Chapter 4 - The Physician Who Sold a Princess

The royal physician had signed Mara's death warrant seven years before she was old enough to understand what dying meant.

Tomas stared at the parchment in Seraphine's trembling hands.

The surviving princess must not reach her eighth year.

Below the declaration was Master Varrick's signature, written in the same precise handwriting Tomas had seen on every medicine bottle purchased for his granddaughter.

For three months, Tomas had surrendered nearly everything he owned to that man.

His fishing equipment. His winter savings. Even the silver wedding band Elara had placed on his finger forty years earlier.

And every time Mara's fever returned, Varrick had raised his price.

"Tell me this is a forgery," Tomas whispered.

Seraphine folded the parchment.

"I wish I could."

Lysa stepped forward, still holding Mara.

"What does that sentence mean?"

Seraphine looked at the child.

"It means someone decided long ago that your daughter was not supposed to survive."

Lysa's face drained of color.

"Who?"

Before Seraphine could answer, Mara began coughing.

The familiar, terrible sound echoed against the cliffs.

Lysa dropped to her knees.

"Mara?"

The child struggled for air.

A thin line of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

Tomas felt his heart seize.

"Her medicine," he said. "We left it at the cottage."

Seraphine knelt beside Mara and gently touched her forehead.

Her expression changed.

"This isn't white-lung fever."

Tomas stared.

"What?"

"Her lungs are inflamed, yes. But the illness isn't behaving like an ordinary infection."

"She's been sick for months!"

Seraphine opened the small leather satchel at her hip and removed a translucent crystal vial.

Inside it shimmered a few drops of pale-blue liquid.

"Has Varrick been giving her medicine every seven days?"

Lysa nodded slowly.

"Sometimes more often when the coughing becomes severe."

Seraphine closed her eyes.

"Then he's been poisoning her."

The words seemed to stop the wind itself.

Tomas took a step backward.

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"No!" he shouted. "I watched him treat her! I watched him sit beside her bed when she could barely breathe!"

Seraphine looked at him with painful sympathy.

"That was how he kept her alive long enough to continue the treatment."

Lysa stared down at Mara.

"Treatment for what?"

Seraphine hesitated.

Then she answered.

"To prevent her blood from awakening."

Far below the northern cliffs, Blackwater Bay was disappearing behind smoke.

The fire had begun at Tomas's cottage, but a strong wind carried sparks across the tightly packed roofs. Villagers rushed through the streets with buckets and blankets while royal soldiers searched houses near the harbor.

Lord Cassian Veyr stood outside the burning cottage, holding a bloodstained handkerchief against his mouth.

His expression was unusually grim.

"How many survived?" he asked.

A soldier lowered his head.

"Two of our men escaped, my lord. Three remain unaccounted for."

"And Captain Thorne?"

"We found blood, but no body."

Cassian looked toward the ruins.

Garrick was wounded. Perhaps dying.

But Garrick had survived worse.

"What about the chest?"

The soldier hesitated.

"My lord, we searched the cottage before the roof collapsed."

"And?"

"It was empty."

Cassian slowly lowered the handkerchief.

"Empty?"

"Whatever was inside escaped."

Behind them, something moved within the smoke.

The soldier turned.

A tall silhouette stood where the cottage doorway had been.

Its proportions were wrong.

Its shoulders seemed too narrow for its height, and one arm hung nearly to its knees.

The soldier reached for his sword.

"My lord?"

Cassian did not turn.

"Don't look at it."

The soldier froze.

"What?"

"Lower your eyes."

The creature stepped from the burning ruins.

Its body was wrapped in strips of dark material resembling seaweed and ancient burial cloth. Black metal claws protruded from one hand. Its face remained concealed beneath a featureless mask of polished bone.

It walked through the flames without burning.

Cassian lowered his head.

"You were supposed to remain inside the prison."

The figure stopped.

A voice emerged from behind the mask.

"And you were supposed to bring me the child."

Cassian's jaw tightened.

"The girl escaped."

"With the old fisherman."

"Yes."

The creature tilted its head.

"And the captain?"

"Wounded."

A long silence followed.

Then the masked figure laughed.

"Eleven years, Cassian. Eleven years you have promised to repair what your family destroyed."

Cassian's expression darkened.

"My father made those promises. Not me."

"Blood inherits debts."

The creature raised its clawed hand.

Cassian staggered, clutching his throat as an invisible force tightened around his neck.

"Find the girl," the creature whispered. "Before the Queen discovers what she truly is."

Cassian struggled to breathe.

"And if... she refuses?"

The creature leaned closer.

"Then bring me her heart."

It released him.

Cassian collapsed to one knee.

When he looked up, the creature had vanished.

Only wet footprints remained on the burned stones.

On the cliffside, Seraphine administered two drops of the blue liquid beneath Mara's tongue.

The child convulsed.

Lysa cried out.

"What have you done?"

"Hold her still."

Mara's fingers curled tightly around her mother's sleeve.

For several terrifying seconds, her breathing stopped.

Then she inhaled sharply.

A pale mist escaped her lips.

It smelled of salt and crushed flowers.

The color began returning to her cheeks.

Tomas crouched beside her.

"Mara?"

Her eyelids fluttered.

"Grandfather?"

"I'm here."

"Did the bad dreams stop?"

He brushed her hair away from her forehead.

"For now."

Mara reached toward him.

He took her hand.

It was warmer than it had been in months.

Lysa began crying silently.

Seraphine watched them with an expression Tomas could not decipher.

"You knew she was being poisoned," he said.

Seraphine shook her head.

"I suspected it. I didn't know Varrick had found her."

"Then why didn't you come sooner?"

"I've spent seven years looking for her."

"Seven years?"

She nodded.

"Every royal record concerning the twins was destroyed. Most people who knew about their birth disappeared. I only learned she was alive after the Queen's children were captured this morning."

Tomas remembered the two tiny merfolk tangled in his fishing net.

"Those infants were hers."

"Yes."

"Then why would she give me that chest?"

Seraphine's eyes lowered.

"Because she wanted the prison moved."

"Why?"

"Because something inside could no longer be controlled."

Tomas remembered the black claw.

The stolen voices.

The golden eye watching him through the damaged lid.

"And the creature?"

Seraphine hesitated.

"We call him the Hollow Regent."

Lysa looked up.

"Who is he?"

"Once, he served as the Sea King's closest adviser. He was entrusted with protecting the royal heirs."

"What happened?"

"He betrayed the king."

Tomas thought of the vision within the ring.

Elara standing with a blade.

Garrick holding a newborn child.

"And my wife?"

Seraphine's face changed.

For a brief instant, fear replaced her composure.

"Your wife was there when the king died."

"I know that."

"Then you know more than most."

"She held a knife."

Seraphine looked away.

"That doesn't mean she killed him."

"Everyone keeps saying that," Tomas replied bitterly. "But no one will tell me what she actually did."

Seraphine remained silent.

Tomas stepped closer.

"Did you know Elara?"

"Yes."

"Did you trust her?"

A long pause.

"Once."

Tomas felt the answer settle heavily between them.

"What changed?"

Seraphine met his eyes.

"She chose to save one child."

They found shelter inside an abandoned watchtower overlooking the northern road.

Its walls were weathered by centuries of salt wind, and the roof had partially collapsed, but the stone chamber offered protection from the gathering clouds.

Mara fell asleep beside a small fire.

For the first time in weeks, she breathed without coughing.

Lysa sat beside her, touching her daughter's forehead again and again as though afraid the fever might return the moment she looked away.

Tomas stood near the doorway.

Seraphine approached him.

"You haven't asked how I know the royal family."

"Would you answer?"

"Some of it."

He almost smiled.

"An improvement."

She removed her green cloak.

Beneath it, she wore a fitted leather tunic embroidered with silver thread. Along her collarbone ran a delicate pattern of pale scales, almost invisible until the firelight touched them.

Tomas noticed.

"You're one of them."

"My mother was born in the Deep Kingdom."

"And your father?"

"A human."

"Like Elara?"

Seraphine's expression tightened.

"Elara was different."

"Everyone says that."

"She belonged to the First Tide. Their blood was older than the royal dynasty itself."

Tomas looked toward the sleeping child.

"And Mara inherited it?"

"Possibly."

"Possibly?"

"The Queen's twins were born carrying different gifts. One inherited the royal voice, the power to command certain creatures of the depths. The other inherited something older."

"What?"

Seraphine glanced toward the darkening sea.

"The ability to open what the ocean has sealed."

Tomas remembered the locks shattering on the chest.

The black water rising through his cottage floor.

The masked creature somewhere beyond the burning village.

"Which gift does Mara have?"

Seraphine did not answer.

Instead, she reached into her satchel and removed a tiny glass container.

Inside lay a single emerald scale.

It shimmered under the firelight.

"When I was younger, I served in the Queen's household. On the night the twins were born, I was ordered to prepare a cradle for only one infant."

Tomas frowned.

"But there were two."

"Yes."

"Who gave the order?"

"The Queen's physician."

"Varrick?"

Seraphine nodded.

"He told us the second child had died before dawn."

"But she hadn't."

"No."

"What happened?"

Seraphine looked toward Mara.

"That night, I heard crying beneath the palace nursery. When I went downstairs, I found a hidden chamber."

Her voice grew unsteady.

"There were two cradles."

Tomas waited.

"One held a sleeping infant. The other held a child wrapped in chains made from black coral."

His stomach tightened.

"A baby?"

Seraphine nodded.

"The chained infant wasn't crying."

"What was she doing?"

"Watching me."

The fire cracked softly.

"She looked at me as though she knew who I was."

Tomas felt a chill.

"What did you do?"

"I tried to free her."

"And?"

Seraphine closed her eyes.

"Someone struck me from behind. When I woke, the chamber was empty. Varrick told the Queen I had imagined everything."

"Did the Queen believe him?"

"I don't know."

Tomas studied her.

"You said Elara chose to save one child. Which one?"

Seraphine looked toward the sleeping Mara.

"That's what I've been trying to discover."

That evening, Lysa finally confronted her father.

Mara remained asleep by the fire.

Seraphine had gone outside to check the path.

"Father," Lysa said quietly, "I need you to tell me everything about Mother."

Tomas sat beside her.

"What do you want to know?"

"Why did she hide what she was?"

"Because she was afraid."

"Of the Crown?"

"Perhaps."

"Of the Sea Queen?"

He hesitated.

"I don't know."

Lysa looked at him.

"You loved her."

"More than anything."

"Then why didn't she trust you?"

The question wounded him.

For years, Tomas had asked himself the same thing.

"Maybe she was trying to protect us."

Lysa stared into the fire.

"Rowan used to say that."

Tomas turned.

"What?"

"Whenever he came home late, whenever I caught him talking to strangers at the harbor, whenever he refused to tell me where he'd been, he'd say he was protecting us."

Tomas felt uneasy.

"Your husband was a sailor."

"He was also a liar."

The words hung between them.

Lysa swallowed.

"Three nights before Rowan disappeared, I woke and found him standing beside my bed. He was holding a small silver box."

"What box?"

"I never saw it again."

"What was inside?"

"He wouldn't tell me."

Tomas frowned.

"Why didn't you mention this before?"

"Because he frightened me."

He stared at his daughter.

"Rowan?"

She nodded.

"He said something strange. Something I didn't understand until today."

"What did he say?"

Lysa looked toward Mara.

"He told me that if a child ever came to our house, I was to love her as though she were mine."

Tomas felt the blood drain from his face.

"Before Mara was born?"

"Yes."

"How long before?"

"Three nights before he disappeared."

Tomas stared into the flames.

Rowan had known.

Somehow, Mara's supposed father had known a mysterious child would arrive.

And he had instructed Lysa to accept her.

"There's something else," Lysa whispered.

Tomas turned.

"That night on the beach, when I woke holding Mara, I found a note tucked inside her blanket."

"What note?"

"I burned it."

"Why?"

"Because I was afraid someone would find it."

Tomas could barely breathe.

"What did it say?"

Lysa's eyes filled with tears.

"She is not yours by blood. But if you love her, she may become yours by choice."

Tomas closed his eyes.

"Who signed it?"

Lysa shook her head.

"There wasn't a name."

"Anything else?"

She hesitated.

"One sentence."

Tomas waited.

Lysa whispered:

"Never let her hear the sea calling after midnight."

In the village of Blackwater Bay, Master Varrick was packing his laboratory.

Glass bottles clinked as he swept them into a traveling case. Several contained blue liquid. Others held fragments of bone, dried seaweed, and tiny silver needles.

A black leather ledger lay open on his desk.

Its pages were filled with names, dates, and carefully recorded payments.

He turned to the final entry.

Mara Vale — Seventh Year.

Beneath it were three columns.

The first recorded the dates of her treatments.

The second listed the silver sovereigns paid by Tomas.

The third contained a series of measurements that resembled neither weight nor temperature.

Varrick dipped his pen in ink.

He wrote:

Final suppression incomplete. Subject awakening ahead of predicted schedule.

A floorboard creaked.

He looked up.

A woman stood in the doorway.

She wore a hooded gray cloak, and her face remained hidden.

"You're leaving," she said.

Varrick slowly closed the ledger.

"The village is no longer safe."

"You promised the girl would not awaken."

"I administered every prescribed dose."

"Then why did the seals fail?"

Varrick's hands trembled.

"Because someone interfered."

"Who?"

"The fisherman."

The woman laughed softly.

"Tomas Vale?"

"He rescued the Queen's infants. She rewarded him with the prison."

For the first time, the woman seemed interested.

"The Queen gave him the chest willingly?"

"Yes."

"Then she knows."

Varrick swallowed.

"Knows what?"

The woman stepped closer.

"That the wrong child was taken seven years ago."

Varrick stared at her.

"But the records—"

"The records were altered."

"By whom?"

She removed her hood.

Varrick recoiled.

"No."

The woman smiled sadly.

"You look disappointed to see me."

"You're dead."

"That's what you told everyone."

Her silver hair fell loosely around her shoulders.

A familiar scar marked the corner of her mouth.

Varrick stumbled backward.

"Elara?"

The woman raised one finger to her lips.

"Not so loudly, old friend."

At the watchtower, Mara woke shortly after midnight.

The fire had nearly burned out.

Lysa slept beside her.

Tomas sat near the doorway with the iron poker across his knees.

Seraphine stood outside.

Mara opened her eyes.

Someone was singing.

A soft melody floated through the darkness.

The Sleeping Tide.

The song her grandfather sometimes hummed when he thought she was asleep.

Mara rose quietly.

Her feet touched the cold stone.

The melody grew louder.

She walked toward the doorway.

Outside, the sea shimmered beneath the moon.

A woman stood at the edge of the cliff.

She had long silver hair and wore a pale dress that moved as though underwater.

"Mara," the woman called.

The child stopped.

"Who are you?"

The woman smiled.

"Someone who has waited a long time to meet you."

Mara felt strangely safe.

"Are you my grandmother?"

The woman's expression softened.

"No, little one."

"Then why do you know my name?"

"Because I was there when you were born."

Mara stepped closer.

The woman knelt.

"I've watched you grow through the eyes of others. I've heard every cry. Every prayer. Every frightened whisper."

"Are you the lady in the chest?"

For an instant, the woman's smile disappeared.

Then she shook her head.

"No."

Mara looked toward the moonlit water.

"There's another girl who looks like me."

"I know."

"She says she's my sister."

The woman touched Mara's cheek.

"She is."

"Where is she?"

The woman looked toward the dark sea.

"Somewhere she should never have been sent."

Mara's eyes filled with tears.

"Is she lonely?"

"Very."

"Can I help her?"

The woman hesitated.

Then she whispered, "That's why I came."

A sudden voice rang out behind them.

"Step away from the child!"

Seraphine emerged from the shadows, dagger drawn.

The silver-haired woman rose.

For several seconds, they stared at each other.

Seraphine's face went white.

"Impossible."

The woman said nothing.

"Elara?"

Mara looked between them.

"Do you know her?"

Seraphine lowered her dagger slightly.

"Yes."

Her voice trembled.

"I watched her die."

The woman smiled.

"Then perhaps you should have checked the body."

Inside the watchtower, Tomas woke to the sound of Seraphine shouting.

He grabbed the poker and rushed outside.

Lysa followed.

At the cliff's edge, Mara stood between Seraphine and a silver-haired woman.

Tomas stopped breathing.

The shape of her face.

The gentle curve of her mouth.

The scar near her lip.

"Elara?"

The woman turned.

For one impossible heartbeat, he saw the wife he had buried.

His hands began trembling.

"No," he whispered.

She looked at him with unmistakable tenderness.

"Tomas."

He took a step forward.

"Is it really you?"

Tears glimmered in her eyes.

"I've missed you."

The poker slipped from his hand.

He moved toward her.

But Seraphine seized his arm.

"Don't!"

Tomas tried to pull free.

"Let me go!"

"Look at her feet!"

He looked down.

The woman stood upon wet stone.

Yet beneath her shoes, there was no shadow.

And where her footprints should have been, tiny silver scales glittered in the moonlight.

Tomas froze.

"Elara?"

The woman sighed.

"I was hoping we could do this without frightening anyone."

Her eyes shifted toward Seraphine.

"You always did interfere."

Seraphine raised her dagger again.

"Tell him what you are."

The woman's expression grew cold.

"I am the reason his family is still alive."

"Tell him!"

The woman looked at Tomas.

Then she smiled.

"Your wife didn't die eleven years ago, Tomas."

His heart pounded.

"Where is she?"

"Closer than you think."

"Where?"

The woman leaned forward.

"Inside the chest."

Tomas stared at her.

"Then who are you?"

Her face began changing.

The silver hair darkened.

The familiar scar disappeared.

Her eyes became enormous pools of black water.

Seraphine stepped backward.

"No..."

The woman laughed.

"Did you truly believe the Sea Queen would allow a prisoner to leave without sending someone to retrieve it?"

Her body dissolved into shimmering droplets.

A towering figure rose in her place, crowned with coral and armored in emerald scales.

The same magnificent sovereign who had appeared beside the Osprey.

The Sea Queen.

Tomas staggered.

"You."

She regarded him without emotion.

"You saved my children. For that, I owe you gratitude."

"Then why did you bring that monster to my home?"

"Because your granddaughter can destroy it."

Mara stared at the Queen.

"Am I your daughter?"

The Queen's expression changed.

For the first time, she looked afraid.

"Who told you that?"

"My sister."

The Queen took one step backward.

"Your sister is dead."

Mara shook her head.

"No. She's lonely."

The Queen's hands began trembling.

"That is impossible."

Seraphine stepped forward.

"Then explain the second cradle."

The Queen turned sharply.

"You were never meant to remember that room."

"Nor was the royal physician meant to falsify the birth records," Seraphine replied.

The Queen went still.

Tomas remembered the parchment.

Varrick's signature.

The death order.

The poisoned medicine.

He looked directly at the Sea Queen.

"Did you order Mara killed?"

She said nothing.

"Answer me!"

The wind rose.

Far below, waves struck the cliffs with increasing violence.

Finally, the Queen whispered:

"I ordered one child to be sacrificed."

Lysa gasped.

Mara stared at the woman before her.

"But I did not know which child they had taken."

Seraphine's face drained of color.

"What?"

The Queen closed her eyes.

"The twins were exchanged before the ceremony."

"By whom?" Tomas demanded.

The Queen looked toward the distant lights of Blackwater Bay.

"By the only person I trusted with their lives."

"Varrick?"

"No."

Her eyes returned to Tomas.

"Your wife."

A terrible silence followed.

Then Mara spoke.

"If Grandmother Elara saved me..."

The Queen looked at her.

Mara's voice became very small.

"Who did she leave behind?"

For the first time that night, the Sea Queen had no answer.

A strange sound rose from the ocean below.

A child's laughter.

Then another.

Two identical voices, singing together.

The Queen recoiled.

"No."

The water beneath the cliffs began glowing blood-red.

Far out at sea, an enormous black shape broke the surface.

Upon its back stood the Hollow Regent.

And beside him stood a little girl who looked exactly like Mara.

The girl's eyes glowed scarlet.

She raised one hand toward the cliffs.

The Sea Queen fell to her knees.

For the first time in centuries, the ruler of the Deep Kingdom began to weep.

Because the child standing beside the monster was wearing the lost Crown of the First Tide.

And when she spoke, every wave in Blackwater Bay obeyed.

"Mother," the child called across the water, "you chose the wrong daughter."