Chapter 5
Kaid was bored. So, so bored. He and Halsten could only keep themselves so busy in a suite, but where were they to go? He didn’t want to wander too far in case Maren requested his company, and he also couldn’t exactly head into town without being recognized by villagers.
Asta had struck a sore spot this morning during their argument in the hall. He didn’t want to be the unfaithful husband, and he surely wouldn’t be. Which was why he now decided to fall in love with Maren as quickly as possible.
But that would be harder than he had hoped.
First, he had to remold his brain into realizing love was actually a good thing.
Second, he needed to actually feel a spark with Princess Maren.
She was pleasant enough, but there was no fire in her.
He had met many redheads before and they were always plucky and fun, but the princess was different.
She was mature, of course, but almost as though she had been alive far longer than anyone in this castle altogether—stoic and ethereal.
He hoped that it was a front, and that behind closed doors, he could hear her laugh and let loose.
It was almost dark now, and Halsten had taken to drinking hours ago to pass the time.
He had been bouncing a ball against a wall, but Kaid realized the noise had stopped.
He turned to see that Halsten had passed out on the chaise in front of the hearth, the ball rolling across the glossy wooden floor.
Kaid laughed quietly, thinking his friend was a fool for drinking so much that he passed out before dark. But that had been their life until this last week, hadn’t it? Eat, drink, socialize, sleep. Over and over and over. He had never wanted anything more than that for his future.
Kaid never felt like he belonged in politics. He never felt like he belonged anywhere, really. He felt like a black sheep, but was not treated as an outcast. Instead, he was a prize to be won. His wool was the rarest color, everyone loving him without even really knowing him.
He walked to his bedroom and stared through the window at the crashing waves.
He never imagined the ocean would look so vicious.
Everyone had told him how calming it was, how peaceful.
All Kaid had seen since his arrival was nearly flooding tides and large, foamy waves.
But still, it called to him. He couldn’t explain the pull he felt, the need to run his hands through the briny water.
The tug was there while he ate, while he exercised, even while he slept.
There was a murmur in his ear, but no words were distinguishable.
Like a babbling brook, but louder. A screaming sea.
The sunset over the water tonight was incomparable to any he had seen.
Kaid thought the sunsets in Haalberg were the most magnificent, but he now knew he was wrong.
He’d never seen such a vibrant array of purples, pinks, and oranges.
And those colors reflected onto the grounds around him, causing the world to look as though it were on fire. Like the air itself was ablaze.
There was movement on the castle wall far off to Kaid’s left, and after a few hard blinks, he realized it was a cloaked figure climbing down.
He thought he was hallucinating. Who would be crazy enough to do such a thing?
Scaling down the castle couldn’t be an easy task, let alone a safe one heading toward the rough waters below.
He tried to guess the area of the castle, and though he had only been here a few days, he deduced that it was the north wing.
Kaid stalked back into his common room to find Halsten still passed out, so he swung his cloak over his shoulders and made for the hall. Finally, something interesting was happening around here.
When he got to the stairs, he dipped his chin toward the raven-haired female guard, who he was pretty sure was named Liva, and walked on.
He had to go on the beach to find the cloaked figure, but that meant going near the ocean. The ocean his father had warned him so fiercely about. The ocean that had been mysteriously calling to him. He just wouldn’t touch the water.
Kaid took a wrong turn a time or two before finally finding glass double doors that led to a terrace. Luckily, he had found one that stepped down onto the sandy beach instead of directly into the water.
He crossed the terrace, feeling the warmth from the stones radiating up his legs. Osmond, the god of day, had put his all into giving the seaside capital one final moderately tempered day of the summer season.
Kaid hesitated on the last step, staring at the sand below.
He looked up to the wall where he had seen the climbing person, but they were no longer there.
He had taken too long. He turned back toward the castle, defeated that he lost the figure, but relieved that he didn’t yet have to face his fear of the mysterious blue beyond.
Kaid nearly walked right into Niklas, his appointed courtier. The man had been so quiet that he hadn’t even noticed he was behind him.
“Niklas!” Kaid clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Where have you been today?”
The blond man folded his hands together. “In meetings with the king, my lord. To fill you in, so you can start learning how everything will work once you are prince of Salendron.”
Prince of Salendron. Kaid knew he was here to wed the princess in order to save his home, but sometimes he forgot exactly what that meant. Politics, responsibilities, work. All things he didn’t exactly enjoy.
“Right. Can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m not prepared tonight.”
Niklas nodded, catching his glasses and holding them on. “Of course. Were you about to go for a walk on the beach? I could join you, if you do not wish to be alone.”
Kaid turned and observed the shore again. He had to do it at some point. If he was to live in Orntali for the rest of his life, he couldn’t avoid it forever.
“Come, Niklas. Tell me about Orntali.”
Niklas’s blond curls bounced as he waved his arms erratically, gesturing to various parts of the castle. He knew the history of every wing, every addition, every room. If Kaid wasn’t so bored, he would be amazed by how much information he was receiving.
Kaid couldn’t help but let his mind wander to the person he’d seen crawling down the castle walls. Were they in danger? Was the king? The princesses?
He wasn’t trained enough to survive the attack of a skilled assassin.
Kaid could probably hold his own until his guards came to help—or Halsten, he supposed.
But someone with the capability to scale a fifty-foot wall had clearly undergone extensive training, whether it be as a spy, assassin, or soldier.
“...which, again, sirens are not to be confused with finfolk.”
Niklas was still happily rambling about anything he could read in the archives, breezing over his mention of finfolk once again.
“As intrigued as I am about how sandstone forms, can we go back to finfolk?” As much as he didn’t want to believe in the mythical beings, Kaid couldn’t help but wonder.
Niklas eagerly obliged. To Kaid’s surprise, the sirens weren’t the original inhabitants of the sea.
There was another species—the finfolk—who were far worse.
Finfolk looked to be half-human, half-fish, having an eel fin instead of legs.
They had a mouthful of fangs meant for ripping human flesh.
Humans were their prey, and they ate human blood, flesh, or bone.
The villagers of Orntali had fallen victim to finfolk lure since the beginning of time.
But only humans foolish enough to be drawn to the ocean would be eaten, because finfolk could not come on land unless they were breeding.
Their breeding shifts were only allowed to happen twice—once to conceive a child and once to birth a child.
They could never access their human form again after that.
Apparently, centuries ago, finfolk bred with fae, a land-dwelling mythical humanoid. It was another pointless tidbit of imaginary information to take up space in Kaid’s mind, but what else did he have going on right now?
The finfolk's goal with this union was to create a lesser breed to enslave and use as their servants, and the fae hoped to gain better access to the sea and all the resources it held. Their plan backfired when they accidentally created the sirens.
Niklas explained that sirens were more powerful than the finfolk.
They were far more beautiful, allowing them to lure humans to the ocean depths more easily.
And though they relied on blood to survive, it didn’t specifically have to be human, so their survival was more assured.
A siren’s song could be used to hypnotize people and force them to do whatever they wished, and they could shift to human form at will, thanks to their fae heritage.
Unbeknownst to them, the finfolk had created their greatest competition.
“Hold on… fae?” Kaid jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a drifting wave. He had been so caught up in Niklas’s stories that he had forgotten that they were on the beach altogether.
Niklas laughed as Kaid sprang away from the water. “Do you really want to get into land folklore right now?”
“No. This is hurting my head enough already. I should have drank myself to sleep like Halsten did.” Kaid rubbed his eyes. “But go on.”
So, Niklas continued his “history” lesson.
When the fae realized that the sirens were better predators than the finfolk, they refused to continue breeding with finfolk and opted to return back to the mountains where they would be unbothered. They took the easy way out, abandoning the mess they had made.
After a century of enslavement, the sirens rebelled and broke free of their owners.
Euphemia, the goddess of the sea, favored the sirens and their superior humanity and allowed them to separate into a different kingdom.
She also dubbed them their own crowned royalty and left the sirens to take charge of all the Northern Seas, the same Ventarin Sea that was mere inches from Kaid’s boot.
Finfolk. Fae. Sirens. Did everyone in Orntali actually believe this, or was Niklas the last enthusiast descended from a long line of lunatics? Either way, Kaid wasn’t convinced, though he would be intrigued to see the supposed evidence stored in the castle’s archives.
Kaid stared at one of the statues on the side of the castle. The woman’s torso was elongated, flanked by irregularly long arms tipped with slender fingers. Her ears came to a very small, almost invisible point at the top of the helix.
Kaid understood what Niklas was talking about. They really were quite captivating.
He compared it to how he felt when observing Asta. How he knew something was so dangerous and off-limits, yet he couldn’t help but to stare. To get sucked into her lure.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Niklas said. Kaid turned to see the young man staring out to sea.
Kaid huffed a small laugh through his nose, wearing a smirk. “‘Magnificent’ is one word for it, I suppose. How can a sea so cruel also be so captivating?”
Niklas’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “That’s what makes it cruel. It is a beauty we cannot ever fully appreciate, because we will never truly and completely understand its depths.”