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Barren

L ightning bolts cut through the sky, filling the air with electric energy that drowned out Kai’s shrill pleas. “Breathing—remember your breathing!” His hands flew to Leander’s shoulders, anchoring him to the sand. “You need to calm down!”

Kai hadn’t hesitated before charging after Leander. He’d followed him to the edge of the ocean, grabbing hold of him before he could plunge headfirst into the violent tides.

And what had I done?

I’d stood here as though I were an outsider looking in. Even as the wind picked up and the waves grew more violent, threatening my home, the island I loved, and this life I’d built for myself, I’d done nothing to build or improve on the brotherly bond I knew we’d one day depend on daily.

I was about to lose everything I’d worked for, but no loss could compare to the grief of losing her. She’d been right there with me, in my grasp, and I’d failed to protect her. Inside me was an agony so crushing that I was certain my soul could never recover.

Leander let out a roar that opened up the sky, his emotions too far gone to listen to reason. His soul was as battered and torn as my own, and even without reaching out to feel what he was feeling, his emotions crashed into me in violent waves.

She left me .

His thoughts slipped into my mind like shards of glass, unbidden. I felt the pain of his greatest fear surfacing, as if it had been my own.

I don’t want to be alone.

Then, as if something in him had cracked, the very air around us stilled, and Leander dropped to his knees, letting out one final roar.

Kai caught him, and Leander’s head dangled, listless, as the sand fell from the air.

“She… left,” he whispered, his eyes growing distant as the clouds dispersed and gravity stabilized the waves. “She told me she would always come back.”

“Leander, look at us,” Kai threw back, his voice firm. Although Leander looked up, first at me and then at Kai, his normally bright eyes seemed to have dulled into an emotionless void.

“Bro, breathe with me,” Kai urged. “In and out… Good. A few more.”

Leander’s chest shuddered violently with each labored breath.

“We’ll get her back,” Kai promised, trying to hide his own emotions. “Right, Barren? We’ll do whatever it takes.”

Kai’s eyes darted anxiously between the clearing sky above and the stilling sand below. “She didn’t leave you on purpose,” he added, although I could sense his own panic rising. “You know she wouldn’t. Remember the note? Laverne and the clams? She said she’d come back.”

Then his arms shook around Leander as his anger resurfaced. “This… this is that dark spawn’s doing.”

It was true that the cecaelia had her, but Kai was overlooking one thing: Claira had run to them willingly.

The meaning behind the drawings on the note she’d left for us became clearer—the hearts representing the cecaelia, creatures with four hearts, and the sea lion indicating that she was going to a place only accessible by Laverne.

“ Alhey ,” I muttered, because a terrible realization hit me. I’d been the reason she’d left us in the first place.

Claira knew the truth—and, without meaning to, I’d pushed her away with my thoughtless words. It was a misunderstanding I might never get the chance to undo.

“No, I—I need time to figure out how to tell them.”

Even now, I could hear the tremble in her voice. Despite Kai’s belief that the cecaelia’s magic was a trick, Claira’s emotions had sounded too raw to me to be anything but genuine.

Why had I ever mentioned my arm or brought up the Indian Ocean’s superstitions?

Claira and I had shared a special moment together when I’d taken her down to the gates of Malkeevo. I’d felt bonded to her then, closer than I had ever felt to another—a feat I’d never thought possible, considering how carefully I had kept myself from tapping into her thoughts and emotions.

So, when she’d looked at my arm, a place I was more than self-conscious about, I wondered if, for the first time, perhaps another would be willing to share the pain this haunting memory held for me.

I’d thought maybe if my mate knew the story and accepted me as I was, the scars wouldn’t be as painful.

Now, I might never get the chance to tell her I didn’t care what she was, who else she loved, or where she’d come from.

But I knew with certainty that I couldn’t bear to be without her. It was too late for that, our bond too strong, and our souls far too tethered.

If only I’d known how to convey my thoughts properly, then maybe she wouldn’t have left us. But my words had begun spilling more freely when I was around her. And now, my opening up, my careless words, had led to this.

“Barren!” Kai called suddenly, holding Leander up by his shoulders. “Help me!” Leander appeared on the verge of fainting; his grief-stricken eyes unfocused.

I pushed forward, and when I got to them, Leander’s mouth opened and closed like a voiceless fish, a hand clutched over where the trident lived inside his chest.

I’d witnessed my father struggle through similar attacks time and again. Calling on the trident’s power was wearing on Leander, and his body had finally found its limit.

“We’ll think of something, okay, man?” Kai assured him, his voice cracking as he nodded, first to Leander and then to me. “What if—” A myriad of thoughts played across Kai’s face as he paused. “What if I knew where my father’s trident was? The Trident of Creation. If we had the power to create…”

“No,” I said sternly, guilt burning through my chest. My mistake had caused this, and if anyone were to make this right, it was going to be me.

“Laverne knows where it is,” Kai argued, desperation shaking in his voice.

As if we weren’t here with him at all, Leander’s eyes slowly reopened to gaze up at the clearing sky. “Why would she leave us?” His words were a whisper, broken and desperate.

“It’s possible he understands her in ways we can’t.” It wasn’t the message he wanted, but it had to be delivered. It was all I could tell them without divulging Claira’s secrets entirely.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kai threw back at me, his tone harsher than I’d ever heard it.

Leander shook his head, his eyes closing as he leaned against Kai. “Yeah… Fuck that.”

I didn’t answer.

They weren’t ready. Claira knew it. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t come back.

I knew the hatred the two of them had for the cecaelia well, but I was different from them in this regard. Even as a merfry, I refused to blame them for losing my arm and the crown. Lynn had been the one responsible for that.

She’d used the cecaelia, just as she used me now.

I hadn’t told Claira that much, because I hadn’t thought she’d known what she truly was. Even when I brought her down to Malkeevo, and she couldn’t see the gate for the spell that obscured it. She seemed unaware that it was because the gates had been enchanted to appear as a dark illusion for passing cecaelia. If I ever hoped to hold her in my arm again, I had to tell her the truth about how I felt regarding her kind.

And if I was going to reach her, I’d have to do the one thing I never thought I was capable of. But I’d do it—for Claira’s sake. For all of us.

There was one way I could reach her, no matter where she was. The price for that power would be extremely high, but I’d pay it.

To get my mate back, I would gladly put my body on the line.

I turned to leave, my attention fixing on where my sister’s casino stood in the distance.

Kai’s voice barely registered in my ears as he called, “Barren? Where are you going?”

“To take back what should have been mine.”