Chapter Forty
Yong and some of his men brought Nam’s body in a wagon.
Calroy wanted to stay and support me, but I told him I needed this time with my sisters.
He understood. Instead, he would gather his winged soldiers and those not too wounded to travel and positioned them near the Jeju castle and wait for my arrival.
Bora and the others stayed at Caelum to be cared for by Nira. They were thin to the bone, their bodies bearing the cost of everything they’d been through. It was best for them to be fed, hydrate, and get well. That was what Nam would have wanted.
We wrapped Nam in white cloth and put her on a pyre before carrying her to the shore. Jina, Minha, Sohee, and I stood one at each corner, our steps slow. We laid her where the water could reach, the pyre of driftwood resting at the waterline, the tide moving in around our feet.
“She never let us forget who we were.” Jina’s voice came out barely above a breath, her hand pressed flat against her chest. “Even when we didn’t know ourselves.”
Minha pressed her fingers to the white cloth. “She was the one who had taught me how to make the dagger. But she said to keep it between us.”
Having Sable with us would have been nice, but she was somewhere in that forest, still not knowing her sister was gone. There hadn’t been time to find her, not with the war, the wounded, the miles between here and wherever she’d hidden herself. Nam would have to be laid to rest without her.
Word of the war’s end would reach her eventually, one way or another, and when it did, she would come looking for Nam the way she always had. I would be the one to tell her.
I looked at Nam’s face one last time. So peaceful. Whatever burden she had carried over the years from the cavern, the secrets, the weight of watching over us without being able to say why, her job was done.
“I never told her how much she meant to me.” Jina wiped her face. “I thought there would be more time.”
“She knew.” Minha’s voice was flat, but her eyes were bright. “She always knew everything.”
“Rest now,” I said. “Thank you for being our strength. Our hope. Our mother.”
My voice broke on the last word. I pressed a hand over my mouth, but it didn’t stop the raw sound that came out of me. Jina’s arms came around me from one side, Minha from the other, and none of us spoke as we wept in each other’s arms.
I had faced gods, creatures, and men who wanted me dead, and none of it had broken me the way losing the one person who had never once let me fall did.
Yong set the pyre alight. The flames caught fast, rising high, the smoke curling upward into the sky in a thin dark line.
The tide came in and we gave her a gentle push. We watched until the flames grew small. Until the distance swallowed her. Until there was nothing left but the open water, the sound of the waves, and the space where Nam had been.
She had left us body and soul.
I dried my eyes and turned to Jina. “I need to tell you something.”
Jina wiped her eyes. “What is it?”
“Nam told me,” I said. “Before she—” I started again. “Your parents were the rightful rulers of the underwater city. The Seelie queen had them killed when you were a child. Nam took you into the cavern to protect you. The same way she protected me.”
Minha and Sohee dropped their jaws, eyes growing wider. Jina blinked in confusion, looking between Minha, Sohee, and me.
“The city is still there,” I said. “It’s been waiting. And it’s yours.”
A long silence passed between us, the water crashing in and out at our feet, soaking our pants.
“She always said I was meant for something great,” Jina said. “I thought she meant surviving.”
“She meant you’re the queen of the Seaborn.”
Jina looked at the sea for a long moment, then something in her expression shifted. Not the girl who counted silently to hold herself together, but someone beginning to understand the size of who she was.
“Will you come with me?” Jina asked.
“Try and stop me.” Minha crossed her arms, her chin held up.
Yong pressed his fist to his heart and bowed from where he stood on the sand. “We’ve been waiting for our long lost queen. It will be my honor to gather our people so they can go home.”
“Yes, please.” Jina walked farther into the water. “I knew the moment we were thrown into the sea that I was home. I didn’t know why my legs tingled. I didn’t know why I could breathe underwater.” She glanced back at me. “I just knew it felt right.”
The water reached her waist. She looked down and smiled.
Then lowered herself below the surface. First nothing happened, then Jina popped her head up, making a sound that was half laugh and half sob.
Her shirt was gone, nothing but bare skin.
She dove in again, and iridescent blue-green scales caught the light the way the pure stones had caught it in the dark of the cavern, unfurling as she somersaulted.
“What are you waiting for?” Jina flapped her tail once, splashing water and giggling.
“My turn.” Minha dove in.
She surfaced a moment later with no shirt, a lavender colored tail breaking the water. She glanced down at it, then shrugged. “Don’t just stand there, Goddess of the Sea.”
With those challenging words, I dove in. The pressure changed in my lungs, and warmth traveled from my head downward. As the tingling sensation rose, my shirt peeled away, pants dissolving as my legs found each other. The mother of pearl and gold scales covered into the shape of a tail.
Jina and Minha swished their tails beside me.
We couldn’t speak out in the water moving your mouth, but we spoke into each other’s mind.
Can you hear me? Jina’s voice, clear as bells.
Obviously, Minha said. Stop being amazed and swim.
Jina laughed and somersaulted.
You both are beautiful, I said.
As you, Goddess of the Sea. Minha dipped her head. I hadn’t thought about if we could see underwater, but it’s clear as day.
Let’s find this underground kingdom, Jina said and dove deeper.
The city appeared from the dark below, coral grown over the giant structure. Bioluminescent creatures drifted through the empty archways, lighting the city in soft blues and greens.
Minha reached the golden gate first, designed with seashells. She pushed against the stone, and it opened.
Jina floated at the threshold, her tail swishing, her eyes gleaming with tears. The kingdom her parents had ruled. The kingdom that had been waiting for her to come home.
Well, Jina said. What do we do now?
The edifice spread out before us, bearing the weight of everything that came next. The sea kingdom had been abandoned for decades. Rebuilding it would take time. But it would happen. We would make sure of it.
Rebuild one day at a time, I said. You can rule in the sea and on land.
On land? Jina furrowed her brows.
Jeju belongs to the Seaborn. Minha’s jaw clenched. We’re taking it back.
We surfaced together, and Yong had laid out our simple clothes of tunic and pants at the waterline. He knew we’d need them, though there was no sign of him, only horses, waiting. He’d gone to gather the other Seaborn and our reinforcements.
We rode in silence.
For the first time, I saw the city I’d spent my whole life beneath without ever knowing its shape—stone walls catching the last of the evening light, smoke curling from the chimneys, the port beyond them settling into the quiet rhythms of dusk.
The gates opened before we reached them. The soldiers inside took one look at what was coming—winged people in the sky, Seaborn on horseback, a goddess at the front—and stepped aside without being asked. Some of them dropped their spears. Many ran.
The streets emptied as we passed. Doors pulled shut.
Faces appeared in windows, watching. I kept my eyes forward.
The castle at the center of the city rose, built to impress and intimidate, pearl-encrusted banners hanging from the parapets, the king’s crest on every surface.
All of it paid for with the labor of women who never saw daylight.
The throne room doors were already open when we arrived. Either someone had warned them, or they had been waiting.
The king and queen sat on their thrones. They looked smaller than I remembered. The king, who had studied my face with those cruel narrowed eyes, he looked older now, the lines around his mouth deeper, his jaw set.
The queen sat very still, her pearl crown catching the light, her hands folded in her lap. She had the expression of someone who would not be defeated.
We stopped at the base of the dais. Whether they recognized me, they didn’t show it.
“You have no authority here,” the king said.
“No,” I agreed, “but she does.”
Jina walked forward.
She had changed since the cavern, the auction block, Russo’s ship, the arena and the dungeon, the mountain, and everything after. But standing here, in this throne room where she and Minha and I had stood with no names, she looked like someone who’d had enough.
She stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up at the king.
“This castle,” she said, her voice stern, “was built on land that belonged to the Seaborn before any kingdom laid claim to it. The pearls that funded its walls came from the hands of women you enslaved. Including mine.”
The king’s jaw tightened.
“I am Jina.” She lifted her chin higher.
“Daughter of the rightful rulers of the Seaborn people, killed by the Seelie queen before I was old enough to know them. This throne belongs to my bloodline by right.” She tilted her head slightly.
“I am giving you the opportunity to leave it with dignity or face trial.”
A long silence.
The queen’s hands tightened in her lap, then she took off her crown.
My fingers found the vial still tucked at my hip, warm from being carried so close to my skin for so long.
I’d imagined this moment differently—a drop in a cup, a slow reckoning, justice measured out the way Sable had intended it.
But watching the king rise on his own, watching the weight finally break something in him without my help, I didn’t need it.
Not everyone had to die by my hand for the debt to be paid.
The king descended the steps without a word, the queen following a step behind him. With gentle care, she set the crown down at Jina’s feet. Neither of them looked at anyone as they passed, leaving the room without a backward glance.
Minha picked up the pearl crown, turned it over once in her hands examining it, and placed it on Jina’s head.
It fit perfectly.
Yong and the newfound Seaborn soldiers dropped to one knee and lowered their heads. The winged soldiers did the same. And so did, Fraya, Ranis, and Calroy.
I bowed last.
Jina climbed the steps and sat down, her gaze moving across every face in the room. Her voice cracked when she finally spoke. “Thank you for bringing me home to my people.”
Then she lowered her head and sobbed.
Minha and I went to her and held her from both sides.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Jina whispered.
“You have me, My Queen.” Minha kissed her cheek.
“And me,” I said. “And everyone in this room.” I pulled back just enough to look at her face. “We are at your service. All of us. Always.”
“Forever sisters,” Jina laughed through her tears and held on tighter. “I love you both.”
“And you have my loyalty, to always protect your kingdom, Queen Jina, should you ever need Varen’s service.” Ranis stood by the first step of the dais.
The battle had taken many, and it was good to see him well and alive. Gone were the ragged clothes he’d once worn under Russo’s command. In their place, a fitted doublet in Varen’s deep blue, silver clasps at the collar, and polished boots.
Jina’s eyes beamed as she descended toward him. “Thank you, Crown Prince of Varen.”
He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “We need to discuss a different kind of reunion when you have time.”
Minha and I exchanged glances, and we tried not to smile too big.