Page 113 of Of the Stars and Sea

A giggle rasps against my throat. Then, I hear the scraping sound he prepared me for and the boat shifts to the right. Or at least Ithinkit’s the right. Not being able to see anything makes it difficult to tell which direction I’m actually moving in. But it’s not long when a faint green light glows just ahead. The closer we get, I see that it’s coming from the walls where images are painted in some kind of luminous paint.

“What is that?” I ask, as we grow closer.

“It appears to be some kind of glyph. Look there.” He points to the right and this time I can see the faint outline of his outstretched arm.

Painted with the same incandescent material is an underwater scene filled with bright corals and countless fish that all seem to be swimming in the same direction. Further ahead is another image of a Mer female holding an oyster in the center ofher joined palms, with a pearl nestled in the bed of the oyster. The Mer’s face is ethereal. Pearls and other gems line the crown she wears atop her head with long lustrous locks of hair flowing all around her.

“She’s so beautiful,” I whisper, reaching out to touch the image. Cold stone meets my fingertips as I glide them over the oyster and pearl. As I draw my hand back, I rub the tips of my fingers together, feeling the cool wetness left behind. “Who is she?”

“The first Mer Queen. Her name was Indra Kythaela Shalana.” He dips the paddle into the water and the boat continues moving forward at a leisurely pace.

“She certainlylookslike a queen.” I watch the painting of her drift away as we continue down the path. “But I thought the Mer Queendom resides off the coast of Indra’s Maw—the island named after her. Why would there be paintings of herhere?”

Grayson’s eyes shift to the wall. “The Solise Mountains are memory. It is not only the line of Mer that are depicted here.”

Following his gaze, I take in the next set of images. Every creature known to the Southern Realm is depicted. Vampyres. Sea witches. The Dark Moon coven. Humans—seafaring folk and land dwellers, alike.

We wind through the passageway and I take everything in. “I feel like I’m a child again, lying in bed as my mother tells me stories of our world’s past.” Reaching out again, I run my hands over a painting of the ocean meeting the sunrise. “Every night my father was away, she would start a fire in the hearth and we’d stay up into the early hours of the morning. She’d read to me from these giant tomes she’d said were passed down from her family.”

“Is she the one who taught you the old language?”

I raise a brow at Grayson. “I’m surprised you don’t already know the answer to that question.”

He shoots me a smirk. “Zaos only discovered that you were planning on stealing the artifact from Blythe, not that you would be one of the few who could translate its inscription.”

“Right.” I roll my eyes, then wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling the temperature drop. “Yes, it was my mother.”

“It’s uncommon to encounter someone who has knowledge of the old language, much less the ability to translate it.”

He’s edging toward unchartered territory. We’ve made a vow. No more secrets. No more half-truths. But this . . .

My throat starts to tighten from the emotion I’ve locked away for far too long. It bangs against the box I placed it in. Threatening to spill out and ruin all that is good in my life. Just asshehad ruined everything back then.

Hoping that he sees the pain that is too great for me to bear, all I say is, “Yes, it is rare.”

I eye him, pleading for a respite from this conversation.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have the choice of giving me one as we turn another corner into a large circular cavern with more paintings on the walls, but whatever material was used in here glows silver instead of green. Our attention is drawn to the wall immediately in front of us that shows an image we’ve both seen before.

“The box,” I whisper. Pulling the trinket from the inner pocket of my coat, I raise it up. The image on the wall mirrors the one etched into the golden surface, only it’s much larger. Carved into the onyx stone around the painting is the same writing illustrated on the key:Where the earth reaches for the heavens, secrets lie. Deep beyond, in darkness you shall see.

“I think we’re in the right place,” I say to Grayson.

Something sparkles in his eyes as he smiles warmly at me. “Indeed, Little Pearl.”

He rows us toward the edge, where a wide walking path of stone surrounds the cavern. Careful not to rock the boat tooviolently, I step out onto the path. Grayson tosses me a rope and I place it beneath one of the stones nestled against the wall to keep the longboat from drifting away

Once he’s by my side, we walk up to the painting lined directly across from the tunnel entrance. “It looks like an archway.” I gesture toward the lettering that starts at the bottom of the wall, then curves once reaching the top, only to dive straight back down the other side.

“And archways represent doors,” Grayson muses.

“That they do.” I beam up at him.

I scan the rock wall for any sort of keyhole when, suddenly, there’s a splashing sound from directly behind us. Grayson and I pause. Then, in unison, we pull our weapons. The steel sings against the near-silence, echoing through the cavern.

My heart races in my chest when I look down to find three creatures. One of them starts crawling up onto the pathway from the water, her large eyes are trained on Grayson while the other two—still in the water—assess me with blatant curiosity.

Water nymphs. At least that’s what I think they are, if my mother’s teachings were correct.

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