“Are you—are you happy?”
Aida smiles at her mother. “Yes.”
Tabach, still stammering, flares his nostrils. “We still have not accepted your union.”
I snarl. “Do you not listen, human?”
“Father!” Aida snaps. “Enough. We will leave if you don’t accept us.”
My heart warms at her words. She chooses me over her people, just as I choose her, humanity and all. Taking her hand, I stand, helping her rise with me. My human does not need this, these people. “You do not deserve her,” I tell them.
If her people worried about their future, they would not let us walk away. I could help them. I could extend my protection to them, for Aida’s sake, for our future offspring.
But no one says a word.
“Come,” I tell her. It is time for us to go. Any longer and I may go back on my own words and harm the others. Aida nods, and we head to the door. “We will leave.”
With silence behind us, we walk out together.
19
The Final Night
“Wait!”
Hearing my mother run up behind us, I turn and she envelopes me in her arms. Tensing, she holds onto me tighter, and I slowly ease in her embrace. Zaeyr never lets go of my hand. “Don’t go,” she begs. “Your father will come around. He… he—”
Pulling back. “He what?”
Seeing Mother cry makes me want to cry. I hold my tears back. She’s a tough woman, one of the toughest. I’ve watched as over and over she’s held Sand’s Hunters together through her grit alone. I realize I’ve already forgiven her…Was there anything to forgive in the first place?
My heart sinks.
“He thinks you’re too good for another, Aida. That there is no male the world over that deserves you.”
I stiffen at her words, at her touch. “Why would he think that?” Father and I barely have a relationship.
“He sees himself in you. He loves you.”
My anger returns and I pull out of her embrace. “Tabach only cares about the tribe.”
Mother wipes her tears away. “No, Aida. He may be a hard man, but he is not without softness. All he does is for you and his family, so you may have a home—a place to be proud of.”
I finally dare to ask the question I had been wondering all month. “Did he… did he choose Delina for Leith?”
Zaeyr growls at the mention of Leith’s name.
Mother’s eyes drop for an instant. It’s all the answer I need.
Father was the one who broke my heart, not the tribe.
I gulp, pain zipping through me. “Why?” I whisper. After everything, after spending my whole life proving myself…
“Last season,” she swallows, straightening, “when we traveled to Shell Rock for the oyster harvest. He had Leith—” Zaeyr growls again “—come to him after seeing the young male kissing mermaids. They spoke at great length.”
I remember the harvest; it wasn’t that long ago. Issa and I had roamed the isles by her home for pearls—pearls to add to my mating dress. The dress Delina wore instead…
We only procured a dozen, but it was a great day regardless, having encountered a lusty merman who followed us, bringing us the prettiest shells from beneath the waves. In the end, he’d been driven off by a sea snake. So Issa and I killed it, bringing home its glittering pink and blue skin to make coverings for her.
