69. Surprise
The castle of Queen Titania was that of legend. Wilder tried to see this place as Lyra might. This is where the fables came from. Glittering white stone walls showcased art that spanned millennia.
Their reflections shone on the polished floor, and their footsteps echoed before they stepped onto the crimson runner that led down the main hall.
Lyra moved slowly, gazing from painting to painting. A sculpture of a winged woman stood in the center of the wide hallway. The carved wings were so thin you could see through the granite. It was the epitome of feminine grace.
Their procession down the hallway halted as Lyra spied the statue. She stopped, and her hand trembled as she reached out to graze a fingertip down the stone of the cascading gown.
Silver lined her eyes as she stared, enraptured. He had felt like that once, too. A well of emotions was bubbling up to swallow him whole. Wilder recalled the first moment he saw the sculpture. It had almost brought him to his knees.
“It’s breathtaking,” Lyra whispered.
Wilder studied each minute reaction that played across Lyra’s face. “It is.”
Her eyes flashed to his, and a slow, genuine smile tugged up the corner of her lips.
He was done for.
His reaction to the sculpture hadn’t been as visceral as his body’s reaction to her smile. The world stopped spinning, and he balled his hands into fists to keep them at his sides instead of where he wanted them—on her.
Footsteps resonated down the hall, pulling her attention from him. Wilder felt the absence immediately, like a cool breeze against bare skin.
“Son of Oberon,” a masculine voice boomed. It was loud, like the crack of a whip.
“Consort of Titania,” Wilder replied.
Lyra froze; even her chest stopped moving with her breathing as she took in the elf standing before them.
Baelwyn wore a robe of silver, like moonlight had spilled from the sky.
Dark thread embroidered the sleeves with a forest scene of grazing stags alongside unicorns.
He looked to be everything you’d expect from an elvish king consort, from the top of his long white hair wrapped in a wreath of ivy to the long ash staff he walked with.
“Ah, and this must be the Princess Lyra.” Baelwyn shifted his green eyes to Lyra.
There wasn’t malice in his gaze, but Wilder shifted closer to shield her from it. Baelwyn was a kind male and had never given Wilder an inkling of ill will, but those ancient eyes saw things most did not.
Lyra bobbed her head with respect before holding her head up high. “I am.”
“Such violent waves we’ve seen since your arrival.”
His words echoed around the silent hall, and Lyra shifted towards Wilder.
“Violent waves?” she asked, a shade quieter than he thought possible.
“Great violence, indeed. They batter the cliffs like fists on a door.”
Lyra swallowed audibly and looked at Wilder.
“He will come for me …” she whispered.
“Your father?”
Her head nodded of its own volition, and she trapped her bottom lip between her teeth.
Wilder searched her eyes. She had wanted to return to the sea. Had bargained for a deal to return to the water. So why did she seem so reluctant to be found?
“The queen awaits,” Baelwyn murmured, interrupting Wilder’s scrutiny.
Otto cleared his throat, and Lyra flinched.
Baelwyn turned on a heel, and they followed behind him. When Lyra slipped her hand into Wilder’s, he did not hesitate to grip hers. She was afraid.
“Queen Titania is kind,” Wilder whispered, knowing damn well everyone in the hall could hear his words.
Lyra shook her head once, and Wilder’s brow furrowed.
“Later,” she mouthed.
Stone doors opened on silent hinges. The metal ivy filigree flanking each door unwound itself to allow entry, and they stepped through the threshold.
Wilder heard Lyra’s breath catch in her throat.
Evening light poured through rainbow-tinted windows in the ceiling. Archways made of the white, glittering stone led to the tall dais on which the crescent-moon-shaped throne sat.
Queen Titania sat regally in a high-collar navy gown embroidered with silver thread. The light danced upon the thread, casting tiny rainbows around her like bobbing butterflies.
Wilder walked with steady legs to the queen, who would have been his mother-in-law.
“Wilder,” she breathed, her voice as soft and lovely as a spring breeze.
He dropped to one knee and bowed. Lyra dropped alongside him, and the queen tutted.
“Such formalities,” she giggled. “Up, up, my child!”
Wilder didn’t know who she spoke to until Baelwyn stepped alongside Lyra and offered her a hand to lead her up the steps.
Lyra walked with such grace that he stared with astonishment. She had never been that steady on her feet before.
Titania stood and clasped Lyra’s hands in hers. A rustle of her gown was all that could be heard as she moved Lyra into a beam of light.
“Pray, child, who is your mother?”
Lyra opened her mouth and then shrugged. Wilder continued to stare, his ears pricking as he listened to their conversation from down the stairs.
“My father had her dragged to shore.”
“Your father? King Auris?”
Lyra bobbed a nod, and Titania reached out, plucking a loose strand of auburn between her fingertips.
“Only one other female in the world had hair of this color …” she breathed.
Otto cleared his throat, and Wilder’s eyes flashed to his friend.
Baelwyn gasped, and Titania looked down from her throne to Otto.
“Am I correct?”
Lyra looked from person to person, not quite understanding what was happening. Which made two of them.
“Blessed three,” Maelys blurted out.
Ridge clapped a hand over her mouth and grimaced with an apology.
Dust and Oak shared a look and then shrugged.
Wilder turned back to Otto, who bowed low to the queen.
Tears filled Titania’s eyes. “You are my granddaughter, the daughter of Odette.”
Wilder could hear Lyra’s breath come out in a whoosh, like someone had punched her in the stomach.
Baelwyn stepped closer, resting a hand on her shoulder. Wilder moved towards the stairs as if he would support her.
But as a cry escaped Lyra, she threw her arms around the queen.
Titania wrapped her in an embrace, and Baelwyn circled both of them with his powerful arms.
“You’re my family,” Lyra said between sobs.
“We had heard whispers of you, but never in our wildest dreams did we think they were true,” Titania whispered, stroking Lyra’s hair.
Wilder’s head spun. She was the daughter of the princess he was supposed to marry.
“What happened to her?” Lyra asked.
Titania looked at Baelwyn, and he nodded. “She is here … but she is unwell.”
“What do you mean?” Lyra pulled out of her arms.
The queen’s face pinched in worry, and Wilder held his breath.
“We don’t really know. The witches believed her heart had been broken so badly that her mind had fragmented. We had her put under a spell until we could figure out what to do. By the time we did—she wouldn’t wake.”
Lyra’s eyes flashed, and Wilder’s foot smashed against the bottom stair.
“Heartbroken?”
Titania nodded. “A mother’s love.” She cupped Lyra’s cheek. “Would you like to see her?”
Lyra nodded, and Titania gathered the train of her gown in her hand.
“Come with me.”
Titania sauntered down the stairs, with Lyra and Baelwyn following her. As the queen passed, she patted Wilder’s cheek.
“You should probably come too.”
Her eyes slid to his group of friends and back to him.
“Stay,” he ordered Otto and the others as he took up a position beside Baelwyn.
“We’ll be right here,” Maelys murmured to Lyra.
There had been no murmurs that Odette had returned, not even the wind spoke of her arrival. It had been a very well-guarded secret.
Titania turned down a shadowed hallway and then another. The air grew colder, but not stale. It was crisp, like freshly fallen snow.
A nondescript wooden door appeared at the end of the hidden hallway. A blue flame glowed in an iron torch beside it. The door creaked as Titania turned the handle, and Wilder held his breath as they stepped into the room.
It was a circular room that belonged to one of the towers that flanked the south wall of the castle. The windows overlooked the seaside cliffs, and gulls cried loudly as they flew in the lavender-colored sky.
A lavish bed sat in the middle of the room with a clear view of the sea in the distance. Odette lay still and peaceful in her slumber.
A cornflower gown of silk clad her frail body. Locks of auburn framed her pale face, the color identical to Lyra’s but muted somehow, as if the life had vanished from her. If Wilder hadn’t spied the slight imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, he would have thought she was deceased.
Lyra stood beside the bed but made no move to reach for her mother.
“I thought she had died,” she whispered, gazing at the face that was a mirror of hers.
“She wanted to,” Titania replied. “Your mother was a wanderer and had longed to live beneath the waves.”
Lyra looked at the queen. “But she’s an elf?”
Baelwyn draped an arm around his mate and tugged her close to him. “She bargained for a witch’s spell.”
“Such a thing is possible?” Lyra’s gaze swept to Wilder, and he nodded.
“How else did you think we planned to send you home?”
Baelwyn and Titania looked at Lyra with such sorrow. “You wish to return to the depths?”
Lyra gripped the white down comforter and looked back at her mother. “I belong to the sea.”
Wilder couldn’t stop the words that flew from his mouth. “You belong to no one but yourself.”
Her head whipped back to his.
“You decide what you want, not what you think you should do.”
“I made a bargain,” she whispered.
“To balance magic, not return to the sea.”
“It will require me to return to Atlantis to break it.”
Wilder shook his head and could feel the weight of his crown pressing into his flesh. “You don’t know that.”
“What bargain are you breaking?” the queen asked.
“The Tidal Tithe.”
Titania hummed her agreement. “Then Lyra is correct.”
Wilder’s jaw clenched, and Lyra sucked in a breath.
“If she is to break the Tidal Tithe, it will require her to undo each knot. One in the sea and one in Badenvaria.”
His eyes widen with her words. “No creature has ever set foot in the mortal’s palace.”
“A bargain was struck there. At least one creature must have entered,” Baelwyn replied.
It was a death sentence, then. The humans would never let a mermaid leave their palace walls.
“We’ll have to find another way,” he declared.
He watched as a range of emotions flitted across her face. Sorrow, fear, and then anger.
“You are the reason I am stuck in this position.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed on him, and the light outside seemed to vanish entirely. Flames erupted in sconces around the room, and the timing was so startling he almost retreated a step.
“I did not know,” he whispered with a plea.
A plea for her to listen, for her to forgive.
Titania spoke, “What do you mean?”
Lyra turned to face them. “I did not come here of my own accord. Wilder kidnapped me under orders from the High King.”
Titania gasped, and Baelwyn glowered.
“Tell me that isn’t true?” Titania shifted scornful eyes to Wilder.
He couldn’t meet them, but he nodded.
“If there was ever a time for you not to follow an order, that would have been it,” Baelwyn grumbled.
Wilder’s eyes slid shut. “It was my duty.”
Lyra watched the exchange with a snarled expression and squeezed her arms across her chest.
“How many atrocities have you committed under the guise of ‘duty’?”
Wilder flinched at her question, and her arms lowered to her sides.
“Lyra,” Titania whispered. “There is much more to his story than that.”
“I know his story. It’s similar to mine.”
Wilder had opened his mouth to reply, but Odette opened her eyes.
She must have squeezed Lyra’s fingers because she jumped away from the bed before returning.
“Mother?”
Titania was weeping, tears running in rivulets down her cheeks as she stared at her waking daughter. Baelwyn had a strong arm wrapped around his wife, not for moral support, but to keep her on her feet.
“Alyra …” a voice croaked with a dry and disused throat.
Lyra clung to her mother, but her other hand clutched the charm that hung from the silver necklace she never took off.
That name, Alyra. He never knew that her name had been shortened.
And apparently, she hadn’t known that either.
“That was my name,” Lyra whispered.
It broke something in Wilder to see her reduced to such anguish, and he had nothing to offer her—or nothing that she would allow him to give.
With that thought, he slipped out of the room, giving Lyra and her family privacy.