I turned to Kye, wishing I had a chance to wave goodbye to him or at least exchange one last look. But he seemed to be too absorbed in his conversation with Arnon now. Partially hidden in the shadows off the path, his tall, pale figure looked like an apparition, an extension of the moonlit glow of the night.
As if sensing my stare, however, he moved his shoulders, then finally turned his head to give me that last parting look I craved.
“I’ve never felt so in tune with someone else’s desires,”he’d said earlier.
I sensed the same might be true about our thoughts and feelings too on occasion. Sometimes, they seemed to sync as well, singing in perfect resonance.
“He really cares about you, doesn't he?” the princess said with a warm smile.
Kye had just called me his “most treasured possession.” For some, that might be enough.
“I guess he does in a way,” I said, holding back a sigh.
“You won’t be apart for long. You’ll see him again, sooner than you think,” the princess assured me, leading me into her home.
Smaller than the royal palace, Arnon’s house still gave me a good idea of what Kye’s home must’ve looked like before his curse transformed it so drastically.
Thick columns of white coral supported the walls of pink marble. Stained glass mosaics decorated the floors, including the artfully arched bridges across the open pools in every room we passed.
The coral columns weren’t brought and mounted in here. Instead, the structure was built around the existing coral branches that grew from the ocean. In Olathana, the coral didn’t grow the way it did back home. Here, the polyps built it from the bottom up, eventually pushing the tops of the coral branches up and out of the water.
I’d seen many of the dead, sun-bleached ends of those branches on my way here. With the seaweed growing through them, they created a large part of Lyrei’s unique landscape. Here, they also served as the foundation of the building.
Turned to glass in Kye’s palace, the coral blended into the overall structure, largely indistinguishable from the rest of the materials used. In this place, the coral retained its natural texture and the colors that ranged from gleaming white to salmon to darker pink. Some branches were relatively straight, others curved in fluid shapes, giving the sirens’ structures that distinct shape that looked like a splash of water from a distance.
Under the surface, the coral columns were bursting with life. The underwater vegetation decorated their bases with bright frills and ribbons of seaweed that fanned and floated in the water. Multi-colored fish of different sizes darted between the ocean plants, filling the pools with movement and life. Both flora and fauna had plenty of luminescent species, making the pools glow with soft pastel colors. The night in Prince Arnon’s home didn’t feel nearly as intimidating as it did in the royal glass palace.
“This is beautiful.” I bent over, peering closely to better see the details of the thriving underwater scenes as we passed by.
“Oh, right,” the princess sighed. “I forgot you haven’t yet seen a normal living space the way it’s meant to be. King Kye killed it all in the royal palace, didn’t he?”
There was an accusation in her voice as well as the wistful note of mourning for the life lost and the beauty gone.
“He couldn’t help it,” I defended him, even though it wasn’t entirely true.
Kye’s curse was a cruel, terrible thing that happened to him. He had no control over it. However, his reaction to it was very much his own doing. The destructive rampage that he went on afterwards was entirely on him.
“Of course,” the princess agreed, then promptly changed the topic. “We’re at the end of our dinner, but I can order more food for you if you’re hungry.”
“No, thank you. I already ate.”
We entered a spacious room open to the ocean. Tall windows on all other walls except for the one with the door made it look like an open terrace rather than just a room.
A long stone table stood in the middle, with only four chairs around it, one on each side. A large tray of fruit stood in the middle of the table. A teenage boy sat in one of the chairs, lazily stirring a spoon in a crystal bowl of something pink and frothy.
“Tal, this is Maren,” the princess introduced me. “She’s King Kye’s guest and will be staying with us tonight.”
The boy got up and tipped his head in a stiff bow. His wavy, dove-gray hair was cut short, not a typical fashion among sirens, I noticed, but not entirely unique for Lord Tal, either. Talios, Elina’s husband, wore his hair even shorter. And I’d seen a couple of dancers on the beach earlier tonight with their hair completely shaved off.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maren,” young Lord Tal said in the formal tone of a well-schooled courtier.
His mother strolled to a chair at one end of the table and gestured at the seat across the table from her son for me.
“Will you join us for dessert at least?” she offered, taking her seat.
“Thank you, but I’m really not hungry,” I shook my head, but since everyone was sitting now, I sat down too.
There was always some awkwardness when meeting strangers in such an intimate setting as their family dinner. But both the princess and her son were welcoming enough to make me feel comfortable. The night was calm, with a warm breeze and soft moonlight, further relaxing me.
