Page 105 of Rise of the Siren Queen
But I couldn’t walk away. Iwon’t. Not after everything I’ve lost. My kingdom needs me. My people cling to a fragile hope that Iwon’tabandon them the way she did hers. I can’t give in to the ache clawing at my insides every time Adrian looks at me like I’m already his. I can’t afford to want him, not truly. And yet…
I’m falling. Damn it, I’m falling so hard I can barely breathe. And not because of the bond. Not because some celestial thread deemed it fate. No, this was always here. The moment he stepped into my world, Ifeltit. Before the snap, before the knowing. Something in him spoke to something buried in me.
I dragged a hand through my tangled hair, bile rising in my throat.
Heir.
That word rang through my skull like a curse. He wasn’t justanyone. He was the heir to Erythion’s throne, a kingdom that had long walked the line between wary ally and potential threat. A hybrid prince. My mate.A political powder keg wrapped in desire and danger.
If the council found out… if the court suspected even a shred of truth about what he was…
They’d never let him live.
I rose from the bed as silently as a ghost, every muscle tense with dread. I gathered my things slowly, methodically, like the motions might anchor me to this room for a moment longer. But I had to go. Before he woke. Before I did something unforgivable, like stay.
Coward.
The word echoed in my mind, bitter and cutting. But I couldn’t face him. Not after last night. Not with this storm inside me tearing me limb from limb.
I reached for him with my mind, just to be sure he was still asleep, and felt nothing but a void. A thick, dreamless unconsciousness.Good. He wouldn’t know I left. Not yet. I can’t say goodbye—leaving already hurts.
I stepped out of the guest room, past the still air and luxuries of his penthouse. Everything gleamed in the faint light of sunrise—the white marble, the polished gold, the ghost of my shadow on the floor. And I hated it. Hated how it already felt like a memory.
I left, each step peeling skin from bone.
By the time I reached Thalassa’s secluded pier, the sun was climbing, indifferent to its warmth. The waves moved with cruel serenity as I stood before the yacht, his yacht. It loomed like a monument to everything I couldn’t have.
The moment I slipped beneath the surface, the chill of the water devoured me. It was a small mercy, numbing. But it didn’t silence the echo of his voice in my head or the phantom of his touch still burning on my skin.
He was with me the whole time.
When I shifted, the ache was there. When I crossed the border to Aetheria, it deepened. And when I saw the barrier shimmer like a wall of glass and memory, it almost undid me.
Elora and Sienna were waiting. My sisters in everything but blood. Kieran and Ronan weren’t there, thank the gods.
When I finally reached them, I shattered. Right there at the border, where the ocean met home, I broke like glass, loud, messy, sobbing with an agony I didn’t even know how to contain.
They didn’t ask questions. Their arms closed around me, grounding me as I shook and sobbed into their shoulders. Elora didn’t speak. She just raised her hand, and the water bloomed into deep blue flames, cloaking us in a camouflage of magic and grief.
For now, I remained hidden.
But nothing could shield me from what I’d just left behind.
“I had to… leave him,” I choked out, each word splintering in a ragged breath. My throat burned. I felt a rusted blade hollowing out of my chest. “It hurts… so much.”
Elora didn’t flinch. Just pulled me closer, her hand tracing slow circles between my shoulder blades. Calming. Anchoring. A quiet mercy.
“I know,” she murmured, barely above the sound of the waves lapping against the reef. “I know it hurts… and I wish I could tell you it gets better. But it doesn’t. You did what you had to do. You had no choice.” She hesitated, then softly added. “Maybe… maybe you still could be with him. Itisthe will of the goddess.”
The will of the goddess.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
I didn’t answer. What could I say? That I wanted to burn the will of the goddess to ash? That the weight of my crown was suffocating me, and yet I’d never dare let it fall? Or that I couldn’t have him even if I tore the world apart to try?
Because that’s what it would take…destruction, betrayal, and treason. I’d burn Aetheria to the seabed if it meant being with him… and I hated myself for that truth. I hated the part of me thatwantedto.
“Oh, sweetie…” Sienna’s voice drifted through my haze like a lullaby drowned in sorrow. Her fingers brushed my tear-streaked cheek. “It all works in the end,” she whispered, her silver eyes losing focus, clouded with whatever vision now bled through her sight. “Trust in the goddess. Your fate shall be fulfilled through her.”
