Prologue

Prologue

Princess Nerelyth Mist

“Her Royal Highness, Princess Lilithane Nerelyth Mist of the Sirens.”

I look over in distaste at the shirtless male courtier who insisted I couldn’t come in without being formally introduced to my own father’s court. Like I haven’t been here a million times and like I don’t know all of the secret passageways into this room if I really wanted to sneak in. I grew up here, but my father’s personal court seems to have forgotten this in my brief time away. Since I came back, everyone looks at me like I’m the enemy, but they can’t kill me because of my father and what little he does care for his daughters.

I pull up the skirts of my long, deep sea blue silk dress and walk in, my heels clicking on the tiles with every step. Playing the part of princess is easy for me, for my sisters, but until I left, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a life I wanted. I want a real life, full of happiness and joy, and I won’t find that here in this court. It’s a prison under the sea.

The room smells like sea salt, like much of the court. I glance down at the square-tiled floors, each tile a different section of water, some still like a lake and others violent like a storm. I remember the stories my mother told me when I was a child—some of the only memories I have of her now that so many years have passed since she died. She used to hold my hand and twirl me around in this room until I’d see a square of sea that frightened me with how angry the water was. To distract me, my mother used to tell me the stories of the ancient throne room and how each tile is a section of the sea, and only the king himself can look into each tile and see everything that is happening there. That he could control the waters themselves if he wished. The sea itself speaks to him, she’d tell me, as I played with her long dress skirts. Now that I’m older, I wonder how much of that is true and whether it was a fairy tale she told me once to make me feel less terrified walking through this huge room.

The room is grand, to say the least, and only the fae throne room really puts it to shame. Blue whirlpool-shaped statues line the back wall of the giant room, with the massive throne in the middle shaped as a white-tipped wave with a seat in the middle. My father is lounging on it, his cold dark green eyes watching me like the sea watches the ships that sail across it. My oldest sister leans over him, forever on his shoulder, the next heir to the throne. Of all my sisters, Cordelia is the most like my father, and I’m sure there is very little of my mother left in her, except for her dark red hair. Cordelia and I are the only ones to inherit our mother’s red hair. Cordelia looks at me like I am a fish stamped under the rock she just squished it with.

“Father. Sister.”

I don’t bother putting any love into my tone. It’s never been there. Even when my mother died, Cordelia and my father kept to themselves, unwilling to grieve with the rest of us.

My father looks up at Cordelia with more warmth than I’ve ever seen in his eyes for me. “Leave us, my heir.”

She dramatically sighs, sliding off the side of the throne in her dark green dress. She walks slowly past me, pausing slightly at my side. “It’s a shame about your mortal—turned fae—friend.”

“Cordelia,” my father warns, his tone unmistakable, but I can only hear the panic in my blood.

Cordelia laughs as she walks out, and my eyes follow her before I look back at my father in horror. “Tell me she is joking, father. Tell me you haven’t done anything to Calliophe.”

“This I cannot tell you, my daughter,” he begins, his voice self-righteous, and sickness rises in my throat. For years, I accepted my father would never love anything other than his throne. I know he had children for his own gain. I had more of a relationship with our nannies than I ever did with my father. I spent so many years of my life wishing my mother were still alive, that she didn’t die on the child birthing bed that he forced her to keep going to. How many children would he have forced her to keep having until he got the male he wanted? My mother and brother are dead for his never-ending greed and disobedience.

I didn’t come back here to protect my father, but some of my sisters… they are beautiful and kind, and they don’t deserve to be alone here. I hated leaving them in the first place, but I had to be selfish for myself. I learnt a lot about really living, about having a real connection with someone, from Calliophe. When I first met her, I assumed we would never be friends because she was so closed off from people in general. I got the sense she had lost someone, but I didn’t know it was every family she ever had. Yet she still let me in, let me be her family, and she is the bravest person I know. That’s why she is my sister, it’s why I’d die for her, and I will fight even my own father for her. Some people are born to change the world for the better, and others are born to take what they can from the world before they die. Calliophe is the former, my father is the latter.

“We have to talk about it all before you find out from someone else. I don’t want you hating me without reason, and I need all of my daughters close for what is to come over the years. You must understand that what I’ve done is for you. For our people. We must survive what is coming.”

My voice shakes in both fear for Calliophe and hatred for him. “What have you done?”

I imagine my best friend’s life in the hands of my father, who is in every sense ruthless when it comes to anyone who wasn’t born to the sea. He never cared about the fae or mortals, and regularly told me how he wished there were no alliance between us all. When I told him that I’d made a mortal friend in my time in Ethereal City, he just laughed and said that no mortal could be a friend forever. Even when he was told she was fae now, it made no difference to him. Even when I told him she was family to me now. My sister, not in blood but in my heart.

He smiles tightly at me and links his fingers together on his lap, a move I’ve noticed over the years he does when he’s about to tell me bad news. He did it when he told me our mother died, in that very throne. But then at least he looked like a wreck, and he had emotions, real emotions, for once. He linked his fingers when he told me that I had to marry a male that I’d never met, who was well known for killing his whores and for his general brutality throughout the seas.

“I’m well aware this fae girl is a friend to you, but she is so much more than that to this world. She is with the Wyern court, claimed publicly by the king and created by the fae, accepted into the royal court. As you understand, the fae have a new king now, and he is not just a fae. His power will be hard to rival in this world, even for me. Therefore, I made a deal that saved us from what is coming.”

“What does that mean?” I bite out.

My father looks across the throne room, past me to the windows that overlook the turbulent sea outside. “The Rift is spreading, and what will come from within it will destroy us all unless the Fae King can stop it, and he is going to. To do that, he needs my army, and he will have it. He understands the Rift more than anyone else can. Your sister will marry the new Fae King, and we will be safe.”

“What did you do to my friend?” I demand.

“I had to make a deal to protect the sea, and I don’t regret it, even when you look at me like this and it pains me,” he coldly states. “I took Calliophe when the Wyern King was not looking at her.”

My heart slams so fast within my chest. “Where is she? If she’s in the dungeons, I will get her out right now. If you have to take her, at least she can stay with me and be safe—”

“She’s in the Conquest of the Sea. I’m sorry for how this may hurt you, but we both know she will not be alive for very long.”

Everything in me freezes like ice, and I can’t move, I can’t breathe. Calliophe. By the seas. The sea within the tiles underneath me shakes, radiating with my own anger, and my father stands. I hope he can sense the rebellion brewing within my blood, because I’m done with him after this. This is worse than killing Calliophe outright. This is cruel and cold… I have to stop it.

I turn to walk out, only stopping when he calls me. “I’m the king of the sirens. You do not have permission to leave when we both know you cannot enter the Conquest without the chance of death yourself. Do not be foolish for a simple fae girl. She’ll never, ever survive it, even if you go help. No one does. No one’s ever won it except for me, and you do not have what I did.”

I laugh, my voice hollow and empty as I look over my shoulder at him. “If my mother were still here, she’d be very disappointed in you. She’d hate you as much as I do right now. If I die, then I die fighting for my real family. Goodbye, father. I hope the deal you made with that evil piece of shit works out for you.”

“Don’t leave this court, or you will not be welcomed back!” he roars as I pull the throne room doors open, looking back one more time at him, wishing he were a different male. Wishing he were someone I could look up to. “I hope that Calliophe wins the Conquest of the Sea. I hope she damn well wins everything and comes back here with the Wyern King to take your throne. You just declared war with the Wyerns. I hope you’re aware of that.”

My father sits back down on his throne, alone, like he always will be. I’m certain there isn’t an ounce of fear in his eyes at the mention of the Wyern King. He should be scared. “Emerson will go after his mate and die. They will have no king soon enough.”

I shake my head, knowing this is the end of my father at this rate, and I still walk out. I’m going to save my sister.