"But how do I control it?"
The words burst from my lips before I could stop them, hanging in the water like bubbles of trapped air trembling toward the surface. I was still trying to grasp everything he had told us, the weight of history and blood and ancient tragedy pressing down upon my shoulders until I felt I might drown in knowledge alone. My mind reeled with images of murdered daughters and vengeful sisters and powers that demanded the unthinkable. But beneath the confusion, beneath the fear, I needed to know. I needed to understand.
"If I really can do all these things," I continued, my voice rising with desperate urgency that made the water around us vibrate with my distress, "if I can really channel blessings, save them from near death, protect the people I love from harm and hunger and sickness... I need to know how. How do I activate it? How do I make it work when I need it? How do I call forth the power to heal, to bless, to strengthen, when the moment comes and someone I love is dying in front of me?"
Caelaris looked at me for a long moment, his sea glass eyes unreadable, ancient and patient as the tides that had worn mountains to sand.
"I am not certain," he admitted, and the honesty in his voice was more frightening than any lie could have been. "The legends speak of two paths. The first... full belief in the First Mother’s blessings. Complete surrender of doubt, absolute trust in the power flowing through your veins. This can trigger the gifts, awaken them from their slumber like a bear roused from winter sleep." He paused, his expression grave, the lines around his eyes deepening with the weight of what he was about to say. "But this path is uncertain. It may take days, or years, or never come at all. The mind is a stubborn gatekeeper, and doubt is a heavy lock. You cannot force belief, Krys. It must bloom like coral, slowly, over time."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and I saw something flicker in his eyes. Warning, perhaps. Or pity.
"The second path," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to crawl inside my ribs and settle there like ice, "is faster. More certain. The legends say that the blood of those you love, shed from their hearts onto you, can trigger the power immediately. The sacrifice of a beloved’s life force, freely given, awakens the Azure Sovereign in full. One’s heart blood, and you rise complete and yours becomes a vessel for divinity."
I stared at him.
The water between us seemed to grow colder, denser, pressing against my skin like a physical weight.
"No," I said. The word came out flat, hard, and finally as a tomb door closing. "No way. You are telling me that someone I love has to bleed from their heart? That they have to die so I can use this power?" I shook my head, my hair billowing around me like a dark cloud stirred by storm winds. "That is practically saying they have to die for me to become what you say I am. Absolutely not. No power is more important to me than the lives of those I cherish. Not all the healing in the world. Not all the strength or blessings or prosperity. I would rather watch my own blood cloud this water than theirs."
I looked at my mates, memorizing every detail as if I might lose them at any moment. At Caelion’s hopeful face the newest member of my family who nearly died protecting my honors, at Ravin’s fierce protection, my first mate who is always ready to shield me from harm. At Leon’s pride, the lion who literally fought a dangerous beast to protect me just because I was his mate. At Soryn’s gentleness he preserve only for me, the serpent who wrapped around my heart with tender patience. I imagined any of them with a blade in their chest, their blood clouding the water in dark red tendrils, their eyes going dark while I stood over them soaking in their death like some parasitic monster feeding on their final heartbeat.
My stomach turned, a violent lurch that made me grateful I had not eaten in hours. I pressed my hand against my belly, willing myself not to be sick in front of the King, not to dishonor myself with weakness when I needed to be strong.
"Power or not," I said, and my voice shook but my resolve did not, "if someone I love has to die, then I can live without the powers. I will live as I am. Ordinary. Weak, if that is what it takes. I will not trade their lives for magic. I will not become a queen of death. I would rather be powerless and have them breathing than be a goddess standing alone over their graves."
Caelaris regarded me with those ancient eyes, and I saw something shift in his expression. Respect, perhaps. Or recognition of a choice he had seen others fail to make. Or the weary acceptance of a man who had watched too many choose power over love.
"I understand," he said softly. "Truly, I do. But that is what the legends say. You can awaken the gift through full belief in the First Mother, through patience and faith and surrender to something larger than yourself. Or you can take the blood from your loved one’s heart and rise immediately as the Azure Sovereign reborn, complete in your power."
He spread his hands, marked by centuries of rule, in a gesture of helplessness that seemed to cost him something.
"I am only the messenger, Krys. The keeper of stories too old to verify, too dangerous to forget. The choice, if it ever comes, will be yours. And may the tides have mercy on you when it does."
...
After our audience with the Mer King concluded, we swam from his presence in silence heavy as anchors dragging across the ocean floor. The crystalline corridors that had seemed so wondrous on our arrival, all glowing spires and rainbow light, now felt suffocating, pressing in from all sides with the weight of secrets too ancient and prices too steep for any heart to pay.
We emerged from the palace into the open water, and only then did I realize I had been holding my breath; not from lack of air, but from the tension coiling tight in my chest like a serpent preparing to strike. I exhaled slowly, watching my breath fog into crystalline bubbles that rose toward the distant surface, carrying my confusion and fear with them into the light above.
So that was it. My powers were essentially useless.
Unless I could somehow manufacture belief in a goddess I had never known, worship a deity from a world not my own with the fervor of the truly devout. Or unless I was willing to stand over the corpse of someone I loved, their blood clouding the water, their heart stilled forever so that I might become something greater than human.
I swam in a daze, my legs kicking on autopilot while my brain checked out. The streets blurred into background noise, just colors and motion I couldn’t focus on. How was I supposed to believe in some ocean goddess I’d never heard of until today? I grew up on Sunday school and Disney movies, not ancient merfolk legends about murdered sisters and blood sacrifices.
Faith wasn’t something you could just decide to have. It wasn’t like flipping a light switch or downloading an app. It was years of Christmas mornings and bedtime prayers and your grandma’s voice reading Bible stories. It was community and tradition and belonging to something bigger than yourself since before you could walk. You couldn’t just suddenly believe in a whole new deity because some fish king told you it would unlock superpowers. That wasn’t how belief worked.
You couldn’t force yourself to believe any more than you could force yourself to fall in love. It either grew in you, or it didn’t. And I was pretty sure the First Mother wasn’t taking converts from girls who landed in her world by accident.
I could not sacrifice them. Any of them.
To use them cold heartedly for power? To watch them bleed while I absorbed their deaths like some parasitic deity feeding on worship paid in blood?
I would rather remain powerless. I would rather be ordinary, weak, insignificant, a footnote in the history of this world. I would rather die myself than pay that price. I would rather fail to save a thousand strangers than succeed by killing one of them.
"Let’s not think about what’s stressing us right now," Ravin said, swimming up beside me with movements surprisingly graceful for one so large. His large hand found my shoulder, squeezing with gentle pressure that anchored me to the present, to the now, to the reality of his warmth and life. His eyes, warm and concerned, searched my face for cracks in my composure. "Whatever happens, we face it together."
"Come on," Caelion said, forcing brightness into his voice like light through murky water, though I could see the shadow still lingering in his sea glass eyes, the weight of his own family legacy pressing upon him. He offered his hand, spread in invitation, fingers pale against the dim glow of the city. "Let me show you my home. Where I grew up. Where I used to hide when the palace became too..." He paused, searching for the word, his jaw tightening with old memory. "Too much. Too cruel. Too full of eyes that looked through me like I was glass. Hopefully the scenery will cheer you up. It’s the one place that was ever truly mine. The only place I could breathe."
I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat that felt like swallowed tears and let him lead me away from the grand spires of the royal quarter, away from the weight of thrones and ancient prophecies and impossible choices.
We swam through neighborhoods of lesser coral, past markets where merfolk haggled over luminescent pearls and singing shells that chirped when touched, past schools of children who paused their games to stare at the strange woman in their midst, their eyes wide with curiosity and confusion. The city gradually gave way to quieter districts, then to the outskirts where the architecture grew humbler, smaller, more personal, homes grown from living coral rather than carved from ancient bone.
Caelion stopped before a modest dwelling grown from pale pink coral, its windows dark and empty, curtains of woven kelp hanging limp in the still water. It sat apart from the other homes, nestled in a grove of gently swaying anemones that glowed soft amber in the dim light, like a warm hearth in a cold world.
"This was mine," he said softly, almost reverently, his hand reaching out to trace the coral wall with tender familiarity. "My sanctuary. My prison, sometimes. The only place where I didn’t have to be the disappointing son, the third castoff, the ghost boy everyone wished would fade away."
He guided us inside, and I saw that while the exterior was humble, the interior was lovingly tended with the care of someone who had nothing else to care for. Shelves carved from nautilus shells held collections of ocean treasures, arranged with obvious reverence. There were spiraled shells in every size and color, from tiny pink conchs no bigger than my thumbnail to massive conch shells that could have served as trumpets. Pieces of coral branched like underwater trees, bleached white and delicate. A sleeping alcove was lined with cushions of woven sea silk in colors that had faded to soft pastels.
"I used to come here when my brothers grew cruel," Caelion said, his fingers trailing over the collections of shells with the touch of a man greeting old friends. "When my mother looked through me like I was invisible, like I was less than the water between her and the world. When my father was too busy being king to notice another castoff son drowning in plain sight."
He turned to face us, and his smile was bittersweet, beautiful and broken, like a stained glass window cracked but still holding its shape.
"My father is the Mer King," he said, "but he was never my mother’s favorite. I am the son of her third mate, the afterthought, the consolation prize. My brothers, the ones you met, the cruel ones, are the sons of her first mate. The Shark King. A legend in his own right, fierce and terrifying and everything my father was not, everything I could never hope to be."
He paused, his jaw tightening, his gaze distant as if looking through years of accumulated sorrow, through layers of rejection like sediment at the bottom of the sea.
"But here is the thing that makes it all so much worse," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to carry the weight of generations. "The Shark King was my father’s personal knight before he was ever my mother’s mate. He served at my father’s side, protected him, was loyal to him before all others, from boyhood until death. And when he became Mother’s first mate, he did not stop being my father’s shield. He loved them both, you see. With a depth and integrity that I have rarely seen matched, a loyalty that transcended jealousy, a heart large enough to serve two masters without dividing."
Caelion swam to the window, looking out at the distant palace spires that pierced the water like accusing fingers pointing toward the surface, his expression haunted by ghosts I could not see.
"He died in battle when I was young," he said. "Not in some glorious conquest, not fighting for territory or treasure or the expansion of empire. He died protecting my father. Threw himself between the Mer King and a leviathan’s jaws that could have swallowed a ship whole. Took the killing blow that was meant for the man he had sworn to protect, the man who was both his king and his rival for my mother’s heart, his brother in all but blood."
He turned back to us, and I saw tears mixing with the salt water on his cheeks, silver tracks that caught the dim light.
"My mother never forgave the ocean for taking him," he said, his voice rough with old grief inherited like a family curse. "But more than that, she never forgave my father for being alive when her beloved was dead. Every time she looks at him, she sees the ghost of the Shark King standing behind him, taller and braver and better. Every time she speaks to him, her words are barbed with the accusation: why are you here when he is not? Why did he die for you? Why could it not have been you instead?"
He laughed, but there was no humor in it, only pain, only the hollow sound of a boy who had learned early that love was conditional and conditions were impossible to meet.
"The Shark King was a man of integrity," Caelion said, his voice filled with a reverence that spoke of childhood heroes and lost legends, of a dead man he had been measured against and found wanting. "He loved my mother truly, but he never stopped serving my father faithfully. Even in death, he chose between them, chose to save one and doom himself."
He swam closer to me, his sea glass eyes filled with ancient loneliness, with the hunger of a child who had never been fed enough affection to grow whole.
Caelion continued, his voice hollow with old pain. "When she had me, she hated me. Not because I did anything wrong. Not because I was weak or small or too gentle. She hated me because I was the son of the man her favorite mate died protecting. Every time she looked at me, she saw my father living when her beloved lay dead. Every time she held me, she felt the weight of that injustice."
He turned away, his shoulders tight with tension.
"She could not break their bond, you see. The Shark King had loved my father, truly loved him as a brother, as a friend, as someone worth dying for. My mother could not betray those feelings. She could not dishonor his sacrifice by rejecting the man he gave his life to save. So she stayed. She remained bonded to my father, played the part of the dutiful queen. But she stopped loving him. She simply... turned it off. Like blowing out a candle."
He laughed, a bitter sound that carried no warmth.
"My father did everything. Gave her everything. Power, status, wealth, devotion. He loved her remaining sons, the Shark King’s boys, as if they were his own flesh and blood, trying to honor his fallen friend by raising his children. He poured every ounce of his being into winning her back, into making her feel something, anything, for him again. And in his obsession, in his desperate chase after her affection, he forgot about me. The cast out son. The third mate’s child. The living reminder of everything she had lost and everything he could never be."
He turned back to us, his sea glass eyes bright with tears he refused to shed.
"I became invisible," he said softly. "A mother who could not love me because I carried my father’s face. A father too busy chasing a ghost’s shadow to notice his own son drowning in plain sight. Brothers who hated me for reminding them of the father they lost, and for being the son of the man who lived when he should have died. I was nothing to any of them. Less than nothing."
He took my hands in his, his fingers trembling against my palms, clinging like a drowning man to driftwood.
"That is why she cast me out," he whispered. "Not because I was weak, but because I was alive. Because I was my father’s son, and my father was the man who lived. She could not kill him. She could not leave him. So she destroyed me instead. The only piece of him she could sacrifice without breaking her bond, without dishonoring her first mate’s memory. I was the offering she made to her grief. The son she threw away so she could keep hating the husband she could not abandon."
He looked around the small sanctuary, at the shells and faded cushions, then back at me, at all of us, with eyes that held hope like a fragile thing newly born.
"Such a pitiful life," he breathed. "Raised by a woman who wished me dead, rejected by a father who looked through me like I was glass, tormented by brothers who saw me as the unwanted child. The only thing I ever had was this place. And the memory of a man I never met, who loved my father enough to die for him, never knowing that his sacrifice would become the blade that cut me from my mother’s heart."
I pulled him into my arms, and the others surrounded us, a circle of warmth in the cold water, a wall of living love against the tide of his loneliness.
"No," I whispered against his hair, feeling the silk of it against my cheek, the steady beat of his heart against my own. "Not pitiful. Not anymore. You have us now. And we are not going anywhere."