The queen’s laugh is beautiful and ominous, and as my magic streams over her body, its bright light in stark contrast to her dark braids and even darker eyes, she makes a demand of the king. “Tell her, as she heals me with power from the very kingdom you claim killed yourbrother, the truth of that night, mortal king.”
Though King Dolian attempts to fight against the magic, it’s to no avail. He turns stiffly to face me fully, the words prying his lips open before he’s ready to. “The night you were born,” he begins with difficulty, each word shoved out against his will, “my brother gave me an ultimatum. He had found out that I had fathered a child with a woman from Vitour because she had come to the castle asking for help raising the boy. Conrad had never been someone overly affectionate or tender growing up. He had been cruel to a fault, just like our father, until he and Luna becameinvolved.” He spits the last word out like he can’t bear to call what they had love. “I guess becoming a father exacerbated those weaknesses, because he abruptly began giving a shit about me. About what I was doing withmylife. He threatened to have my royal title stripped. To have me removed from the Maxwell line as if he could simply erase who I fuckingam.”
The queen sighs, and my magic begins to retreat within me, a waterfall of warmth returning back to its source. “Your magic is a lovely feeling,” she muses, speaking slowly. “Dyanna, come here.” The pink-haired siren moves from her place at the end of the line to right in front of me. “You’ll heal my daughters next, starting with Dyanna.”Daughters. Magic surges from my hand again, the queen’s command washing over me as King Dolian starts talking again.
“He had takeneverythingfrom me, and it made him feel invincible. As a king. As a man. A husband.A father.Ihatedhim for it. He constantly underestimated me, and in the end, that was his true downfall.”
“What did you do?” I breathe, the sensation of my magic lost to the focus I give him. “What did you do to my father?”
“Father?” the queen questions, clear surprise in her voice.
“I asked him to go for a walk with me. Preyed on that newfound gentleness of his as I told him how I had made amistake but wanted to make it right. As Iliedto him.” Though his chest heaves, there is no remorse for what he’s done. “We walked to the beach, a little farther east. It was night, the water blending into the dark sky, no moon in sight. Which made it impossible to see the siren queen as she rose from its depths.”
The flow of my magic begins to slow, but in its place within me a new invisible weight sits. “You led him to his death?”
“No,” he says, reaching out to cup my face. “I created our beginning.”
My magic trickles to a halt as I stare at him, the salt in the air stinging my wide eyes. I hadn’t believed he was being truthful when he told me of my parents’ deaths before, but stupidly, pathetically,naively, I never imagined that he could dothis.
“Sade,” Queen Amari barks, directing the siren with orange hair and the smaller trident to stand in front of me. My magic already knows what to do, and within a few seconds, it is filling her, streaks of white magic glowing beneath her skin.
“And my mother?” I ask, utterly terrified of the answer and, yet, still needing it anyway.
“An unfortunate sacrifice,” he grinds out, and my heart stops. I think of the picture of my parents I had just found and how young they looked. Three lives impacted forever because ofhim.
“You look upset, Rhea,” the queen drawls, her outline blurry from the tears that have gathered in my eyes. “But you did not justlosefamily that day; you gained a new one too.” I blink, warmth trickling down my cheeks as I direct my gaze to hers. “The deal I offeredyour unclethat night was simple: I would lure his brother into the water, thus handing him the crown he so desperately wanted, and in return, if an offspring were to come from thepairing, she would be recognized as royalty in the Mortal Kingdom.”
King Dolian inhales sharply, and my mouth parts on a shocked gasp as the queen turns her gaze not to Dyanna or Sade but to the siren with ruby-red hair.
“Princess Aria is the product of that night. A siren born from both queenandking.” Her chin lowers, her eyes narrowing on her daughter. “Officially mortal royalty.”
The siren—Aria—turns her hazel gaze from her mother’s to me. To the king’s. Her color is brighter, as if lit from behind with a candle, but knowing who her father is—was—there is no denying that she got her eyes from him. My shock is mirrored by her horror. I have asister, one born of the same violence I had been raised in. One that is a siren. We continue to stare at each other, my pulse so loud in my ears that I almost don’t hear the sliding of the swords from their scabbards.
My magic is still being fed into Sade when the guards surround us, the king standing so close to me that I am caught in the fray. He shouts for them to stop, or at least, I think he does until I feel the tether to my magic sever, and Sade falls to her knees. I don’t have time to question the loophole as King Dolian is yanked back from me, a guard tackling him to the ground and knocking the crown from his head. It rolls to a stop near my feet, only to get kicked away when another guard rushes past me to the king, restraining one of his arms.
But, despite appearances, the king knows how to fight, and he catches the two on either side of him off guard as he shoves a shoulder into the breast plate of the one on his left. He raises his head, eyes scouring the beach until they meet mine, his mouth opening. And I should move—I know that Ineedto move—but fear and sadness and anger keep me rooted in place. I want this godsdamn ring off of me. I want the fear that it induces every time I rub my thumb over it to go away. I want even the illusion of freedom from this monster. I want it, and I want to watch himdieso that I can have it.
“Rhea! Ki—” Even with his command cut short, I feel my magic rise, peeking above its confines for a single moment before it’s yanked back down again. Remi is there, one large hand planted firmly over King Dolian’s mouth while the other is pressing a dagger just beneath his chin.
I finally manage to take a step forward, only to crash into an incoming guard, sending us both off balance as we crash into the sand. My head spins and my ears ring as I look back up to where the king is struggling against the guards, blood dripping down his neck from small nicks of Remi’s knife. Remi screams, the hand covering the king’s mouth gone as he shakes it out in front of him, grimacing in pain.
The chaos around me is overwhelming as the sounds of swords clashing and men yelling fill the open air, yet I know that I will hear whatever the king says. That I will be forced to heed his command. And he will not hesitate to have me kill everyone here.Neither will the queen. The truth in those thoughts propels me to my feet, my arms and legs moving faster than my body can keep up with, making me nearly stumble.
I watch the king inhale deeply, watch as the first syllable makes it past his lips, only to end there. Remi covers his mouth again, silencing the command as both look at me with different levels of desperation.
“Run!” Remi shouts, gritting his teeth before he screams again, and I realize with no short amount of terror that King Dolian isbitinghis hand. “Runnow!”
The panic in his voice finally breaks through and spurs me into motion. I turn and run. Past Queen Amari and Sade and Dyanna, their mouths opened wide as their voices blend together and their song blankets the beach. Past Aria, who stands motionless, her hands curled into fists at her sides as those round eyes take in the havoc. Sand kicks up behind me, the air freezing as it races across my skin, and I run. Away fromthe king’s command and Xander’s stoic but steady presence and Erica’s tender care. Away from Eve’s sweet friendship and Brisk’s gentle eyes and all the other men and women fighting to help get me away.
Pushing myself faster, I nearly sigh when the carriages come into view through the small distortion of the Spell ahead of me. But as I pivot to follow the path, only a few feet away from crossing, somethingslithersacross the sand, black and wispy like dark smoke from a fire, and my steps halt. I watch as it moves over the tops of my feet—the feel of it like silk and colder than ice.You know this. The thought scratches at my mind. The tendrils get darker as they move across the beach to where the guards and the king are fighting.You know this. My heart flips and leaps to my throat because Idoknow what these tendrils are, and it is not smoke.
Even though I can’t feel my own magic and I shouldn’t be able to feel any other, something tugs at my heart—at my soul—as if to say,look at me, look at me. It overpowers the manic fear that rises and the rational thoughts that scream,it’s been too long, and forces me to look back towards the Spell.
Right into a pair of star-flecked eyes.
Suddenly, he is there, right on the other side of the Spell, and I can’t breathe or speak or think. There is just him against the gray-blue sky and those eyes that I know so well. That I’ve dreamed about, even when it was painful. Him, dressed in black with stubble that shadows his cheeks and jaw and waves of onyx that curl over his forehead and ears, a menacing tableau of death manifested.
I try to say his name, my mouth shaping the word uselessly until only a broken whimper is tossed into the space between us. But that sound motivates him, because in two steps, he is right in front of me. Consuming the entirety of my vision. Consumingme.
