Page 18 of Midnightsong
So, Adrielle noticed Kaden was off too. A glance over showed a paler Kaden than she remembered diving into the sea with earlier. Her brow creased with worry.
Kaden threw her a pleading glance, but Angie shook her head at him. “It’s fine. You should go.” She put a hand on his arm. “We’ll catch up afterward.”
“But when will I see you—”
“Please, go. It’ll be fine. Just—can you say goodbye to your mother for me?”
Silently, he nodded.
Adrielle sent a male sentinel with a dusk gray tail with her and Angie followed him. She didn’t want to look back at Kaden, fearing if she did, he would change her mind about letting her leave. It was only when the seaweed, eelgrass, and corals were lit by moonlight again, did she look down, and saw no other mer than the sentinel escorting her.
Seven
Kaden
It was as if Kaden wassomewhere far away while his physical body floated, his muscles still and tense. The sea’s gentle caresses fluttered his fins, and those of the thousands of mer who surrounded him.
Denizens of his mother and aunt’s queendoms had shown to mourn their lost queen.
He’d expected tears. Anger. Even fear at what the queendom would become without her leadership. He hadn’t expected cold numbness to overtake him when he saw his mother earlier in the day in the mortician’s quarters.
If only Angie could be there with him. A torrent of melancholy doused him, and then, the briefest whisper of regret that he handed over the throne so freely to his uncle, so faint, he swore he imagined it. If Kaden was the one making the decision, he wouldn’t have banned humans and mer from interacting again. He would actively seek peace and answers from the humans he trusted.
At least, that was what he would want to do.
He shook the ‘what-ifs’ away. Uncle Saeryn was King and made the right call, barring humans from the queendom and mer from the surface.
He stared, fixated at the palace’s entrance, with mer lined up beside him and across from him in a straight line. Each space of rock was occupied, and more mer floated above his head, upright and horizontal, glittering eyes and dazzling tails creating a kaleidoscope of colors in the deep, bleak dark.
Next to him, Cyrus lied on his bed, a heavy seagrass-fiber blanket over his tail to keep him weighted down. Sentinels had carried him from the infirmary, his gills and eyes fluttering open and closed. Adrielle floated upright beside him, holding Libbi with one hand and Hadrien with the other.
They kept their eyes pointed forward, waiting for the designated sentinels to bring Serapha from the palace to her final resting place, the cemeteries reserved for royals, in a little-known region of the Bering Sea.
Finally, directly in front of the palace’s entrance, Saeryn floated, flanked on one side by Cassia.
On his other side was his daughter, and Kaden and Cyrus’ cousin, Princess Aiereka, the expression on her austere face stoic and her tail held stiff and straight, her fins working to keep her balance. Her short, raven hair, streaked with hues of sargassum, was tied back into a tight bun, and she was adjusting the fibrous, beige cloth around her chest.
Though he hadn’t had the opportunity to spend time with her in the past several tidesyears, he always saw her as the younger sister he never had.
Aiereka’s focus appeared singular, targeted at the palace’s entrance, where his mother would soon be carried out. Kaden tore his gaze away from Saeryn and Aiereka when two sentinels emerged from the palace, holding their hands up for the mourning ceremony to begin.
Saeryn was the first to speak, as was customary for the reigning monarch to honor their predecessor. The sentinels moved Serapha’s body in between them, adorned with jewels and covered with regalia of bright ruby and gold, wrapped around her to prevent it from floating away.
Would his mother have wanted Saeryn to take the throne?
She never mentioned it in her life. Now, he would never know the answer.
After his brief speech honoring Serapha and thanking her for using her life to serve the mer, he raised his chin to the mer citizens above his head and motioned for Cassia to continue.
Cassia blinked and set her jaw, and for a singular moment, she looked so much like her sister. “Thank you, brother. It is with a heavy heart that I am here this tidesday to bid farewell to my sister, and my friend. But she remains a pillar of respect, not only to her people, but to other queendoms who looked to her for guidance.” Her gaze flickered down to Serapha, and a forlorn shadow overtook her features. “Without her leadership, the landwalkers would have destroyed you two tidesyears ago. She rallied her people, struck them in a way that reverberated through their land. She avenged her lifemate and remained strong—a force to be reckoned with until the end. You were taken too soon.”
Memories of their war returned to Kaden in a disturbing blur as a collective murmur rippled through the mer crowd.
Cassia raised one hand and placed a fist to her heart in tandem with Saeryn, bowing deeply to Serapha. “Thank you, sister, for being a shining example to us all. You will be missed and forever remembered. And now.” She raised her upturned palm to Kaden, a gesture for him to begin. “Please speak.”
His shoulders seized as jeers and cries of dissent spread across the citizens. He made out some of their words and phrases, each serving to twist his stomach into painful knots.
“Landwalker-lover!”
