“Mine,” I growled at her, then blinked, surprised at myself.
Kalli threw her head back with a laugh, but Calix was smirking as he ducked his head in an attempt to hide it from me. It was a poor attempt, to say the least, and he winked at me with heat behind his eyes at my show of jealous possession.
I reared back in surprise as Kalli suddenly was right in my face, nose to nose, her head tilting right and left as she examined me.
“Uh…” I wasn’t sure what to do here.
“The rumors are true,” she whispered, her musical voice more serious than I’d ever heard it.
“What rumors?” I asked, my heart dropping.
“You know the ocean carries many whispers.” Her voice dropped as she brought her mouth closer to my ear. “It spoke of a human girl named for the goddess of stars who was actually a Fae princess. It spoke of the king of Night, and the prince of Dusk.”
My breath caught.
She grabbed my hands suddenly, squeezing them.
“Asteria, you’ve always been kind to us. You’ve indulged us many times with your stories. So I will return the favor with a gift for you. A story the ocean brought us recently.”
I met her kaleidoscope eyes, knowing how rare what she offered was. Mermaids collected stories; they didn’t give them away. I’d spent many days sneaking out here and telling them the stories I’d made up over the years. Fantasies to entertain myself and distract from the mind-numbing fear slavery instilled in my every waking moment.
I nodded solemnly, and she returned the nod regally before she began. “The ocean says our less kind cousins have recently begun acting strangely.”
Her words were musical whispers, her voice making even the most mundane sentences sound like songs. But the dire implications of what she said were clear.
“They haunt the shore of Dusk, hunting down humans. Ones who are bruised and starved. And having escaped a chained fence, they make for the water, hoping for freedom, only for the sirens to devour them.” Kalli shivered, her shoulders shaking and fin flapping. “They say they made a deal with the dark king.”
“Dark king?” I questioned, shaking my head in confusion even as dread and sorrow built in my heart over what these poor people had gone through. “Not Calix.”
Kalli shook her head slowly. “They speak of Dusk alone.”
Astraeus? Was he really thisdark king? I would expect Cyrus to earn such a moniker from the ocean and the mermaids, not his father. Though, he admittedly wasn’t much better than his son.
I thanked Kalli for her warning and gave her the story she wished for of my adventures since leaving Sunrise, but her words lingered in the back of my mind the entire time. I could tell it bothered Calix too, but we mutually agreed to save discussing it until we made it back to the palace in Panchaia.
But as we walked into our rooms, we found a hawk waiting on the coffee table. He cawed lowly and flew up into the air as we closed the door. Then, he swiftly shifted and landed on two feet.
“Eryx, what are you doing here?” I asked, shocked to find him here.
“What’s wrong?” Calix demanded, walking up to him, looking him over like he might have missed Eryx bleeding out in front of us. I rolled my eyes but made my way over to the two of them.
“I have a lot of news,” Eryx announced, looking to me with a sad smile. “For both of you.”
Calix and I took seats on the sofa while Eryx sat down heavily on the chaise, his elbows on his knees as he ran a hand down his face.
“Eryx?” I called, and he looked up, blinking as he noticed I was surrounded by starlight. Eryx’s anxiety triggering my own. Calix rubbed my back, trying to help calm me, but my chaotic emotions weren’t cooperating as I tried to push them down. “You’re freaking me out. Spit it out, please?”
He sighed, nodding his head. “Cyrus has been announced as the newly crowned king of Dusk.”
Starlight exploded around the room as my power burst out of me in a giant wave. My breaths were ragged as I leaned forward to rest on my knees.
“Fuck,” Calix murmured, leaning over my back to bring me into his arms as Eryx came and sat by my feet.
“Hey.” Eryx looked up at me, this man who had become like a brother to me. We were closer still than I was to my actual brother, who I’d barely had any chance to get to know yet. “It’s going to be okay. It doesn’t change our plans at all.”
I laughed breathlessly, if a bit hoarsely. “Oh yeah, because being king doesn’t mean he now has unfettered control of the army or the kingdom’s resources, right?”
Eryx nodded once, conceding I was right. “Okay, it complicates things a bit. But we know what we’re doing.”
