Page 45 of Midnightsong
She texted them back.
I miss those kids! Any updates on the docks? With the mer?
Mia: Not yet. Hopefully all stays quiet. Was so nice to see you over MLK weekend. When are you coming back?
Angie paused and checked her calendar. Spring break seemed so far away.
Next month. Can’t wait to see everyone. Let me know if anything happens, okay?
The silence was unnerving. Mia never responded.
Eighteen
Kaden
Voices outside his door roused Kadenwhen he exited his bedchambers, and he stopped halfway sliding his door shut.
Two sentinels swam by greeting him and resuming their conversation. They were going in the same direction he was and he trailed behind them.
He thought of Angie as he paddled along, his entire being aching for her. He talked to her when they both could, and while she graced him with her lovely voice, he missed holding her, kissing her, or simply sitting, or floating beside her.
The sentinels turned a corner and their voices dissipated as Kaden kept swimming straight down the lengthy hall.
Saeryn had asked him to attend a mediation session with citizens at high noontide. It was low suntide now and he had two tidal cycles until the session. That gave him enough time to visit a village within the queendom—show them he wasn’t the villain they believed him to be. He could turn the public’s perception of him, even if it took one village at a time, one citizen at a time.
He made his way to the Northwest Villages, where he knew some citizens there had lost family members during the last war. He hadn’t visited there in tidesyears, but the directions were still familiar to him.
Ten kicks east from the western end of the palace—when you see a group of six black smoker vents, go southwest—five more kicks and the village came into view.
As with all their villages, the entrance was at the top of a rocky dome surrounding the abodes and structures inside. Mer swam in and out, some giving Kaden a nod of respect when he entered. Others stared at him, as if deciding whether they should swim away or greet him.
Kaden made a circle around the top of the dome, looking down at the villagers for someone who might be receptive to talking to him.
He found it in a lone merman with a brass tail at the base of their Sanyue statue, attending to the village’s public coral and seagrass garden. Kaden recognized the tail color; he was the lifemate of a sentinel who lost her life in their past war. The merman glanced at Kaden when he approached, and he straightened his torso, hands behind his back, and bowed his head. “Prince Kaden. What brings you to our little village today?”
Around them a small crowd had gathered, and not all of the mer were looking at Kaden with anger or suspicion in their gazes, heartening him.
“It’s been too long since I came here; I wanted to visit—hear from all of you, the faces of our queendom, your feelings about King Saeryn, and as his high advisor, my rule—and to offer my condolences again, personally, to those of you who have lost a loved one in the war two tidesyears ago.”
He caught murmurs of ‘thank you’ and ‘I appreciate your sympathy’ through the additional ten merfolk who had joined him and the brass-tailed merman.
“Thank you, Your Highness. It has been hard moving on without her,” the merman said, lowering his head. “Your visit is appreciated.”
“Prince Kaden, I have a concern—” a mermaid beside him began, only to be nudged hard by a merman next to her, her lifemate, and he leaned in to whisper in her ear. Kaden watched her, urging her to go on, but she shook her head. “N-nothing. There’s nothing you can do.”
Kaden’s gut quivered. Several merfolk swam off, and the rest of the group followed, some stopping to give Kaden another quick bow before departing.
The brass-tailed merman stayed, leaving Kaden with an opportunity to find out why the others stopped to see him, and all but fled when he faced them. “Why are they acting like that?”
The other merman’s gaze trailed to the seafloor, his shoulder-length dark hair draping either side of his face. “Your Highness, you came all the way here to speak with us privately.” A flick of his tailfins stirred up silt beneath them. “With all due respect, many of our villagers have, erm, concerns about your affiliation with a landwalker.”
Kaden rubbed his face. “They don’t trust me.”
“N-not all, Your Highness.”
Curses.
“Thank you for your honesty.” Kaden put a hand to his heart.
