Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Kaden
“Brother?”
Pointed pressure on his left tricep roused Kaden.
Groggy, his eyes fluttered open and he groaned. Hadrien was beside him, and poked Kaden again with a small finger.
“Susu wake!” With glee, the merboy propelled across the room, doing a flip midway.
A silky hammock enrobed Kaden’s tail and shoulders. “Wh-what? Hadrien? Cyrus? Where am I?” His torso felt tight, a gelatinous bandage wrapped around the middle of his tail and abdominals, with extra padding on the sides.
His brother sat in his chair across from him and raised a thick, dark eyebrow. “In Adrielle and my bedchambers, where our sentinels brought you three tidal cycles ago.”
“Why am I here and not in the infirmary?” Kaden tucked his tail under him and used his arms to walk himself up onto his elbow and rubbed his face.
“Cyrus and I requested you be brought here for private treatment.” Adrielle glided by. Libbi hung onto her tailfins, giggling, letting her mother bob her up and down with each tail kick.
“Thank you, I appreciate you both doing that.” Kaden’s abdominals protested and clenched as soon as he sat fully upright, curling his tail under the hammock to keep him in place. “That much time passed? Cyrus, you slept there all this time?”
“I’ve learned to find comfort in this hard thing.
” With his tail, Cyrus thumped against the seat’s rocky base.
“Adrielle slept beside our children in the guest chambers.” He clasped his fingers together.
“I also wished to talk to you about the last time we spoke.” His older brother’s comment was another pointy coral piece to his heart as he recalled Cyrus’ blunt words. “I’m sorry.”
Kaden cocked an eyebrow and he couldn’t resist a smile cracking over his face. The last time Cyrus apologized to him was over ten tidesyears ago, and only because he had injured Kaden when they were rough housing and their parents had demanded he apologize.
Perhaps becoming a lifemate and father had softened him a touch.
“Look, I could have worded my own concerns better.”
“Did Adrielle put you up to this?” Kaden continued his teasing, and Cyrus’ smile never faded.
“She might have.”
“Yes, I did. We can’t be driving each other away, not at a time like this.” Adrielle stopped swimming and Libbi let go, swaying with the currents.
“You’re right though. I need to apologize to Angie. I was wrong to hide my health issues from her, and she rightfully felt betrayed.” The second part of Adrielle’s statement hung in his head.
“Did I miss something new while I was out?”
What Cyrus said next might as well have been another spear in his healing wounds.
“Our aunt and uncle are planning a simultaneous attack on human shores. The word spread of humans attacking you, brother. Their betrayal knows no bounds. First our queen and our mother, then they try to assassinate you. And my condition?” Cyrus gestured vaguely over his body. “Humans.”
Tensions with humans were going from bad to worse.
“So that’s why Uncle had been refusing to take me to his military meetings.
He couldn’t have me dissenting.” Kaden blinked as the rest of his face went slack, a shudder in his core.
He touched his bandage again at one of his sides where the divers speared him.
“Couldn’t risk me turning the Shangjiangs to my side.
That rotten xia of a merman.” A wayward yu, or in Angie’s words, a sablefish, nipped at his caudal fins, and he jerked his tail away.
The dark-colored yu meandered away. “I was a fool to ever believe I could make a difference. Being his high advisor is a title, nothing more.”
Adrielle shook her head in disgust. One of her hands was in Cyrus’, and her fingers curled around him, her knuckles paling. Cyrus nudged her and she loosened her grip. “Now you understand my aversion to him. He’s a charmer on the outside, but a haishe on the inside.”
A healer swam to Kaden, handing him a stone bowl with a thick paste inside. “Eat this, Your Highness.”
“Perhaps, Your Majesty soon?” Cyrus’ tone had lightened and Kaden grunted. The notion of becoming King appeared to be more and more of a necessity, especially if both his uncle and aunt were planning war.
But how? Uncle had set the events in motion, and Kaden had to find some way to get him off the throne. It seemed like an impossibility he could achieve before the two monarchs struck land.
“Quiet, you.” Kaden stifled a chuckle while scooping out the paste with a small spoon, and gagged at the gritty, bitter taste.
Still, he forced himself to swallow it. “Just as foul as the first time I took it.” The aftertaste stuck to the back of his throat, and no amount of swallowing got rid of it.
The healer’s face remained impassive as she took the empty bowl from Kaden and left the bedchambers.
A brief thought came to Kaden, of whether their healer would go to Saeryn and tell him of his desire to take the throne.
He pushed the thought away. The healers were sworn to maintain their patients’ privacy, unless they deemed them a danger to themselves or others.
“Try taking that for close to three tidesyears straight. The taste grows on you after a while. Like the taste of accidentally eating rotten kelp.”
Kaden burst out laughing, covering his mouth so he wouldn’t spit out what was left of the paste still on his upper palate.
Cyrus was laughing too, and the sound warmed Kaden’s heart.
It felt like it had been so long since they spent time like this together, reminding Kaden of the time when he found a piece of rotten kelp in his dish when they were children.
Cyrus had his head turned, and Kaden switched out his kelp with a fresh piece of Cyrus’.
Once Cyrus found out Kaden did it, he spent the night chasing Kaden through the palace to give him a piece of his mind.
“Thanks for that. My stomach is killing me now. Always knew you were fast. You were back then, too.” Cyrus put his hands behind his head and leaned against the wall behind him.
“I may be faster, but you were always the stronger one,” Kaden remarked.
“Ah, that’s why we make a good team. We compensate for each other’s weaknesses,” Cyrus replied.
“And strengths.”
“You’re still averse to taking the throne for yourself?” Cyrus asked.
“I don’t know,” Kaden muttered. “I doubt I would do a good job.”
“Why do you feel that way? You truly have so little belief in your own abilities?” Adrielle asked, stroking Libbi’s hair, who had fallen asleep on the princess’ tail.
Hadrien swam his way to Kaden, and sat on the edge of the hammock, trying to balance himself, fluttering his arms and tail.
Kaden stayed mum. His mother’s and uncle’s teasing when he was younger filled his mind.
“Why can’t you be more like Cyrus? Look how much he’s achieved and how much he’s eager to learn.” His mother.
“Are you sure you want to take on such an ambitious project? It might be better if you start smaller, stick with only this queendom.” His uncle, when, as an adolescent, Kaden excitedly shared with him his ambitions of undertaking to explore and document the deep sea, learning of new species and discovering hidden treasures of not only their queendoms, but also neighboring ones.
Kaden’s chin trembled, and a compulsion to flee struck him at the thought of admitting their comments to Adrielle and Cyrus.
He averted his gaze and stared absently at the rock ceiling. “I, erm, I’ll figure it out and address it.”
“That’s a good idea,” Cyrus remarked.
Adrielle called them, and Kaden gave her his attention. “Marina is here, so I’m going to accompany her to get us something to eat. I’ll return shortly.”
Libbi and Hadrien’s keeper, Marina, took their hands, and Libbi awoke with a small cry of protest. Once Adrielle left with them, Cyrus made a hmph sound.
“The twins are growing fast. I would give anything to be out of here and at their sides. One child is energy-draining, and Adrielle has to deal with two, without my help.”
“But you’re able to spend time with them now. And they’re here with you while you recover.” Kaden cocked an eyebrow. “Hopefully it won’t be much longer?”
“I’m unsure.” Cyrus looked toward his lap. “It’s as if I’ve reached a plateau in my recovery. I don’t understand it. Raina and her healers don’t either, but their new medicines are helping.” He motioned to Kaden with his head. “How is your own condition? You haven’t had symptoms lately, have you?”
Kaden shrugged. “Not recently, no. But I’ve also been out for some time.”
“True.”
The two continued their banter until Adrielle swam back in, with a pack slung around the top part of her tail. Kaden knew it held food inside, and his stomach growled.
Thank the Goddess, she had brought enough for both of them. She produced two handfuls of candied, thick kelp from her pack, handing it to both princes. Then, two more handfuls of shiny and crisp pink and white seagrass flowers.
Kaden thanked her and popped the crisp, light petals into his mouth, sating his hunger for now.
He laid his head back down on the hammock as Adrielle leaned in to kiss Cyrus and stayed beside him.
The two ate kelp and flowers together, their conversation switching to something that lost his interest.
His thoughts turned to Angie. He needed to tell her what happened, as soon as he got hold of his seaflute again.
And apologize profusely. I’m sorry needed to be the first words out of his mouth.
So much time had passed since he heard her voice, since he held her in his arms, since he ran his hands through her long, silky hair.
The herbs kicked in then. His head became woozy, his eyelids heavy.
Adrielle and Cyrus’ chatter grew muffled, and Kaden let much-needed sleep overtake him.