Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ahurricane would have been calmer than what was stirring up in the throne room.
The storm had no eye—only fury. Nobles rose from their seats like sea-swept trees, voices crashing into each other like thunder against stone.
Their silken robes swirled with their gestures, colorful and violent as flapping storm flags.
Accusations flew like hailstones, ricocheting off stone pillars and flaring tempers.
Some shouted for war. Others demanded arrest. One even dared to suggest abdication.
Grimsby stood near the foot of the dais.
His face was drawn and pale as he clutched his papers like a lifeline, but even he was being pulled into the tide.
His usual poise had frayed. Words tumbled out half-formed as he tried to restore order.
Beside him, Sebastian’s voice rose in a shrill crescendo, his claws clicking in agitation as he decried betrayal and treason and demanded Ursula’s head.
The tempest roared, but none of it touched Eric directly.
He sat in the eye of it all, focused on the sluggish beat of his heart.
He was motionless on the throne, watching as his kingdom tore itself apart before him.
Above the gale, he strained for something else—the faint scent of salt and silk, the ghost of a siren’s song, the one voice that could calm the storm.
"The sea witch has bewitched you!"
"Triton has played us for fools!"
"This is an act of war!"
Eric didn’t move. Didn’t react. As the nobles raged on, the weight he had shed just a day ago began to settle back onto him.
It pressed against his shoulders. It coiled tightly at the base of his neck.
The ache that had disappeared in her arms, beneath her hands, returned, creeping down his spine like fingers of cold iron.
The headache he had forgotten now thrummed at his temples, a dull pounding in sync with the raised voices demanding war, annulment, blood.
His back, once unburdened, felt rigid, as if the very throne beneath him was turning to stone.
"Now is the time to strike, Your Majesty!"
"You must annul this farce of a marriage!"
"I say we take her head!"
Eric had been resting his head on his knuckles, elbow braced on the carved lion's head of the throne arm. He hadn’t moved through the storm of voices, had barely blinked. But now—he straightened.
The motion was slow, deliberate. His spine uncoiled with quiet purpose. His gaze, calm as a still sea and twice as dangerous, swept the chamber and locked on to the one who’d dared speak last.
It was a minor noble from the northern coast—pale, sweating, suddenly aware of how loud his voice had been. The nobleman swallowed hard, his bravado folding like a ship’s mast in a gale. He sank back into his seat without another sound, unable to hold the prince’s eyes.
Sebastian scuttled onto the dais, his beady eyes alight with fury. "King Triton had nothing to do with this. It was all the sea witch's doing. She’s a menace. She tricked you, fooled you."
“Tell me something, Sebastian. How exactly was my wife cast out of your kingdom?”
There were a few throat clearings in the room, accompanied by many more meaningful gazes. Eric knew they were all in acknowledgement of the emphasis he’d put on Ursula's title.
Ursula? The name settled in his mind. She hadn't looked like an Ariel, hadn't felt airy like the name suggested. But Ursula felt right.
“The sea witch was reckless. She put Princess Ariel in danger. Ursula—” Sebastian hesitated, claws clicking together in agitation. “She called the kraken.”
The very name of the beast had been whispered for years as the justification for war, for distrust, for every ill-fated ship that never made it home.
The Sea Kingdom had wielded the threat of the kraken as a reason for their hostility toward his people, just as his people had used it to justify their fear.
And yet—
Eric's mind reeled back to nights spent tangled in silk sheets and candlelight, when she had let him into her world piece by piece. He recalled her voice, husky and raw. My aunt saved Princess Ariel’s life.
She'd been talking about herself. She had saved Ariel.
"Some air-breathing fools thought it would be sport to harpoon a mermaid," Sebastian was saying.
A misbehaving child. A harpoon. A siren’s desperate call to the only creature powerful enough to stop the slaughter. And for that, Ursula had been cast out of her kingdom?
It couldn't have been the whole story. No, no, it wasn't. She had said no one listened to her. But Eric had. He'd listened to her every word.
He had spent his life locked in this dance of diplomacy, treaties held together with fraying seams, prepared to marry a stranger just to maintain a peace that had never truly existed.
All over a single act of desperation. A handful of seamen with cruel intentions.
A child’s foolishness. Those conditions had brought his siren to him.
And now they were what was threatening to tear them apart.
Eric looked out the window. Below, the sea stretched wide and glinting under the midday sun, deceptively calm. And there—moving like a shadow carved from moonlight—was Ursula.
She walked alone, her red hair whipping in the wind, her gown clinging to her like a second skin. She moved past the gates, through the courtyard, and beyond the edge of the castle walls. Toward the cliffs.
She paused at the precipice, the sea churning below her in welcome. Then, as if drawn by instinct, she turned and looked back. Up—straight to him.
He swore she saw him through the distance, through the glass, through the truth and the lies between them. He'd told her not to leave, that he would handle it. But of course she didn't listen to him, just as he hadn't listened to her.
He wanted more than anything to hear her voice in his ear. He wanted to tear through the corridors, down the steps, past the guards and barriers and titles, until he could hold her again.
Ursula lifted her chin—like the queen she was—and he couldn’t help the breathless laugh that escaped him. Even now, she knew how to unmake him with a glance. Even now, his anger melted into longing, frustration folded into awe.
He still wanted her. Would always want her. Even when he wasn't ready to forgive her. Even when she didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Then she turned and dove. The wind caught her hair like a banner of defiance. His heart seized—but only for a second.
She was born of the sea. She would hit the saltwater and shed the last of her land-born shape, her scales returning like memory, like power, like truth. She would find her brother. And if that brother did not give her back—
Eric’s jaw tightened. Then there would be war.
"I agree with your council," Sebastian was saying, oblivious to the scene outside. "Annulment is the only way. We will find Ariel and—"
"Is the Sea Kingdom in the habit of reneging on its word?" Eric asked. "If so, the treaty means nothing. I held up my end of the bargain. I married the sea princess. You should have ensured it was the correct one."
Eric was done with this argument. Done with his anger toward his wife. He had married the correct bride.
“It would seem the Sea Kingdom is in disarray, and you have far bigger concerns than my marriage. I suggest you return home to your queen.”
"King," clarified Sebastian. "King Triton."
Eric shrugged. "I don't know. My wife was pretty determined when she left. Perhaps you should scurry home and check your throne."
The moment the crab was gone, the nobles surged forward again—voices rising like gulls in a squall, all beaks and feathers and noise. Accusations flew like sea spray.
Eric heard none of it. He returned to the open window. He lifted his nose into the air and inhaled.
Salt.
Sea.
Her.
He exhaled slowly. His fists loosened. His shoulders dropped from where they'd been clenched beneath the weight of crown and court.
She was out there. Somewhere in the waves.
Not running—not hiding—but fixing what she could, cleaning up a mess she hadn’t created alone.
She’d told him, more than once, that no one ever listened to her.
That men had stolen her brilliance, her strategies, her power, her voice, her song when they replayed her lyrics in their own words.
She’d saved Ariel’s life and been banished for it.
She’d saved his life, and he’d interrogated her instead of thanking her.
She had no allies because she trusted no one.
Because she’d been taught over and over again that loyalty was a blade you gave others, only for them to bury it in your back.
And still—still—she had played the game with him.
She had reached across the board, across their pasts, their lies, their titles, and chosen to move beside him.
And what had he done? Left her to face the backlash alone. Just like everyone else had done before him. Just like her father. Her brother. Every smug noble who had silenced her voice and stolen her brilliance.
Ursula had survived banishment. Piracy. Betrayal. She didn’t wait for rescue—she rescued. She didn’t plead for a place—she claimed it. She didn’t beg to be seen—she commanded attention.
The sound of wings broke through Eric's reverie. Feathers beat against the wind as a sleek black gull swept through the window, flapping once before perching neatly on the carved stone sill.
A scroll was fastened to its leg. Eric had sent the gull out over an hour ago to warn the liner. He untied the scroll, eyes scanning the ink as it unfurled. The news he found on the parchment lit a fire under his feet.
Eric turned to face the throne room. He was still angry—still aching from the betrayal of it all. But more than that, he was done letting her fight alone.
Dozens of expectant faces met his gaze—nobles, captains, advisors.
All of them jostling for favor. For power.
For position. None of them had the clarity to see the game for what it was.
They were all playing checkers on a chessboard.
The only way to win was to partner with the strongest piece on the board.
He needed his queen.