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With a whirlwater mind, I could not help but pace the room. Back and forth I went until my tail cramped up from the stiffness of my body posture. To distract my mind, I’d opened the telly shell, only to be bombarded with news and images of events that already plagued my mind.
Me. Prince Kai. The sniper. Captain Saber. Death.
I had promptly slammed the shell closed again and resumed pacing.
Now, I sunk onto the edge of the bed. The plump anemones must have sensed my distress. They caressed me, fat stinging tentacles curling around my arms and tail. I relished in the feeling for but a moment before my mind grew restless and I all but shoved them away again.
My thoughts would not ease. How could they, with Prince Kai dying in his rooms because he had decided to save me? Right after I’d publicly rejected his affections, had more or less told him not to love me, that I did not love him.
How could we?
We didn’t even know each other.
The Black Blade’s words came back to me. I’ve no doubt in my mind, little fish, that Prince Kai Li of Draconi knows exactly who you are. Did he? I mean, could he possibly? I wondered if it mattered.
In the short time we knew each other, I’d seen something in the Black Blade, like he saw something in me. It had been enough of a feeling, in so short a time, for us to give ourselves to one another. Maybe it was the same with Prince Kai. Maybe he didn’t need to know my true name to feel something. Maybe he saw deep into the depths of my heart and soul and that was enough.
It still felt like a special sort of treachery to not tell him the truth. If he knew, it would change everything. I was terrified of him knowing. That realization struck me hard because I did not want his feelings for me to change.
Because maybe, just maybe, I felt something for him as well.
All I knew was that I could not sit here idly while Prince Kai was surely in pain in his rooms. I’d already waited too long to see him, and I could not put it off forever. I had to see him. Now.
Decision made, I swam out into the halls where my guards—thankfully not Captain Saber—were waiting. When they saw me, they bowed.
“Escort me to Prince Kai’s rooms.” The worry in my gut made me snap the demand. No please. No thank you. I was royalty, and I meant business, leaving no room for anything other than their obedience. They nodded stiffly and escorted me.
I was surprised to find his rooms were not too far from mine, though the appropriate distance to avoid a scandal. But the thought of a scandal would not keep me out. To the abyss with Odele’s reputation, it was a ruined thing anyway. I had to speak to the prince alone, and so I would.
The guards outside the room bowed to me. I waved them off.
“You will wait here as I go see my betrothed,” I commanded.
They dared not mention the impropriety of the situation. They just bowed, and one of them rapped his knuckles on the door.
A few moments later, one of Kai’s advisors opened it. His dark hair was piled tightly into a bun on top of his head. There were crinkles just on the outer edges of his slanted eyes. He looked at me with disdain.
“Yes?” he asked. No respective titles. No beating around the cattails. I wondered if he despised me or somehow blamed me for what had happened to the prince earlier today. If he did, I avoided telling him that no one hated me more than I did myself right now.
“I’m here to see Kai.” It was an intimate thing, to say his name like that. It nearly made my tail curl.
The advisor sniffed once. “The prince,” he emphasized, accent thick, “is resting. The medics have ordered it. No visitors.”
My heart sank like an anchor to the pit of my stomach. I tilted my chin up just a bit higher. “I insist.” Though the tone of my voice said, I command.
He started to ease the door closed. “And I insist you go back to your rooms, Princess, lest someone else gets hurt today.”
“Wait, I—”
“Dragons’ sake, Ichiro, who’s at the door?” Kai’s voice sounded out from beyond the room, impatient, annoyed.
“No one, Your Majesty.” The advisor—Ichiro—started to close the door in my face.
In a split second, I made my decision. I’d not let advisors and royals shut me out from what I wanted to accomplish. Not anymore. I shoved myself into the space that was left and pushed. The advisor called out as I forced myself into the rooms.
The first thing I noticed was that the room was as spacious as my own and consisted mostly of the same layout. The second thing I noticed was the smell. It was... strange... different. Spicy.
On two-legger land, there was fire, and it burned. I knew from stories told by the traveling market in Lagoona that two-leggers believed things beneath the sea could not burn. That wasn’t true. While things did not ignite here like they did there, the lava of volcanoes could still heat and incinerate things in the water.
The lands between mer and two-leggers were alike, and yet so vastly different. Two-legger clothes floated in the water, while ours, being made from matter in the sea, did not wholly do so.
So, Prince Kai’s rooms smelled like burning. Scents wafted in tendrils through the water that were both strong and calming.
I also noticed that Prince Kai’s rooms were dimmed to a red glow. Red jellies floated like lanterns on his ceiling. He was not in his bed, a shell with black anemones swaying here and there. I didn’t see the Prince at all really until Ichiro swam forward, further into the room, on the other side of the bed and bowed to the floor.
“It is—”
I hurried beside him before he could lie to the prince’s face. But the moment I saw Kai, my face heated, and a lump formed in my throat that was hard to push past.
Prince Kai sat on the floor. He still wore the red robes from earlier, and yet there was something different about him. Maybe it was the sickness, or maybe it was because the robes opened at the lapels, and the material hung from his shoulders, revealing the skin underneath, and the strip of a kelp bandage that covered his wound.
My breath caught in my lungs and gills. I didn’t dare breathe as I watched him. He was distracted and hadn’t yet seen me. His arms were up, holding his long hair in his hands, as if he’d been in the midst of tying it back. And in the corner of his mouth, he was biting down on the end of the sash that went around his waist. It was loose around him, and I wondered if he’d been about to change, to take it all off.
My tongue darted out to touch my lips.
“This is highly inappropriate!” Ichiro sputtered. “You must leave. Now.”
Kai looked up then, and my palms shook. In his gaze there were traces of that separate entity. The one who had fought me in the training room and had nearly left me naked. The one who had protected me in the park. Dark eyes nearly glowed as they took me in. The look he gave me chilled me. Like he was prepared to devour me whole.
He dropped his hands, and his hair fell slowly around his shoulders. Using long, elegant fingers, he pulled the end of the sash from his mouth and fingered the edges thoughtfully.
“Princess...”
I gulped. Menace. Danger. A promise and a threat, in one single word.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, I told the princess that you were resting—”
Kai shot Ichiro a murderous look that shut his advisor up completely.
“Leave us,” Kai commanded hotly.
Ichiro’s face went red, though perhaps that was a result of the colorful jellies dancing above our heads. “Majesty, I do not think that is appropriate—”
“I said get out! And take Lee with you. Close the door and don’t come back in.”
His advisor’s jaw worked tightly before he finally bowed. He started speaking in Dracon, words clipped and fast. A moment later, Kai’s second advisor came out from the bathing room. He took one look at me, sniffed, but they didn’t dally as they left the rooms, closing the doors behind them.
And Kai and I were finally alone.
He was observing me like I was a curiosity. It was unnerving, and words somehow wouldn’t come. I’d been so determined before, but now I felt shaken.
“Sit, Princess.”
His voice was like magic curling around my limbs, making me obey. I sat across from him, tail curling beneath me. Very little space separated us, and I could feel his heat, burning as hotly as a lava seam.
“Why are you here?” he asked darkly.
I finally loosed the breath I’d been holding since I’d seen him. “I wanted to see how you were doing...” The words sounded lame. I regretted them immediately. What was I? Some guppy?
“Does it matter to you?” His words weren’t unkind, and yet they wounded me just the same.
I gripped the hem of my dress in my fists. “Of course it matters to me. How could you think it wouldn’t?” My eyes went to the visible parts of his skin, to the kelp bandaged against his wound. I couldn’t stop myself from scooting forward until our tails were touching. My hands went up to hover over the wound. “You got hurt trying to save me. Why wouldn’t it matter?”
Kai’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled my hand away from his wound, bringing it up to his mouth instead. The tips of my fingers hovered just over the edge of his lips.
“I cannot read you, Princess.” His breath was hot as it fanned against my skin. Too hot. Was he feverish? He sounded fine, if a little dark and dangerous. “Before, I could. Easily. You were unbearable. I dreaded marrying you.” He pulled at my wrist until the tips of my fingers pressed against the warmth of his mouth. “And now...” His tongue darted out to lick my skin. I shivered, and not entirely out of fear. “I like this version of you so much more.” He moved to the next finger, licking it. And then to the next. “Is it hypocritical of me to despise that other part of you and yet want you to want every piece of me?”
I swallowed. “No...” My voice came out a breathy rasp. He finished licking every finger and moved to the palm of my hand. He pressed a soft kiss there.
“Yet, you do not love me.”
His words were an accusation, laced with dark amusement. My hand tensed, and I nearly pulled away, but he held me in place, hand tightening around my wrist, the other digging into my hip.
“You cannot make someone love you. I know that.” He pulled me close. Too close. My body curved into his treacherously until I was on his lap. Our chests were pressed against each other. I could feel his heartbeat, the rasp of his erratic breathing. The hand at my hip slid around to my lower back and up the length of my spine. His fingers traced at the back of my neck just before he dug them into the roots of my hair. His rough touch sent the tie holding the pieces back snapping, causing my hair to tumble around my shoulders. He tugged, and my neck arched, naked and vulnerable to his ministrations.
A kiss was pressed to the base of my throat. I was wound so tightly, I could hardly tremble. Yet my breath hitched. He kissed my pulse, tongue warm, licking my flesh.
“But if I cannot make you love me for me...” He pressed a kiss to the side of my mouth.
I could do nothing but wait for the fallout. Wait to see what he did. I should’ve pushed him away, yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not when my gut was curling. Not when, despite my better judgment, I wanted him to continue. To see how far this would go.
The hand holding my wrist forced my palm to his chest, to touch the burning panes of his body. He slid my hand down. I did not fight it. I let him guide me, pushing past the material of his robes, down the ridges of his abdomen, past the sash...
“...then I will make you love me for my body.”
He wrapped my hand around the hard length of him.
I gasped at the scorching feeling of soft steel against my palm. My eyes flew open—when had they closed?—and I took him in. His eyes were fixated on me, dark, and glowing around the edges. It was all daring. All consuming. I’d wanted to be devoured by the Dragon Prince, and now I was getting my wish.
“Make your decision now, my gem.” He slid my hand up and down that part of him that was wholly male. Smooth, hard, and hot. “You can leave if you do not want any part of me. But if you stay...” He leaned forward, our lips touching slightly. “I will make you mine.”
Subconsciously, my tongue darted out to lick my lips, and he was so close that I licked his, too. His eyes flashed, like what I imagined the strike of a bolt of lightning would look like. Still, he did not move. Awaiting my response, lava and ice raging a war in his eyes. Dragon eyes, I realized with a start. They were wider, pupils slit, a blue glow of ice around the edges.
I should leave. Get up and swim out. Prince Kai was not mine. We weren’t meant to be. A wilder part of me thrashed like a fish on a hook. Stay. It begged. It begged for a sensation other than loneliness, a sensation of importance. To be held by a prince. To take and not care of the consequences. Did it matter if I wasn’t who he thought I was? He knew my soul.
That was good enough.
“Stay,” I whispered with a savagery I’d never felt before. No longer will I let anyone else dictate what I could or could not take...
Kai smiled, just before he pulled me into a hungry kiss.
His tongue dove in, exploring, hungry and demanding. He devoured me with his mouth, and I let him take all of me. Our mouths melded, dancing in a way that was foreign and familiar at once. A clash of tongue and teeth, just like the day we’d danced with swords. Daring each other to be bolder, to attack without restraint.
His hand covering my own moved. Up and down the feverish length of his member. He groaned against my mouth, sound rumbling deep in his chest. His hips moved, and the strokes of his hand—my hand—went faster, faster. I squeezed, closing tightly around him because as much as he was commanding my movements, I wanted to feel him too. The heel of my palm grazed the rounded head of his member.
Kai tore his mouth away and growled. He yanked on my wrist and I fell back. The only thing that cushioned me from hitting the floor painfully was his arm snaked around my waist. I gasped as his body loomed over mine.
There was something all too predatory about him when he leaned down and took my mouth again. It was a branding, a possession. He tasted like ice and spice, and I couldn’t get enough of it. His nails dug into my waist, and the sound of tearing assaulted my ears.
I tore away from his kiss to look down. Inky black talons curved against my skin just where his nails had been. He pressed the tip of one against the dress and slid it up. Sharp as knives, my dress ripped at the seams. All. The. Way. Up.
He pinched the yellow dress between two talons and peeled it off. It ripped some more until the newly tattered garment was pulled entirely from my body.
I hadn’t expected him to move with such fervor. Hadn’t expected the ardent desperation he touched me with. Like I’d vanish if he stopped. I hadn’t expected my own reaction, equally feverish, gripping, pulling, tugging. My body curved into his, shyness dissipating. I didn’t care about my injury, didn’t care that he’d see my scars. His teeth grazed across my collarbone, and I shuddered, responding by sinking my own teeth into the side of his neck.
It was rough, and his body was hot, too hot it couldn’t be normal.
I pushed down at his clothes, desperate to feel every inch of his skin against mine. His fingers ripped at his own clothes, at the sash. The material was pushed to the side, and he lowered himself onto me. His body a brand. A claiming.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Too late, I realized he was whispering those words across the surface of my skin.
“Mine.” He nipped my collarbone. “Mine.” His tongue traced across the edge of my nipple. I cried out, digging my nails into his shoulders at the sensation that spiraled through me like a violent tide. “Mine.” His mouth closed over my nipple and I bucked against his body, tail curling around his to keep us close.
The heat of his member slid across my stomach, down to my opening. I craved that friction I was now familiar with. Wanting him desperately, I angled my hips, tail tugging him closer until I could feel his tip shy at my entrance. I moved upwards, and he slid in. The length of him stretched me slowly, filling my body and making me cry out almost immediately. The feeling, everything, it was just too much.
He entered me to the hilt, sliding my body across the floor.
I felt too full that my next breath caught in my throat as I clenched around him, needing that movement of our bodies.
“Mine.” He thrust against me and I cried out. His taloned hands grabbed my wrists, his grip firm yet gentle, as he rose them above my head and pinned me to the floor. “Mine.” He thrust again and I gave into the pleasure, moaning and crying out in a voice that sounded far away and too foreign to be my own.
“Kai,” I whispered, pulling at the hands he held locked in place. I wanted to touch him. But he was claiming me, body and soul. I was shackled to him in every single way now. This was a mistake, but gods, it was a beautiful one. I was selfish. I wanted to have all of him, even if he wasn’t even mine.
“Mine.”
My thoughts flew as he growled this out. Each thrust was accompanied by a contradiction of my thoughts and reality. Like he knew what was in my mind, and he could banish it completely with this rough movement of his body.
“You are mine, Princess. My gem. My love. My life.” Each thrust was a promise. Promises I wanted him to keep. “You don’t have to love me yet...” My body exploded into one enormous wave of sensation. It dragged me under, sinking me into an abyss where I found nothing but pleasure. Once I came up from that wave, it was to realize he was still inside me, still moving, and still promising. “...but I know that someday you will.”
He followed me into that chasm of pleasure and pain, darkness and light. Only, Kai did not follow me back up. His body slumped onto mine, breathing in little rapid pants. We stayed like that for a moment. His hands had eased their grip, falling to my sides.
“Kai?”
He didn’t stir.
It was a struggle to slip from under him and sit up. I pressed a hand to his forehead. He was feverish in a way that had nothing to do with what had just happened between us and everything to do with sickness.
I panicked, lifting him up with difficulty and lying him on his back on the floor. His body floated up a few inches from the ground, but he remained steady.
His brows pulled together and he tossed feverishly. He’d fainted. Prince Kai had fainted.
What he needed was rest and medicine.
Body still tingling, I got up and looked around. My dress was in tatters. I couldn’t leave his room wearing nothing at all, so I bounded over to his closet and peeked inside. There were many kimonos, and traditional dress clothes from Draconi. I pulled one out at random and slipped it on. It was a robe similar to the one he wore, and I didn’t know the proper way to tie the sash around my waist so I went with a bow.
The clothes fit me largely, sliding down my body. I held them in place with tightened fingers and swam back out into the room. Prince Kai still turned a bit restlessly. I hated to leave him after what we’d just shared, but his advisors needed to give him medicine, assuming the medics had left some behind.
Slowly, I opened the door. In the hallway, only his advisors remained. My face heated with mortification as Ichiro and Lee floated like sentinels before the door. They took me in, my floating tendrils of hair, and the robes I now wore. I hadn’t thought about the fallout of our actions, but surely the guards had swam to tell Captain Saber–or worse yet, the queen–what had happened between us.
Ichiro looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I sent your guards away,” he said finally as if he’d read the panic in my eyes. “So they would not comment upon your indiscretions.” There was judgment laced on his every feature.
The judgment annoyed me. “Your Emperor has concubines,” I reminded him unkindly.
He sniffed once. “Yes. Do not think I worry for our prince’s reputation. Our laws of marriage are much... freer... than those in Thalassar.”
Lee looked as equally disdainful as his companion. “It is your reputation that risks being tarnished. We cannot have any mistakes or slights in the eyes of Queen Circe. Draconi needs an alliance.”
My heart thundered. If Queen Circe discovered what had happened here, would she be capable of canceling the marriage contract with Draconi? Would it be justified, considering I wasn’t really the princess? They didn’t know that, and still, my blood ran cold.
“Hurry to your rooms and change,” Ichiro ordered. “We will not speak of this again.”
Cleansed and changed, I ventured back out to the hallways of the palace. Being cooped up in the princess’ rooms didn’t help my mental state at all. All I could think about was Prince Kai, his injury, and the Black Blade.
He had left me, claiming we’d see each other again. Had it been a betrayal to him, to be with Kai the way I’d been with him? No. The sentiment couldn’t wedge itself in my chest. Somehow, I figured he’d be strangely proud of what I’d done. Happy I’d taken what I wanted, to the abyss with the consequences.
I was still restless, though. So I wandered the palace until I came to a stop in the hallway with the portraits of the royals. Odele’s portrait hung there. As did her father’s, and more importantly to Thalassar, the Malabella ancestry. Queen Circe, her gaze regal and cold. Queen Odette, Odele’s mother, was painted there. She was a pretty mer, with the purple-blue hair and black eyes that was common in the Malabella lineage. Stories whispered of her kindness and the love between her and King Xristo.
Beside the portrait of Queen Odette, there was another one. Identical, save for a few changes in features. An upturned nose, darker eyes, higher cheekbones. My hands went to this portrait, fingers tracing along the contours of her face. I couldn’t help but wonder if the artist had captured her likeness or if she’d been different in real life.
“Princess Odessa Malabella Sanitorum,” a sleazy, oily voice interrupted my musings. My whole body tensed as Percival swam up beside me, staring at the portrait I had my hands on. I pulled them away, clasping them tightly at my stomach. “The elder sister to your mother, Queen Odette. Twins, in fact, though she was born mere minutes before.”
Not tearing my gaze from the portrait, I snapped, “I know very well who she is, Percival.”
I could feel his gaze swivel to me and then back. “Of course. Pity she died a few years before your birth. You never knew her.”
How did she die? I didn’t voice the question, but it was on the tip of my tongue, begging to be released.
“And then years later, your mother followed her to the grave.” He spoke unkindly. So unkindly that, despite Queen Odette not being my mother, my hands still curled into angry fists on Odele’s behalf. “And now, someone is making attempts on your life. Strange, don’t you think?”
My throat tightened. I cocked my head to the side. “Strange?”
“Strange, how the Malabella lineage is slowly dwindling. First, your aunt Odessa, then your mother, and now...” He shrugged.
An uneasy feeling slipped through my stomach. “In case it’s escaped your notice, I am not dead.”
“No,” he agreed. “Yet I cannot help but wonder if your lineage is somehow...” He gave a slight pause to look at me. I was too cowardly and could not meet his gaze. “...cursed.”
Chilling words, and they sounded like a threat. A promise. Luckily, I didn’t have to reply, because he bid me a good day and swam off, after asking me to be careful and to not leave the palace.
My skin and body felt dirty even minutes after he’d already left.
His words kept trilling through my mind.
Cursed. Cursed. Cursed.
I didn’t believe in curses. Magic existed, but I knew there was a limit to certain things. The Malabella line wasn’t cursed, but I didn’t doubt they were being hunted. Why else had Odele gone away? How had her mother died? And her aunt? I couldn’t quite remember the details.
A thought occurred to me. Perhaps the details of their deaths were important to my own investigation. And there was one place that could give me answers. One place where only royals were allowed. One place that Odele had, surprisingly, spent a great deal of time at.
The royal library.
“Princess!” The old, glowing librarian smiled warmly at me. His skin went from a soft blue to a bright yellow at the sight of me. He was sitting behind his desk, old bent fingers studying the ledgers. He put his quill down when I approached, flipped to a clean page, and let me sign my name in. When I finished, he said, “You came alone today. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I’d like to see the royal records, please.”
He nodded. “Of course, of course. Follow me, Your Majesty.”
I swam after him, to the room set apart from the rest of the library. Royal Records. Royal Access Only. He produced a key ring, fiddled with the dozens of keys there, and finally slipped one into the lock. He pushed the door open for me but didn’t go in himself.
“Remember now, if you need anything, just call out to me.”
I told him I would and went inside the room, closing the door behind me. It was a small space, with hundreds of conches and kelp parchments, like the outside. Little jellies glowed in a canopy above my head, buzzing in soft colors of yellow, orange, and white.
There was one table in the center of the room, a stone slab with rose quartz bleeding through the cracks.
Taking a breath, I made my way over to the shelves. They were dated back years before I was even born. Years in Thalassar, and in the entire ocean, were not measured like in two-legger lands. The twelve months existed, yes, and yet times changed with the phases of the moon, earth, sun, stars, and tides.
In Draconi, years were measured by seasons and named after their Dragon deities. In Thalassar, the years were measured by the reign of the Malabellas and the queens’ respective consorts.
We were in the forty-fifth year of the Malabella Oriana reign, and yet when Odele married Kai once she turned eighteen, it would become the forty-sixth year of the Malabella Li reign. It was all to make royal records easier, I supposed. Nowadays, the mer tended to speak like two-leggers. No longer speaking of moon months, but of years.
Each shelf was labeled into sections. Royal Deaths. Royal Marriages. Marriage Contracts. Royal Births. Each marked with a different reign, number, and moon phase.
I scanned the shelf of Royal Births, picking up one labeled with Queen Odette’s name on it. I pressed the conch to my ear.
Two-leggers were said to be fascinated with ocean shells, that they could hear the crashing of waves inside. That was only because air and water weren’t compatible, and the vibrations of air on two-legger land could not relay messages or images in conches.
Conches weren’t just for recording images, but for recording voices as well. Documentation in the oldest form of technology.
A low voice spoke into my ear as I pressed it there. “On this Starsday, on the sixth Waning Moon of the Malabella Oriana reign, Queen Odette Malabella Sanitorum has given birth to a healthy mermaid, with all the respective Malabella features. Purple hair and tail, black eyes, refined features. Healthy and baptized as Princess Odessa Malabella Oriana.” I pulled the conch away, confused. The sixth moon? How was that possible if Princess Odele had been born around the thirteenth New Moon after the start of the Malabella Oriana reign? If this was true, that would mean that she had an older sister named after her aunt.
I put the conch back and went over to the Royal Death shelf, and scanned the names. My eyes stopped on a conch with the name: Princess Odessa Malabella Oriana. My heart sank as I picked it up. Odele’s sister... The breath whooshed from my lungs. I placed the conch to my ear.
“At only three Waning Moons old, Princess Odessa Malabella Oriana, daughter to Queen Odette Malabella Sanitorum and King Xristo Oriana, has died of fever, on the ninth moon month of the Malabella Oriana reign.”
I placed the conch back onto the shelf with shaking fingers, and scanned the rest of the shelf, eyes catching attention on another shell, this one dating a few years before the death of Odele’s sister. Princess Odessa Malabella Sanitorum. Her aunt.
I picked it up and pressed it to my ear.
“On this day, Tidesday, Crescent Moon, of the forty-forth year of the Malabella Sanitorum reign, Princess Odessa Malabella Sanitorum, was found dead in her chambers. As the royal medical examiner to the Malabella family, I have studied the cadaver to determine what exactly could cause the death of a seemingly healthy mermaid.
“After examination, the results are conclusive. The princess shows signs of abnormal paleness with blue coloring along the gums and red eyes. The princess died of substance overdose. Likely sea wasp poison.”
I pulled the conch away from my ear, unable to listen to more. The princess, Odele’s aunt, had been poisoned. How? Why? My hands shook. Someone had tried giving me sea wasp poison in my wine. That could have very well been me. Pale, blue gums, red eyes. A cadaver in a morgue.
But how did the kingdom not know how their princess had died? I’d been a baby at the time, so I wouldn’t have known, but surely if she was murdered, it’d still be talked about. The information was lost in time. Or maybe...
My gut clenched uncomfortably. The war with Kappur. Had it been because of this? Had Kappur started the war by poisoning a princess? It was unclear. There was still more to the conch, but I couldn’t listen to it. Not yet. First, I had to know.
I set the conch down on the table and swam out into the library, finding the old, glowing merman behind his desk.
“Find everything you need?”
I shook my head. “I have a question for you...” My breathing was harsh. I fought to steady it. “Do you happen to know how Princess Odessa Malabella Sanitorum, my aunty, I mean, died?”
His old face set into grim lines. “A sad, sad day that was. I’ve worked here for so long. Why, when your mother and aunt were children, I was here.” He stroked his chin, skin dimming to a dull glow. “Now that I think back, there wasn’t much information regarding her death. Heart troubles, they said. You never would have known if you’d seen her and your mother swim about the palace. Wild little things...” He chuckled, then scratched his neck and looked at me curiously. “I’m confused, Your Majesty. You asked me this months ago. Don’t you remember?”
My heart almost stopped right then. You asked me this months ago... I hadn’t been here for that long. Which meant that the real Princess Odele had been. That she’d discovered the exact same thing I had. She’d asked him the same questions. I was on the right track to the truth. I knew it.
I thanked him and went back into the royal records room, picking up the conch again. It had paused where I’d stopped listening, and continued to play when I pressed it to my ear.
“Upon further studious examination of the princess’ body, marks were found to be formed around the area of her stomach, appearing like stretched skin. Because of these indicators, I closely inspected her insides, and what I found was rather alarming. Please note, all of this information was taken to the queen and king on that forty-fourth year. There was a tracing of placenta stuck to her inner uterine walls.” I pulled it away, staring at it with confusion. Placenta? Wasn’t that...? I pressed it back. “After further searching, I’ve concluded that Princess Odessa had given birth, just before she died, and her body hadn’t been properly examined or cleansed.”
Slowly, I placed the conch back in its place and sank to the floor. My brain swam laps, trying to process the information. The queen’s twin sister, Princess Odele’s aunt, had had a child before she died. But, the mermaid had never married. She’d died before her wedding with King Xristo could take place. Her sister, the queen, had married him instead, and then Thalassar and Kappur were plunged to war.
I took a deep breath.
If Princess Odessa had birthed a child out of wedlock, then where was it? And why had they killed her? Who had been the father? I’d come to find answers, and all I got were more questions and confusions.
Somewhere out there, Odele had a cousin, assuming the child had even lived. If they killed Princess Odessa for her indiscretions, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the baby had been killed as well? Or had the child lived, and had Odele discovered this truth and gone in search of her cousin?
I’d come here to pretend to be a princess. To stop a war. Now I found myself on a chase to find the real princess, and suddenly, another missing royal. A royal I knew nothing about. Had the baby been male? Female? Was it dead or alive? Who was the father? Where was Odele?
And more importantly, why was someone out to kill the Malabella family?
My life in the palace was just about to become a whole lot harder.
I dropped my head into my lap and murmured, “Well, silt.”