Page 106 of Female Fantasy
“But in the case of the mer, your loch is your fated mate, forged by the Furnace, predestined for you at birth by theNorth Star. Your entire life, the North Star tries to guide you toward your loch, even when you are not aware of it.”
I look over at Ryke, whose eyes brim with unshed tears.
Ryke—my stranger, my lover, my friend—is my destiny?
My loch?
Chosen for me by the North Star itself?
I need not ask the siren for confirmation. I can see it in the eyes of my prince.
Regret.
Betrayal.
And pure, unconditional longing.
“You knew?” I whisper, needing to hear the words aloud. “All this time, you knew I was your loch, and yet you said nothing? You never thought to tell me?”
He hangs his head, unable to look at me.
“How did you know?”
I think back to the first time we met at the creek cottage.
The night he saved me from the abuse of my husband.
Was he merely claiming what was rightfully his?
I had fancied him my liberator, not my captor.
“Your light,” Nix answers for him. “When two people become interloched—that is the term for when two lochs converge, their fated journey completed—they begin to glow faintly with the light of the North Star, a blaze that grows even brighter when they are together. You cannot see your own light because you are a mere human. You do not possess the sight. But the first time our sweet prince laid eyes on you, you began to glow, and he immediately knew that you werehis loch. If, that is, he had not already felt the tugs of fate, the watchful North Star, leading him to you before that day.”
I look to Ryke, a mix of horror and wonder mingling in my mind.
“I suspected,” Ryke admits to the ocean floor. “But I did not know for certain until then.”
Every hair on my body stands up straight, the muscles in my abdomen, which Ryke has helped me to develop, clenching as I fight the urge to burst into tears. “So everyone—Dylan, Guinn, the others—they all know?”
Ryke grits his teeth and nods. “The people who have not seen us together know only that I am interloched. But yes, our friends know.”
Ourfriends.
Not his friends. Not his Upper Shoal.
Ours.
And somehow, that makes the truth sting all the sweeter.
“They never said a word,” I mutter.
Then an even more paralyzing thought strikes me.
“Of course—the night of the ball. You knew the risk of us attending together. Everyone present knew that were interloched. We must have been glowing more brightly than the moon.”
Ryke grimaces but does not contradict me.
“Oh, Furnace help me,” I mutter as the pieces begin to fit together. “That is why you caught the attention of the false queen Talassa. That is why the battle ensued and all those mer died. Because of me.”
