Page 10 of A Sea So Cruel
When he got to the stairs, he dipped his chin toward the raven-haired female guard, who he was pretty sure was named Liva, and walked on.
He had to go on the beach to find the cloaked figure, but that meant going near the ocean. The ocean his father had warned him so fiercely about. The ocean that had been mysteriously calling to him. He just wouldn’t touch the water.
Kaid took a wrong turn a time or two before finally finding glass double doors that led to a terrace. Luckily, he had found one that stepped down onto the sandy beach instead of directly into the water.
He crossed the terrace, feeling the warmth from the stones radiating up his legs. Osmond, the god of day, had put his all into giving the seaside capital one final moderately tempered day of the summer season.
Kaid hesitated on the last step, staring at the sand below. He looked up to the wall where he had seen the climbing person, but they were no longer there. He had taken too long. He turned back toward the castle, defeated that he lost the figure, but relieved that he didn’t yet have to face his fear of the mysterious blue beyond.
Kaid nearly walked right into Niklas, his appointed courtier. The man had been so quiet that he hadn’t even noticed he was behind him.
“Niklas!” Kaid clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Where have you been today?”
The blond man folded his hands together. “In meetings with the king, my lord. To fill you in, so you can start learning how everything will work once you are prince of Salendron.”
Prince of Salendron. Kaid knew he was here to wed the princess in order to save his home, but sometimes he forgot exactly what that meant. Politics, responsibilities, work. All things he didn’t exactly enjoy.
“Right. Can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m not prepared tonight.”
Niklas nodded, catching his glasses and holding them on. “Of course. Were you about to go for a walk on the beach? I could join you, if you do not wish to be alone.”
Kaid turned and observed the shore again. He had to do it at some point. If he was to live in Orntali for the rest of his life, he couldn’t avoid it forever.
“Come, Niklas. Tell me about Orntali.”
Niklas’s blond curls bounced as he waved his arms erratically, gesturing to various parts of the castle. He knew the history ofevery wing, every addition, every room. If Kaid wasn’t so bored, he would be amazed by how much information he was receiving.
Kaid couldn’t help but let his mind wander to the person he’d seen crawling down the castle walls. Were they in danger? Was the king? The princesses?
He wasn’t trained enough to survive the attack of a skilled assassin. Kaid could probably hold his own until his guards came to help—or Halsten, he supposed. But someone with the capability to scale a fifty-foot wall had clearly undergone extensive training, whether it be as a spy, assassin, or soldier.
“...which, again, sirens are not to be confused with finfolk.”
Niklas was still happily rambling about anything he could read in the archives, breezing over his mention of finfolk once again.
“As intrigued as I am about how sandstone forms, can we go back to finfolk?” As much as he didn’t want to believe in the mythical beings, Kaid couldn’t help but wonder.
Niklas eagerly obliged. To Kaid’s surprise, the sirens weren’t the original inhabitants of the sea. There was another species—the finfolk—who were far worse. Finfolk looked to be half-human, half-fish, having an eel fin instead of legs. They had a mouthful of fangs meant for ripping human flesh. Humans were their prey, and they ate human blood, flesh, or bone.
The villagers of Orntali had fallen victim to finfolk lure since the beginning of time. But only humans foolish enough to be drawn to the ocean would be eaten, because finfolk could not come on land unless they were breeding. Their breeding shifts were only allowed to happen twice—once to conceive a child and once to birth a child. They could never access their human form again after that.
Apparently, centuries ago, finfolk bred with fae, a land-dwelling mythical humanoid. It was another pointless tidbit ofimaginary information to take up space in Kaid’s mind, but what else did he have going on right now?
The finfolk's goal with this union was to create a lesser breed to enslave and use as their servants, and the fae hoped to gain better access to the sea and all the resources it held. Their plan backfired when they accidentally created the sirens.
Niklas explained that sirens were more powerful than the finfolk. They were far more beautiful, allowing them to lure humans to the ocean depths more easily. And though they relied on blood to survive, it didn’t specifically have to be human, so their survival was more assured. A siren’s song could be used to hypnotize people and force them to do whatever they wished, and they could shift to human form at will, thanks to their fae heritage. Unbeknownst to them, the finfolk had created their greatest competition.
“Hold on… fae?” Kaid jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a drifting wave. He had been so caught up in Niklas’s stories that he had forgotten that they were on the beach altogether.
Niklas laughed as Kaid sprang away from the water. “Do you really want to get into land folklore right now?”
“No. This is hurting my head enough already. I should have drank myself to sleep like Halsten did.” Kaid rubbed his eyes. “But go on.”
So, Niklas continued his “history” lesson.
When the fae realized that the sirens were better predators than the finfolk, they refused to continue breeding with finfolk and opted to return back to the mountains where they would be unbothered. They took the easy way out, abandoning the mess they had made.
After a century of enslavement, the sirens rebelled and broke free of their owners. Euphemia, the goddess of the sea, favored the sirens and their superior humanity and allowed them to separate into a different kingdom. She also dubbedthem their own crowned royalty and left the sirens to take charge of all the Northern Seas, the same Ventarin Sea that was mere inches from Kaid’s boot.
