I’d enjoyed teaching him. Now that he was probably only a day or two from becoming a better swimmer than I could ever be, a soft tendril of sadness entered my heart at the thought that he wouldn’t be needing my swimming lessons for much longer. Then I would be left with not much to do but dwell on my misery of being trapped in this world against my will.
I’d never been good at sitting around and doing nothing. Teaching Kye to swim gave me a welcome distraction.
Sipping wine while servants cleaned up the table after dinner, I smiled to myself again. I taught a siren king how to swim. How would that look on my resume?
The servants had left, and I was still lost in my recent memories of the warm sunshine on my skin, the ocean salt on my lips, and the tantalizing sensation of water caressing my body under Kye’s silent command.
What exactly was happening between the king and me? I wasn’t sure, but it worried me where it was heading. Something bothered me about it, and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, which irritated me even more.
Was it some misplaced concern of betraying Liam? Except that Liam had never made me feel like letting another man touch me or even having sex with him would be a betrayal of what we shared. We had an agreement, and it had worked for us just fine for years. I wasn’t a jealous person. Liam scrupulously adhered to all the terms of our agreement, leaving me no reason to regret it.
No, Kye was right when he said what happened between us earlier today was not a betrayal.
Still, something didn’t sit right with me about it.
The anxious feeling stayed with me, hanging over my head and chasing sleep away when I went to bed that night. Kye came in to check on me earlier, reminded me not to leave the bedroom at night, then went back to guarding the great hall.
I wished he was here, just on the other side of the screen. I missed his singing and wanted to hear it again. I feared I would never again be able to sleep soundly without his songs. And that anxious feeling in my chest grew.
“WHO IS THAT MAN WITHKye...I mean, with King Kye out there in the great hall?” I asked Elina.
Like it had become the norm, she came in the morning to help me dress, then stayed after breakfast insisting that I had to let her do something about my hair.
My hairdresser in New York, Sylvia, charged me a small fortune to maintain my hair in perfect shape and color. In Nerifir, however, Elina called my long, edgy bob “crooked” and my multi-faceted highlights “uneven.” Granted, I had no tools or products to properly condition or style it. After just four days of being in Nerifir, the sun, salt water, and wind had completely undone all Sylvia’s efforts. My hair had sprung up into waves and puffed up even after I had rinsed the salt out of it with fresh water.
Now, I sat in front of a large mirror brought into the dining room on Elina’s instructions. And she had a small basket with brushes, barrettes, and ribbons open on a stand nearby.
“That man is Prince Arnon,” she replied to my question. “His Majesty called for him earlier.” She ran her hands through my tresses. “I think if we braid it on the sides and add some ribbons, it will look very lovely.”
I hadn’t had ribbons in my hair since I was three. But we weren’t in New York anymore. There was no one to ridicule me in tabloids or share my pictures in Snapchats.
“Go for it,” I waved a hand, somewhat distracted by the presence of the prince in the palace.
I couldn’t see his facial features through the several glass walls separating us from the great hall, but Prince Arnon was a tall, slender man with long, silvery-gray hair. A part of his hair was gathered on the sides and pinned into a knot high on his head. The rest hung loose down his back. He was dressed in a white sleeveless shirt and matching loose pants, and he moved about the room with the grace and dignity of a true siren royalty.
“How exactly is the prince related to King Kye?” I asked Elina.
“Well, Prince Arnon is the older brother of King Iravan, King Kye’s late father. The prince is married to Princess Dorelea. And they have a son, Lord Tal. They are the last three remaining members of his family. His parents are both dead, and he was the only child.”
“If Prince Arnon is the older brother of Kye’s father, why is Kye the king and not his uncle?” I didn’t know much about succession laws, but I believed birth order mattered in those things.
“Because King Iravan married into royalty, he wasn’t born into the ruling line. Kye’s mother, Queen Cordelia, was the ruling monarch before King Kye. The royal line stays with her and her offspring.”
The voices of both men rose in what seemed like an argument. But over Elina’s chatter and the steady noise of the waves outside, I couldn’t make out the exact words.
Elina seemed uncomfortable with their arguing and raised her voice too, instilling an extra cheerful note into it.
“This place used to be so noisy all the time, back when I was a child. So many people, balls, dancing... So much fun,” she chatted, braiding a gossamer turquoise ribbon into my hair.
“Did you grow up in the palace?” I asked.
“Yes. My mother was Queen Cordelia’s chambermaid. My family lived here, along with many other servants and the entire royal court. It was a very big place, especially its underwater portion. Only a small part of the palace is above water. But the weeds needed to maintain the underwater chambers are dead, so there is nothing left of that now...” she let her voice trail off with a suppressed sigh of regret.
I thought about the torn portrait in the great hall, the only surviving piece of the palace’s former grand decor. Was Kye the boy in that picture?
“What was King Kye like as a boy?” I asked. “Did you know him then?”
“Oh, yes. I knew him well,” Elina said. “We practically grew up together. He was quite a handful, causing so much worry for the queen. He always had so many ideas, and most of them led to trouble.”
