13. Changes | Lyra
Lyra curled into a ball on her bed. She was stunned to have made it out of the council room with her head still on her shoulders.
But she still didn’t know where to go from here.
Seeds of doubt struggled to take root, burrowing under her skin and into her chest.
Had he truly abandoned her?
Lyra ripped the roots out with each slow breath.
Wilder, Maelys, Ridge, and Otto had not used her.
Lyra’s feelings towards them and theirs towards her had been real. They were her friends and understood her in a way no one had before.
Wilder would come for her.
His inaction did not mean that he had given up.
They were just regrouping.
Estria’s words resurfaced in her mind, however.
No one is coming to save you.
Lyra sat up reflexively and shook her head. It had been only a few minutes, but she had forgotten.
Forgotten who she was and what she was capable of.
No one was coming to save her.
That was fine.
She was going to be fine. No one had ever rescued her down here before.
Why should now be any different?
Her plans did not need to change.
Lyra needed to learn her magic so that she could do it on her own.
Sure, it was going to be difficult to learn how to wield her magic in a kingdom that would not see her use it or even speak of its existence. But she could figure this out.
It’d be easier if her friends were here. She hadn’t realized how much she had taken their support and belief in her for granted until now.
Otto’s words from before sprang to her mind. “I know what you are capable of …”
If only she had Otto here to tell her what to do.
Otto.
An idea hit her like a bolt of lightning.
She didn’t know if he could see her, but if he could, she could get a message to Wilder.
Lyra rose from her bed and faced the polished sea glass on her vanity. She squeezed her eyes shut.
What would she even say?
Wilder would want to know that she was safe, if Otto hadn’t seen that part already, and what her next steps were going to be.
She took a deep breath and reached for the necklace that usually nestled against her chest.
Its absence had her eyes flashing open and a groan slipping from her lips.
From the moment it had been placed around her neck, she had never taken it off. It had been a gift she received as a newborn. A gift from her mother.
Her mother.
The anguish slid slick off her heart like oil, and she struggled to breathe without crying out.
Her poor mother.
“This might be foolish … but I am alright, and I am sorry—for letting them take me.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, infusing strength into her words and mind.
“I had no other choice.” Her voice trembled again, and she took another steadying breath.
“I met with the council, and I was forced to tell them about my feelings for you.”
She ground her teeth. This was foolish.
She had no way of knowing if this would make it to him, or how he would ever respond.
Or if he would even care.
Unless … she could command it?
What would she even say?
Let him speak to me?
That seemed rudimentary, with a wide berth for error.
Lyra still didn’t know enough about her magic to try something like that.
Her reflection stared back at her from the sea glass.
Lyra touched her cheek just below her eyes. Eyes that were wide and full of anguish.
Eyes that would have been full of tears had she been on land.
“If you can see me, I—I miss you all.”
As her eyes closed, she imagined Wilder, his face and the warmth in his eyes, and how it felt when he held her.
A burst of rage surged through her, and she could see the throne room at the Wilds.
Her door was thrown open, and Angler and Fang launched through it, spears at the ready.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she snapped, rubbing the sides of her head.
“We heard voices,” Angler said by way of explanation.
Voices? She paused.
Had they actually heard her?
Lyra cleared her throat.
“Yes—I was asking you to bring me Marina.”
She floundered for any excuse, but that had actually been a good idea.
Maybe Marina could help her, or at the very least explain to her what has been happening around here.
Fang and Angler shared a look.
“Did Drystan not order you to bring me whatever I wanted?”
Fang grumbled something that sounded like spoiled, but Angler reluctantly nodded.
“Then fetch her for me at once!”
Lyra turned her back on them and began pulling the pins out of her hair. “Now.”
The door clicked to a close, and Lyra pulled the rest of her hair down. When she placed the last pin on the vanity, she rubbed her tender scalp.
Hopefully, Marina wasn’t as disgusted with her in the way the council was. But there’d be no way of knowing that until she spoke to her.
Lyra pondered all the ways she needed to carefully explain what had happened on land while simultaneously getting information from Marina about what was going on in Atlantis.
Time passed slowly, like an anchor dragged along the seabed. Lyra had almost given up completely on the guards following her request before the door cracked open and Marina slipped through.
Lyra was out of her seat in an instant.
Marina’s shoulders were drooped, and a frown tugged on her lips, but she appeared otherwise uninjured. Her midnight-black hair was piled up with pearls placed carefully throughout her tiny braids.
The black of her scales glittered in the dim light, and Lyra was struck mute by the otherworldliness Marina exuded.
She had always been beautiful, but in Lyra’s absence, Marina had bloomed.
The pang between her ribs made Lyra realize just how much she’d missed seeing a familiar face.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she breathed, pulling Marina in for a hug.
Marina was a statue as Lyra wrapped her arms around her and squeezed.
Lyra pulled away and peered at a horrified Marina. Her lips parted and her eyes wide.
They had never hugged, not once, in all the time they had known each other. Lyra had never displayed any sort of affection before.
“What has gotten into you?” Marina hissed, slamming the door closed behind her to hinder the prying eyes of the sentries outside.
“Nothing.” Lyra shrugged. “I was just happy to see you, is all.”
Marina frowned. “Happy? To see me?”
Lyra huffed a breath and sat on the edge of her bed, stretching out her fins before her. “I was so worried that you had been hurt during the Tithe.” She talked rapidly, gesturing wildly with her arms. “Then I was worried that you would think I ran away.”
Marina crossed her arms over her chest. The burgundy kylix she wore was encrusted with rubies and silver pearls, and it made her dark skin glow as if lit from within.
“I assumed something terrible must have happened to you, but Seraphina would tell anyone who would listen that you were a coward.”
Of course she had.
Lyra held her breath as Marina continued.
“I, on the other hand …” she struggled for words and awkwardly placed a hand on Lyra’s shoulder. “I am glad you have returned.”
Lyra grinned at Marina’s hand before looking at her. “What happened while I was gone?”
Marina floated across the expanse of Lyra’s room before taking a seat at her vanity with a huff. The tips of her fins were veined with silver, and it was such a beautiful contrast to the gleaming onyx scales.
“I think you should go first,” Marina replied, leveling Lyra with a look that brokered no room for argument.
Lyra nodded, knowing that her side of the story would be more interesting than the monotony that came from living beneath the waves.
Life above was a marvel to most sea folk.
So she launched into her tale with gusto. From the night of her kidnapping to training, the tour of the kingdom, Ostara, and meeting her mother.
She strategically left key details out, like the intimacy between her and Wilder, her magic, killing Igneous, and the friends she had made there. But those were all things that would stay hers.
Marina was stunned by each new revelation, gasping and clutching at the strands of necklaces that wrapped around her throat.
“That was not what we were told …” Marina said with a shake of her head after Lyra finally finished.
The globes around Lyra’s room flared to life, the glowing luminescence brightening the dark space with blue-and-white lights.
“Your turn,” Lyra prodded, feeling anxiety coil around her.
She had worked out the basics: that Drystan had murdered her father and taken the throne, but she had yet to hear the details.
“It was awful. The entire kingdom believed your father had coerced the elves into abducting you as a way to get you out of the marriage.”
Lyra felt as though the breath had been forcibly pulled from her chest, and it left her gasping.
“What?”
Marina nodded. “Apparently, you hadn’t been very subtle in your repulsion of Drystan, and Aegir was convinced your father wanted to help you out of the arrangement.
When the scouts returned, they told us you had been kidnapped by elves.
Drystan sent the wulvers after them to get you back, but when the Prince of the Wilds defeated them, and they came back empty-handed—Drystan was furious. ”
Lyra’s nostrils flared with her reproach. She had killed Igneous, not Wilder.
But that little snippet of information Lyra tucked away for later.
“Aegir?” Lyra pressed. “Who?—”
“There’s more,” Marian cut her off. “Before King Auris was slain, things around here … changed.”
Lyra’s brow furrowed, but Marina remained perfectly blank, as if she were worried that any reaction might set Lyra off completely.
“How so?”
Marina clutched Lyra’s hand and lowered her head. “King Auris appointed a Tidal Master.”
Lyra had read about the position, but one had never been appointed before. “Why?”
Marina shook her head. “At first, I thought it was merely figurative, but then he started making decrees.”
“Who is it? And what kind of changes?”
Marina was silent for a moment, as if trying to find a way to best describe this merman and his position.
“Aegir is the Tidal Master.”
Marina said it as if Lyra should know already who that was.
“Aegir? Is he from Zeal?”
“No, he’s from one of the outlying territories,” Marina shrugged it off.
It dug at Lyra.
“Outlying territories?” she questioned. “That’s all the territories outside of Atlantis!”
Marina nodded, but her eyes were saying more than her lips were. “I know. But no one knows exactly where he came from.”
“And what does a Tidal Master do?”
“He’s in charge of the ‘morality of merfolk.’” Marina swallowed forcibly. “From our ceremonies to the way merfolk behave and everything in between.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed as she thought through the vague answer.
In her absence, her father had created a new position of power that more than likely centered around the lack of equality that mermaids had.
“Let me guess,” she muttered. “This Tidal Master has focused the bulk of his power on the imprisonment and subjugation of mermaids?”
Marina’s eyes skittered to the closed door before meeting Lyra’s gaze.
Lyra read the answer in her reaction. “And where does Aegir reside?”
Marina licked her lips and hesitated before she responded. “Here. In the palace. But Lyra—listen—those who speak out against him are punished. You must be careful.”
Lyra plucked at the netting on her kelp mattress. Aegir was a complication she had not accounted for.
But it wouldn’t stop her from completing her bargain. She would just stay well away from him. With the big changes already laid out between them, Lyra dug into the smaller facets of information.
They talked late into the night, as Marina described how the princes began the revolt, but Drystan had finished the job. He had killed her father in the throne room. There had been no witnesses.
The princes had used their private soldiers to hold off the royal guard, and as King Auris fell, his guards surrendered.
There was no one left who had been loyal to her father, or knew about her magic, and there were even fewer who would be loyal to her.
It had been difficult for her to sleep after Marina had left.
Images of sobeks and murderous guards circled her mind until sleep finally found her.
It was a dreadful, unrestful night.