by Starla Night
“I have not changed.”
“Those dark shadows under your eyes weren’t there a year ago.”
He flinched.
Zara leaned back and crossed her arms. “You’ve told me nothing, Elan, except to ‘believe.’ How can I trust in you if you’ve given me nothing to trust?”
His brows drew together as though peering into the inky blackness of his past.
Her heart ached to believe in him.
She fisted her hands and shook her head. “I can’t.”
The hollows shadowing his commanding eyes deepened. He looked malnourished, exhausted, and unwell. Tormenting him with this argument was cruel.
But so were the hopes he tried to raise in her heart.
Elan had made her so many promises. Even though no other merman had kept his bride, Elan swore he would be the first. They would remain under the water together, forever. One happy mer family.
And then the night Zain was born, she’d barely finished giving birth — an amazing, life-altering experience with Elan — before warriors had burst into the protective chamber.
They tore away her newborn baby suckling at her breast. Elan had tried to fight them off, but he’d been overwhelmed. They had beaten him horribly.
Zara had fought the warriors herself. They weren’t supposed to lay a hand on a “bride,” but no one said she couldn’t lay a hand on them. Eventually they’d lassoed their seaweed ropes around her, hog-tied her, and dragged her out, leaving her on an abandoned beach in the dark, moonlit night.
She’d nearly bled to death.
And now Elan wanted her to believe she had superpowers that could have prevented his beating. Their separation. He also wanted to pretend nothing had changed. That his year apart had been a walk in the underwater park.
Right.
“You want me to believe you laid around Dragao Azul for a year because you couldn’t be bothered to swim to the surface,” she pointed out.
Worry lines deepened. He thought that was better? Then he was trying to protect her from a terrible truth.
She cut to the chase. “You want to convince me I have superpowers? Fine. I’ll believe after you do one thing.”
He looked at her. His brows lifted with hope. “What?”
Outside, the black sky growled with thunder.
She leaned back again in her seat and crossed her leg over her knee. “Exactly what did you do during the year you denied me my son?”
Chapter Eight
Zara demanded the impossible.
She already hated Elan for failing to keep her safe. How much more would she hate him once she knew what he had done?
“Because I know you weren’t asking permission to surface,” she continued. “Or you weren’t very convincing.”
He stared at her stiff crossed-arms glare. Fiery, uncompromising. She waited.
Elan closed his eyes.
Outside the open windows, a spatter of liquid hissed on the ground as the first cold drops of rain hit the earth.
Zara had the strongest spirit of any warrior he had ever known. Compromise was not in her. If their roles had been reversed, and she had been ordered to betray everyone or die, she would have chosen death.
“Just start at the beginning.”
He forced his voice. “A thousand years ago when we created the ancient covenant? Or more recently when Kadir roused us to return to the pre-disaster harmony of mer and human?”
“More recently,” Zara ordered. “When you convinced me Kadir was right and inspired us to dream of a future together.”
He remembered she had convinced him. Zara’s hopeful wish had surprised and filled him with new dreams. To love her even more deeply. To long for the impossible. To fight for their future together, no matter the cost. Even now, it drove him to speak the horrors that could not be uttered.
“Did you ever even try to come to the surface?” Zara finally asked.
He opened his eyes. “Yes.”
“But?”
“We were captured and returned to the city.”
“We?”
“Zain.” His throat closed. He swallowed and continued. “And I.”
She frowned, trying to hear words he wasn’t saying in his broken voice, in his expression. Deep, unending sadness. “You tried to sneak out with Zain?”
“Yes.”
“Right after I was forced to the surface?”
“No.”
Her bitter expression returned. “You took your time, huh?”
“Raising a newborn is tiring.”
“You don’t say.”
“Especially because…”
“Because?”
“I had to recover from my injuries.”
She frowned, and her confusion cleared. The bitter judgment faded. New sympathy radiated from her soul light.
It calmed.
“They were pretty bad?” she asked.
He flattened his lips to avoid telling her.
Caring for Zain when his own bruised bones and deeply slashed muscles made it difficult to cross his own castle had taxed him to the limit. But he could not be declared unfit to raise Zain. He’d strained alone to feed his son, to sleep him against Elan’s unbroken skin, to cleanse and sing to and shower love so Zain would still feel the fierceness of Zara’s in her absence.
And he’d tried to lull the elders of Dragao Azul into believing he had given up his blasphemous desire to remain with Zara.
“She does not remember you,” elder Varo, his old friend and also a former First Lieutenant, had promised. “Brides gratefully return to the air world. They would die longing for the surface. Now, she has found another husband. Brides easily forget. Only the mer remember.”
He had pretended to agree. Pretended that his fight to keep Zara had been an incident of “newborn illness,” a temporary sickness that caused mermen to have blasphemous thoughts about breaking the covenant to remain with their brides.
Before going to the surface to woo a bride, “newborn illness” had been a silly feeling Elan would never suffer. After Zara, Elan could not call it a sickness. It was a natural and correct reaction to losing the woman with whom you had created a new life.
With Kadir’s forbidden call still whispering through their shaken city, Elan had been under extra watch. And when he’d tried to make his escape, he was caught.
“I made the attempt as soon as I could. But perhaps I would have been more successful if I had waited longer. We did not even get beyond the limits of our territory. That was the end.”
“The end? You tried one time,” she said flatly. “One time.”
He gritted his teeth at her judgment. “They pressed me into service. Perhaps you remember my second-in-command, Soren?”
Her eyes narrowed. “He was the lead thug forcing me to the surface.”
“And he was supposed to take the First Lieutenant position.”
“I heard your elders promising he could have it as soon as he disposed of me.”
Elan didn’t like hearing her talk about the Dragao Azul elders or Soren with such disrespect. They were only following orders. Following orders was the most honorable act of any warrior.
But Zara refused to follow laws if she believed they were wrong. Another person’s authority meant nothing if she thought they misused it.
Soren, most of all, followed orders with dedication. His large size intimidated even his own elders, so he had to work three times harder to overcome the stigma. Elan was one of the first to recognize Soren’s discipline, and as a consequence, Soren had pledged total loyalty to Elan for life.
Until that night.
“He did not accept the First Lieutenant position,” Elan said, conveying the most shocking reversal in a generation. “After Soren returned from taking you to the surface, he refused the honor and left the city in exile.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Good.”
“This doesn’t surprise you?”
She shrugged.
Leaving one’s home city was a
death sentence. Worse, it was a betrayal to the warriors left behind. To the city’s king. To the Life Tree. Soren’s action had rocked the city to its core.
“Why would an unimpeachably honorable warrior like Soren suddenly throw off his values and embrace an anathema disgrace?”
“If he was so unimpeachable, he wouldn’t have abandoned an injured woman in the dark.”
The image stung.
Elan would do anything, anything, to reverse time. Protect Zara that night. Keep her safe with him and Zain.
But that time was past. “I thought, perhaps, you cursed Soren.”
“Only with the truth.” She crossed her arms tighter. “He shouldn’t feel so satisfied. He’d purchased his promotion with my blood. And I was literally bleeding everywhere so he couldn’t dare deny it.”
No wonder Soren had lost his way and fled the city in horror. Injuring a bride was far worse than breaking the ancient covenant. Soren’s own soul must have darkened when he heard Zara’s judgment.
“He had his orders,” Elan pointed out.
“That doesn’t make what I said less true.” She cocked her head, tilting her chin up at him in challenge. “He knew it, too. Sounds like he did something.”
Indeed.
“The shock of two highly positioned, ‘honorable’ warriors choosing exile shattered confidence in the city leadership. No one would take the First Lieutenant position. Dragao Azul was left dangerously unguarded.”
“Boo hoo.”
He chastised her. “If the city dies, so do I and Zain.”
“You mean if your city’s Life Tree dies,” she corrected. “Your king and elders can all jump in a volcanic vent and boil.”
The sap of Dragao Azul’s Life Tree ran in Elan’s and Zain’s — and even Zara’s — veins. Drinking the nectar of a Life Tree blossom had imbued Zara with the power to transform into a mer. If the tree died, then he and Zain would surely die. Zara … he did not know whether her humanity would save her from that fate.
Elan did not wish to test it. “No one would accept the First Lieutenant position. I was forced to take it once more.”
“What?” Zara shot to her feet. “Great! So you tried to escape one time, and you didn’t even get a demotion. What a punishment!”
She stomped towards the stairs as if the conversation were over.
Her accusation scored his heart like the slice of an unexpected trident.
He sucked in a breath. Harsh air stuck in his throat. “It was a punishment. Fathers are supposed to bond with their young fry. Duties that could separate a father from his young fry are duties for single warriors.”
“Welcome to the human world,” she scoffed, stopping at the stairs. “Some mothers can’t even get maternity leave. And almost no fathers do.”
“But this is the world of the mer,” he reminded her. “Our young fry are our life. In Dragao Azul, separating a father from his young fry has only been done once in our city’s history. They punished a male who attempted to injure his own young fry.”
She quieted and the fire in her eyes calmed to understanding. Almost, just a little, sympathy.
He also calmed. If she had insisted he not feel the hurt, betrayal, anger, and shame at being treated to the second worst punishment possible in a city — one so terrible it had only been given out once before Elan — then he might close up into a husk.
“You never tried to escape again,” she accused, more softly, resting one hand on her hip.
“My time with Zain was supervised.” He bit the words. “I could not leave him behind.”
The king and city elders had forced Elan back into a “privileged” position of First Lieutenant and distorted the honor into a prison. They did not trust him. Wisely so, but gravely insulting at the same time, and all the more reason for him to stew in his shame.
“So how did you get free this time?”
“The warriors on duty felt pity. They allowed me to escape.”
Her gaze flicked to the bathroom where Zain was sleeping.
Bitterness welled, forced out of the ugly cracks in his heart. He had once been whole, but was now fractured by the violence he had been forced to commit, the tortures he had endured, and the unspeakable deeds which, even now, pretending to tell her the whole truth, he could not confess.
“And now I am here. You do not wish for me.”
Her gaze returned to him.
His soul ached. “You only wish for our son.”
She hardened into granite. “Of course I do. It’s my turn.”
Attacking her with pain would never reach her. He knew better. Patience and gentleness soothed her; honor and honesty opened her well-guarded heart.
But he did not have patience and gentleness. He had been broken, and she had forced him to face his sharp edges. The shadows under his eyes had not been there before. The gouges to his honor had not been there either.
“You refuse the water,” he continued, enumerating the empty litany of her crimes — how she had betrayed him by refusing to heal, refusing to reunite them, refusing to try like he was. “You run from your power. How can you protect Zain? I was wrong in coming here.”
She went ramrod straight, reacting just as he predicted. “I already said you shouldn’t have come.”
“You did not miss me. My elders were right. Only the mer remember.” Truth cut him with hot pain. “But also you do not truly wish for Zain. You did not miss him at all.”
The blood drained from her face. Her soul light darkened to utter blackness.
Mer did not experience the violent changes of humans, but in this moment, Elan felt the hole in his own chest as if he mirrored her.
She turned and stomped into the kitchen.
Abandoning him without a word? Then, she really was running away.
The world tilted. His knees folded, abruptly unable to hold his weight. He dropped onto the couch.
The things his elders had insisted — human brides didn’t remember the mer, they were grateful to escape and would never wish to become queens — was proved.
Zara, his fierce, brilliant, undefeatable bride, had never wished to see him again. Her inner turbulence was proof. Their love was dead.
Perhaps his own love had blinded him. Perhaps she had never loved him at all.
He rocked forward onto the balls of his human feet. He needed movement. To get out, to transform, to swim.
Outside, rain pounded the house and a wet breeze shook the trees and scraped the glass.
He needed to dive into the storm and escape this pain threatening his soul—
Zara stomped back into the room carrying two large paper bags. She dropped them in front of him with heavy thumps. “You think I didn’t care. You think I didn’t care?”
Her soul light burned like the sun. Hurt tinged its amber-gold light. More importantly, righteous indignation made her hot and strong. Like he remembered from their first meeting when she had braved what she thought was a trafficking cartel to rescue her sister from a terrible fate.
Zara dropped to her knees and rummaged in the first bag. She pulled out a small green baby shirt with snaps in the crotch; a smaller version of the much larger one Zain wore now. Attached to the shirt were matching socks and a hat. Blue fish swam across the green background.
“There.” She set it on the table beside her. “I didn’t care?”
He touched the fabric. It was shiny and new, soft to his fingers, and a small tag stuck out. “What is it?”
“A layette.” She pulled out a matching blanket decorated with green and blue fish. “It’s for the first few days after birth, when you bring a baby home from the hospital.”
A hospital was the location most humans birthed their young fry.
She pulled out another outfit — a larger size, blue and fuzzy, decorated with long-necked yellow creatures with brown spots. “Newborn.” And another one after that, even larger, in red. “Three months.”
The outfits filled the table. Little shoes, sun hats, booties,
jackets. Six months, nine months, and finally sizes like the outfit Zain was wearing now. And other things — tiny plates and silverware, lidded containers she called sippy cups, fuzzy fish toys and clinking rattles — piled up, until the bags were empty and Zara gazed across her collection with flushed cheeks. A distant, dreamy expression suggested even she was dazed by the mass.
“I didn’t realize there were so many.” She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ears. It immediately popped out again as she shook her head and laughed harshly. “It’s kind of stupid. I was so numb this year, but when I was at the store and something caught my eye, I’d calculate Zain’s age and consider whether to pick it up for him. Just in case.”
Just in case her baby ever came back to her.
The hair bounced against her cheek. She shook her head again. It seemed to tickle her.
He leaned forward and tucked the strands gently, securely, behind her ear.
She took a deep breath and rested her hands on the outfits. Her forearm brushed his knees. Taking strength from his nearness. Trusting him with this vulnerability that she would never dare show to another.
His bitterness melted away.
He had misjudged her. She had never forgotten. Not for a moment.
Just like him.
Perhaps she could not express herself. Perhaps she was too broken to take the steps to heal them. To become a destined queen.
She needed his help.
Where had his patience gone? Since seeing her, all he had done was want her desperately to heal him. How selfish. But even knowing that, he still craved her mindlessly. He needed her kiss, her silky skin under his lips, her moans in his ear, her tight embrace. He needed her.
But he needed to be there for her. Fully. As a warrior trying to recapture the self that had once possessed honor.
She looked up at Elan. Grief turned fierce. “This was my last year, Elan. These unworn onesies and unused cups. This is the proof of my heartbreak.”
He hooked an index finger under her chin. “I understand.”
She blinked. Her features relaxed, her lips parted, and her gaze trained on his mouth.