I can’t tell him the Nymphs are our allies, but I can imagine that fresh water creatures wouldn’t be aware of what seawater can do. I shrug. “I guess magical poisoning is too rare for the fae to know how to treat it.”
“I’ll give you some special water, with more healing properties, from our golden reef. It will be enough for you and for my children.” He sounds pained as he says those last words. “I will find them. I can see now that this was a conspiracy. Selena’s fault. I should have reigned her in a long time ago, but I didn’t. She’ll pay for what she’s done, and once the Sea Court is safe, I’ll make sure my children are brought here and recognized as my heirs.”
Heirs. It means Ferer is indeed the Sea Court crown prince, and all I can think is how the title would endanger him. “How will you know if the Sea Court is safe?”
“Because I’ll make it so. This is a promise.”
“I see. Now, I don’t want to rush you or sound rude or ungrateful, but I need to return to Lidiane?—”
“Wait. Let me get you a container with the best water.” He opens the door, calls a guard, then gives him instructions that I can’t hear very well, but that sound like Gold Reef and water bag.
I am relieved that there’s a cure for Lidiane, for Ferer, and even for me, and yet a little suspicious that it’s so easy. Perhaps I don’t want to raise my hopes too soon, don’t want to imagine what might happen, especially when we still have so much danger hovering over us.
The king closes the door and sits again, and I ask him, “The Witch King, do you know how to defeat him?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“But you knew he wasn’t dead.”
“Yes, I knew that.”
I wonder if the Sea King’s holding back information. “Aren’t you concerned? Worried?”
“He never attacked our court, and I don’t think he’d be so foolish.”
“Your children are on land.”
He pauses, then extends his hand, where he’s holding two dark pearls. “If either of these pearls touches the sea, I’ll come to them.” He passes them to me. “You can give them to Ferer and Lidiane. If things get bad, they can seek me, and I’ll harbor them.”
“How do you trust I’ll give it to them?”
The king raises an eyebrow. “After you jumped into the ocean and asked to duel the kraken to save Lidiane? If that’s not devotion, then what is it?”
“Duty.”
“Hmmm.” He looks at the door. “While they collect the water, would you like to hear what happened? I can see the censure, the judgement in your eyes.”
“I’m worried about Lidiane, that’s all.”
“Is she aware she’s my daughter?”
I try to think of all the moments when she mentioned her childhood or family. “I don’t think it has even crossed her mind. Unless she’s in denial. All she knows is that she needs to avoid the sea, and that the Sea Court murdered her mother.”
“And yet you figured it out.”
“I’ve been around royalty a lot more than she has.”
“True. Tell her…” He closes his eyes. “No. I’ll tell you what happened, and then you can tell her what you think she’s ready to hear. Do you know her brother too?”
What I remember the most is his murderous glare, but I don’t think that’s what his father wants to hear. “Not very well, but we’re on speaking terms.”
He smiles. “What are they like?”
“He’s honorable, powerful, smart. Again, I don’t know him well. She…” There are so many things I could say, so much, and yet I have to condense it into words. “She’s kind. Smart, too. Brilliant, I’d say. Hopeful. Brave to the point of almost being foolish. Honorable. She’s also an artist, the most talented seamstress in the entire fae lands, and it’s because she likes it, likes to create beautiful things. She’s… special.”
The king smiles, even if sadness clouds his eyes. “Kary was like that. Special. A land fae, with affinity for water. We met on land…” He pauses, his voice choking with emotion. “And she came to live here, with me. Even though she was not in her element, we made it work. I wanted to marry her. Would have married her, but my advisors kept saying it wasn’t a good idea, that nobody would accept her, so we postponed. I was overjoyed when she was expecting our first child, a boy. I still recall his little hands, his dark eyes, his gills. And then…”
He looks away, pain visible in his expression. “He was poisoned. I held his little body. It was rigid, cold, lifeless. I held it. It was him. Kary asked to take the body back to her home, to her mother, and I let her. Then… she left me. Could she havetricked me like that? I can’t even understand. I couldn’t stay away from her, so I found her. We… she came back here, but she was always returning to land. Always. And now I’m thinking I understand why, but at the time, I didn’t. Either way, she got pregnant again. This time, it was a girl.”
