Chapter 7 #2
“Uncle Saeryn.” Kaden floated upright and clasped his hands behind his back, straightening his posture. He thought about what he said during his mother’s funeral. “You said I should have asked about bringing Angie here.”
Saeryn turned with a jolt, as if Kaden caught him off guard. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. I was taking a rest.” He gathered himself. “I did say that.”
“This is my asking if you would make an exception for her. She’s not here because you banned humans.” Kaden’s skin tightened, recalling Saeryn’s snipe toward Angie. “Not because she didn’t want to support me or pay her respects to my mother.”
Saeryn wrinkled his brow. “Now what kind of example would I be setting if I allowed your lover here, but barred other landwalkers?”
“But you said–”
“Yes, and I thought about it. I’ve decided to uphold my current ban.”
Kaden’s head flinched back. “I–I don’t understand, why can’t she–”
“Don’t you want to talk about anything else? My answer to your question remains no.” He turned his back to Kaden.
Kaden balled his hands into fists at his sides. “Where’s Aunt Cassia?”
Saeryn faced him. “Your aunt is resting in her chambers before she and her sentinels return to her queendom at high suntide.”
“Ah.” Kaden relaxed his hands and made a note to visit her before she left. “Where are our sentinels? Should you not be here alone?”
“I dismissed some of them and will be bringing in my own staff. My most trusted sentinels are on their way,” his uncle said the words nonchalantly, as if he were merely talking about the sea’s routine ebb and flow.
“You just—dismissed them?” Kaden blinked, dumbfounded. “How many?”
“Only the ones who weren’t doing their jobs to protect my sister from harm.
Serapha was killed under their watch.” Saeryn shrugged.
“I have hundreds of estate staff who will come work for me here. They are reliable, steadfast, and loyal, and will ensure no harm comes to me, or the Crown Prince. Or to you, for that matter. They are on their way here as we speak.”
Kaden’s shoulders shook with disbelief, his tail and muscles contracting in response. “They have been with us for most of my life and have spoken their vows to us. You left them all in the trenches?”
“I did not leave them in the trenches, and frankly, I’m offended you would suggest such a thing.” Saeryn’s tone was sharp, his eyebrows slanted downward, and Kaden inadvertently flinched.
“They and their families will be well taken care of and will worry for nothing.” Before Kaden could ask him to elaborate, Saeryn brightened and cut him off before he could say a word. “I did want to talk to you, though, because I want to help you.”
“Help me? How?”
“You know our people’s sentiments toward you are mixed at best since Serapha was killed, yes? Once the rumors started about your involvement with a landwalker being the cause of her death, they were hard to stop.” Saeryn’s gills flared, and he blew out a long stream of bubbles.
Kaden swatted away a large bubble and cringed. “Unfortunately, yes. But how did the rumors start? I thought it wasn’t confirmed that my mother was killed by humans until before her funeral.”
“There were always suspicions. With you being away, our citizens were free to make their judgments of you.” Saeryn leaned against his throne and shook his head, frowning. “Need to salvage your reputation with our people. I haven’t thought of how just yet.”
“I appreciate your help.” To have his uncle, the king, on his side would be a boon to Kaden’s image. Truly, it would be ideal to be here without listening to his people’s disdain or coolness toward him.
“We’re family. We look out for each other.” Saeryn gave him a comforting smile and looked over Kaden’s head, raising an arm to usher the next group of mer citizens in.
Kaden took that as his cue to leave for Cyrus and Adrielle’s bedchambers, twenty tail kicks away from the throne room.
To his pleasant surprise, Cyrus was sitting upright with his back to the wall, nestled into a smooth, stone seat with a flat protrusion over his lap to keep him in place.
Libbi sat on his lap, and he played a game with her, while Hadrien followed Adrielle from their sizable hammock to their stone cabinets, swimming overhead.
The weariness on Cyrus’ face wasn’t lost on him.
The four of them stopped what they were doing when Kaden arrived and Cyrus waved to him. “I thought you would be here earlier.”
“Decided to stop by for a chat with our uncle.” Kaden swam across the spacious room, resting his fatigued tail by loosely wrapping it around a stalactite protruding from the floor.
Beneath his tail was a floor of smooth stone embedded with shells of all sizes, coral formations lining a swim way from the door to the back of the room.
Above his head, more bubblegum, red tree, and octocoral corals and sea sponges lined the ceiling. A small, bright, crimson longxia skittered above their heads, clinging to the coral arms to navigate.
The longxia fell from their perch, antennae and legs frantically waving about, desperate to cling to something solid. Kaden caught them, giving them a push through the windows beside him, and the longxia meandered out to the open sea.
Their hammock, double the size of his and spun with red algae fibers, rested over the rock bed beneath. Two smaller hammocks swayed across from him, side by side.
Cyrus and Adrielle gave him their rapt attention as Kaden recounted the conversation with Saeryn.
“We’ve had our concerns with him in the past tidesweek and have brought them to his attention.” Adrielle fingered her thick braid.
“Oh?” Kaden’s hackles were raised.
“Yes. He’s making plans to retaliate against the humans instead of attempting to seek answers and maintain peace between us.” Adrielle rubbed her face, her gaze glued to Hadrien’s awkward swimming in circles over their heads, and Cyrus put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“And I get the sense from Aiereka, at least in the few times I’ve seen her, that all is not right at home. It’s a hunch I can’t explain, though she insists otherwise.”
“And he’s done nothing to quell our people’s coldness toward you. Insists they have a right to their own opinions.” Cyrus groaned then, clutching at his stomach, and laid his head on the wall behind him. “This Goddess-damned pain strikes at the worst of times.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Kaden asked in a fearful whisper.
He turned his head away when a yu with a broad and flat head, and widely separated eyes brushed much too close to his face, what Angie would call a “blob sculpin”.
They stopped to stare at him with their large heads and beady eyes, waving large pectoral fins at him before wandering off.
“You are okay with animals freely wandering about in your room? I prefer they stay out of mine.”
“I know. But this is their home, too. That’s why we kept the corals here.” Adrielle motioned around them.
“I agree. And they can stay as close to my quarters as they want, as long as they don’t go in.”
A gentle knock came on their door, and Kaden turned his head and body when Adrielle called for whoever was outside to come in.
A mermaid with auburn hair, tied in a series of braids around her head, and a black tail with a deep blue sheen made her way inside.
She carried a stony container. She flashed a hesitant smile at the three of them.
“I’m back with your medicine, Prince Cyrus.
” The mermaid faced Kaden. “Your Highness.”
“This is Raina. Our in-home healer,” Adrielle replied. “Saeryn sent her.”
Kaden raised an eyebrow. He stayed quiet as Raina swam to Cyrus, opening the container and handing it to him. His brother drank the medicine inside and his head fell back against the wall behind him.
“This should last you until low suntide. I will go ahead and make a new batch for you once you are asleep.” Raina stayed, floating, but Cyrus and Adrielle were talking amongst each other.
Adrielle’s request came back to Kaden earlier, asking him to talk to a healer. “Raina? Do you have a moment?”
“Sure. As long as Prince Cyrus and Princess Adrielle have no further needs of me.” She looked to them and Cyrus shook his head.
Kaden explained to her what he was feeling. The aches in his chest, and fatigue and weakness after using his magic, the symptoms worsening each time he did.
“I thought you looked a bit pale and tired,” Cyrus spoke up.
Kaden’s lips quirked to one side. “Speak for yourself.”
“Hah, you and I are one and the same.” Cyrus chuckled weakly.
Raina looked over Kaden from the top of his head to the tip of his tailfins and pursed her lips. “You look like you’ve been drained. What you’re telling me is consistent with using your magic and lifeforce too quickly without giving it a chance to replenish itself.”
Kaden’s stomach clenched and folded in on itself. He’d been giving his magic nearly every tidesday to Angie since she started school. Two tidesyears. What had he done? “Then why have I not started feeling this until a tidesyear ago? I had been using my magic almost daily until and since then.”
“You’ve been fatiguing your system at a haima’s pace, but when you started showing symptoms, that is when your body became overwhelmed. A warning for you to slow down,” Raina replied.
“All I need to do is rest?”
“Yes, don’t use your magic. Sparingly, if you must. The more you use it, the stronger the magic, the faster it will ail you until you become too frail to swim.” Raina’s words carried a warning tone. “You can also bond with a mermaid or merman and exchange your magic.”
He was never going to bond with a mer, but Kaden gave her a nod of understanding.
It seemed simple enough, considering he and Angie wouldn’t be able to see each other for some time, at least, not while he was in the Northern Queendom. Perhaps by the time he could see her again, he would be cured. All he had to do was not use magic. He could do it.