Page 65 of Of Rime and Ruin (Sirens of Adria #2)

Chapter sixty-two

Aethan

The wind cuts sharply across the frozen crust of the sea. My knees plant on the ice as I help my mother out of the water. Nahla and Perrin are already two-legged, hobbling to the distant shore in the light of the dawn.

Weariness settles heavy in my bones, and my body screams for respite. It’s been a long fucking night, and I’m glad to see the sun.

The clawbeast hesitates, her mouth set as she treads beneath the surface.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Take my hand.”

She nods curtly. With tentative claws, she reaches for my outstretched hand. Her rough palm slips into mine, and I pull her bulk onto the ice. She crouches low, water rolling off her slick scales. Her claws curl into the ice. The spines along her back flex and quiver as she glances around.

As the wind hits her body, her scales shift in color.

Dark blue fades to light, then white. Her spines retreat.

Body shrinks. Claws retract. Horns coil into her skull.

With a final whip of her tail, it disappears into her tailbone, leaving my mother naked and dripping wet on the ice.

Her long, white hair falls into her face, covering her torso and shielding her expression from view.

She gasps and gulps the air like a fish struggling to breathe.

A fit of coughing takes her as she hacks up seawater, spitting it onto the ice with a moan.

Then she draws a shaky breath, shock written across her face.

She lifts her hand and twists it before her face, her soft white skin catching the light of the rising sun. She flutters her fingers.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

My mother snaps her head up, and she takes in her surroundings, glancing first to Nahla, then Perrin. When she sees me, she cocks her head. She has piercing sky-blue eyes, just as I remember.

“Aethan?” she asks, her voice raspy and raw.

“Hey, Mama,” I whisper. Salt pricks in my eyes.

“You’re so tall .” She smiles, and my chest tightens. It’s really her. “Where am I?” She presses her fist to her forehead and scrunches her face. “I can’t remember. Everything is so fuzzy.”

“You’ve been trapped in this form for a while, Your Majesty,” Nahla says, several feet away. “Can you walk?” She stands with Perrin, her arm looped around his waist to support him. She’s found his cloak and draped it around him. The young guard shivers, teeth chattering audibly.

My mother stares at Nahla. “I remember you ,” she says. “You were in my head. You shared memories with me. I saw…” She shakes her head, rises to her feet, and takes a step with wobbly knees. I catch her elbow before she falls.

“Let’s get you home,” I say.

We hobble across the frozen Rime, Nahla helping Perrin as I support my mother. I watch Nahla’s form ahead of me, my chest growing warm at the soft sway of her hips. Despite all my efforts to the contrary, she is safe. Shooting irritated glances over her shoulder, but alive.

It’s the best I can ask for.

She’s mad at me, still. I can feel the tension rolling off her body. But mad I can handle. I’ll take her anger over her absence any day, because it means she cares enough to stay in the fight. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her, if she’ll let me.

Ahead of us, several figures huddle on the shore. I make out their faces as we grow closer—Deirdre, worried; Lucas, scowling; and the captain of the Frost Guard, cold-stone unreadable. My mother stiffens in my arms, and her fingers curl into a fist. She misses a step, and I haul her onto her feet.

“Nervous?” I chuckle.

“That’s him,” she growls. “I remember his face. The healer who trapped me.”

Ice crawls the length of my spine. “Lucas?”

“He said he could heal me of the curse. He wanted to help. We did several sessions where he entered my mind and…” She shudders. “It backfired. I got so angry, I chased him into the sea. You were there in the shallows. Once I transformed into the clawbeast, I couldn’t shift back.”

I glance toward the shore. Lucas shifts his weight, eyes darting between our faces. Sweat clings to his brow, despite the cold wind.

I squeeze my mother’s shoulders. “I’m stuck, too,” I mutter. “But like this.”

She grabs my chin and yanks it to get a good look at me. Her gaze roams over my features as her frown deepens. “Useless chum. I should’ve fired him when I had the chance.” Then her eyes soften, and her grip releases. “My handsome little prince, all grown up.”

Her face has aged, too. Wrinkles line the corners of her mouth and eyes, and two lines form a V between her eyebrows. Signs of time passing through my grasp. I swallow past the lump in my throat. Twelve years lost. How will we make up the time?

The clatter of shifting rocks snags my attention. Nahla marches to the scowling healer and jerks her chin.

“Check him for concussion, Chumwad,” she barks, her touch gentle on the young guard’s back.

The healer obeys, touching Perrin’s forehead with two fingers. Magic glows beneath his touch, swirling around his head. The tendrils sweep through Perrin’s hair, dissolving the blood and leaving his sandy curls standing with static.

Deirdre flutters nearby, wringing her hands with worry anew, until the healer releases his spell.

“There,” Lucas says. “Good as new, m’lady.”

Nahla relinquishes her hold on Perrin, narrowing her eyes at the healer. Tension rolls off her form as she clenches her hands into fists at her side.

Deirdre rushes forward, pulling her nephew into a smothering hug. She presses a million kisses to his hairline, and the young guard squirms.

“Stop,” Perrin whines. “I’m not a guppy.”

Deirdre ignores his protests, pulling him in for a tighter hug. When she looks up, she spots the figure next to me and her face pales. Her mouth drops open, and her eyes fill with moisture.

“Isolde?” she whispers, choking on my mother’s name. “Your Majesty, I thought you were…”

My mother breaks from my support, stumbling forward on her wobbly legs. Deirdre meets her halfway, and they embrace with a wild sob. Deirdre cups the queen’s face, smoothing away her tears with frantic thumbs. She pulls off her own cloak and wraps my mother’s naked form.

“I thought I lost you forever,” Deirdre cries, burying her face in my mother’s hair.

“No, my sweet. I’m here.” She presses a kiss to the top of Deirdre’s head, keeping her glare steady on Lucas.

The healer shifts uneasily under the queen’s penetrating gaze. He glances between Nahla, the queen, and me as he reaches for the sheath at his hip. His fingers curl around the hilt.

Lucas, trusted healer to the royal family, fucked us both over.

He promised he knew the “cure” to our family’s legacy.

Promised he could fix us. Then he banished my mother to an animalistic murder spree, ravaged my kingdom, and left me soft and vulnerable to defend it.

Not to mention how he bound and gagged Nahla, hurt her, to trigger my Beast’s final appearance.

The healer has outworn his welcome.

He glances at me, and his eyes widen. He backs away from the scene. Three steps backward. Then he bolts.

I send ice streaming after him. My magic wraps around his legs, crawls up his waist, and secures him in a solid block of ice.

“Lucas,” I bellow, prowling toward him. He wriggles in the restraint, as if he could wrench free. As if he could avoid the full weight of my wrath. He should know by now—I am not decent; I’m dangerous.

“Your Majesty, have mercy,” he blubbers. “I healed the young guard, as she asked. I did my duty to you. You asked for this. Why do you punish me so?”

I stop before him and stare into his cold, dark eyes. They swim with fear. Good . “What did you do to my mother?”

“She was cursed, Sire. Cursed like you. I did as you asked. You wanted the Beast gone, and gone he is! That dark spirit haunts you no longer. Aren’t you pleased with your humble servant?”

“You tried the same trick on her, didn’t you? You used that spell on your queen.”

“She asked me to,” he stammers.

“She’s been stuck as a clawbeast for twelve fucking years, Lucas.

And you act like you didn’t know. This whole time, I believed my mother was dead, when it was you .

Your spell that separated her from me. Your spell that caused her to turn wild and wreak havoc on my people.

All those hunters, dead on my shore. And you fucking stood there and said nothing of this.

You let me believe it was my fault. For. Twelve. Years.”

His lips press together in a thin line. “Hurts, doesn’t it,” he says. “To have the only one you love ripped from your hands.”

Anger rises from my core. I let it roll through me, reveling in the feeling, daring him to speak with the force of my glare.

All my hurt and pain finally has a reason—and he’s glowering before me.

It’d be so easy to reach out and snap his neck.

To take his life for all the pain he’s caused my kingdom and my family.

“I could have you flayed for this,” I hiss.

“Surely not for performing a request of the king.” He jerks his chin defiantly.

“You’ll forgive me someday, when your rage has cleared.

You’ll find Audrina’s grace in your heart, as I have.

We both wanted to make your kingdom safe again, and we’ve done that.

You can’t hurt them anymore. I believe what you’re looking for is gratitude. ”

“You vile, writhing snakefish . You have not found Audrina’s grace,” I hiss. “You used forgiveness as a ploy to gain my trust so you could get inside my head and ruin me.”

He smirks. “And?”

“You tortured me, taunted me, and ripped me apart. You framed my mother. You gagged and hurt the only female I’ve ever loved. You tried to destroy my kingdom, my family line. For this, you must pay.”

He snarls and spits. “You have not suffered enough , Aethan, Terror of the Rime.”

I could have him stand trial, pin him as the monster we’ve been searching for. He’s a villain, and my kingdom deserves justice for their dead.

It’s what a good king would do. A fair king.

Or I could banish him. Sink him to the bottom of the Drink where he belongs. The dark-dwellers don’t think kindly of siren heritage. I could let nature take its course, and his death would be out of my hands.

Or I could separate his head from his shoulders and send it rolling into the sea. A sick sense of satisfaction twists in my stomach. Yes. That’s what I want.

But the honor doesn’t belong to me.

“Mother?” I say. “Do your worst.”

Stones shift as she steps forward, chin held high. All color drains from Lucas’s face. She grabs him by his hair, leaning close enough to bite him. She snarls, and the healer whimpers audibly, flinching away from her.

“You vile scum of the sea,” she spits. “Fish will feast on your bones, and it still won’t be enough to satisfy your crimes against me.”

With a quick bark of her Voice, she summons a blade of ice, and runs it clean through his neck. She lifts his severed head from his shoulders, dangling it by his hair as she turns to face me. His mouth fixes in a permanent snarl, not unlike his beloved frostcat stuffed above his mantel.

Blood speckles my mother’s pale cheeks and hair, dripping from her chin as she smiles.

“There,” she says, dissolving her blade with a flick of her wrist. “Now, let him rot.”