She opens her mouth again to reach for our song, but Themu stops her. “No, Zola! This isn’t the time.”
Queen Zola lets out a frustrated growl but glares at the king as she backtracks into the water. “You willpayfor this.” He says nothing as he watches us retreat, our bodies changing as soon as we are deep enough in the water.
Pain flares as my scales replace skin and my legs morph into my tail. My hair returns to braids, and I brush them away from my face, my hand going to the hilt of the dagger.
“Wait, Amari,” my mother says, swimming over to me with calculated slowness. I wince from the pain as she positions herself in front of me, handing her trident off to Themu. Placing her hand on my shoulder, she grows her talons until they pierce my skin. I grit my teeth together but do nothing else, used to her brand of punishment. “I asked you to doonething.” Her other hand wraps around the dagger’s hilt, and her jerky movements send a wave of blinding pain through my body. “For an entirefuckingyear, we have prepared for this! This would not have happened had you done your duty and seduced the prince! Had you presented yourself in a way that he couldnot resist.” She yanks the dagger out of my tail, my whimper pathetically loud as she lets me go and my body curls over itself. “You have failed me, Amari, and if I didn’t need you to prepare for the war I’m about to bring to the Mortal Kingdom, I would kill you now.”
Dark blue blood leaks from my wound, my mother letting the dagger fall from her grasp as it descends towards the oceanfloor. Gripping her trident once more, she angles it towards me, the diamond-encrusted tips scraping at my chest and making me flinch.
“You will get me that kingdom one way or another. Even if it costs you your life in order to do it.”
Part One
Grief is like trying to fight an invisible enemy. There’s no way to prepare for it—no lessening of the savage way it further pulls me apart. It’s a scar ripped open over and over again.
Chapter One: Rhea
The sun’s warmth bearsdown on me like fire from above though it does nothing to melt the ice that begins to settle in my veins. Like the waters of a lake touched by bitterly cold winter air, everything in me stills.
Tell me, was your mission in the Mortal Kingdom successful?The older mage’s words pelt into me one by one until I struggle to take a breath.
“Mission?” I question, peering up at Flynn.
His fingers twitch from where I’ve dropped his hand while his dark gray eyes flash with panicked surprise. When the silence stretches on between us, the older mage clears his throat and mumbles something about catching up withHis Highnessback at the palace.
“Highness?” I whisper, looking back out over the gathered crowd. Most have their attention on the interaction happening beyond the Spell at the edge of the beach, but a few have turned to look our way. To look at Flynn—or is it Nox? “Who are you?” I breathe, confusion gripping my throat as I turn back to look at him.
A few tendrils of his wavy black hair move in the breeze, the sunlight glinting off his sharp cheekbones. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“More lies?” My tongue feels like lead in my mouth, and I can’t stop tripping over each thought and emotion that is boiling up inside me until it nearly renders me mute. He had confessed all his lies at the inn. He had—
“Rhea, let me explain,” he pleads, only loud enough for me to hear.
Your mission.
Was this wholethingbetween us nothing more than a façade? A way to get me to his kingdom? My chest rises and falls harshly, but the air isn’t reaching my lungs. I’m back in that stone tower, the walls slowly pushing in as my reality continues to suffocate me. My own fears of him seeing me as an illusion have been thrown back in my face, the irony of it all like a sharpened dagger slowly driving in between my ribs.
“Who are you?” I ask again, feeling pressure build behind my eyes.
He quickly closes the distance between us, faster than my spiraling mind can comprehend, and though he doesn’t touch me, he leans down close enough to keep his voice barely abovea whisper. “I know you’re confused and you have questions, which I promise to answer.Anythingandeverythingyou want to know, I will tell you.” He pauses, turning his head as figures approach us from the water’s edge. “I just need a few minutes here first. Please.”
Please.
The word bashes my grip on my anger and, instead, lets it slip through me, filling my body with something acidic. With his honeyed words and even sweeter lips—ones that had nearly devoured me two days prior—what parts of him are real? How many of his declarations could I comb through and find a hidden meaning for? If I looked hard enough, could I pinpoint the spaces between his words that held the truth of what hewasn’tsaying?
“Sunshine, please,” he begs again, leaning in even closer to me.
My options are truly limited; I am in a foreign kingdom and outside of my tower for the first time. If I take Flynn out of the equation, I am completely and utterlyaloneagain. My chest clenches at the memory of a white bundle of fur, of pointed ears that always twitched in warning. Those things are gone now—sheis gone now. So what choice do I have but to stand by this man who clearly lied to meagain, despite proclaiming he’d confessed nothing but truths? The sickening thought that I’d rather have his betrayal and still havehimthan have nothing but solitude bleeds into my mind. Howpathetic. Still, I nod in agreement.
The figures that were on the other side of the Spell reach us, two women and one man. Up close, the women look almost identical while the man—king—looks exactly like Flynn. His black hair is longer, down to his shoulders, and his stature slightly shorter, but there is no mistaking the identities of these people—his father, mother, and sister.
Flynn hugs his father, and I turn my attention out to the ocean. Though I have never been to the beach before, I had read enough about it to be able to picture it in my mind. I could imagine how it moved, how the crystal-blue water was powerful enough to consume anything and everything in its path. There have been so many times in my life where I felt overwhelming emotions crest over me, exactly like how I pictured those waves moving. Right now, as I stand at the side of the only person my heart has ever truly spoken for, Ifeellike I’m being crushed by waves of shock and confusion. As if I’m standing out in the middle of the vast waters ahead of me, waiting to be swallowed whole.
Flynn and his father separate, his mother stepping up next to embrace her son while his sister eyes me curiously. She’s taller than I am, and the dress she’s wearing does not hide her strong physique. I meet her gaze, her irises the same as Flynn’s though they are missing the tiny specks of silver that reside in his. I begin to wilt under her inspection and the way she looks at me like she already knows every secret I carry. Flynn moves in front of me and says something to his sister, but I can’t hear anything above the rapid beating of my heart in my ears.
His head abruptly jerks to the side, athumpaccompanying the movement, as his mother gasps and his father lifts a brow in question.His sister just hit him in the face.I take a step back, needing space, and bump into something hard. Turning my head quickly, I see Cassius—Flynn’s best friend—smiling widely, his hand gently pressing between my shoulder blades to steady me. His white-blond hair is pulled back from his face, its length falling past his shoulders. The color is stark against his rich dark skin, which is mostly hidden under the thick dark brown leathers he is wearing.
“Careful, Blondie,” he whispers, winking before removing his touch.
