“But I’ll never see my father and sisters again,” I lamented.
“You swam away from them, did you not? You already left for a reason. You already made your decision before this night. Besides, there’s nothing to stop you from taking a boat to your old kingdom one day. Perhaps they’ll pay you a visit. The world is your oyster, and you are the pearl, my sweet.”
Maybe it wouldn’t have to be the end. Maybe I really could take a boat until it was above Limonos and if I dove below, even if just for a minute, maybe I could see them and tell them I was okay.
“Okay,” I said to her. “I will do it. But first I want you to let Nill go.”
Edonia looked at the Kraken and smirked. The Kraken squeezed so hard that Nill’s black eyes started to bulge and I screamed.
Then one of Nill’s many teeth popped out, spiraling to the ocean floor.
“Release him,” Edonia said begrudgingly to the Kraken.
The tentacle loosened and Nill swam away quickly, heading in the direction of Limonos. I had no doubt that he was going to tell my father what I did.
Edonia walked over to the fallen tooth and picked it up, then came back to me and placed it in my palm.
“There. You can have a reminder of who you used to be. Whenever you regret your life above, you can remember that the only friend you ever had was a damned shark.”
“Wait. Why would I regret my life above?” I said, starting to panic.
But Edonia didn’t say anything. Instead she grinned, a most malicious smile that still haunts me in my dreams, and grabbed a knife that seemed to be conjured out of nothing.
The tentacle that had been holding Nill shot out and wrapped itself around me, the end holding my mouth open.
I screamed.
Then Edonia took my tongue in her fingers, swiped the sharp blade across it until my head exploded with pain and the water filled with my blood.
The screaming stopped.
PART ONE
The East
CHAPTER 1
Maren
TEN YEARS LATER
“There ye go, Princess,” Daphne, my lady-in-waiting says as she finishes with my hair. “Pretty as always. Fit for all the king’s men, I say.”
I peer at myself in the mirror, seeing yet not seeing my reflection, and manage a stiff smile. “Thank you Daphne,” I say quietly, my fingers going to Nill’s tooth hanging from a dainty silver chain. I’ll remove it in a moment, knowing how irate Aerik gets when he sees it on me.
“I wish it wasn’t so drab and dark in here so we could get a better look at ye,” she says with a sniff, looking around my chambers. “Just the fire and a couple of sconces expected to light the whole room. I suppose not all royal palaces are the same, are they now? This is nothing like the one back home, Yer Highness.”
Prince Ferdinand’s palace might not be as grand as the one Aerik and I occupy at Vemmetofte, but this place is on the other side of the world, and not only that, the prince doesn’t even live here most of the time. Aerik and Ferdinand have far too much in common, both of them spending their years galivanting around the world and wasting money instead of having anything to do with their perspective families, other than asking for more funds.
In Ferdinand’s case, he’s settled here in Butuan for a few months out of the year, the rest of the time he’s in different corners of the empire belonging to King Philip V, his father. Aerik and I have been on our royal ship, Elephanten, our journeys not too dissimilar. The only difference is that we are expected back home this year by order of our King, Prince Aerik’s father, Frederick IV. I had been expecting us to continue our journey around the globe, following the trade winds up and across the ocean to the colonies, but duty finally called for my husband, and in turn, for me.
To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. I had hoped that when the ship reached land on the other side of the mighty ocean, I might be able to find my way back home, even though it would be useless for me as a human. Still, I spent days and nights dreaming of diving overboard, swimming deep down into the depths until I entered the Kingdom of Limonos. Even if I could only be under for as long as my lungs would let me, I just wanted a glimpse of my father and my sisters again. A chance to tell them that I’m sorry, that I had made a grave mistake, and that I loved them and would do anything to be with them.
At the very least I could find Edonia and make her reverse the spell. If she didn’t, I was prepared to kill her. Oh, I imagined killing her many times over the last ten years, especially after a row with Aerik, when I felt helpless and trampled by my own bad decisions. I imagined what it would be like to have claws and razor-sharp teeth again, to sink them into her jugular and tear out her pretty throat, the water filling with blood.
“Are ye all right, Princess?” Daphne asks as she peers at me. “Ye look a little flushed. Hard to say in such a dim room,” she adds with a grumble.
“I’m fine.” I clear my throat and focus on my face in the mirror, finally allowing myself to take a look at my reflection. I hate mirrors, hate the emptiness I always see in my eyes. When I was a Syren, I would often admire my reflection in broken mirrors and glass my sisters would salvage from shipwrecks, but I don’t look a thing like I once did. My eyes used to be a bright blue that would change from the pale turquoise of shallow shoals to the luminous color of glowing plankton, all depending on my mood.
Now they’re just the shade of the endless sea, and the woman who stares back at me is someone I don’t recognize, especially not with my hair pinned up in various curls at the top of my head. It’s the look of the moment among all the ladies, but I would rather my hair be down and loose, like waves of ink, would rather the stiff stays at my waist be loosened. Feels utterly wrong to have them made from whalebone, animals I considered friends.
The only thing that remains from my old self are the faded imprints of my gills, three faint lines on either side of my neck, so faint that you can only see them under certain light. A symbol of my life underwater, before I traded it away.
“Well, don’t ye look lovely, anyway?” Daphne murmurs as she adjusts a few strands of hair on my head. “A sweet sight for yer last night on land. I have no doubt the princes will miss each other when we set sail again.”
My stomach twists at the thought. Aerik will miss Ferdinand, a kindred spirit in debauchery, and perhaps more. He’ll miss the freedom that the ship has given him. He’s been kinder to me for most of the journey, less violent and critical. He’s only happy when he’s exploring, when he’s far away from his family’s watchful eye, and I worry what returning home will do to his mood.
Throw yourself off the ship, I tell myself. Let the seas claim you. Better to drown and die than live with that man and the man he’ll become again.
I swallow hard and rub the shark tooth between my fingers. “Daphne,” I say quietly. “When you were younger, did you ever do something so ill-informed that you’ve regretted it ever since?”
Daphne blinks at me in the mirror’s reflection. She’s been my lady-in-waiting ever since I married the prince, and she’s been there through thick and thin, keeping the darkest secrets close to her chest. To protect the prince more than me, I’m sure, since they would only reveal him in a bad light, but she’s still the closest person to me. And yet there’s distance between us, a friendship that can never really deepen because of my standing as a royal figure, and a life built on lies.