Page 170 of Cruel Tides

“I doubt she would let you leave with your life,” he said, his head shaking. “I’m sure you’ve realized that our kind hopes to one day leave the Undersea. A princess with the mark of a sea witch, hunted by all that lives in the waters above, would be rather useless.”

Useless.There was that word again, the one that seemed to follow me wherever I went.

My voice was shaking when I asked, “So what happens to me when you tell her?”

“It has never been my secret to tell.”

So, I’d just have to wait for her to find out on her own, then? Fantastic.

However, there was something else in his story that piqued my interest. “How is the queen able to harness your magic? Why do you have to follow her commands?”

“That knowledge,” he said with a sigh, “I will leave for when I tell you the many secrets of my trident.”

My lips pulled together. “So, after I’m dead, then?”

“You’re not going to die.” His words dripped with charm as he leaned back over me. “Not if I have any say in it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, feeling a blush rising over my face. “But you said it yourself, your queen—my…grandmother—wants you to break my curse whether I want it broken or not.”

“Ah, about that,” he said, looking all the more amused. “She bid me to break your curse,singular.As in one.” He settled a hand under his chin as if studying me intently. “From what I gather, your tail and your eyes appear to be two different spells.”

Twospells?

He stared a moment longer before muttering, “Your eyes are beautifully crafted magic.”

“They are?” I blinked up at him, not sure what else to say. I’d always thought they were normal, boring eyes. The same shade of gray as my father’s.

“Indeed.” The sea wizard’s head tilted. “Not only do they conceal your sea witch’s mark, but they’re also functional, unlike your tail. I wonder why that is…”

I was just as clueless as he was. It would help if I knew literally anything about magic, but I didn’t.

“In any case,” he continued, “it’s clear to me they are separate pieces of magic, and I’ve decided to only concern myself with breaking the one.”

His simple gesture toward my tail was enough to make me flinch.

It might have been a useless tail, but since meeting my guys, it had become more than just a tail to me. The thought of losing a part of myself where I could live happily with them underwater if I chose to was absolutely terrifying. And not only that, but life as a cecaelia? As aprincess?

“I don’t want this,” I said, my head shaking. But I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that what I wanted mattered anymore. Even if I were to beg, the queen wouldn’t let me leave.

Now I had a new curse, spending the rest of my life stuck down here, confined within these horrid, rocky bowels.

I couldn’t help the sob that escaped me.

“Princess,” the sea wizard murmured. His voice carried an unsettling amount of concern, considering he was the one who brought me down here. When I looked up, his lips had fallen into a frown. “Perhaps I should leave you to your rest.”

He waited, but this time I didn’t stop him. As soon as he spun away, disappearing into the darkness, the sound of my sobs broke the silence. It was a known fact that no one could cry underwater, but maybe that rule wasn’t true for cecaelia. Because here I was, doing my damnedest.

Even if I managed to escape this place, I would still be a cecaelia.A dark spawn.

Fear engulfed me as I recalled the horrid vision that had stared back at me in the mirror, its wicked eyes burning into my soul like a white-hot fire.

Would there be anything left for me to return to once the guys learned the truth?

39

Leander

“I’m done waiting.” I stormed back toward Barren’s bedroom for the hundredth time. “It’s too damn quiet. We haven’t heard a sound from them since we woke up.”

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