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Iryen’s head snapped up, as though the pain in the words hit too close. Her voice, sharp now, tried to deflect. “But… how did I not sense you five years ago? Even with your power masked, I would’ve felt something. Even a faint echo.”

“My presence remained hidden, but I sensed you ,” my mother replied, voice softened with memory. “That is why I left. His father and I… we traveled, vanished for a while.”

I froze.

Fuck.

I remembered that year, my parents dropping off the grid like it was some second honeymoon. And now it clicked. That was when Iryen had come to Thalassa.

“We left the children behind,” my mother continued, almost as if it were nothing. “Because their hybrid sides were dormant, you wouldn’t have felt them.”

And just like that, the bottom fell out.

My thoughts scattered, slipping through my fingers faster than I could grab them. Hybrid sides . Hidden powers. Lies buried under layers of silence. And Iryen, she knew more than she was letting on. Every second she kept her lips sealed, the storm inside me churned louder.

She was holding something back.

Why?

What the hell was she afraid of?

“You’re mates, aren’t you?” My mother’s voice sliced through my spiraling thoughts.

“Yes,” Iryen said, too fast, too sharp. Her walls went up so quickly I nearly staggered from the weight of them.

Just like when I first met her, closed off, untouchable. A ghost in her own skin.

“I came here to maintain an illusion for my council,” she said flatly, refusing to even glance at me. My mother’s eyes widened with alarm.

“They don’t know he’s a hybrid,” Iryen continued. “And once I leave… this secret dies with me.”

My mother looked at her as if someone had just released her throat. And I… I felt like someone drove a knife through my heart .

“When are you leaving, Your Highness?” my mother whispered, barely breathing.

“Tomorrow. At dawn.”

Her words detonated inside me.

My head snapped toward her so fast my neck popped. “ What? ” The word came out sharp, panicked, angry . “You’re leaving?”

Just like that?

Like I was nothing ?

Like I was some inconvenient truth she could bury in the sand before sailing off to her golden throne?

Iryen didn’t even look at me. Didn’t blink. Didn’t offer me so much as a fucking glance.

“Your secret is safe with me, Your Majesty,” she said to my mother, her voice smooth, royal, and completely devoid of me.

Like I didn’t exist.

Like I wasn’t hers .

My mother’s expression softened as she looked at Iryen, like they shared some unspoken truth I wasn’t part of. “I appreciate it, Princess Iryen, truly. I wish you safe travels.”

Safe travels.

Like that was all she had to say to the woman who just dropped a bomb and walked away like it didn’t detonate in my chest.

Then she turned to me. Her eyes were warm, bittersweet, and I hated how much I still ached for that look.

“I have to go now, son,” she mumbled. “I came because I sensed her presence. Your father and I are leaving town. That’s what I came to tell you…” She paused, gaze flicking toward Iryen. “But that’s no longer necessary.”

Just like that. She came to say goodbye and ended up confirming that every piece of my life was built on someone else’s lies.

I walked her out like an obedient son should, but inside, I was shattering.

The numbness was a dull blade scraping across bone.

My feet moved on instinct, but my mind was chaos—fractured truths, veiled warnings, revelations that hadn’t even finished sinking in before the next one knocked me sideways.

I couldn’t catch a breath. Couldn’t form a coherent thought that didn’t taste like betrayal.

The silence between us was thick, but I couldn’t break it. Words clawed at the back of my throat, but they never made it out. I wasn’t ready to hear how sorry she was. How she meant well . How it was all for my protection .

We reached the door. She placed a gentle hand on my arm, as though that could hold the pieces of me together.

“Take your time with this,” she whispered. There was sadness in her voice. Maybe guilt. I wasn’t in the mood to dissect which. “I know it’s a lot. And I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.”

Sorry.

They all were, weren’t they?

I gave her a nod, just enough to let her go. Just enough to keep the dam from breaking.

She walked away with all the calm grace of someone who had made peace with the storm. I watched her go, every step tugging harder at a thread I didn’t realize was already fraying.

Yanked between two worlds I never asked to belong to, one human, one unnatural, both built on secrets that never included me until it was too late.

And now?

Now it felt like I was the only one standing in the wreckage, watching everyone else walk away before the dust even settled.

I returned to the living room, and there she was, still. Sitting on my couch, aching like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just upended my entire goddamn reality and then made herself at home in the wreckage.

The setting sun poured molten gold across her skin, haloing her like some divine fucking mirage. And for a second, just a second, I hated how beautiful she looked. Hated how calm she was.

She stared out the window, distant, detached. Somewhere else entirely.

And I was standing there, raw, wrecked, forgotten.

It took me a beat too long to remember she hadn’t eaten. Not that she’d complained. Of course not. Princesses don’t beg.

My fingers twitched. The ache behind my eyes pulsed. Between my mother’s casual lies, Iryen’s looming departure, and the mountain of half-truths buried me under, I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t breathe straight.

I ordered food just to give myself something to do. Something that wasn’t watching her pretended this didn’t mean something. That we didn’t mean something.

Once it was done, I turned to face her, voice cold, sharp, like a knife.

“Tomorrow, huh?” I raised an eyebrow, felt the bitterness bleed into every syllable like venom. “When were you planning on telling me? After you vanished without a trace?”

Her eyes flicked toward me, sea glass shimmering with something I couldn’t quite name. Guilt? Sadness? Pity? I didn’t want her pity. I wanted the truth, wanted a goddamn reason.

“You knew I had my duty back home,” she said, voice maddeningly composed. “This was always temporary.” Her words hit like a slap. Not loud. Not violent. Just cold .

Just enough to sting deeper than screaming ever could.

I knew . Of course I knew.

From the second she crashed into my life, I felt the clock ticking. But I didn’t think it’d run out this soon. I didn’t think she’d walk away with the same ease everyone else did.

And the worst part?

If she asked me, I’d go with her.

No hesitation. No conditions. I’d burn it all.

The realization hit like a sucker punch to the ribs.

I’d abandon it, everything . My empire. The yachts. The billions. Even my name. I love her, and she was still leaving.

But maybe that’s when you know it’s real, when you stop trying to be enough, and start becoming more than you were.

My sister could handle the company. I trained her for this, always with the idea of someday leaving this godforsaken city. I just didn’t expect someday to look like this, me giving it all up for a woman who was already halfway out the door.

“All of it,” I muttered, mostly to myself, voice low and rough. “I’d give it all up for you.”

She flinched. Just slightly. And then—

“You can’t, Adrian,” she whispered. Her gaze stayed pinned to the dying light, as if looking at me would make it real . “They would hunt you down.”

There was a crack in her voice. A tremor behind the calm facade.

I don’t care if they hunt me or even kill me. Anytime at her side was enough, as long as she was mine.

“Iryen, I—” I started, but she cut me off with a shake of her head. No room for hope. No room for me .

“I can’t leave my kingdom like your mother did.”

That sentence lodged like glass in my throat. Sharp. Ugly. Honest.

I wouldn’t ask her to. I didn’t want her to. The thought never entered my head. I couldn’t trap her in a life like mine. Dry and cold like concrete. She deserves more. She deserves to rule the ocean like the queen she is.

“I know you didn’t ask for this, for any of it. But I can’t abandon my crown. Not after… everything I’ve lost because of it.”

Her voice broke then, just barely. I felt it.

The grief. The damn finality of it all.

She swallowed hard. Her eyes shimmered, but the tears didn’t fall. Royals don’t cry, not even while shattering your heart.

“It’s my parents’ legacy,” she whispered. “The last piece of them I have left.”

And just like that, I knew she was already gone.

Still sitting across from me. Still beautiful, still tragic, still mine, and not mine at all.

“You keep trying to shield me, princess, but I was never just human. I have power too. And the right to choose what I’ll fight for.”

The doorbell rang like a bullet through the tension, cutting her retort.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, though I didn’t remember deciding to move. My body just obeyed, desperate for something, anything, to do that wasn’t falling apart.

I brought the food in, set it down like it mattered. Like any of this mattered .

No candles. No soft music. No warmth.

Just takeout and a woman I was losing by the second.

I unpacked the containers in silence. Watched her in the fading light, still staring at the horizon like it was the only thing that made sense.

“Come eat,” I said. My voice was hollow. Tired. “You’ll need strength for your journey tomorrow.”

She moved without a word, sat across from me with all the elegance of a queen resigning herself to duty.

She picked at the food. Distant. Fading. Her mind was already beneath the waves.

Between bites, she said it casually, like the weather.

“I’ll be sleeping at the reef tonight. I need to contact my court… so I’ll leave after we finish here.”

I clenched my jaw so tight it ached.

Was she serious?

She’d rather spend the night on a reef than in my home? My bed?

She could breathe my name like a promise, and still vanish as if it were nothing.

“Please don’t.” The words came before I could kill them. Raw. Pathetic.

“If you don’t want to sleep with me, fine. Take the guest room. But don’t stay at the reef.”

She paused. Finally, looked at me. Something flickered in her eyes. Pain, maybe. But she didn’t speak.

And the silence that followed said everything.

She was still going.

And I was the fool, still begging.