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NERYS

“Are you ready?”

Caelum stood at the door’s entranceway, waiting. After three days of watching the festivities from my window—from sand-sculpting contests and the daily blessing of the tides to boat-racing and net-casting competitions—the annual festival had gone on without a hitch. Unless you counted the undercurrent that Caelum reported each day, a growing awareness that the queen would, indeed, attempt to refute my right to challenge her.

Somehow, though Caelum could not fully explain it, Rowan had uncovered a plot the day before to manipulate the council into disqualifying me by presenting a forged document alleging my family once allied with a well-known conspiracy against Elydor centuries ago. One of the five council members had been bribed to “discover” the document in the Deep Archives and pressured another to corroborate it under oath. According to Caelum, Rowan was “taking care of it” but didn’t elaborate.

The groundwork she had laid to dispute my right to challenge her, along with this claim and my inability to properly train in the days leading up to this day, had done little for my confidence, despite telling Rowan I was ready. In truth, I should have said, “I am pretending to be ready but am terrified at how the day will play out.”

“If the council does not allow it…”

“There will be riots,” Aneri said. “This day will be the beginning, and not the end, of your journey.”

“According to law, the last day of the Festival of Tides is the only one the current ruler can be challenged. If she is successful in denying me, at best, we face six months of unrest. Six months until Rowan could even hope to see the Tidal Pearl.”

Neither of them disagreed. The stakes were high: for me, for Thalassaria, and for Elydor, the humans especially.

“Put all of that from your mind,” Aneri said. “Focus on the challenge, for you may yet be battling a queen today.”

“A queen who wields water like none other.”

Caelum smiled. “With one exception.”

Me.

Whether it was luck or something more that I’d been born with such abilities, it no longer mattered. “I am ready,” I said.

It didn’t take long, as we left the inn, for the whispers to begin. Surrounded by the same Thalassari who had stayed with me these past days—friends from the palace, two Stormcallers who’d performed the Rite with me, and nobles Caelum had recruited—I was hardly visible. And yet, as we made our way down to the shore, weaving through the bustling seaside market that had popped up for the festival, whispers grew to calls of support. One yelled, “Traitor,” which I ignored.

I’d watched her all week, the queen and her retinue sitting on wooden stands constructed for her to view the festivities right from the shore. As we walked down the winding stairs, leaving my cliffside sanctuary behind, my heart pounded so loudly, I could hear it in my ears. Drawing out the calls, I looked for him as my boots hit the sand, but still did not see Rowan.

Nor Marek, who had not yet returned.

Squeezing my hands shut to steady them, I concentrated on the young ones emerging from the sea, laughing as their ceremonial swim marked their coming of age. I could remember doing the same, and though a wave of nostalgia had me momentarily wishing to return to such a carefree time, I refocused on the task at hand.

Be where your feet are.

It was one of Seren’s favorite sayings, a reminder that the past could not be re-visited and the future was of no consequence yet.

The queen had spotted me. I’d fooled myself into thinking she was not dangerous. For so long, my mind had rebelled against the idea that someone in her position could want anything but the best for Thalassaria. But as she stood, looking down at me as if I was as insignificant as a piece of sand, her true nature revealed itself.

I prayed to the Goddess Thalassa that, when I became queen, I would never allow power to poison me in such a way.

As the young ones departed and the crowd dispersed to allow me a direct path to the queen, Rowan appeared suddenly by my side. If Queen Lirael disliked me, she openly despised him. The look she gave him may have withered a weaker man. Rowan simply whispered to me, “I believe in you, Nerys. I will return momentarily.”

With no indication of where he was going, Rowan disappeared as quickly as he came. Caelum, Aneri… all those surrounding me whispered words of encouragement, dropping back, for this was my moment.

Knowing what must be done and doing it were two very different things.

Wearing the same suit as the day Rowan had openly gaped at me, a memory that would have made me smile if I were not doing all I could to appear calm and confident, I stepped forward. One foot, and then another, until I faced her. The music that accompanied our descent to the beach had stopped. The calls and whistles gave way to only one sound besides my beating heart.

Waves crashing behind me, their relentless rhythm a reminder of the ocean’s power… eternal, unyielding, and untamed, like the truth I carried with me. I was more powerful than Queen Lirael, and her time as Thalassaria’s ruler had come to an end.

“Queen Lirael,” I called. “As Thalassari law and tradition hold, I challenge you on this final day of the Festival of Tides.”

Nothing more needed to be said.

Ignoring the murmur of voices behind me, no doubt due to the spectacle I was making, I waited. When Lirael smiled, I knew what would come next.

“You’ve been a loyal servant, Lady Nerys, which is why it pains me to deny your challenge.”

I was prepared for as much. “On what grounds?”

“The threat and instability you and your allies pose to the sanctity of this festival and the safety of Elydor cannot be ignored.”

The murmur behind me, and above me all along the cliff as onlookers likely attempted to hear what was being said, grew louder.

“I pose no threat, as well you know. I have been a loyal servant to you and to Thalassaria, as my parents and those before them were.”

She stood, the queen’s smirk sending shivers down my back. “Interesting that you should mention your parents, and theirs before them. Council member Veylin,” she said, her smirk deepening, “perhaps you would like to enlighten Lady Nerys about her family’s true legacy?”

To the left of her, all five council members, each of whom I knew well, shifted in their makeshift wooden seats. One, a vaelith who knew better, who knew well he was about to speak a lie, waved a piece of parchment in the air. “A document has come to light that would make Lady Nerys ineligible for the challenge. Your great-grandfather, it seems, was a leader in the conspiracy against Queen Ilyana.”

As all those in the stands gasped, I resisted rolling my eyes at their theatrics.

“The document is forged.” Rowan appeared, making that claim, as promised. But he wasn’t alone.

“Good day, Lady Nerys.” Thalon held onto Rowan’s arm with one hand, the walking stick always by his side in the other.

“Good day, Thalon,” I replied as if we’d just been seated together at the midday meal in the palace and were not surrounded by hundreds of Thalassari standing before the queen.

I could not decide who appeared more surprised by the palace historian’s presence: Veylin or the queen, who narrowed her eyes at Thalon.

“That is a serious charge,” she said, her voice laced with an unnamed threat.

“As serious as nullifying Lady Nerys’s challenge with a fake document. I not only lived through the conspiracy against Queen Ilyana but documented it in my official role as palace historian. Veylin will claim to have discovered that in the Deep Archives, and if the council does not believe me, we will ask its guardian, Seren, to stand witness, since no such document exists.”

At Seren’s name, Veylin blanched. Had he even visited the Deep Archives, covering his tracks? Likely not. The queen relied on an element of surprise with her false claim, one Rowan countered by bringing Thalon here.

“It is not forged,” Veylin called down to us. “But neither is?—”

“In holding with Thalassari law, the council will vote,” the queen said loudly, for all to hear. She’d likely bribed or threatened each one of them and would move the proceedings along with her forged document stunt having spectacularly failed.

The crowd’s impatience grew. Some called for them to vote, others for me to step down, and yet others yelled things I could not decipher. But there was something about the chants that was different than before.

Turning, I was startled to realize those behind me, gathered on the shore, were no longer even watching us. Instead, their gazes were fixed on the same stairs I’d descended earlier. I looked at Rowan.

“Do you think it is possible?”

He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “If it were anyone other than Marek, I’d say nay. But I’ve seen him sail, so…” He shrugged as an answer.

“I am sorry, Lady Nerys,” Thalon whispered beside me, “that she attempts to malign you and your family’s good name.”

“Thank you for coming, Thalon,” I said, watching as the crowd alternately gasped and parted once again. At the first flash of white hair, I breathed a sigh of relief. Would it make a difference? It could not hurt my case to have such an ally, for certain.

Finally, I could see them clearly. Marek and his companions moved through the throng of people toward us. She was even more beautiful than Rowan had described.

Unbelievable. Marek had done it.

He’d brought the lost princess of Aetheria to us, and just in the nick of time.