceanside cliffs and sunken ships. I was as good as trapped in the Undersea, wasn’t I?

“Argh!” Lifting my head from my hands, I threw out my fists. “ Son of a bitch ,” I hissed as my left one immediately found a spike hidden in the bed of seagrass.

For a second, I thought it had been from my magical switchblade shell. But no, the spike had been from the crown I’d tossed aside the moment the queen’s pawns had thrown me into this damned room.

Oddly enough, the pain was a welcome distraction. A grounding reminder that, at the very least, I was still human enough to feel. To bleed.

I brought my hand close, watching my blood leach from the side of my palm, clouding the water.

This is all my fault .

I’d been perfectly happy—the happiest I’d ever been, in fact. And I’d ruined it.

Leander, Kai, and Barren had made me feel so incredible that I bought into the idea that maybe I was special. Only, I wasn’t special at all. I was as cursed as I’d always known myself to be.

How had things gone so horribly wrong that I might actually be the thing they hated most?

Leander loathed the dark spawn. Kai hated them a shocking amount, considering he loved just about everything. And Barren… The cecaelia had ruined his life. Stripped him of his rightful place as a king. He’d lost his arm just from touching one, and—Poseidon, help me—I’d touched him. I’d touched him a lot . I couldn’t resist touching any of them.

And now I knew with certainty that the cecaelia were as terrible as the merfolk judged them to be. Cold darkness and lies. That’s what they were.

My chest constricted, the weight of my guilt and shame almost too suffocating to bear.

If I were one of them, would that mean I could never touch the three of them again? That revolting thought had bile rising in my throat, threatening to choke me.

What if none of us were in the thrall at all? What if I’d inherited whatever terrible magic made Queen Sagari able to surround herself with so many doting males?

Oh—oh, god .

Sobs were still shaking through me when I heard a rustling at the entrance of the chamber.

“Princess.” The voice was calm and flowy like liquid smoke. “May I come in?”

My stomach plummeted as I stared at the entrance. I wasn’t a princess—I was as far from a princess as anyone could get. I was Claira, a fisherman’s daughter. Nothing more and nothing less.

There was a momentary silence before he spoke again. “I’ll return later, then.”

“Wait—” I called out, my pitiful voice breaking. What was I wanting, exactly? To be comforted? To be saved? I didn’t know. “Don’t go.”

All I knew was that I couldn’t bear being in here alone, waiting around for the queen’s pawns to return.

There was another beat of silence before he said, “Very well.” Using the prong of his trident, he pushed aside the curtain, and I immediately pulled myself up straighter.

At least the sea wizard was safe.

Safe? No, he wasn’t safe. Why had I even thought that? But he was the only one who might have the answers I needed.

He presented himself to me with a bow, his tentacles rolling in gracefully behind him.

Swallowing hard, I ignored the pain burning in my throat as I gazed up at him. “Please. Don’t call me ‘princess.’”

The side of his mouth quirked. “Regrettably, that is one wish I cannot fulfill.”

As if sensing my unease, he kept his distance, though his eyes never left mine as he said, “You’re trembling, princess. Are your accommodations not to your liking?”

I slumped down in disappointment. “So, you came here to mock me,” I said bitterly, fighting to hold back a sob.

He slid closer. “Not at all. Although I’m surprised to learn that all three pawns survived bringing you here.” With a hint of amusement, he raised an eyebrow. “I fully expected you to carve out their hearts.”

I scoffed. I couldn’t help it.

“They’re lucky I didn’t slice them up,” I mumbled, remembering how hard I’d worked to hold back my rage “But I didn’t think your queen would be thrilled with me attempting to take out her pawns.”

My heart sped as he leaned in closer. “You should have done it,” he said with a cunning smirk. “Believe me, she has plenty more to take their place.”

Ugh —although I didn’t doubt that, it was a sickening thought.

The trident dissolved away, taking its place deep in his chest. “The real reason I’m here,” he began, “is to make sure you’re comfortable. And to give you this.”

Lifting a hand, a puff of magic emerged from his palm.

His tentacles seemed to twitch with restless anticipation as he held his hand out to me. “For you.”

The thing he’d conjured up was limp and lifeless, hanging in his hand like a waterlogged bundle of cords.

“Uh…” I gave whatever it was a skeptical glance, and although I was glad to have the sea wizard here, I realized I wasn’t in the mood for his games. “I’ll pass.”

“Ah.” He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, seeming to contemplate his next move. “I suspected you might have been lying about it being your favorite,” he muttered. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Wait—lying to him? My favorite?

I examined the contents of his hand once more, and although my stomach was a tangled mess of nerves, saliva collected in my mouth when I realized what he was holding. “Is that… star grass?”

How had I not recognized the tiny stars lining the stalks?

My eyebrows furrowed as I looked back and forth between the plant and the sea wizard, trying to make sense of it. “You brought me star grass?”

“Indeed,” he said, straightening his posture. “As I said, I came here to make sure you’re comfortable.”

A strange feeling arose in my chest, and I couldn’t quite understand why it had. He’d really remembered my lame excuse for sticking my hand in the betta tank outside Queen Sagari’s office?

“Oh.” My voice was small, barely a whisper. Why was this simple gesture affecting me so much? “That was kind of you to remember.”

He offered me the bundle, but I didn’t take it. Instead, I reached out to touch the stars. They looked smaller than they did in my memories, but they still looked delicious. Even in the washed-out shade of gray instead of the bright yellow I knew the plant to be.

What was this feeling? Gratitude? Something more?

I let my hand fall away from the plant, my voice raw when I asked, “What’s the real reason you’re giving me this?”

“If you insist on knowing, consider it an apology.” His discomfort was palpable, as if he were revealing a secret he never intended to disclose. “One born from guilt.”

“Guilt?” I looked up at his cold eyes and chiseled chin, searching for signs of deception—not that I ever seemed able to parse the sea wizard.

Instead of elaborating, he gave the driest laugh imaginable as he sat the star grass down next to my tail. “Indeed.”

“Yeah, I’m going to need a little more than that if you expect me to accept your apology.” My frustration churned like a brewing storm. “Do you feel guilty for… stalking me at the casino? Or for bringing me down here?”

I found the crown in the seagrass, lifting it up. “Or do you feel guilty for putting this crown on my head? Or maybe because you knew what I was going to see in that mirror this entire time, yet you decided not to tell me?”

The sea wizard remained perfectly silent as my anger escalated to where I hurled the crown back down to the rocky floor. “Or do you feel guilty because it was all an illusion? Another one of your deceptions, like that lousy deal you conned me into before bringing me down here. You’re never going to tell me how you remove your trident, are you? Are you?”

I knew it wasn’t fair, pinning all of this on him when I’d made the choice to come here, but I was finding it hard to care.

He’d given me the abalone yet advised me not to use it. He’d warned me not to come to the Indian Ocean yet abducted me as soon as he could get his arms around me.

He was hot; he was cold, and I was sick of these games.

My voice cracked, but still, I pleaded. “Tell me it was a lie.” I reached for him, feeling his hand tense up as I latched on to it. “Please, wizard… puppet, whatever you are. Tell me I’m a mermaid. Tell me that I’m nothing like you .”

The sea wizard’s lips parted, but no words came. He simply looked at me with an intensity that made my heart thump like a war drum.

When he finally broke the silence, his voice was rough. “I understand that you have no reason to believe me, but I assure you I have no guilt pertaining to our deal.”

That’s it? That’s all that he had to say for everything he’d done?

Then he extended a hand, as if maybe he was going to lay it over my eyes but stopped himself short. “As you have no doubt noticed, my words and actions rarely align. I’m confined by my orders, be it to bind or abduct or to deliver you to the Undersea.” The words came out of his mouth like a bitter poison, and he took a moment before adding, “But you’ll find my words to be the truth if you care to see through to their meaning.”

Another riddle. Why was I not surprised?

I gritted my teeth, pulling away from his hand. “So, what’s the truth, then?” I snapped, my patience fraying like this withered bed of seagrass the cecaelia counted as a luxury beneath me. “What am I? Why can’t you speak plainly for once and come out and tell me?”

“Do you really not know yourself?” There was a chilling emptiness in his eyes. “If you need me to tell you for you to believe it, then listen closely: the truth is that you never were a mermaid.”

Despite his icy demeanor, his touch was gentle as he closed the distance between us to cradle my chin in his palm. When his thumb grazed the edge of my lower lip, I felt my heart stop completely. “You’re something far greater, Claira.”

This was the second time he’d called me by name, the two smoky syllables rolling off his tongue like a caress.

“Underneath this tail that you’re clinging to is the potential for power that even I cannot fathom,” he continued, his voice low and husky, like he was visualizing all the possibilities that lay hidden under my curse.

I struggled to remain upright as his words rattled around in my head. So, it was all true? I really wasn’t a mermaid?

My confusion must have shown on my face, because the sea wizard let out a humorless laugh. “Despite my plain and straightforward words, you remain unconvinced. Choose to dismiss the vision of yourself you saw in the mirror, if that’s what you wish. But I’ll warn you that either way, the queen has ordered me to return you to your true self.”

My true self .

The shivers rocking through my body seemed to come from deep within, and I jerked my chin free from his hand. “Okay… Say that I do believe you,” I whispered. “What if I don’t want you to break my curse?”

His lips pursed, and he slid close enough for his dark tendrils to ruffle the bed of seagrass underneath me. “Unfortunately, that is no longer an option, princess.” His voice hardened. “One moon cycle from now, Queen Sagari, your grandmother, expects your curse to be broken, whether you want it or not.”

Now I was petrified. Because if what he was saying was true, my fate was already sealed.

This was a recurring theme in my life—being thrust into a position where I had to leave everything familiar behind and become something entirely new. Something I didn’t even fully understand.

Last time, I had to be human. This time, I’d become an actual monster.

“I don’t want to believe it.” I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling exposed and defenseless, trapped in this damned Undersea. “Sea wizard, tell me—my eyes, are they…” My throat choked. It didn’t matter that our deal allowed me to tell him about the first thing I’d seen in the mirror. I still couldn’t find the courage to say it.

I felt the shadow of his presence closing in, but I wasn’t ready to face him. Even when his smoky voice washed against the shell of my ear, I refused to open my eyes. “Are you asking me if, underneath all your illusions, the eyes you saw reflected at you are the eyes of a sea witch?”

In a sudden gasp, my eyes flew open. “I couldn’t—” There he was, his face barely an inch from mine.

He finished the thought for me. “Possibly be a sea witch?” His dark hair fell back as his head shook, framing his sharp features. “That, princess, is a secret that will continue to belong only to the two of us.”

“But I don’t have magic,” I croaked, feeling all the more vulnerable. “There’s no way. I’m nothing like a sea witch or a cecaelia, no matter what that mirror showed.”

“Oh, but you are.” His blunt words struck like barbs, and I flinched at the sting of them.

“No—” I shook my head, refusing to accept what he was saying, but his words kept coming.

“Let me ask you this: what mer possesses the ability to see perfectly clear in the dark?”

That’s right—my night vision. I supposed that was some sort of magic. Judging by the guys’ reaction to it, night vision wasn’t typical. But merfolk had a variety of gifts, like Kai and his glowing eyes. “Some Pacific mers can see in the dark,” I murmured.

Unimpressed, the sea wizard chuckled darkly. “Correction—Pacific mers create light which they use to cut through the dark.” His hand waved, gesturing to our surroundings. “But you, princess, have always been a creature of darkness. You have no need for light.”

Admitting it tore me apart, but I couldn’t deny he had a point.

“But I don’t know anything about cecaelia or… sea witches,” I whispered, afraid that if I spoke too loudly, it would become more real in my mind. “And if that woman is my grandmother, why aren’t her eyes white? Why haven’t I ever seen a creature with eyes like that? ”

Even now, that haunting version of myself still lingered in my mind. The eyes of a predator, of a creature well versed in its ways and unafraid of the dark. Perhaps darkness was afraid of it.

It wasn’t me at all.

“The queen is not a sea witch,” he said sharply, as if the thought of her being among his rank disgusted him. “You’d be lucky to find another in this entire ocean who is. That, I suspect, is the reason for your curse .” I could sense his fascination as his gaze shifted to my tail. “Whoever laid it clearly didn’t want others to know who or what you are.”

“But you knew what I was.” My voice shook with equal parts anger and fear. “You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew who my grandmother was, what I am.”

“You give me far too much credit, princess,” he said, a hint of amusement dancing over his words. “But if you’re curious,” he murmured, one of his tentacles slithering close enough to flick the end of my tail. “I could feel your magic from the moment I first laid eyes on you. And when I got close enough to wrap you in my knots…” A smirk slowly dragged up the corners of his mouth, and I shivered as his gaze roved over the swell where my tail met my waist.

Abruptly, he turned. “That’s when I was certain you were a sea witch,” he admitted, the smile dropping from his lips. “As for that vile woman being your grandmother, I’m well aware of her search for her lost successor. It’s been a priority of hers ever since the late princess’s untimely passing.”

My hands clenched, tearing up strands of seagrass. “And if you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”

“You honestly think you’d have believed me?” he said, his dark eyebrows lifting. “You barely believe it now.” A casual shrug accompanied his words, his hand sweeping through his obsidian hair. “Although I hoped it would be obvious I was doing everything in my power to keep you away from this place, but no. My curious little mouse seems to be quite enamored with danger.”

There was a pause, and a sly grin crept across his face. It was a look that seemed to dredge up every dark, unexplored thought hidden in the corners of my mind. “Maybe it’s not the danger you’re enamored with,” he mused. He leaned over me, and I felt my face heat. I wanted to turn away, but something about him held me captive. “Could it be that you missed my company?”

He was teasing me like he always did, yet this time there was a distinctive shift. A dangerous edge to his tone letting me know his intentions were far from entirely pure.

“I didn’t come here for your company, wizard,” I said, unable to stop the tremble that ran through me at his proximity. “I came here because I wanted to believe that the cecaelia were willing to help the merfolk break their curse. Because I need to figure out how you’re able to separate yourself from your trident. It had nothing to do with wanting to be near you .”

The sea wizard huffed a laugh, a low, throaty sound that seemed to vibrate through the entire Undersea. “Well, you’re stuck with me now, princess. Now that the queen has found you, she has no intention of letting you go.”

It was like a punch to the gut, dizzying me with fear. My intuition had been right, and this chamber was nothing more than a glorified prison cell.

“I should have known better than to think I could trust her,” I whispered, already feeling the walls closing in around me. Why hadn’t I worried more about coming here all alone? Because now I was stuck.

I fought to keep my panic from showing, but the sea wizard seemed to see straight through me. “You did well,” he murmured, and I flinched when his hand grazed the side of my face. “Keeping your eyes a secret.”

If that was his way of consoling me, he was doing a terrible job.

“I take it there’s a reason you didn’t want your queen knowing about my eyes,” I bit out, unsure if I was ready to know what that reason might be. “It’s not good to be a sea witch, is it?”

My heart froze as I thought back to when Barren tried to teach me to swim. He’d told me executing sea witches was one of his duties.

Had I done something during that time to make him suspicious of me? Is that why he’d wrapped his hand around my neck?

Had… had he known what I was all along?

“To put it simply, sea witches aren’t meant to survive.” The bluntness of the sea wizard’s declaration was unexpected, causing me to flinch. “A sea witch would be safer here, among the cecaelia. But even the queen doesn’t have enough power to keep someone safe from the entire ocean.”

Had I heard him right? “What do you mean, the entire ocean?”

“Sea witches are hunted by not only the merfolk, but by every living thing under Poseidon’s control,” he explained. “It’s written in the very laws he laid over the oceans, and only a few… unfavorable creatures, such as the cecaelia, can act outside Poseidon’s control. You see, sea witch magic goes against the natural order of things. To a god like Poseidon, it’s a power that shouldn’t exist in his waters, and those who wield it, therefore, must cease to exist. You have never seen another with eyes like yours simply because they’re killed off as soon as their eyes turn white—the mark of a sea witch.”

He paused, studying my face before adding, “If one of your lovers had seen your eyes in that mirror, they wouldn’t have been able to help themselves. Poseidon’s laws are part of their very nature.”

“Wait, slow down…” I shook my head, not willing to believe what he was getting at. “They would never hurt me.”

Closing his eyes, he let out a deep sigh. “You have much to learn, princess. Believe me when I say that even the most powerful merman is nothing more than a slave to Poseidon’s will. It’s not up to them. The law dictates that sea witches are to be eliminated. They see the mark of the sea witch and, much like I’m bound by the crown’s commands, merfolk are forced to act.”

“But you have white eyes,” I said, my voice straining. If that were the truth, how had he survived?

“Ah, but you’ve seen the difference.” When he pointed to his eyes, I understood right away that he was referring to the thin black ring that encircled the white. “I’m the exception. The first and only of my kind.”

“So, the title ‘ sea wizard’ … Did you come up with that?”

His lips pursed. “Indeed, I did,” he admitted. “My powers awakened when I was merely a spawnling, and I was tossed out in the ocean to rot.” A grinding anger tinged every word as he continued, “Weeks later, when I was found still clinging to life at the mouth of the Undersea, it was determined that my eyes didn’t trigger bloodlust in those under Poseidon’s control.”

He looked away from me with a scoff, his expression darkening. “The queen reveled in this discovery, of course. Even more so when she found a way to harness my magic for her own use.”

“They abandoned you?” A sickening feeling came over my stomach as I stared up at the sea wizard. The idea of his own kind turning on him when he was just a child—a spawnling, as he’d called himself—was a hurt I knew all too well. “I’m sorry that happened to you…”

He shrugged as if attempting to project an air of indifference, yet the pain remained unmistakable in his eyes. “It’s the way of our world, unfortunately. But enough about that. I hope you realize now why I arranged our deal to keep the nature of your eyes a secret.”

I was starting to realize, yes. “Are you afraid the queen would toss me out if she knew?” That didn’t seem like a problem at all, actually. In fact…

“I doubt she would let you leave with your life,” he said, his head shaking. “I’m sure you’ve realized that our kind hopes to one day leave the Undersea. A princess with the mark of a sea witch, hunted by all that lives in the waters above, would be rather useless.”

Useless. There was that word again, the one that seemed to follow me wherever I went.

My voice was shaking when I asked, “So what happens to me when you tell her?”

“It has never been my secret to tell.”

So, I’d just have to wait for her to find out on her own, then? Fantastic.

However, there was something else in his story that piqued my interest. “How is the queen able to harness your magic? Why do you have to follow her commands?”

“That knowledge,” he said with a sigh, “I will leave for when I tell you the many secrets of my trident.”

My lips pulled together. “So, after I’m dead, then?”

“You’re not going to die.” His words dripped with charm as he leaned back over me. “Not if I have any say in it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, feeling a blush rising over my face. “But you said it yourself, your queen—my… grandmother —wants you to break my curse whether I want it broken or not.”

“Ah, about that,” he said, looking all the more amused. “She bid me to break your curse, singular. As in one.” He settled a hand under his chin as if studying me intently. “From what I gather, your tail and your eyes appear to be two different spells.”

Two spells?

He stared a moment longer before muttering, “Your eyes are beautifully crafted magic.”

“They are?” I blinked up at him, not sure what else to say. I’d always thought they were normal, boring eyes. The same shade of gray as my father’s.

“Indeed.” The sea wizard’s head tilted. “Not only do they conceal your sea witch’s mark, but they’re also functional, unlike your tail. I wonder why that is…”

I was just as clueless as he was. It would help if I knew literally anything about magic, but I didn’t.

“In any case,” he continued, “it’s clear to me they are separate pieces of magic, and I’ve decided to only concern myself with breaking the one.”

His simple gesture toward my tail was enough to make me flinch.

It might have been a useless tail, but since meeting my guys, it had become more than just a tail to me. The thought of losing a part of myself where I could live happily with them underwater if I chose to was absolutely terrifying. And not only that, but life as a cecaelia? As a princess?

“I don’t want this,” I said, my head shaking. But I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that what I wanted mattered anymore. Even if I were to beg, the queen wouldn’t let me leave.

Now I had a new curse, spending the rest of my life stuck down here, confined within these horrid, rocky bowels.

I couldn’t help the sob that escaped me.

“Princess,” the sea wizard murmured. His voice carried an unsettling amount of concern, considering he was the one who brought me down here. When I looked up, his lips had fallen into a frown. “Perhaps I should leave you to your rest.”

He waited, but this time I didn’t stop him. As soon as he spun away, disappearing into the darkness, the sound of my sobs broke the silence. It was a known fact that no one could cry underwater, but maybe that rule wasn’t true for cecaelia. Because here I was, doing my damnedest.

Even if I managed to escape this place, I would still be a cecaelia. A dark spawn .

Fear engulfed me as I recalled the horrid vision that had stared back at me in the mirror, its wicked eyes burning into my soul like a white-hot fire.

Would there be anything left for me to return to once the guys learned the truth?