Page 103 of Rise of the Siren Queen
Once it was done, I turned to face her, voice cold, sharp, like a knife.
“Tomorrow, huh?” I raised an eyebrow, felt the bitterness bleed into every syllable like venom. “When were you planning on telling me? After you vanished without a trace?”
Her eyes flicked toward me, sea glass shimmering with something I couldn’t quite name. Guilt? Sadness? Pity? I didn’t want her pity. I wanted the truth, wanted a goddamn reason.
“You knew I had my duty back home,” she said, voice maddeningly composed. “This was always temporary.” Her words hit like a slap. Not loud. Not violent. Justcold.
Just enough to sting deeper than screaming ever could.
Iknew. Of course I knew.
From the second she crashed into my life, I felt the clock ticking. But I didn’t think it’d run outthissoon. I didn’t think she’d walkaway with the same ease everyone else did.
And the worst part?
If she asked me, I’d go with her.
No hesitation. No conditions. I’d burn it all.
The realization hit like a sucker punch to the ribs.
I’d abandon it,everything. My empire. The yachts. The billions. Even my name. I love her, and she was still leaving.
But maybe that’s when you know it’s real, when you stop trying to be enough, and start becoming more than you were.
My sister could handle the company. I trained her for this, always with the idea ofsomedayleaving this godforsaken city. I just didn’t expect someday to look like this, me giving it all up for a woman who was already halfway out the door.
“All of it,” I muttered, mostly to myself, voice low and rough. “I’d give it all up for you.”
She flinched. Just slightly. And then—
“You can’t, Adrian,” she whispered. Her gaze stayed pinned to the dying light, as if looking at me would make itreal. “They would hunt you down.”
There was a crack in her voice. A tremor behind the calm facade.
I don’t care if they hunt me or even kill me. Anytime at her side was enough, as long as she was mine.
“Iryen, I—” I started, but she cut me off with a shake of her head. No room for hope. No room forme.
“I can’t leave my kingdom like your mother did.”
That sentence lodged like glass in my throat. Sharp. Ugly. Honest.
I wouldn’t ask her to. I didn’twanther to. The thought never entered my head. I couldn’t trap her in a life like mine. Dry and cold like concrete. She deserves more. She deserves to rule the ocean like the queen she is.
“I know you didn’t ask for this, for any of it. But I can’t abandonmy crown. Not after… everything I’ve lost because of it.”
Her voice broke then, just barely. I felt it.
The grief. The damn finality of it all.
She swallowed hard. Her eyes shimmered, but the tears didn’t fall. Royals don’t cry, not even while shattering your heart.
“It’s my parents’ legacy,” she whispered. “The last piece of them I have left.”
And just like that, I knew she was already gone.
Still sitting across from me. Still beautiful, still tragic, still mine, and not mine at all.
