Page 47 of Whispers Beneath the Deep
But my words fell on deaf ears.
He wouldn’t have listened anyway. He’d come to his own conclusions, conclusions that were ridiculous, and yet they pained me. I realized then and there the impossibilities. The actions had been louder than any words he ever could have spoken. That Prince Kai loved Maisie in a way he never could have loved Odele.
No one heard or saw me leave.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maisie
With a whirlwater mind, I could not help but pace the room. Back and forth I went until my tail cramped up from the stiffness of my body posture. To distract my mind, I’d opened the telly shell, only to be bombarded with news and images of events that already plagued my mind.
Me. Prince Kai. The sniper. Captain Saber. Death.
I had promptly slammed the shell closed again and resumed pacing.
Now, I sunk onto the edge of the bed. The plump anemones must have sensed my distress. They caressed me, fat stinging tentacles curling around my arms and tail. I relished in the feeling for but a moment before my mind grew restless and I all but shoved them away again.
My thoughts would not ease. How could they, with Prince Kai dying in his rooms because he had decided to saveme? Right after I’d publicly rejected his affections, had more or less told him not to love me, that I did not love him.
How could we?
We didn’t evenknoweach other.
The Black Blade’s words came back to me.I’ve no doubt in my mind, little fish, that Prince Kai Li of Draconi knows exactly who you are.Did he? I mean, could he possibly? I wondered if it mattered.
In the short time we knew each other, I’d seen something in the Black Blade, like he saw something in me. It had been enough of a feeling, in so short a time, for us to give ourselves to one another. Maybe it was the same with Prince Kai. Maybe he didn’t need to know my true name to feel something. Maybe he saw deep into the depths of my heart and soul, and that was enough.
It still felt like a special sort of treachery, to not tell him the truth. If he knew, it would change everything. I was terrified of him knowing. That realization struck me hard because I did not want his feelings for me to change.
Because maybe, just maybe, I felt something for him as well.
All I knew was that I could not sit here idly while Prince Kai was surely in pain in his rooms. I’d already waited too long to see him, and I could not put it off forever. I had to see him. Now.
Decision made, I swam out into the halls where my guards were waiting—thankfully not Captain Saber—and when they saw me they bowed.
“Escort me to Prince Kai’s rooms.” The worry in my gut made me snap the demand. No please. No thank you. I was royalty, and I meant business, leaving no room for anything other than their obedience. They nodded stiffly and escorted me.
I was surprised to find his rooms were not too far from mine, though the appropriate distance to avoid a scandal. But the thought of a scandal would not keep me out. To the abyss with Odele’s reputation, it was a ruined thing anyway. I had to speak to the prince alone, and so I would.
The guards outside the room bowed to me. I waved them off.
“You will wait here as I go see my betrothed,” I commanded.
They dared not mention the impropriety of the situation. They just bowed, and one of them rapped his knuckles on the door.
A few moments later, one of Kai’s advisors opened it. His dark hair was piled tightly into a bun on top of his head. There were crinkles just on the outer edges of his slanted eyes. He looked at me with disdain.
“Yes?” he asked. No respective titles. No beating around the cattails. I wondered if he despised me, or somehow blamed me for what had happened to the prince earlier today. If he did, I avoided telling him that no one hated me more than I did myself right now.
“I’m here to see Kai.” It was an intimate thing, to say his name like that. It nearly made my tail curl.
The advisor sniffed once. “Theprince,” he emphasized, accent thick, “is resting. The medics have ordered it. No visitors.”
My heart sank like an anchor to the pit of my stomach. I tilted my chin up just a bit higher. “I insist.” Though the tone of my voice said,I command.
He started to ease the door closed. “And I insist you go back to your rooms, Princess, lest someone else gets hurt today.”
“Wait, I—”
