Chapter Eighty-One Rhea
A wedding .
There was a point, not all that long ago, that I might have preened at the idea of planning a wedding.
That the mention of such a thing would have made my heart flutter instead of having it fall to my stomach.
I suppose there are a lot of things about my life that I thought I would be excited about that now just seem obsolete.
The days following what I had done in the throne room proceeded in a blur of healing the king’s army in small groups and being forced to participate in preparations for my upcoming wedding.
The servants are wary of interacting with me, but a few take pity and explain what is to be expected as they ask for my approval on things I cannot even drum up enough energy to form an opinion on.
They assume my quiet demeanor is due to being overwhelmed with marrying the king.
They can’t possibly know that this entire ordeal is nothing more than a funeral procession and that each task they check off their list as they unknowingly prepare me to marry my own blood is nothing more than another step towards an already dug grave.
I move through the motions, certainly not blaming them for doing the job the king demands.
I numbly try on a dress that is wrapped in shimmering white fabric.
I let them pick a veil to match and simply nod to whatever flowers are put down in front of me.
There is a cake tasting with the king at my side, every single piece as flavorless as the air that surrounds us.
I can hardly find it within me to pretend to be present, only doing enough to not incite his wrath.
I might have found it worth it to fight him every step of the way before, but I had underestimated him.
I had so foolishly assumed my uncle’s cruelest measures were reserved for only me, and he had somehow proven that to be both false and true.
My defiance had destroyed the lives of so many others—a child completely innocent in all of this.
A servant only trying to help me. Tienne and Immie.
Sterling and his wife. In the end, that defiance destroyed me too.
Who I am—all of my desires and wishes—has been washed away in the wake of what I couldn’t stop from happening.
He had taken those seeds of hope I had so carefully planted and torn them up one by one until there was nothing left.
I want to blame him fully—to scream that his attempts to break me have finally worked.
And yet, even in that recognition, there is another truth.
One that reminds me all of this could have been avoided had I just trained with both halves of my magic.
Had I not been lured out so fucking easily by my love for Nox and my own ravaging guilt over Tienne’s death.
If I had spent the time I was free actually doing the hard things instead of just leaning into everything that felt easy and secure and safe, then maybe, the lives of those who I had irrefutably changed could have been different.
My own life would be different.
Reflecting on the past is a foolish endeavor, and I’ve already proven my inanity a hundred times over. Blood still stains my hands just as permanently as the brand has altered my hip.
Sitting on the settee with silver moonlight pouring over me, I stare out the glass slider to the dark sky above.
Rain rhythmically pelts the castle, a bone-piercing chill accompanying it.
Wrapping my silk robe around my body, I clutch the fabric tightly, wishing my hands were holding something else.
Someone else. I had whispered to him in my mind so many times lately, only one question ever asked—where are you?
There has been no news from the Mage Kingdom, nothing Xander has shared as he walks with me to meet the next round of guards waiting to be healed.
His attempts to talk to me about anything other than Nox are met with quiet but steadfast disregard on my end.
It is rude—bitter—of me to still find it difficult to talk to him, but even if the heat of my anger has begun to cool, the truth is that I just don’t have the energy to engage in any conversation.
What did it matter when it was just us coming to the same conclusion over and over again?
Xander claims he wants to help me but hasn’t been able to figure out how he can yet.
I want to escape, but there is no answer to getting the ring off.
To somehow finding the loophole in the king’s commands that are keeping me here.
Until we have a solution to any one of those questions, everything else seems inconsequential.
Just another cog in the wheel of my torture here.
Then there is Eve who, true to her word, was waiting for me to return after the horrors I committed in the throne room.
After I was commanded to swear myself to the king in blood.
She did not try to fill the silence that blanketed the room when I entered, understanding that sometimes, there were no words that could be said.
Instead, she took one look at the blood streaking my hands and chest, the rest blending into the crimson gown I had worn, and started a hot shower.
She waited in the sitting room while I scrubbed my skin raw.
As I washed my hair twice over, too lost in what had happened to notice that the water had grown cold until my body was trembling beneath it.
When I emerged from the bathroom, a cup of hot tea was thrust into my hands, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I said nothing as she guided me to bed.
Eve had stayed the entire night, quietly sitting next to me.
I wasn’t sure if she quite understood just how little sleep found me most nights or if there was something else that drove her to take care of me the way she did.
Her generosity and kindness had been as devastating as it was sweet.
I knew her days were full of tasks given to her by the king, yet she spent whatever free time she was allowed with me.
I had been slow to trust my handmaiden, but now the very reason for that hesitance is also etched into my own palm.
A scar to show that I too am bound to the king in yet another way.
Eve slipped into my room every night afterward, sometimes bringing food for us to share and books or stories of her day in the castle.
And it was sweet—had been sweet—for her to continue to do it despite the lack of conversation I offered in return.
But tonight, I told her not to come. Begged, really.
For tomorrow brings another meeting with the sirens, the king having informed me during our dinner.
He had not forced me to drink wine tonight, likely due to that meeting, and so I stay awake and stare at the night sky.
Wishing, shamefully, that I had the haze of wine to coat my mind so I could not feel all the things that continuously threaten to pull me under.
And beneath the pitter patter of the rain falling, I ask myself that quiet question, one that I know there is no answer to. Where are you?
“You are growing weaker,” Queen Amari chides as she looks at me, the ice in her voice making my shoulders lift.
King Dolian’s hand flexes on the small of my back, my balance having gone unsteady after the last siren I poured my magic into.
Her dark eyes flick from me to him before narrowing as she drums her fingers along her golden trident. “Why is that?”
The king tips his head to the side as if in thought. “We have been busy preparing for our wedding,” he says, fingers pressing more firmly against me. “The excitement has likely just made her tired.”
Queen Amari smirks as she returns that terrifying gaze to me. “Is that so?”
While beautiful, the siren queen’s features do not hide just how deadly a predator she is.
Her lethality is present in the muscles of her arms and her toned legs, how her eyes watch both the king and I and the guards that stand behind us.
With the exception of Xander, who flanks my other side.
The sun plays off the deep purple scales that line her hips and breasts, some glinting on her arms and the sides of her torso.
Her voice is as regal as the king’s, but her tone hits with more lush notes.
“No,” she answers in my silence, lifting a finger that a black talon now protrudes from and dragging it down my cheek as she leans in closer. “I don’t think that’s it at all. Tell me, Rhea, what has drained you so? Where else have you been using that wonderful magic?”
My gaze widens at the rush of power that infiltrates my mind, powerful currents of it drag me deeper and deeper, making any command given by the king look weak in comparison. “Healing the king’s army.”
Her smile sharpens, dark eyes gleaming as she turns her attention to the king. He doesn’t cower beneath that menacing glare, though his hand continues to push down on my back like he’s hoping to make an imprint of it through the fabric of my dark blue dress.
“This can’t come as that big of a shock,” he says coolly. “I must make sure my kingdom is as adequately protected as yours is.”
“It isn’t a shock. I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t done so.
” Pulling away from me, Queen Amari looks back over her shoulder at her waiting sirens.
Each of them stand at attention, waiting for whatever command their queen will give them.
“But I would be remiss if I did not remind you that I don’t appreciate being deceived.
” The shift in her tone is immediate, as is the way Xander’s hand grips the hilt of his sword in response.
“These are delicate times, Your Majesty. Despite our working arrangement, I was not sure if you would appreciate knowing my army is as free moving as yours.”
Queen Amari laughs, brushing the long strands of her black curls off her shoulder, revealing one half of her bare chest completely to us. “When is the joyous occasion?”
“Three weeks’ time,” he answers, somewhat reluctantly.
It’s the first time I am hearing just how close we are to being married, and yet the information doesn’t pull terror or anger from me.
It doesn’t make me bristle or curl my fingers towards my palms. Instead, my vision glazes over as a dull sound that might be something as benign as the wind or as damning as the screams of the men I had killed plays in my ear.
“Excellent. You may add myself and my daughters to the guest list. We’ll arrive the evening before for Rhea to heal us and another batch of my legion.”
Three weeks. That hardly seems like any time at all to escape.
I have already been here in the Mortal Kingdom for at least double that amount—or was it more?
I don’t quite know. If I look at the passage of time as told by the seasons, the warm autumnal evenings have given way to bitterly cold nights, and my once favorite golden, red, and orange-hued leaves on the trees have all transformed into brittle, brown clumps on the ground, ice clinging to them in the mornings.
“Think this through, Queen Amari,” King Dolian says, a sharp edge to his voice. “By coming, you’re revealing that you have the power to cross through the Spell. Right now, that knowledge is known only to us.”
“I do not fear anyone finding out that my people can now access the very land they were promised. Let it serve as either a reminder or a threat that we are very much a part of this continent and the time of keeping us stuffed beneath the sea is over.”
After those ominous words, the queen and her sirens retreat, and when they have all disappeared beneath the surface, the king turns to me, his hazel eyes burning bright.
“Starting tomorrow, you will heal battalions at a time. No more small groups.” His hand moves to cup the side of my face, surprise crossing his own when I don’t attempt to lean away.
“Your magic is powerful,” he continues, thumb brushing the apple of my cheek.
“And you will help prepare us for any threat that might attempt to separate us.”
I don’t bother telling him that I don’t think I can manage healing more than I already am.
It won’t matter, not as magic suffocates me like my head has been pushed beneath water.
He forces me to look at him, my eyes taking in every minute detail of his face against my will.
I watch his eyes soften, even as the corner of his mouth kicks up in silent victory.
Yes, I want to say, you’ve won. Maybe I do speak it because then he is leaning in, not with command but as if he’s testing my crumpled resolve.
That discordant sound in my ears grows louder, my vision doubling when he presses his lips to mine.
I can’t feel if they are soft or rough, can’t detect the coarseness of his beard scraping against my cheek.
There is nothing as he lingers there, kissing me but not.
I’m an imposter in my own body, watching from the outside. A shell of a woman.
Only when Xander begins to address his guards to head to the carriages does King Dolian pull back, that smirk framed within his beard deepening.
“I love you,” he says. Love. As if he could ever understand what it is to love.
To be in love. I don’t respond, but he doesn’t seem to care as he turns and places one of my hands in the crook of his bent arm, leading us off the beach.
My head aches the entire way, but I settle into the pain as I stare out of the carriage window, watching the landscape pass by in a blur.
This is not the story I wanted for myself, to become an unwilling main character in a tragedy that was supposed to be a fairytale.
How much longer will I endure hoping for a future that might never come?
How much am I willing to let those in power use me until I become someone unrecognizable?
Until I became the villain of my own story?