The Sea King

by C. L. Wilson

  “What a pity you shall be so sorely disappointed, then.” She meant for the quip to come out lightly, a saucy rejoinder to show that his declaration meant nothing to her. Alas, her throat was too dry and too tight, and her voice sounded more like a shaken whisper than a teasing riposte.

  “What a pity if we should both be so sorely disappointed,” he corrected. He tucked the little spruce branch into the band on his right arm, as if it were a memento he meant to cherish. “I can give you everything you ever dreamed of, Gabriella, if only you will let me.”

  “I already have everything I need.” She turned away and started down the garden path. It was dangerous to stand for long in the company of a tall, dark, unrepentantly masculine Calbernan intent on seduction.

  He followed close on her heels. “Untruth,” he murmured, his lips so close to her ear, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “You want a husband. You want children. You want love. I can give you these things.” His voice whispered down her skin, making her flesh pebble and her breasts grow full and tight.

  Helos help her. She did. She wanted all of that. She wanted him. She wanted to fall into his arms, promise to give him everything he asked for, take everything he offered. She wanted to bind him to her for all times and so securely that he wore her possession like one of those iridescent tattoos on his skin, openly, permanently, for all to see. So that no other woman would ever again know the teasing, seductive glint in his eye or the sound of her name whispered in his dark velvet voice.

  “The price is too high,” she bit out.

  “The price of what?”

  She’d taken a wrong turn in the labyrinth and come to a dead end. Trapped, she whirled around and spat the truth, hoping that might grant her a reprieve. “Love!”

  He put his hands on either side of her head, boxing her in loosely between himself and the hedge at her back.

  “Tell me about the love that hurt you so, Gabriella. There is a wound in your soul, a sorrow you do not speak of. I know this, for I have known loss and sorrow too. It helps if you talk about it.”

  There it was again, that tug deep inside. That yearning to open herself up and bare her soul to him. She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Try. Talk to me, Gabriella. Lay down the burden you insist on carrying. Give it to me. I am strong enough to bear both our troubles. Let me help you.”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. She refused to look into his eyes. If she did, she would give in. She knew it.

  “Then shall I tell you about Nyamialine, instead?”

  She shrugged, risking a quick, darting glance up at his face. “If you wish.” If her will was stronger, she would have said no. She should have said no. But that part of her that found him so appealing was hungry to know everything about him—including the story of his lost love. He hadn’t spoken of his childhood betrothed since the night of their dinner in the garden.

  “Her name was Nyamialine Calmyria. She was Ari’s sister.”

  That surprised her. She looked up without thinking, and was instantly trapped by his golden gaze. “Ari?”

  “Tey. It is one of the reasons we are such close friends. There was more than our parents’ blood to bind us.” He straightened slightly, taking one hand off the hedge to lift a long black curl off her shoulder and twine it around his finger. “We were betrothed on the day she was born. I was four years old.”

  “That’s very young.”

  “In Calberna, imlani daughters are so rare and so precious that betrothal contracts are written decades—in some cases even centuries in advance. As I told you before, the contract between Nyamialine and me was such a one. Made long before my grandmother’s birth.”

  “Not even your parents had a say?”

  “What would they say? House Calmyria is a fine House, very powerful, descended from queens and ancient Sirens, as is my own. To wed a son into House Calmyria is a great honor. Ari and I would have become brothers in truth, not just in heart.”

  “But to have your life mapped out for you before you are even born—”

  “You mean, like your life was?” He shook his head. “Gabriella, you were born a princess of Summerlea, and Heir of the Rose. I know the customs of your people. Eventually, when your father was ready to let you go, you would have been wed to a prince of a neighboring land to benefit your family and Summerlea. Do you deny this?”

  She scowled. “No.” Of course that would have been her fate. That was what princesses and second sons were for—human capital to be used for political, economic, and diplomatic gains.

  “And so here I am, prince of a neighboring land, offering marriage that will benefit your family and both Summerlea and Wintercraig, and a guarantee that I will devote myself to your happiness and joy. Why does this frighten you?”

  She’d had enough of being trapped between him and the hedge. She ducked under his arm and started walking briskly back towards the next intersection of the labyrinth.

  He caught up with her before she’d taken four steps, his long stride easily outpacing hers. But he didn’t press further. “The daughters of Calberna are raised with love and indulgence, tey, but they are also raised to rule. To rule their families, to rule their Houses, even to rule the Queendom of Calberna. You insist on thinking of marriage as a trap imposed by men upon women because that is so often how it is used in the rest of the world. This is a crime, and a custom we Calbernans find repugnant. The strength of Calberna flows from our women. We protect them, we love them, but we do not cage them.”

  “And if Nyamialine had decided she didn’t want to wed you?”

  “That would never have happened. I would have been whatever she needed me to be.”

  “What about what you need?”

  “What I need, Gabriella, is a wife of my own to love. A companion as devoted to me as I am devoted to her. I need to have the emptiness inside me finally filled.”

  She swallowed hard. For all his cockiness, his swagger, his strength, that last, hoarse admission revealed a deep vulnerability she hadn’t realized existed. He was a lonely man, with a heart that yearned for love, for his own place to belong.

  “You shouldn’t need another to make you feel complete.”

  He blinked . . . and then he laughed. There was nothing mocking or sarcastic in the laugh. It was more a laugh of surprise. “But I do, Gabriella. I am Calbernan. We require the completeness of a mated union the same way we require air to breathe and food to eat. As I’ve already told you, Calbernans are symbiotic people. Just as our women cannot survive without the love of their mates and family, neither can our men survive without the strength and love of our women. It is from our women—our imlani females—that our magic flows. That power inside you—the one so vast it frightens you?—that power was never meant to be contained. It was never meant to be bottled up inside you. It’s meant to be shared with your mate, your children, your nation. That’s what it is to be a Siren.”

  There was something breathtakingly beautiful about the life he was describing. The idea of being part of something greater than herself. Something compellingly whole and complete. She could almost feel his need and his love lapping at her like waves on a beach, pulling from her love and strength, giving back the same, a perfect rhythm of life. Of peace.

  She could almost feel the monster inside her relax, no longer fighting against its cage or threatening destruction, but rather feeding its strength to him and to others—nourishing instead of destroying. No longer fearing love but embracing it.

  What a dangerously appealing dream.

  She turned away and began walking again, turning right when the path intersected another. He jogged after her.

  “What is it?” he asked when he caught up to her. “What are you running from now?”

  “How did Nyamialine die?” she countered.

  He sighed at her blatant dodge but told her nonetheless about the accident that had claimed the lives of so many. “The Myerial’s mate and every unmarried male of House Merimynos and
House Calmyria above the age of fourteen took their lives in grief,” he said in conclusion.

  “What?” She gaped at him in horror. “That’s barbaric!”

  “It is the Calbernan way. The death of imlani females from two of the most powerful Houses of Calberna was no small loss.”

  “So your people’s answer is more death?”

  He drew a breath, exhaled in such a way as to make her think he was holding on to his patience. “Have I not just told you of the nature of Calbernans? The sacrifice was a measure of our grief, yes, but also necessary to prevent weakening House Merimynos and House Calmyria beyond repair. We have no Sirens, Gabriella. Even one with a power like yours could have provided strength enough to make the sacrifice of so many unnecessary. The Myerial’s mate would still have perished, but the others . . . many of them might have been saved. You could have saved them. Your power—that gift you fear so badly you can’t even bring yourself to speak of it—that power could have saved them.”

  She stared up at him. She’d never thought of the monster as anything more than a danger to be contained. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about my power. You don’t understand what it can do.”

  “So tell me, Gabriella. Tell me what it can do. Tell me why you fear it so.”

  Dilys wanted to reach for her, to hold her, to help her face the demons of her past. He would battle them himself if he could. But she hadn’t given him that right . . . and she’d made it clear she would not thank him for taking it. So he stood before her, silently willing her to finally open up and trust him with her truths, with her secrets. To share with him, as he had shared with her.

  For one, gut-wrenching instant, he thought she’d rebuff him yet again, but then she began to speak.

  “You know about my father. How he died. The things he did.” Summer plucked a spruce branch from the hedge and began denuding the twig of its soft, fragrant blue-green needles. “Storm tried to keep the worst of it from us, but I overheard her talking with Wynter once. I know our father tried to kill her more than once. I know he nearly succeeded.” Her brow creased as emotion welled. “Our father—m-my father—was a monster.”

  “He was not well,” Dilys agreed softly.

  “He was insane.” She crumpled the remains of the spruce wand and let it fall. “He loved my mother so deeply, that when he lost her, he lost his mind.” Her beautiful eyes were swimming with tears. She tilted her head back to look at the sky and blinked rapidly, but they leaked from the corners of her eyes to trickle down the sides of her face into her hair.

  There was no way he could keep his distance. Not when her sorrow was spilling from her eyes. He caught her in his arms. “I’m sorry, moa leia. I am so sorry for your pain. But what happened to him has nothing to do with you.”

  She wrenched away. “I’m just like him! Don’t you see? I’m just like him!” She turned and took off running.

  He chased after her. Because she was headed for the center of the maze rather than one of the exits, he waited until she slowed before catching up to her. She was calmer then. Her tears had stopped.

  “You’re nothing like your father, Gabriella. You couldn’t be. You are a Siren. Your heart is filled with love. You could never become obsessed with hatred and a lust for power the way your father was at the end. It’s not in your nature.”

  “What proof do you have of that? Siren, I may be, but if I am, I’m the first of my kind. A Siren born of royal Summerlander blood—not Calbernan. How many of your ancient Calbernan Sirens carried the power of the Sun and who knows how many other forms of ancestral magic in their veins, as I do?” They had reached the center of the maze. She paced across the grass to the fountain and stared hard at the falling water. “You think I’m a Siren. Everyone else thinks I’m like my mother. You all think I’m loving and calm and gentle, that I would never hurt anyone—that I would never do anything horrible . . . But you all think that because that’s what I want you to believe. If you knew what I was really like . . .”

  “Gabriella . . .”

  “I am my father’s daughter.”

  “No, you aren’t.”

  Her face creased with an expression of anguished affection, as if she both loved and hated how swiftly and stoutly he jumped to her defense.

  “Yes, Dilys, I am. The monster that lived in him lives in me, too. You saw what I did to Lily’s father.”

  “I did. And if you hadn’t killed that worthless krillo, I would have. Your brother-in-law would have. Every one of my men, every one of your brother’s guard, even your own sister Khamsin would have. Would you stare at us all in horror and call us monsters, too?”

  “Lily’s father wasn’t the first person I’ve killed, Dilys.”

  Chapter 17

  There. She’d said it. Admitted it. That horrible black stain on her soul.

  Summer stood before him, fists clenched, chest heaving as if she’d run a hard race.

  “Tell me,” he said. And he reached for her hands. There was no horror in his eyes, no fear, just warmth and compassion and acceptance. One at a time, he peeled back the tightly curled fingers of her hands, kissed each palm, and pressed her hands to his chest, pressing his own hands atop them to anchor them there. All the while, he kept his eyes locked with hers. Steady. Accepting. Unwavering.

  “Tell me,” he said again.

  And as she stared up into the endless sunlit sea of his warm, golden gaze, she could almost hear him singing softly, his voice a sweet enchantment, Give me your pain, moa kiri. Let me bear it for you. Let me set you free.

  Her mouth trembled. Gods, she wished she could. Never had she wanted so badly to be the sweet, loving, gentle woman the world thought she was. Never had she wanted so badly for her soul to be unstained, for the monster to be gone. If she was everything she’d spent her lifetime pretending to be, she could have thrown herself into his arms, surrendered herself to the promise of paradise. She could have accepted his courtship, his love. Let herself love him in return.

  The mere thought made her want to weep.

  There was a terrible, tight, pain inside her. A child’s voice crying out in a high, thin, keening wail. Other voices, screaming, high-pitched. Men and horses. Desperate. Frantic. The sounds of mindless, abject terror all creatures made when death came with a violent, agonizing hand.

  She would have clapped her hands over her ears to drown the screams out, but Dilys held her fast.

  “Tell me, Gabriella.”

  She closed her eyes, flung back her head, strained back so that only the anchor of his hands holding hers to his chest kept her from falling. “I killed them. I killed them all.”

  “Who, moa kiri?”

  “A man and three boys. Back in Vera Sola.” Beneath his anchoring hands, her fingers curled into claws, dug into the solid flesh of his muscular chest. The visions from a thousand nightmares rose before her eyes. Eyes wild and terrified. Mouths open, screaming.

  “Who were they, Gabriella?” His voice called her out of the past. Dragged her back to the gardens of Konumarr Palace. To him.

  Her eyes snapped open. She stared up at Dilys. “The stable master and his three sons. Everyone thinks they died in the fire, but they didn’t. I killed them the same way I killed Lily’s father.”

  If she thought he would flinch, she was disappointed. He remained steady as a rock. Calm and patient. Waiting for her. “Tell me,” he said, his voice as soft as the wings of those butterflies he’d given her that one morning but as relentless as the sea. And like that ocean, he could wear down even the strongest of stone. Day by day, hour by hour, he’d been pounding away at the granite walls she’d locked around her past, and now, with one final shudder of protest, they crumbled, and the answers he’d been digging after all these weeks spilled out like water pouring through the breached dam.

  “I wasn’t allowed pets. None of us were. Papa said it was a bad idea. As it turns out, he was right.” She could feel the powerful heart in Dilys’s chest thumping against her palm.
Slow, steady. “The stable boy’s dog had puppies. Spring snuck out to play with them, and I followed her. I was four. I fell in love the first moment I saw them.” She blinked up at him. “I’ve always felt everything so much more deeply than Falcon or my sisters. Mama always said I got that from her, but that I got my temper from Papa. It isn’t a very safe combination.”

  Even as a very small child, anger made her chest burn, and her stomach hurt, and her hands clench in tight, hot fists. Anger made her throat go raw and tight as it boiled and spewed and bubbled inside her heart.

  The feeling was terrible and uncomfortable. Summer was the sweet, sunny-natured princess. The others could rage and storm about—especially their youngest sister—but Summer never did. She didn’t like for people to be upset. It made her skin prickle and her bones ache. She wanted people to be happy. She was like Mama in that regard. The two of them thrived best in a calm, loving environment. They soaked up kindness the way a rose soaked up sunshine. It nourished their souls.

  But when Summer got angry, she could actually feel fire roaring away inside her. Violent. Dangerous.

  Mama knew about that fire, of course, the same way Mama knew everything about all her children.

  “Look at me, Gabriella,” Mama would say in that gentle, implacable voice that brooked no disobedience, willful or otherwise. Most of the time Mama called Summer by her giftname, just as everyone else did, but when she used Summer’s birth name, it meant that whatever came next was meant to be heard and heeded. Sometimes what was meant to be heard and heeded were words of love and pride, precious drops of golden sunlight that soaked into Summer’s soul. “I love you, Gabriella, my darling girl.” “The gods blessed me, Gabriella, to give me such a sweet, caring daughter.” “You make me so proud, Gabriella.”