I was at the bottom of the sea. Surrounded by my father’s enemy, and they had just killed every man I arrived with.
“You cannot control anyone or anything in this damned place!” I screamed, so loud I tasted blood, my throat raw from the force. “You want me to take over my kingdom? You can’t even control your own!” Tears were streaming down my face, hot and angry. “You Guardians-damned fool. You fucking child! Their blood is on yourhands!” I did not breathe, I only yelled. It was hitting me repeatedly like waves of reality, surging. “I couldn’t help them!”
I crumpled in on myself.
Morvyn kneeled with me as he held me tightly.
Tears streamed down my face.
“I couldn’t save them.”
Chapter 33
Arlo would never smile again. Not on his own. Maybe if the sirens lulled him, or if he forced himself to for others, but never from true happiness. I knew it in my bones. He was too strong. Too proud. Too righteous. Too Guardians-damned perfect to ever allow himself to feel anything but at fault for this atrocity. When it wasn’t his fault at all. It was Hylos’s.
My heart broke for Arlo and the loss of those already-rare smiles. This would be the death blow to his happiness. He had already lost so much. A wife. A child. Now his crew.
But the ache in my heart was twisting and gnarling into something more potent. When the tears stopped and ire replaced sorrow, I demanded to be taken to the prisons. Hylos didn’t argue. Likely because he was so desperate for my support. The idiot. I would never support him.
Nixie led me to a distant, disfigured tower in Naiadon. I would never have found the prisons on my own. Not even if I had one hundred years to wander Naiadon freely.
This part of the castle wasn’t sparkling white, like a lie. It was all nightmare. Black, bleak, and best forgotten. The cells, carved out of existing sea caves, were damp and dribbling. Reeking of brine, sweat, and blood.
I wanted to weep with joy when I saw Arlo, standing there at the center of the cell among a sea of murderous bloodshed, lulled by one of the two sirens standing guard.
“Did you kill them?” I snapped at the guards, who were unshaken.
“They were just ordered here to protect Arlo,” Nixie said.
“So, you left them here unguarded before?” My blood was boiling.
“There shouldn’t have been a need to protect them. Hylos’s orders were—”
“Obviously there was a fucking need!” I turned on the guard nearest me. “Get him out of there. Now,” I demanded.
Nixie nodded at my side, approving the order. The guard clunked the barred door open.
I hardly remembered the march back to my chambers, drowning in thought. Why kill Arlo’s crew? What good did that do for anyone? And why spare Arlo?
I’d be the one to tell him. I owed him the truth, because this was my fault. I’d failed them.
The sirens were fascinating, and kind. Hylos even believed I could rule. An offer I fought, but it was tantalizing nonetheless. Naively, I thought that there was a way for everyone to win. To help Hylos discover the true cause of the sirens’ disappearances and end all talk of war against Oakhaven. What a tremendous waste of time. I had my answer. The one I had all along. My father was taking Hylos’s people.
The thought sank like a stone in my gut. But did it even matter? Maybe my father had his reasons? Maybe he knew how cruel and violent the sirens could be. A lesson that had taken the carnage of Arlo’s men for me to learn.
I remembered their faces, glittering in candlelight as they laughed over mugs of warm ale, enjoying the comfortable companionship of oneanother. Were they gathered around a table in death now? The head of the table set, yet empty, waiting for their captain.
Nixie lead Arlo into my bedchamber and shut the door gently, looking me over in concern. Fuck her and her concern.
The morning light was beaming through Naiadon’s glass walls, forcing everything stark white and too bright, burning my tired eyes.
I needed sleep, but my mind would never let me rest. Not even if I drank three bottles of bourbon dry. Not with this on my conscience.
“When you’re ready, I will lift the lull,” she said.
I could hear the tinkling of her song like thousands of crystalline chimes behind the bedchamber door, wrapping around Arlo’s mind.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to be there with you?” she asked.
