“Our mothers went against a law that had been upheld for thousands of years, disobeying ancient precedent, to protect their daughters,” Caelena confirmed, giving all of us an intense stare.
“It’s just crazy to think that if your mother hadn’t hidden you from society…” I gestured to Caelena. “You wouldn’t have been able to save thousands of sirens—” I stopped, a thought striking my mind. Everyone waited for me to finish my sentence, while a hypothesis suddenly started forming, but I wasn’t sure if it had any merit. I spoke again in a lower voice, “…and if Audrey’s mother hadn’t saved her…there would be no Chosen One to fulfill this prophecy. Ilia would have just killed you.”
“Thank the gods that your mothers were willing to make those choices,” Liam murmured, nuzzling Audrey’s hair again.
I stared at Audrey and Caelena. Audrey kept her eyes on the prophecy, but Caelena kept her eyes on me. I had a sense that she was attempting to follow my scattered train of thought, based on the way her brows pinched.
“How much older are you than Audrey?” I asked Caelena. She lifted a pale eyebrow at my seemingly random question before she replied.
“Almost a year.”
“Meaning Audrey and Drustan’s mother—Astrid—became pregnant soon after your parents decided to protect you andleave, correct?” I pressed. Caelena confirmed my statement with a dip of her chin.
“You said that fertility started to rise again about thirty years ago,” I pointed to Liam. He also looked at me with confusion before he confirmed with, “Er, yes.”
“Right around the time their mothers made these dangerous decisions, going against ancient precedent, as she said.” I tipped my head toward Caelena as I stared at the prophecy. “I wouldn’t be surprised if fertility rose exactly after their mother’s prioritized the protection of their children—regardless of what the laws of the land demanded.”
Caelena’s pinch in her brow started to smooth, and I used that to continue hypothesizing, “When did fertility start to decrease significantly? You said it had been dropping gradually for thousands of years, correct?” I asked Liam again, who simply nodded his head at me, but based on his expression, he was confused by my line of questioning.
Caelena, however, wasn’t.
“Gods,” Caelena breathed, before rushing to her drawer and pulling out dusty old books. They looked like they were about to fall apart, but she handled them with delicacy while urgently flipping through the pages. “Fertility decreased right around the same time as…” Caelena released a shocked laugh, turning to another text, flipping it open, and dragging her finger across the page, “…the execution of whismerric sirens was put into effect.” She shook her head in disbelief. “The correlation issoobvious.”
“What correlation?” Audrey asked.
“It was a curse,” Liam said, catching on. “Hyvenmere wascursedwith infertility, because why—” He shook his head, running a hand through his blond curls as he put it together. “Why would Tynara reward Hyvenmere with more children when we were willing to execute them as soon as they reached the age of maturity?”
“But Caelena’s parents changed the precedent.” I pointed to her, pacing the room as I rambled, “Which would make your goddess eager to bless Queen Astrid. Opening the Mellhawn Gates after thousands of years, allowing Queen Astrid to wander through in secret, and get pregnant with a child who would be powerful enough to fulfill her prophecy—should she continue to make the correct decision and protect her daughter from death—even if it included protecting her daughter from her own king.”
“Which she did.” Audrey’s hazel eyes were scanning the prophecy on the wall. “…But while there are other halflings like me, the spell our mothers cast to protect us probably affected fertility, which would explain?—”
“—why a surge of mating bonds started snapping into place after the spell wore off and the halflings could safely travel to and from Hyvenmere,” Liam finished.
“This might also explain why there was a surge in whismerric sirens the last couple of years,” Sergei added, folding his arms as he studied the prophecy on the wall. “Audrey was back, her powers are intended to bring balance back to nature—a balance that our governments had been disrupting for thousands of years by executing whismeric sirens. But Caelena and Audrey were proof that the realm is ready to change.”
“To unite,” I murmured, studying my friend in a new light. “…Roots in soil…” I couldn’t remember the prophecy exactly, but I got the gist of it. I studied Audrey’s healing hands as the prophecy explained, watching as she fidgeted with her fingers. The same fingers that were sunk in eternal soil, when it hit me. “…What if the ancient beast wasn’t what we thought?”
Everyone turned to look at me, but Caelena, following my train of thought, gasped.
“It was never the solvyrn…it was Ilia…” Caelena furrowed her brows. “Sirens have been going missing since before Audrey returned to Hyvenmere, but at a much slower rate—becauseIlia was finding whismerric sirens and executing them.” Acid churned in my stomach from her words. “But then I learned what he was doing when I joined his guard, and when Audrey returned to Hyvenmere and significantly more sirens started to develop whismerra, I started to find the sirens before Ilia, upsetting him.”
“Ilia truly, deeply believeshe’sthe one the prophecy is discussing,” I added. “After speaking to him at Bandthral, it’s clear that his titles are his entire personality. He is convinced that he needs to maintain peace and balance in this realm.”
“I bet that Ilia fails to see another way to maintain peace beyond upholding the ancient laws. Maintaining the precedent that his bride and brother’s mate disrupted. His queen having an affair with a human and sending her child out of his clutches not only wounded his pride, it also fed into his delusions,” Audrey hypothesized. “I’d bet that he genuinely views the execution of his own queen as his duty as the Chosen One, if Astrid was willing to illegally travel to the human realm and conceive a child.”
“The ancient beast wasn’t either of the solvyrns…” Sergei muttered. “…It was the ancient law…”
“…That’s why he needs to go…” I concluded. Audrey’s hazel eyes lifted to me, and while there were layers of emotion in them, I picked up on the most important one she was experiencing. Resolution.
“If I’m the one this prophecy is discussing,” Audrey whispered. “It’s my responsibility to ensure Ilia is stopped.”
“And if he’s delusional enough to murder his own queen to keep his titles…” I let the sentence hang.
“Ilia Shawmustdie,” Sergei concluded. “Whether by the Gravhune, or the hands of the child whom Queen Astrid died protecting.”
“Gods be damned,” Liam choked. “It’sallconnected. Caelena. Audrey. The siren children. Even our mating bond…” Liam stared at Audrey with awe in his eyes.
Drustan claiming he and I have a bond of our own…I shook the thought away, too overwhelmed with this context to focus on it.
