Because they were the hunted. Thought to be magical. Their blood, coveted. Arelle just thought they were doomed. Doomed to be the prey of those who walked on land.
Forever.
“Where is your mate?” Arelle asked Poe.
“Hunting. I want to give him a surprise when he gets back. His favorite fruit, I think. He’ll like that.”
Arelle’s brow lifted high. “Do you mean the fruit from—”
“The west side of Atlas, yes. The water orchard. It’s the only place it grows, now.”
“You can’t go there,” Coral whispered. “It’s forbidden.”
Poe rolled her eyes. “Everything is forbidden, but only if others know you did it.”
Arelle did smile at that. Poe wasn’t wrong.
“I’ll go with you to get the fruit,” she told her older sister. “Tomorrow, when the court is distracted with Father?”
“It’ll be the perfect time. The guards fall back with the others and tend to stay away. Easier to slip out, of course.”
“I want to go, too,” Coral spoke up.
She was back to that whine again.
The older sisters shared a look.
“She stays with you,” Poe warned. “She doesn’t understand anything. And I have other things to worry about than looking after her.”
“Hey!”
They ignored Coral.
“She stays with me,” Arelle agreed, and then she gave Coral another look. “That is, if she doesn’t decide to stay.”
What was the worst that could happen?
TWO
Eryx
IT WOULD BE a difficult season of storms. The extended, quarter-round window to the left of Eryx’s chair gave him an ample view of the darkening sky. Although, if he were being fair, the sun hadn’t peeked through the clouds that day at all, which meant the season had already begun to roll through.
Soon, he and the rest of the realm would find themselves shuttered away from the safety of the wind, torrential rains, and the rest of the dangers that came with this time of the year.
He didn’t look forward to that.
Never did, really.
A throat clearing drew Eryx’s attention back to the party, and his father sitting a few paces away in his gawdy throne. The monument of a chair dominated the room—the back sitting high at six feet tall, and wide enough that he’d not seen a man’s shoulders be able to fill the width. Not that he’d seen anyone but his father sit in that chair. Ornamental carvings curved the arms and legs, coils of gold spun around the edge of the throne as if it weren’t ostentatious enough.
In the morning light, with its placement in front of the windows, the chair glinted brightly in the room. The first thing one noticed when coming into the main room of any house his father used during his travels, since the throne came with the king.
And the man sitting in the chair?
Not much better.
“Yes?” Eryx asked from his smaller throne.
His father raised an eyebrow. A good sign, if there ever was one, of the man’s displeasure at Eryx’s lack of interest in a day and party that were meant to be for him. Or rather, his twentieth birthday celebration.
He wished he cared.
Except he didn’t.
The king tilted his head to the side, bringing Eryx’s attention to the man who waited just beyond the stairs leading up to the platform where their thrones rested. With the sky dark outside, and only candles in the ballroom of the estate house, it almost seemed like the dinner party had gone long into the evening.
It hadn’t.
It was only a little past midday.
The season, again.
Eryx stared at the man and woman, both well-dressed with jewels on their fingers and gold hanging from their throats, waiting for them to greet him properly as was custom. One of the servants of the house stepped forward with her head tipped down as to keep herself from meeting the prince’s gaze.
In a simple gray dress that didn’t showcase much of her figure or expose too much skin, one might think the woman was just a servant. Even he’d thought so at first glance. If not for the silver shackle around her throat that practically covered the entire delicate column and designated her a slave. Had her hair been pulled back, the spattering of shimmering scales at her temples would have given away her true breed as well. Sometimes, the mermaids blended in far too well with the rest of them when they walked on land.
The slave stepped up to speak. “Prince Eryx Bloodhurst of Atlas, the Lord and Lady of the house would like to—”
Eryx’s father was quick to quiet the slave with a slice of his hand through the air. “Return to your position—quietly and quickly.”
The slave did as she was told, but not before daring to defy the laws of the land by raising her head. Violet eyes—another sign of her heritage—flashed with indignation and anger. She spun sharply on her heel and returned to the spot behind the waiting man and woman.
“King Misael, your highness, I apologize for my slave,” the man spoke up, doing his best to look apologetic. “She sometimes forgets her place. Rather new, that one. Bought her from the last hunts.”
“That so?” his father asked.
“Yes, sire.”
Misael nodded, his sharp gaze slicing through the crowd to find the slave woman while he tipped his head back. The candlelight caught the jewels encrusted around the rim and pointed tips of his gold crown. “Bring her to my rooms later—I enjoy teaching them how to behave around the royal family.”
It wasn’t even a request. The king didn’t have to make those. All Misael ever had to do was point a finger, and he was given what he wanted. It was their way.
Eryx wasn’t much different in that regard, but he didn’t share a lot of the same interests. He didn’t find quite the same enjoyment in fucking and keeping slaves for sport like his father, and too many others, did. A bit too much work, honestly.
Mattue, the advisor appointed by his father to Eryx when he had been just a young boy—and also his uncle, through his father’s side of the family—stepped forward. Always waiting in the shadows for his moments.
“Prince,” Mattue said, hands clasped at the front of his closed fur cloak before he bent over subtly at the middle in some semblance of a bow, “the Lord and Lady simply wanted to give their greetings, congratulate you on your twentieth year, and thank you for allowing them to host you at their estate for this evening.”
Was that all?
All this conversation for that?
Ugh.
“Could have sent up a message through Mattue,” Eryx replied dryly. “No need for a scene.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the clear frown that pulled his father’s mouth down at the corners. He had a record of how many times he could displease his father in a day—twenty-two. Sometimes, he made a sport out of breaking said record.
It wasn’t as though his father would punish him. Eryx was the only living son Misael had left on Atlas. The youngest had been sent to their closest neighboring realm the moment he’d turned seventeen, married off to a princess of an unworthy royal family to keep the peace and continue their trade of slaves.
His other brothers?
Dead.
Eryx was his father’s last hope.