Page 105 of Female Fantasy
I shoot him a look. “I need to hear this,” I tell him. Then to Nix, “Go on.”
“Do you not find it odd that centuries of mer have attempted to do precisely what your prince did in order to heal and grow strong, but all of them lost the battle and paid a steep price? Did it not occur to you that sirens would not exist if all mer had the same level of restraint as your lover?”
The blood pumping through my veins pauses. In fact, the entirety of the ocean seems to still.
I ponder his query.
The truth is, these things did occur to me. I questioned Ryke about this very matter. But he dismissed my concern outright, told me that he was able to take enough blood without killing me and then stop because of me. That my reaction was enough to signal him, to wake him from his power-hungry haze. And I accepted that, took his words at face value.
What a childish, naïve woman I am.
I must think very highly of myself. Me, a mere human, able to control the actions of the prince of Atlantia? Of course there is another explanation.
“Since drinking your blood, the prince has evolved into a strange creature, an amalgamation of sorts,” Nix muses.
Behind him, my dolphins whine and whinny. An intimidation tactic.
“What do you mean?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Nix’s lips twitch. “Well, he is clearly no longer your average mer. Although you could argue that his royal bloodline has always afforded him certain…privileges. Advantages that we sirens were not given at birth but rather had to take by force.”
“By murdering innocents?” Ryke growls.
Nix shrugs. “You sayinnocents. My sisters and I saycollateral damage.I am surprised by you, Your Highness. I really am. You know better than anyone that the best way—the only way—to gain power is to take it.”
My insides start to churn. What is he talking about it? What could that possibly mean?
“No, the reason you two were able to power share, to gain strength without giving up your humanity and live to tell the tale—or rather, the tail—is simple. Rare, but simple. One word, really.”
Ryke charges forward, the veins in his forehead popping. “I will cut out your tongue—”
“Lochs.”
The dolphins cease their snarling as the current around us slows.
A satisfied smirk graces the false prince’s face.
Devastation suffuses the face of the true prince from chin to brow.
I, however, remain confused.
“Locks?” I repeat, tasting the word on my tongue. “What do they have to do with anything?”
Ryke’s next sentence comes in a whisper. “I did not want you to find out this way.” He starts toward me, but Nix blocks his path. “You were never meant to feel forced by anyone’s hand, even the Furnace and its Fates. It was always meant to be your choice.”
I shake my head, still not understanding. “What was meant to be my choice?”
“Why, him, of course.” Nix purses his lips. “You see, lochs are ancient bonds predating the written word, the mer, and perhaps even this universe. They are lore and they are law. But they are so uncommon that it is highly unlikely one will come across their own in their lifetime. Most mer do not consume themselves with looking, with wondering, or with wishing. It has been centuries since I have seen one myself.”
I store the information that Nix is hundreds of years old in the folds of my brain for another day.
“Lock,” I repeat to myself. “Like the mechanism that safeguards a door or trove?”
“No, you fool.” Nix shakes his head. “A loch is the very arm of the sea. The backbone of the tide. The intersection of the water and the earth.”
The intersection of the water and the earth.
I cannot think of a more apt description of Ryke and me.
