Chapter 218

The time had come.

We packed everything, which took longer than expected, because we had accumulated a great deal in our year on the island. Clothes and furs, blankets and baskets, tools and toys and the small, precious things the children had collected. Every item had a memory. Every item had to be wrapped, tied, packed. And by the time we were finished, the house stood empty and strange, a shell of what it had been, waiting for someone else to fill it.

The children said goodbye to their friends.

It was harder than any of us had expected. The island had been their home for over a year, and the friendships they had made were real, deep, the kind that did not fade with distance. Atlas and his brothers shook hands with the boys they had hunted with. The cheetah cubs clung to their racing companions. The serpent children exchanged small gifts with the friends they had made. And Levy, my fierce, brave Levy, held Mira’s hands in hers and did not let go for a very long time.

Lark came to say goodbye. And Jisep. And Finn. The three of them standing together, awkward and hopeful, stealing glances at Levy whenever they thought no one was watching. Lark was the calmest, the most composed, his goodbye short and steady. But his eyes lingered on her, just a moment too long, and I saw the way his jaw tightened when he finally turned away.

Mira came too, with her brothers trailing behind her. Nolan. Keffer. Derick. The three of them, all of them, doing exactly what every other boy on the island did when Levy or my serpent daughters were near. Staring. Blushing. Looking away. Staring again.

And we said goodbye to our friends.

Old friends. New friends. Mirena, weeping openly, holding me so tight I could barely breathe. Rhonda, sharp-eyed and fierce, pressing a bundle of herbs into my hands and telling me to use them. Darius, clasping each of my mates’ arms in turn and saying nothing, because there was nothing to say.

When we finally left the island, most of our friends were crying. The younger children, the ones our children had grown up alongside, stood on the shore and waved and sobbed and shouted for us to visit soon. The older ones were quieter, more composed, but their eyes were wet too.

We sailed away, and the island shrank behind us, and the tears fell, and the wind carried the sound of goodbyes across the water.

Caelion pressed the air bubbles onto the family, one by one, weaving them with care. He skipped me and the pearlings, since we could breathe the water on our own, since the bond had given me that gift long ago. And then, together, we descended into the sea.

For a long while, we swam in silence. The children were subdued, the mates quiet, the water cool and dark around us. It was strange, after so long on land and the lagoon, to be beneath the waves again the dark deep blue sea. Strange and peaceful and a little sad.

And then I asked him.

"Caelion," I said, my voice soft. "Do you want to introduce the pearlings to your parents?"

He went still beside me, his tail slowing, his sea glass eyes going distant.

"To my parents," he repeated.

"Yes. To your mother and father. To the merfolk. To your people." I watched him, waiting. "Do you want them to meet our daughters?"

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he shook his head, slowly.

"No," he said. "Not really."

"Why not?"

He sighed, the sound carrying through the water like a soft current. "Because they never cared about me, Krys. They treated me like I did not exist. Even though my father is the merfolk king, even though I carry royal blood, I was never loved. My father was the second mate of my mother, and I was just the spare, the one nobody needed. They gave all their attention to my brothers, the ones from my mother’s first mate. They were the ones who mattered. They were the ones who would inherit. I was just... there."

I reached for his hand, and he let me take it.

I knew this, of course. He had told me pieces over the years, and I have witnessed it as well. His father, the king, was not cruel. He was simply absent, distant, a ruler first and a father last, too busy with the weight of a kingdom to notice the quiet son in the corner and too busy trying to chase after his mate’s heart to noticed Caelion’s loneliness. But his mother. His mother was different.

His mother was cruel.

She had never wanted him. He was the son of her second mate, a bond that her first made pressured her into, the mate who got her first mate killed, the mate she felt she competed for her first mate’s attention. And she had made it clear, from the very beginning, that he did not matter. She had favored her first mate’s sons, had poured all her affection and attention into them, had left Caelion to fend for himself. She had not cared if he lived or died. Not truly. Not in any way that counted.

The thought of it still made my blood boil, even now, even after all this time.

"Your mother," I said quietly, "does not deserve you."

"No," he agreed. "She does not."

"Then let us go anyway. Let us show them what they missed. Let us show them our daughters and let them see what they overlooked."

"They will not be overlooked," I said. "They are Pearlings. Three female mer children unheard of in this world. impossible before I came into the picture. They will not be overlooked."

"Perhaps," he said. "But still."

We swam on, the dark water all around us, the children ahead, the mates quiet. And I thought about it. About his family. About mine.

And then I told him.

"It is the right thing to do," I said. "Even if they do not care. Even if they do not acknowledge us. It does not matter. The pearlings are loved regardless. They will have a whole family around them, no matter what. But..." I paused, and my throat tightened. "But I do not want them to grow up never knowing their grandparents."

He looked at me, his brow furrowed.

"Because they will never know mine," I said, and my voice cracked. "They will never meet my mother. They will never meet my siblings. They will never know the world I came from, or the people I left behind." Because I died in that world, and they are still there, living their lives, never knowing what became of me. Never knowing that I have children. Never knowing that their grandchildren exist. I wanted to add. But I kept that to myself.

The tears came then, hot against the cold of the sea.

"I will never get to show them," I whispered. "I will never get to introduce them. My mother will never hold my babies. My siblings will never know their names. And that breaks my heart in ways I cannot even explain."

Caelion pulled me close, his arms around me, his tail curling around mine.

"So at least," I continued, my voice muffled against his chest, "at least let our daughters know the other side. Let them know their father’s parents. Let them have grandparents, even if those grandparents are cold and distant and do not care. Because it is more than my children will ever have from my side. And because..." I swallowed. "Because it is the right thing. Because they deserve to know where they come from. Both sides."

Caelion held me for a long moment. And then he pressed a kiss to my hair.

"You are right," he said softly. "You are always right."

"Not always," I said.

"Always," he insisted. "At least about the important things."

He pulled back and looked at me, his sea glass eyes bright with love and sorrow and something like resolve.

"Then we will go," he said. "We will change course. We will go to the merfolk city first, before the lion tribe. We will introduce them to my parents, cold and distant though they may be. And then we will go home."

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Thank you," he said. "For reminding me what matters."

And so we changed course.

Instead of heading straight to the mainland, straight to the lion tribe, we turned toward the deep. Toward the fish tribe. Toward the merfolk city, hidden in the reefs and the trenches and the bright, silent places far beneath the sun.

Toward Caelion’s family.

And I thought of my own family, the ones I would never see again.

But I would tell my children about them. I would tell them every story, every memory, every small, precious detail of the life I had left behind. They would know their grandparents. They would know they would have been loved, deeply and fiercely and without condition.

But for now, they would go see their father’s parents. The ones who had never cared about their father in the slightest. And even if it hurt, even if it was hard, even if these family members did not acknowledge my daughters, it did not matter in the end.

Because at the end of the day, they were loved by so many people. And that’s all that matters.