Page 30 of The Dark Sea Calls

Why now?

Had something happened?

The whispering pass had been full of corpses, suspended and unable to pass on to the beyond. Tied up in my uncle's strings, ready to do his bidding. No doubt, he was scrambling now that his army of the dead was gone.

But why did he even need that many soldiers?

I might not have been a fighter, but I’d seen the front lines in my mind's eye as I bled out on the High Throne. I had been in the water where the blood had spilled as Fae fought each other in the silt and sand. The water was murky, dark, and foul as Fae turned to foam with no land gained or lost.

The war had raged for almost two decades since my mother’s passing.

The Mer-king, Cormac’s father, had made a grab for the High Throne upon my uncle’s coronation and sparked a war between all five of the Fae creeds.

It had never occurred to me why no one sided with the Undine. Why my people stood alone against the others. Especially when the fighting started because of the Mer and their bid to steal the throne.

One by one, my uncle had turned each of the creeds against the Undine.

He had stolen the skins from Selkie younglings and used them as assassins with no hope of returning home. Children no older than fifteen. Making an enemy of the Selkie Queen and causing her to sequester the Skala Isles away from the lake.

My uncle had cursed Kelpie villages and killed swathes of innocent Fae. Not soldiers, but families. He had taken Princess Elsbeth and tried to break her like a wayward Reed-steed with unraveling charms.

Every path before me came with a hurdle that I had to overcome.

Magical majority.

The gaping wound inside of me that wouldn’t fix itself unless I did something about it.

I sipped blood wine, wincing at the flavor as the Sirens danced around me.

I didn’t understand why the Sirens were celebrating, but perhaps there was something freeing about fighting a war that wasn’t your own—maybe the chance at vengeance for their fallen prince was enough to excite them to fight for my uncle’s cause.

Whatever the reason, I sat back in the corner as if I was behind a pane of glass. Watching the revelry without truly understanding it. So long had passed. Too much had happened.

My days at the Undine court as an outsider had followed me. I watched Moira and Arden spin to music, their bare feet stomping in time with the drums, and I couldn’t breathe.

I stood up. The dregs of my wine slopped over my borrowed skirt. I put the glass on the table's edge, ignoring the food, yet my stomach churned with hunger. Too distracted to eat.

Would I have to keep running? Could I swim the Dark Sea to Everfall Port and continue to the Night Court. Perhaps stopping at the Unseelie Kingdom, far enough that the Twilight Lake was just a memory.

Rainn was nowhere to be found, and I didn’t know if that bothered me.

It seemed that I didn’t know my mind very well at all.

I kept my head high and left the throne room quickly. I had no idea where I planned to go, but I knew I couldn’t dance, sing, and celebrate with the others.

I kept walking until I reached the doors to the cradle, and the guards ignored me as I stepped onto the sand.

The sky was dark; the only light was from the bulbous moon overhead, with the stars dimmer in its presence.

Is it all a test? I wondered. Was Belisama watching me from his place in the Tuatha Dé Danann?Judging me, like a sea snake on a carved path in the sand, unable to see beyond the ridges made by creatures more powerful.

I glanced back at the bronze doors set in the side of the canyon.

I could walk to the cove and be back by morning.

Emboldened by blood wine and dressed in silk, I picked up my stained skirt and traipsed to the stairs set into the side of the limestone. Worn and steep—seldom used by a society with wings.

I started walking, following the vague path I had seen from the sky when I had been carried in Aine-Erin’s arms. My calves burned, and by the time I reached the tree line at the top of the stairs, my lungs burned, and my skin was speckled red with exertion.

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