The motion was slow, deliberate. His spine uncoiled with quiet purpose. His gaze, calm as a still sea and twice as dangerous, swept the chamber and locked on to the one who’d dared speak last.
It was a minor noble from the northern coast—pale, sweating, suddenly aware of how loud his voice had been. The nobleman swallowed hard, his bravado folding like a ship’s mast in a gale. He sank back into his seat without another sound, unable to hold the prince’s eyes.
Sebastian scuttled onto the dais, his beady eyes alight with fury. "King Triton had nothing to do with this. It was all the sea witch's doing. She’s a menace. She tricked you, fooled you."
“Tell me something, Sebastian. How exactly was my wife cast out of your kingdom?”
There were a few throat clearings in the room, accompanied by many more meaningful gazes. Eric knew they were all in acknowledgement of the emphasis he’d put on Ursula's title.
Ursula? The name settled in his mind. She hadn't looked like an Ariel, hadn't felt airy like the name suggested. But Ursula felt right.
“The sea witch was reckless. She put Princess Ariel in danger. Ursula—” Sebastian hesitated, claws clicking together in agitation. “She called the kraken.”
The very name of the beast had been whispered for years as the justification for war, for distrust, for every ill-fated ship that never made it home. The Sea Kingdom had wielded the threat of the kraken as a reason for their hostility toward his people, just as his people had used it to justify their fear.
And yet?—
Eric's mind reeled back to nights spent tangled in silk sheets and candlelight, when she had let him into her world piece by piece. He recalled her voice, husky and raw.My aunt saved Princess Ariel’s life.
She'd been talking about herself. She had saved Ariel.
"Some air-breathing fools thought it would be sport to harpoon a mermaid," Sebastian was saying.
A misbehaving child. A harpoon. A siren’s desperate call to the only creature powerful enough to stop the slaughter. And for that, Ursula had been cast out of her kingdom?
It couldn't have been the whole story. No, no, it wasn't. She had said no one listened to her. But Eric had. He'd listened to her every word.
He had spent his life locked in this dance of diplomacy, treaties held together with fraying seams,prepared to marry a stranger just to maintain a peace that had never truly existed. All over a single act of desperation. A handful of seamen with cruel intentions. A child’s foolishness. Those conditions had brought his siren to him. And now they were what was threatening to tear them apart.
Eric looked out the window. Below, the sea stretched wide and glinting under the midday sun, deceptively calm. And there—moving like a shadow carved from moonlight—was Ursula.
She walked alone, her red hair whipping in the wind, her gown clinging to her like a second skin. She moved past the gates, through the courtyard, and beyond the edge of the castle walls. Toward the cliffs.
She paused at the precipice, the sea churning below her in welcome. Then, as if drawn by instinct, she turned and looked back. Up—straight to him.
He swore she saw him through the distance, through the glass, through the truth and the lies between them. He'd told her not to leave, that he would handle it. But of course she didn't listen to him, just as he hadn't listened to her.
He wanted more than anything to hear her voice in his ear. He wanted to tear through the corridors, down the steps, past the guards and barriers and titles, until he could hold her again.
Ursula lifted her chin—like the queenshe was—and he couldn’t help the breathless laugh that escaped him. Even now, she knew how to unmake him with a glance. Even now, his anger melted into longing, frustration folded into awe.
He still wanted her. Would always want her. Even when he wasn't ready to forgive her. Even when she didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Then she turned and dove. The wind caught her hair like a banner of defiance. His heart seized—but only for a second.
She was born of the sea. She would hit the saltwater and shed the last of her land-born shape, her scales returning like memory, like power, like truth. She would find her brother. And if that brother did not give her back?—
Eric’s jaw tightened. Then there would be war.
"I agree with your council," Sebastian was saying, oblivious to the scene outside. "Annulment is the only way. We will find Ariel and?—"
"Is the Sea Kingdom in the habit of reneging on its word?" Eric asked. "If so, the treaty means nothing. I held up my end of the bargain. I married the sea princess. You should have ensured it was the correct one."
Eric was done with this argument. Done with his anger toward his wife. He had married the correctbride.
“It would seem the Sea Kingdom is in disarray, and you have far bigger concerns than my marriage. I suggest you return home to your queen.”
"King," clarified Sebastian. "King Triton."
