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I awoke the next day to an empty space on the bed beside me, feeling sick to my stomach. I pressed my palm into the space, assuring myself it was true. The cushions were cold. Vast. Empty.
I sighed and got up, aware that the room felt suddenly much more empty without Odalaea to fill the spaces. Even if she’d only filled it with judgmental glares and disapproval, I still missed it.
A part of me suddenly hated her for this. For what she was forcing me to go through, but I pushed those emotions aside and got up to get ready for the day ahead of me.
It felt strange, to prepare to do something other than sneak around the palace. But do it I must.
After I got dressed for the day, I braced myself and swam out into the hall to meet with my gaggle of guards. Tiberius wasn’t among them. Good. This would be difficult enough without him there. I straightened, tilting my chin up in a gesture of defiance I’d long since dominated.
“Take me to the queen,” I commanded.
So they did.
My stepmother was every bit as regal as I remembered, even so early in the morning. Even I, with all the hatred I possessed solely for her, was impressed with how put together she seemed. She sat tall upon her coral and gold throne, stroking the arm of it almost menacingly. Her hair was coiled tightly upon her head, pulling her face into an equally tight expression. Her dress was simple, in colors of bright yellow and orange, the colors making her blinding. As if she wanted to deter the mer from looking her in the eye.
So I met her gaze straight on, the gaze of my mother’s murderer. I was hardly able to spare a second glance to my father, seated quietly beside her. It hurt too much, the sight of him with her, a broken merman in the place of what he used to be. No, instead I looked to the mer responsible for his hardships, for mine. The one who had driven away everything I loved, any happiness I might have had.
“Mother,” I greeted. “Good morning.”
She glared at me without reservation. “What do you want, little mer?” she demanded. “I grow bored with your presence already.”
Ah, I smiled. So she couldn’t tell Odalaea and I apart.
I spread my hands wide, made my smile even wider. “Is that a proper greeting for your beloved stepdaughter? And here I thought I’d be welcomed back with hugs and tears after my long absence.”
There was satisfaction in seeing her face suddenly pale, her lips forming into a thin line. Her eyes widened as she took me in, her gaze roaming down to my tail, where her eyes narrowed. As if she could see through my skirts to ascertain whether or not my fins were whole.
Whether I was who I said I was.
To ease her doubts, I hiked my skirts up scandalously to expose my fins, the wholeness of them. A moment later, I dropped them, and a gasp tore from my father’s throat.
“Odele?”
I finally turned to look at my father, loathing to take my eyes off of the queen for even a moment. “Hello, daddy.”
The king got up from his throne, his eyes wide with disbelief, as if he dared not hope I was real lest he find himself heartbroken all over again. The one thing I regretted about this whole thing was hurting him, for I loved him dearly.
He swam with uneven strokes towards me, his movements jerky and inelegant as he descended his dais and came before me, so close that we could touch. “Is it really you?” he pleaded.
“In the flesh, daddy.”
With a cry, my father pulled me into a tight hug, an action that made me blink with surprise. I couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d hugged me. I’d been a child, for sure. After the death of my mother, we’d grown apart, drifted in different directions of pain and coping until we hardly knew each other at all.
The queen’s voice tore us apart. “Captain Saber!” she shrieked. I looked up at her, watching as she seemed to fall apart before my eyes like the crumbling dust of old stone. She frantically turned to a guard. “Bring Captain Saber here at once!”
The guard bowed and quickly swam away. When he did, the queen glared at me.
“Where have you been, you foolish child?”
My father put a protective hand over mine. “Perhaps we should wait—”
“No!” she shrieked at him. “Mind yourself, King, for you are not ruler here. I will know what your spoiled daughter has been doing, where she has been, and I will know it now.”
My whole body tensed. I didn’t like the way she was speaking to my father, the way she’d always spoken to him, as if he were somehow less than her.
“I will tell you everything, of course.” I smiled venomously, as venomously as she taught me to be.
Just then, the doors opened, and I didn’t need to look to know that it was Tiberius. He’d followed me so long, I recognized the loom of him like a shadow.
He stopped by my side, bowed to the queen, then to my father and I, keeping his face impassive. “You called for me, Majesty?”
The queen pointed an accusing finger in my direction. “Why did you not inform me that my stepdaughter had returned?” she accused.
Tiberius turned to look at me, and his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open when his eyes searched mine, obviously recognizing me for who I truly was. He hadn’t known it would take this turn. None of us had. And I’d be the one to bear the bad news.
“He did not know.” I smiled. “No one did. I only arrived last night.”
The queen’s nails dug into the arm of her throne. I saw bits of it crumble down to the floor. Her anger only fueled my own desire for vengeance. She turned to Tiberius and commanded him from between gritted teeth, “Go fetch me the other one.”
Tiberius stilled, and with good reason. It’s what we’d thought she’d try to do all along. Get us together... and kill us both.
“If by ‘the other one’ you mean that filthy Lagoona commoner you tried to replace me with, then she’s not here.”
“What do you mean she’s not here?” the queen shouted.
An eyebrow rose high on my forehead as I let amusement flitter through the words of my reply. “Precisely that. She is gone. Left, in the middle of the night.”
The queen rose then, straightening in her formidability to loom over us, her and the ostentatious crown of my mother, and my mother’s mother before her. But I was not frightened, if that had been what she’d set out to make me feel.
“How did she leave the palace with no one taking notice? And who helped her leave?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I let her go.” When the queen’s glare seemed to become a prominence on her features, I added with glee, “I hardly saw the need to keep her here since her purpose has been fulfilled.”
“Where is she?”
“Gods if I know. I gave her a handful of coins and she left. My guess? Probably Brague. Or Ventlair. If we’re lucky, Kappur.”
“You insolent little—”
“Do not speak to my daughter that way,” my father interrupted, a slow sign of rising rage over his features. It startled me, to hear him defend me so openly, so freely.
The queen sat back down on her throne. Her anger heating the waters, palpitating around us, making goosebumps rise over my skin. I fought back a shiver of weakness, trying not to let her affect me.
After a few tortured moments of silence, she finally spoke, her words coming out in a whoosh of breath. “Very well, then. It is done, and now we can proceed as originally planned.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “You will marry Prince Kai. I trust you are here to stay and do your duties this time around?”
Like I had a choice?
“Of course.”
“Good,” she sneered. “Now get out and go do them.”
“What’s going on?” Tiberius hissed, so obviously fighting the urge to tug at my arm like an Uncharted savage.
“Not here,” I replied. There were eyes everywhere, and it was hard to discern who we could even trust. Anyone of his trusted guards tailing after us could be in cohorts with my stepmother. I’d not risk our mission. My mission. “Find Kai,” I ordered quietly, too worried to bother with any unsavory nicknames. This was too important.
And I needed to speak urgently with them both.
And prayed they could handle the truth of our betrayal.
They assembled in my room for a chat before the seamstress was to arrive for the final gown fitting. Dread coiled in my belly as I took a seat demurely before Tiberius and Kai. Both looked confused, and both looked eagerly around the room for Odalaea.
“You won’t find her,” I told them. “She’s gone.”
A breath of silence followed, one I could only interpret as disbelief. Nothing was doused in clarity yet, but soon they’d see. A part of me hated Odalaea for this. Usually, I didn’t care who I hurt, because after all, nobody truly mattered to me. And while I didn’t care for Tiberius or Kai, the news would be a blow to them, one I knew they’d not swim away from intact.
But they had to.
For the good of Thalassar, they had to.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Tiberius demanded impetuously. “Stop kidding around. This isn’t funny, Odele.”
“I’m not joking. Odalaea left. She’s gone.” And every moment of her absence killed me inside.
“Well, where did she go?” Kai asked, his voice a quiet calm that rose the flesh on my arms uncomfortably. There was a hidden danger in those depths, like the calm before the storm. Like the calm before a volcano erupted.
“I do not know. She did not tell me. She just left with Elias.” I could still remember her parting words like a blow to the face. ‘I can’t marry Kai. It has to be you.’ I took a deep breath, and my throat tightened. I was not one to convey my emotions so openly, so I tried to push the sensations aside. Tried to tilt my head just a bit higher. “She said she doesn’t want to be queen. That she’s not suited for the role.”
Kai’s brown eyes flashed blue, giving me the desire to flinch. “You lie,” he hissed.
My chin tilted even higher as my eyes narrowed. “She’s the liar. She told us all what we wanted to hear last night and escaped with Elias. Neither of them looked back.” My heart thundered, and my stomach lurched.
Captain Saber took me in, from head to tail fin. He’d find no lie, because there was none. Slowly, he let out a breath through his nose. “You’re telling the truth,” he whispered darkly.
“How is that possible?” Kai jerked back. He looked like he’d been punched in the gut, and was reeling from the pain. I’d felt the same way when she told me she was leaving.
“Did you even try to stop her?” Tiberius accused.
I glared at him. “Of course I did. She didn’t listen. I don’t want to be queen, either. I don’t want to marry Kai, but we have no choice now. If we both disappear, the queen stays on the throne forever, and we can’t let that happen.”
Tiberius growled, a low rumble. “You expect me to believe you care?”
Tears welled in my eyes, but I pushed them away, piercing him with a glare. “I don’t. But I promised her...”
‘Promise me you’ll do it. For our mothers, you must promise.’
So I had.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now, and you are stuck with me. The plan is still on, but we will have to make do without Odalaea. Just because she isn’t here doesn’t mean her existence should be hidden any longer. My stepmother must be removed from the throne, and we will do it. Do you understand?”
In their shock, they couldn’t do much but numbly nod.
Good.
I’d thought it’d be much harder to get them to agree.
“You both have jobs to do. Do them.” As the words escaped my mouth, I realized just how much I sounded like my stepmother and felt the curdling pain deep inside me. If that wasn’t proof enough that I didn’t belong anywhere near the throne, then I didn’t know what was.
But I promised Odalaea, on the graves of our mothers, that I would do this.
And it was a promise I dared not break.