“No one cares what you have to say,Mother,” Maren cut her off. “I will no longer be your pawn.”
Maren held up the trident, the prongs dancing with lightning. Then, Kaid saw it. Purple bolts danced around her claws, down the pole, and encompassed the trident. Maren was a sea witch.
“Don’t. We can rule together,” Queen Yrsa shook her head, her limbs still pinned to the wall.
Maren laughed. “If you had ever shown me a scrap of love, I may have considered such an offer a long time ago. It’s too late now.”
Yrsa gasped. “Love?Love makes you weak!”
The finfolk princess swam up so her face was just inches from her mother’s. “Everything I have ever done has been for love. And I am not weak.”
Maren plunged the lightning-charged trident clean through the queen of Ryktarva’s chest, then withdrew the prongs with the queen’s heart speared at the end. Maren shook the staff, and her mother’s heart drifted to the floor.
Epilogue I
Asta and Kaid walked up the beach, entering the castle from the terrace, where Linnea greeted them with a hug.
“It’s only been two days, Lin,” Asta laughed.
“I know, but I’ll always be happy to see you two walking up that beach.” Linnea stepped back and grabbed Halsten’s hand while his other held him steady with a cane.
Asta and Kaid had been traveling back and forth between Naltania and Orntali every few days while they prepared for Kaid’s coronation. Queen Arielle was more than ready to retire from the role since Kaid had returned. After being separatedfrom King Aerik for so long, Kaid’s parents could not wait to live a life of few responsibilities together.
Dyri came barreling down the hall, barking and panting, his hind end extra springy due to only having one rear limb now. Asta could never thank the medical staff enough for saving his life, even if it meant removing his mangled leg in order to do so. She knelt down and squeezed him tightly while Kaid patted his head.
“How is she?” Asta asked Linnea.
Her cousin smiled softly. “Go see for yourself.”
Asta made her way to the infirmary, sucking in a deep breath before entering. Two dark-haired twins sat on the crisp, flat sheets, laughing and speaking in hushed tones.
“Tova?”
The twin with longer hair turned around, her bright smile the same one Asta remembered from before the thoughtrus incident.
Kaid excused himself to spend time with Halsten while Asta stayed with the twins. Tova explained that she had not meant to resist the thoughtrus; she only wanted to repress any thoughts of Liva in case the situation escalated. She would never do anything to endanger her sister, and Asta understood completely. Now that Tova was better, she would join her sea dragon twin in their joint position of emissaries between the Ventarin territories and Orntali.
The finfolk and siren kingdoms were no longer at war. Actually, it was quite the opposite. After the fall of Yrsa, Maren stepped into the role of queen of the finfolk. She had been working with the sirens to help the finfolk adjust to the new feeding arrangement they had made.
Understandably, once there was a merfolk war both underwater and on land, it was difficult to hide the existence of the species from the villagers of Orntali. And so, finfolk andsirens were Orntali’s little secret. The humans knowing about the species made life easier for everyone.
The finfolk were required to help the fishermen meet their quota, guiding whichever fish species was overpopulated at that time into their nets. In exchange for their help, the humans had volunteered to let the finfolk sustainably feed from them.
This was where the sirens had to step in to help—training the finfolk when to stop feeding so they did not take a human’s life. No finfolk was allowed to feed unless a siren spectator was with them.
Maren was working diligently to civilize the finfolk species, including putting an end to abandoning their children on the shore.
During battle, the new finfolk queen had revealed that she turned on her mother for love, but Asta learned what she truly meant a few weeks after the war ended.
Maren had lied—a lot—in order to accomplish everything she had. Her end goal, however, was protecting Asta and living a life of blissful peace with her wife, Svanhild.
Queen Yrsa had been so wrapped up in a strategic merspecies marriage that she had never noticed that her daughter had fallen in love with her lady-in-waiting. The moment Maren understood what her mother’s extensive plan was, she began undermining it.
Maren had left Asta the extra iron key in the forest on purpose. She had led Asta’s friends to reunite the comb and mirror by placing Queen Else’s informative journal out in the open of the archives. She had pushed Asta away so she would not get involved in a war she knew nothing about—though that did not work out. The night that Kaid and Asta hid in the cave, Maren and Svanhild held off the search by swearing up and down that they had seen them continue running down the beach. Maren had even convinced her mother to send the mostferal warriors to the shore to attack Asta’s friends and family, knowing that they would likely be able to out-smart them.
Everything Maren had done had been driven by her love for Svanhild and Asta. She even explained that though she did not live with Queen Else—Asta’s mother—for long, she knew that Else loved her more than her birth mother ever would, so she did this for her as well. And their father.
Out of everyone, Maren deserved a happy ending the most.
