She wore a crown that looked like the fronds of golden anemones, each curling spike crusted with diamonds and pearls. Pearls wound through her hair and draped across her chest, following the boat-shaped neckline of her stunning coral gown studded with pearls and diamonds and golden beads. Her slender hands were folded in her lap, the short, oval nails painted the same color as her gown.
“Myerial.” Dilys dropped to his knee before the throne.
“Myerial,” Gabriella echoed, and she sank into a smooth, deep court curtsy.
“Rise and be welcome, Dilys,soa elua,” Alysaldria said. “Rise and be welcome,SirenaGabriella,soa Doalanna, Myerialanna kona Calberna.”
A loud, shocked murmur of protest rose from the court.
Gabriella sent a quick, questioning glance at Dilys, who looked both stunned and impressed. Behind him, Chancellor Calivan appeared dumbfounded. “What is it? What just happened?”
“My mother has just Spoken from the Sea Throne,” Dilys murmured in her ear as they rose. “She has just welcomed you as a Siren and daughter and has declared you the rightful heir both to the Sea Throne and House Merimydion. She has made it impossible for any of theDonimarito challenge your position or authority.”
TheMyerialheld out her hands. “Come closer, my children.”
Summer followed Dilys’s lead, climbing the coral steps of the throne’s dais and taking the queen’s hands.
“You are well, my son?” Alysaldria’s sharp gaze swept over her son with a mother’s attentiveness, missing nothing. “You were chasing thosekrillosso long that I began to worry.”
“I am well, as you can see,Nima,” Dilys assured her. “Thekrilloshad help masking their trail. But they have been dealt with. As I mentioned in my report, the Shark is no more.”
“Nor is the Pureblood Alliance. After your news, I summoned them all for a Questioning. There was more rotten fruit on that tree, but it has been plucked now. The traitor Nemuan has been declaredkado’ido,a Houseless pariah whose name has been stricken from Calberna, all images and records of him excised. The others who confessed to plotting with him have already met the kracken. I have permitted the rest of the traitors’ Houses to don white in mourning for their lost sons, but only on condition that they should immediately repudiate and dissolve the Pureblood Alliance and join me in welcoming my new daughter as the blessing of Numahao that she is.”
“That doesn’t appear to have gone over well,” Dilys murmured, glancing around the room at the tight faces and barely leashed resentment from quarters that had previously been quite vocal supporters of the Pureblood Alliance.
“I don’t care. They fomented rebellion and provided a breeding ground for traitors. They’re lucky I didn’t purge their whole Houses. A Siren has been returned to us. They can either accept her or meet the kracken like their treacherous kin. But enough nasty politics.” In an abrupt change of subject, Alysaldria turned a golden-eyed smile on Gabriella. “You are not the Season we chose for my son.”
Gabriella’s lips curled wryly. “So I understand,Myerial.”
“Nima,my daughter. You must call meNima,now. You may beoulani,but you are also a Siren bound to my son in blood and salt, and therefore bound to me by the same, my daughter and a daughter of my House. My joy is beyond measure.” Her voice resonated with sincerity.
“Nima.” Warmth unfurled in Gabriella’s chest. She’d lived most of her life without a mother. To have one again... it was more than she had hoped for since she was a child. “I am the one who is joyful. Dilys has told me much about you.”
Alysaldria arched a brow at her son. “All good, I should hope.”
“Of course.” Gabriella wet her lips. “I know I am not the wife you would have chosen for him, but I promise I will make him happy.”
TheMyerial’s full lips broadened in a smile every bit as dazzling as her son’s, and in her cheek bloomed a dimple even more pronounced than his. “You are wrong, my dear. My advisors may have thought one of your two sisters would have been the best choice, but not I. I trusted my son to win the claim of the woman best suited to him. Do you love him?”
“Very much.”
“Then he has exceeded my dearest wishes for him, for it is clear to me that he loves you as deeply as anyakuaever has or could love hisliana.That you are a Siren, bringing back to us the most ancient, powerful, and venerated of all Calbernan magics, is an added gift we could never have expected or hoped for, and proof that even the wisest of advisors can sometimes make mistakes.” She cast a look towards a group of Calbernans standing to the left of the throne. The advisors, Gabriella deduced, when several of them began looking distinctly shamefaced.
“I am sure they had only Dilys’s and Calberna’s best interests at heart,” Gabriella said, speaking loudly enough for those closest to the throne—including the advisors—to hear. She couldn’t change the past, but she could do everything possible to smooth her way forward, including soothing the ruffled feathers of those who would have picked a different wife for their prince. “I spent a lifetime suppressing and masking my gifts out of fear of harming someone with them. Your advisors saw me exactly as I intended everyone should—as the weakest of the Summer King’s daughters. But Dilys has convinced me that the power I have feared all my life need not be a danger to those I love, but a boon for his—forour—people. Thank you,Myerial—Nima—for your warm and gracious welcome. As I told your brother, Lord Chancellor Calivan, earlier, I shall endeavor to serve House Merimydion, Calberna, and all the folk of the Isles to the best of my ability.”
“I am sure you will,moa alanna.We will begin preparations for your coronation immediately. I will, of course, abdicate the throne and pass to you the gifts thatMyerialSiavaluana gave to me on her deathbed.”
“Alys!Ono!”
Alysaldria speared her brother with a look sharp enough to silence his distraught outburst.
“As a Siren, Gabriella, the Sea Throne rightfully belongs to you,” Dilys’s mother continued. Her voice had a hard edge to it, a clear warning against further dissent. “It is not meet that I should keep the crown when Numahao has sent to my House a daughter bearing her greatest gift.”
Gabriella could feel the scores of eyes boring into her back, but despite the tense silence of the throne room, no one uttered a sound. Calberna was a land steeped in tradition. And she was an outsider—anoulanistranger suddenly thrust into their midst. Calivan may have been the only one to verbalize his distress over his sister’s decision to abdicate, but she doubted he was the only one to hold that sentiment.
“I am honored by your trust,moa Myerial,” she began cautiously, “and I wish to serve Calberna to the best of my ability, but you are its queen, not I. I am, after all, a stranger to these lands, and to its people.”
“That matters not. The law is clear. Sirens rule Calberna. You are a Siren. The Sea Throne is yours.”
