Page 39 of A Kingdom Restored

Sage closed her mouth, her expression bewildered. “But…why?”

Merletta shrugged. “If I had time on my side, I would be interested in a relationship with them. But I don’t want anything from them. It might be who I was born, but it’s not who I am. I used to think I needed the validity of a family name, but I see all that differently now.” She gave them a tight smile. “I’m not alone—you’re all here, risking your lives to float by me, aren’t you?”

“Of course we are,” Andre said quietly.

“Besides,” Merletta’s tone turned brisk, “it’s not about what I need. I’m all Tilssted has, and they really do need me. I found that when it came down to it, I didn’t actually want to disown them.”

“Still,” Emil mused. “It would make you less vulnerable. And might give you more credibility with those in power at the Center.”

Merletta gave him a look. “Do you really think any amount of credibility could make them more cooperative given that my aim is to reveal the truth they’ve gone to such efforts to conceal?”

“No,” Emil admitted. “I don’t think anything would make that much difference.”

“Exactly,” said Merletta. “In fact…” She hesitated, surprised by how hard it was to say the words. “Again, I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure my parents were murdered by the Center for pushing the idea that we could expand outside the barrier. So the position of privilege clearly wasn’t enough to help either them or their cause.”

Sage’s eyes were wide with horror. “Merletta,” she whispered.

Merletta gave a humorless smile. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Even though they had no part in raising me, I still managed to grow up obsessed with the very concept which cost them their lives.”

There was a moment of silence, no one seeming to know what to say.

“So you’re putting all your pearls into the one oyster, embracing the persona of the defiant Tilssted trainee,” Emil commented at last. “I can respect that course. But are you honestly claiming you’re doing it because that’s who you really are at heart?”

Merletta’s chuckle was wry. “You’re very perceptive, Emil,” she acknowledged. “Let’s just say that role is who I need to be for the task ahead. That’s all that matters.”

“Your own feelings matter, too, Merletta,” Sage said gently. “Your feelings about who you really are, I mean.”

Merletta gazed at her friend, no ready answer rising to her lips. Emil was right that she didn’t fully identify with the role she’d grown up in—that of a Tilssted orphan, fighting hard for every scrap of success. But neither could she see herself as a privileged member of high Hemssted society. In fact, even the position of Center trainee, for which she’d fought so hard, felt at heart like a part she was playing, rather than who she really was.

So which version of herself felt real?

Her thoughts floated away from her without her permission, to the place where she’d felt most free, most at peace. Merciless sun beating on her shoulders. The sea sparkling before her, its azure depths beckoning and familiar, and right there, within reach. Wet sand squelching between her toes. Heath’s arm firm around her waist, his skin warm against hers, not with the searing heat of his touch on her mermaid form, but with the comfortable familiarity of co-existence.

She pulled herself back to the small waiting room where her friends floated by her side, ready to brave the Center’s retribution for the sake of both friendship and truth. Vazula—and especially Vazula with Heath—had been a very agreeable present for a brief spell. But the idea of the island forming her future was no more possible than rewriting her past and giving that to Vazula. For so many reasons—found both in her world and Heath’s.

Before she’d decided what, if anything, to say in reply to Sage’s words, the mermaid appeared again in the opening above them.

“You may all follow me,” she said, her tart voice communicating her disapproval at the inclusion of Merletta’s friends.

They swam up two more stories, and were ushered into a simple room, smaller than Merletta had expected. It had two rows of tiered seating along one wall, like a smaller version of their lecture rooms back in the program’s complex.

The four of them had barely taken places on the seating when the curtain of fronds which separated the room from one next to it stirred, and a lithe form appeared.

It wasn’t the first time Merletta had seen the Record Master up close. He’d approached her and Sage at the Founders’ Day feast all the way back in first year, and she’d encountered him more than once since then. But she’d never dared to scrutinize him as closely as she did now.

His figure was lean but strong—it was clear at a glance that anyone would be foolish to underestimate either his intelligence or his capability due to his advanced age. He had an austere presence, swimming with the assurance of someone used to authority. But he was otherwise unimposing. He wore no adornments in his silver hair, and his hands were folded behind his back in a non-threatening gesture.

But his gray eyes were shrewd and careful.

He was followed into the space by his two personal guards—the only ones Merletta had ever seen shadowing him. It seemed when they were otherwise occupied, he preferred to move about unguarded than take on other protectors. Both of them were familiar to Merletta as well, but only because of repeated exposure. She’d noted the first time she saw them that they were unremarkable, their expressions blank, and their coloring such that they blended with the ocean around them. One was weedy, with hair and skin so pale they seemed to fade before her sight, his silvery tail like water made solid. The other was more thickset, but not such that it was notable. His most attention-grabbing feature was his piercing blue eyes. They were the same color as his tail, which—like his companion’s—blended seamlessly into the water around him.

The nature of their role and their perfectly crafted weapons made their presence a little menacing by default. But on this occasion they floated casually by the Record Master’s sides, showing only the usual alertness one would expect from guards.

“Trainee Merletta.” The Record Master’s voice was cool and unemotional. “You requested a meeting with me, I understand.”

“I did, sir,” Merletta responded.

He looked her over in silence, his gaze passing thoughtfully from her golden fins all the way up to her face.

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