For one blessed day, he had been free. For one night, he had belonged to himself, to her, to the dream they had spun between tangled sheets and whispered promises. And now?
Now his father’s council bickered over whether they should send troops to Phillip’s kingdom or wait for more reports. The merchants demanded tax adjustmentswhile the navy wanted more ships to protect the trade routes. The high priest insisted upon a second, official state wedding, warning that without the gods’ blessing, Eric and Ariel's rushed union could bring misfortune upon the realm.
The head of the merchant’s guild complained of dwindling fish stocks, blaming Triton’s restrictions on deep-sea fishing for driving up market prices. Meanwhile, a group of nobles demanded harsher penalties on black-market traders, insisting that the trafficking of sea creatures for spell components and rare delicacies was a stain on the kingdom’s reputation.
And then there was the growing unease over Triton’s silence. Not a word, not a messenger, not even a ripple of acknowledgment had come from the sea king since Ariel had arrived. Eric and Ariel had only been back a couple of hours, but that was long enough for a message to be delivered to and received by the Sea King.
Was he waiting? Plotting? Or simply stewing?
The weight of all of it pressed down on Eric, the demands stacking higher and higher until it felt as though the very walls of the throne room were closing in. Eric dragged a hand down his face, his patience thinning. Then the door at the far end of the hall opened, and she walked in.
His wife stood framed in the doorway, bathed in thegolden light spilling in from the corridor beyond. She wore a gown of silk so light it clung to her curves, the fabric shifting like liquid moonlight over her body. Her red hair was pinned up, revealing the graceful column of her throat, her swan-like neck leading down to the delicate curve of her shoulders.
Eric felt his body move before he could think. His hands pressed against the armrests as he rose, as if pulled toward her by an unseen force. The closer he got to her, the more the tension eased from his chest. The heaviness of his burdens lessened with every step she took toward him.
She moved like a current cutting through still water. He knew the secrets that silk gown barely hid. Each ripple made his mouth water. The late afternoon sunlight kissed the bare skin of her collarbone, glinting off the soft curve of her shoulder where the fabric slid just enough to make him want to pull it down farther. Her eyes were bright and knowing, burning with the same desire that coiled low in his stomach.
She stopped just before him, and before he could think better of it, his fingers were already reaching for hers, twining together, his thumb brushing over her pulse point, feeling it quick and strong beneath his touch. He barely heard the awkward throat-clearing of Grimsby untilthe man spoke.
“My queen, the ladies are meeting in the next room, sipping their tea.”
“Good for them. I heard this is where the council was meeting to discuss the kingdom’s business.”
A beat of silence.
Grimsby blinked. Once. Twice. Clearly flustered.
“I apologize for being late,” his queen continued. “I had to find a dress to my liking. My closet was filled with cotton, which is an unnatural fiber to any creature that lives in the water. Silk is much more to my liking.”
Eric made a mental note to bring more silks to the castle for his wife—sea silks, river silks, moon-touched silks imported from the Frost Kingdom. Every texture. Every color. Deep-sea blue to match her eyes, storm-gray like the ocean before a tempest, and red—red like the sunlit tips of her hair as it fanned across their shared pillow.
As if he didn’t already have enough responsibilities balancing treaties, training soldiers, and untangling the ever-knotting snarl of trade, now he was making space in his mind for hem lengths and fabric weights. For stitching and seams. For her.
"I thought the sea princess didn’t speak." The whisper rustled through the chamber.
“Your queen heard you speaking of merchant unrest, overfishing, and the black market.” Ariel's gazetracked the voice and spoke directly to the man. “There’s a simple solution to all three.”
Every pair of eyes turned to her, some with barely concealed skepticism, others with thinly veiled curiosity. Eric remained silent, waiting, because he knew what they didn’t.
“The issue with overfishing is where the fish are being caught. Right now, you have merchants fighting over dwindling waters because they’re all restricted to one area. Meanwhile, there are entire stretches of the sea teeming with fish, untouched, simply because the routes aren’t safe. If you had Triton enforce safe zones while also working with the navy to patrol those routes, you could?—”
“That won’t work,” Lord Withersby blustered, cutting her off before she could finish. He waved a dismissive hand, as though brushing her suggestion from the room.
Eric traced gentle circles over his wife's knuckles. “What exactly makes you think it won’t work, Lord Withersby?”
The old man shifted in his seat, clearly unprepared to be questioned so directly. “The merfolk would never agree to such terms, and the cost of more naval patrols would be untenable. It’s… impractical. The sea folk have always been fickle.”
“What if,” Eric mused, still tracing the light circles across his wife's skin, “instead of restricting merchants to the same waters, we create designated safe fishing zones, monitored jointly by Triton’s kingdom and our own. That way, fish populations remain stable, the merchants don’t starve, and we work toward better relations with the Sea Kingdom instead of tensions escalating.”
Lord Withersby perked up, stroking his beard. “Now that is an idea with merit.”
Beside him, Ariel went still. Eric didn’t need to look at her to know those blue eyes threatened a storm.
“Forgive me, Lord Withersby, but that is exactly what my wife just said.”
“Well… But… What I mean to say is… She’s a siren.” Withersby’s face reddened. “Clearly, Your Highness, she has you under her thrall.” The man cleared his throat, looking around the room for support.
He found none.
