Chapter 21
Asta’s vision was blurry as she attempted to take in her surroundings. She could hear thunder in the distance, and there was sand under her palms. Gulls cried from above and a salty pine scent seared into her nostrils, causing her sudden headache to worsen.
The beach. She was on the beach. But what was she doing there? She blinked hard a few times, forcing her eyes to focus.
It was just Asta, the sand around her, the crashing waves inches from her boots and a storm circling above the shore.
Kaid.
Her thoughts cleared in unison with her vision. Where was Kaid? Why had she passed out?
Then, she recalled the shrill sound her sister had made and her memories turned to black after that.
Her sister, who was a finfolk princess. Who had been lying to her this whole time.
Asta racked her brain for any evidence that could have led to solving the puzzle before now, but she couldn’t think of anything.
She didn’t know enough about the mythical beings to actually know what the signs would have been, anyway.
And then there was Kaid. He was some sort of sea folk, but what kind? His tail didn’t match the finfolk tails, which resembled more of an eel shape. Kaid’s tapered down to a fork at the end. A siren, perhaps? Could the statues around the castle be an accurate depiction of what they looked like?
Asta pinched her own arm—convinced she was hallucinating—and yelped.
This is crazy. Last week these creatures weren’t even real and now I’m related to one? Asta gritted her teeth and let out a growl of frustration.
She cracked one knuckle after the other, grains of sand dropping from her fingertips.
There was a faint throb in her left arm from the injuries, but she didn’t care about that right now.
She needed to find her father. He had produced the heir to the finfolk kingdom, and she needed answers.
It was as good a place as any to start, since there was no one left on this beach to interrogate. Her father had to know something.
Her palms pounded on the threshold of the east wing as she entered from the terrace, and Asta did not stop to properly greet every guard and staff member she passed. She didn’t have the patience for formalities currently.
She had a two mile walk down the beach to think about how to confront her father, each rehearsal playing out differently except for one factor—she was unbelievably angry with him. Her fists curled into tight balls at her sides as she stomped through the halls.
A light set of footsteps approached her side and Asta knew it was Linnea without looking.
“What happened?” Her cousin’s usually soft voice a bit on the harsher side.
Asta didn’t look at her lady-in-waiting as she hissed, “That’s what dear old father is about to tell me.”
Linnea gasped at Asta’s tone, which made the princess glance at her. Her cousin had purple bags under her eyes and the whites around her irises were bloodshot.
Asta stopped walking, stifling her fury long enough to speak to her cousin in the soft tone she deserved.
“I’m sorry. Linnea, so much happened last night, and I need to talk to my father before I speak with anyone else about it.
” Asta grabbed Linnea’s hands and squeezed them.
“I want you to go back to my suite and eat, then take a nap. I’m going to see the mender after this, but I promise I’ll be there when you wake up.
Okay? Then, I’ll explain everything I can. ”
Linnea rubbed her wrist, but nodded and drifted away without another word.
As Asta continued stalking down the halls, she stopped a maid to ask that a fruit platter be sent to her suite for Linnea. The maid had scurried away to complete the mission in a hurry, clearly nervous of Asta’s current physical state.
The blonde princess paused outside of her father’s private office, staring at the mahogany double doors that towered over the foyer. She still wasn’t quite sure what she would say to him but decided she would figure it out as she went.
The guards beside the office doors glanced wearily at each other as Asta stepped past them and tapped the doors before flinging them open.
In front of her, a man with hair as white as snow sat at a desk, writing on various papers spread before him.
The windows behind him displayed the main garden, which was now browning from the autumn frosts.
King Botmar removed his glasses and placed them on the desk before him. “Asta, my dear. What is it?”
She waited for the doors to shut behind her, thankful that the guards had stepped in and pulled them closed. “What is Maren?” Asta snapped.
Her father’s eyes went glassy and he stared straight ahead, not at her, but through her. After a long moment, his vision re-focused as he asked, “What were we talking about, dear?”
Asta stepped forward to assess the king. “Maren. Your bastard daughter. What. Is. She?”
The emphasis on the last words caused a ringing in the glass of the oil lamp on the desk.
King Botmar pressed his green eyes shut, the same green as Asta’s. It made her want to ease up, release the invisible death grip she had around her father’s throat, but she couldn’t. He reached his hands up and squeezed his head, like he was fighting something inside his own mind.
Asta asked her final questions in desperation, understanding that she may never know the answer. Something was not right with her father’s memories. “How is it that Maren is finfolk, father? How is it possible?”
There was a stagnant silence in the room. The thickening air caused Asta to breathe heavily. Her father began shaking uncontrollably in rhythm with the quivering flame of the lamp.
The king’s eyes snapped open and his gaze shifted around the room as though he were seeing it for the first time. He covered his mouth with an unsteady hand and began weeping softly.
Asta took a cautious step forward. “Father?”
His wide stare slowly turned to her, sorrow flooding them and overflowing down his wrinkled cheeks. “I remember… something. The finfolk… they are real?”
Asta waved a hand through the air. “Well I would say so since I just fought for my life against them! What do you remember? Tell me. Now.”
King Botmar inhaled deeply multiple times, though it did nothing to diminish his shaking.
“I have these dreams. Well, nightmares.” He forced his eyes closed once more, exhaustion visibly taking over him.
“The finfolk are real. They storm the castle and take Maren away from me over and over again. She gets swept into the sea as she reaches for me and I can do nothing about it.”
“And you just so happened to keep these nightmares to yourself all this time? You never wondered what they meant?” Asta’s face felt hot and she couldn’t help but pace. Her knuckles begged for relief and she cracked each one.
“I couldn’t remember them each time I woke up, until now. It’s as though they were wiped from my memory until you confirmed their existence. There’s so much missing. There are black holes in my mind.” He gasped, “Oh gods, the things I’ve done. The things people believe I’ve done.”
The king’s hands shook as he searched his pockets and pulled out a cloth to dab his eyes.
“What do you remember? Is it about Maren?” Asta reeled in her anger at the sight and tried to approach the situation more gently, not fully understanding what was happening.
“I’m so sorry, my sweet, for what lies you’ve been told. For the life you’ve had to live because of me.” The king spoke through rattled breaths, his whole body trembling.
Asta didn’t know why, but she trusted him. She trusted this reaction—that it was genuine. “Tell me everything.”
And so, King Botmar Enrathi told his tale.
Over twenty years ago, he had met a strange navy-haired woman during a royal ball and approached her to inquire about her bold style.
They exchanged pleasant conversation throughout the ball, the king always checking in with his wife to make sure she was faring well on her own—which she always had.
But then someone approached him and sang a strange song to him, and he felt an undeniable need to follow the blue-haired woman out of the ball and up to his suite.
The more the stranger sang, the harder it became to resist the advances of the blue-haired woman.
She seduced him fully, taking him to his own bedroom where they conceived Maren.
When they emerged, she told him who she was, Queen Yrsa, ruler of the finfolk.
A strange song came over him again and he listened as Yrsa explained that she would leave during her pregnancy, but return to pass the child to him to raise when she was born.
On Maren’s birthday, the finfolk queen returned, as she promised, and abandoned her child with King Botmar.
Through song and a strange liquid the queen made him drink, the king’s memories were altered once more, so that he would think Maren was the child of a noble.
A bastard child that he was claiming to his royal line.
The scandalous rumors spread from there, and Botmar had spiraled with them.
His entire memory became addled, not solely his ability to remember Maren’s conception.
He hardly remembered making any decisions during the last twenty-two years.
It was a miracle the kingdom wasn’t in complete ruin.
But hearing what Maren was from someone who knew with absolute certainty broke him free of his spell, allowing his thoughts to solidify and make sense once more.
Asta didn’t know how to react, aside from dropping into the nearest chair she could find.
Her father wasn’t an unfaithful git. He wasn’t so dependent on alcohol that his brain was permanently damaged.
His memories had been tainted. He had been spelled to believe those things of himself, and she had treated him terribly because of it.
Her conception was an act of putting on a united front, but it never should have happened. Her mother never should have died birthing a child that was only brought into the world because of the trickery of a ruthless sea creature.
“She is a sea witch, Asta,” King Botmar admitted, shaking his head. “She can do more than an average finfolk. She possesses magic of electric currents. Queen Yrsa is not only dangerous, but living death itself.”
The hair on Asta’s arms stood up and a tingle ran over her body. She took a step toward her father’s desk and spoke softly. “Maren has returned to sea and taken Lord Kaidian with her. What do we do, father?”
It was the first time Asta had ever asked advice from her father. He must have realized it, too, because despite the overbearing weight of truth that had just fallen over him, he smiled.
King Botmar’s voice was gentle, like a father reassuring a daughter’s should be. It was a tone she was entirely unfamiliar with. “I will send out rescue ships. I have rough knowledge of where the Ryktarvan kingdom hides. We’ll find them.”
Them.
Asta didn’t have the heart to tell her father that Maren was never coming home.