The Kiss That Saved Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 2) (55 page)

The strangers climb, herding us like cattle up the winding coolness of the staircase. I wince as my tail touches the icy hardness of a step, the cold sending a sharp jolt up my spine, almost like I’ve been burned. This place is so much more than frozen; it’s practically glacial in temperature.

We reach the top of the staircase and icy double doors greet us. Nika and the man with the deep voice go inside and the other’s turn on us, watching with narrow eyes. Orion is still staring at the lilac haired woman, his eyes wide and his pupils dilated. It’s sickening how obvious it is that he finds her attractive, and I wonder if he ogles me like that and I just haven’t noticed.
 

“What are we waiting for?” He asks her.

“You don’t just go into a meeting with the chief unannounced. Nika and Cain will present the situation. He will decide if he wants to address you, or if he’d rather us just kill you.”
 

“Oh, thank you for clearing that up…” Orion searches for her name and the woman with lilac hair looks like she might blush.

“Sirenia,” she corrects him, actually blushing now. It’s hideously obvious with her pale skin and I wonder what it must be like to touch someone who looks that pale, I bet her skin is like that of a cold fish.
 

A man behind her with an icy blue tailfin and mint green eyes looks like he might punch Orion.

“Best not talk to the prisoners, Sirenia,” he says, pulling on her shoulder so she has to turn and stare at him.

“Cage, you realise they haven’t actually
done
anything wrong…” She begins, but as she breathes in to say something else the double doors behind her swing open, revealing Nika and Cain.

“This way please.” Nika’s expression doesn’t reveal anything and I exhale slightly, feeling weary after so much drama. We have come here for sanctuary, but at this rate I’d say we’ll be lucky if we aren’t beheaded.
 

I think of my father, of how I’d had some dream that I might find him here. That seems impossible now. If he hadn’t been murdered by these pale savages then it seems likely he isn’t here, and there’s an awful lot of ocean to search. I close my eyes for a moment, slowing as the other mermaids overtake me. I feel weak. I feel tired. The mer no longer have a permanent place to call home, and the nomadic life that seemed so incredible a few months ago seems terrifying now. I miss having a home. I miss having a family too.

“Move,” the stranger with mint green eyes shoves into me, his abs rock hard against my spine.

“Alright I’m going! Geez!” I exclaim, annoyed. He looks surprised. His expression starts to develop into an angry one, but I stop him. “Sorry. It’s been a long trip,” I sigh out and he looks taken aback once more. I wonder if he’s shocked that I’m melancholy, that I’m perhaps a little more human than he had first thought. He shrugs and I hurry forward. The corridor is long behind the double doors and the architecture inside is elaborate, as icicles hang and the ice that makes up the walls sweeps in arching swirls and fleur-de-lis. My tail sweeps through the cold water, propelling me in quick time as I catch up to the crowd. They’re gathered before another set of icy double doors, which I wonder how they can bear to touch.

“You’re going before the chief. So no speaking unless you’re spoken to. If one of you even so much as looks threatening, I’ll…” Nika is rambling on and Cain rolls his eyes, thwarting her authority.

“Relax, Nika. The chief can handle himself. He hardly needs saving by the likes of you.” He turns away from her silvery scorn and shoves the high arches of the doors open before us.
 

We enter into the room, following in single file, not wanting to rush all at once. I push myself forward and past some of the pod, wanting to get a good look at what’s going on. I hear Orion inhale slightly. Rising slightly to get a better view of him I can see he’s looking around for someone.

“Callie…” I hear him say my name and I’m suddenly confused. Why would he want to speak to me? After all, he’s been acting like a constipated rhino since I told him about Vex.
 

I move toward him, my heart racing as his gaze burns with intensity as it find me, swimming through the crowd toward him. I don’t recognise the look on his face, and I thought I’d seen them all.
 

I reach him and he doesn’t say anything. I hear someone else calling my name, someone unfamiliar, but before I can turn, Orion has both his palms on my shoulder and is spinning me toward the centre of the room.
 

A man with a long silvery beard and a snowy white tailfin, massive and clad with more muscle than anyone I’ve ever seen is hovering, looking directly at me like I’m the sun and he’s spent his life eclipsed in shadow. One word, instinctual as a child’s very first, falls from my lips before I can stop it.

“Dad?”

CALLIE

Aquamarine eyes are staring at me and there’s a hush that’s fallen, like the kind that comes after someone has died and there’s nothing more to say.
 

Instead though, this silence is because there’s too much to say, and I don’t know where to begin. My heart is thudding, unable to slow and I’m frozen in the water, unable to move, statuesque and stuck in the moment I had laid eyes on him for the very first time.

“Well, this is sufficiently awkward,” Azure acknowledges the atmosphere, rolling her eyes. Good old Azure, always there to make a snarky comment when you need her. Orion is staring at me, intensely. I turn to him, rather than addressing my father, automatically thinking of him as the one with answers.

“How… I… I don’t understand,” I look at him, into his wide eyes that are half-pity filled, half-shocked.
 

“I’m sure I can explain,” the voice rings out, but it does not fall from Orion’s lips. I turn again; facing the man I had been waiting to meet for so long and yet I can’t quite figure out how to act around him now it’s finally happening.

“What is this? What are these people?” It’s not a personal question; it’s not even anything to do with me. As a first question it is merely unimaginative, and yet I ask it.

“You’re currently in the throne room of the Gelida Silentium, home of the Adaro. Children of Sedna.” I look back to Orion again, unsure of what this means. He shrugs, equally confused.

“Sedna, what is that?” I ask as the mermaids behind me stir slightly.

“He is the God of these waters. The Adaro are his warriors. Just like you are the warriors of Atargatis.”
 

“But I thought…” I begin, my voice seeming small in the vastness of the cavernous room.

“You thought that Atargatis was the only Goddess of the sea? Well, that is hardly surprising. Given circumstances.” My father moves from the centre of the room, coming toward me. He’s huge, bigger than Ghazi, Orion, or Regus. He’s different now from the photo I had seen, of back when he and my mother were together. His hair is longer, whiter, but I don’t think it’s through age. It’s something else. Something more magical. “You look just like her…” he whispers. I blush, feeling the eyes of so many on my back. I turn slightly and Gideon senses my unease.

“Nika, Cain! Take the others and find them somewhere to stay please. These people are guests, and I want them treated as such. Please explain to Orion anything he wishes to know. I need some time alone with my daughter.” He’s looking above me, past the top of my head and I feel people start to shift. They’re moving, leaving me behind without them. Orion leaves too, giving me not so much as a parting gesture or word.
 

“So…” Gideon begins as the icy double doors behind us slam shut. His tailfin flexes and he moves in the water like it’s nothing, effortless.

“I’m glad I finally found you. I wondered what happened. I mean why you weren’t there when I turned, and then I got your letter,” I blurt out this explanation, babbling on in the way I always do when I’m nervous.

“Your mother, she gave it to you?” He asks me, eyeing the necklace I’m wearing with a subtle flick of his gaze.

“Yeah. I mean, I turned, and then I went to say goodbye to her. She gave it to me then,” he nods.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up.” The apology seems empty somehow, like words cannot possibly make up for the time that’s passed. It’s weird, I’m in the same room as my father, the person I’d been longing to meet, and I’m oddly numb inside. Kind of like I’m defending myself sub-consciously, paranoid as always.

“It’s okay. You were exiled right?” My father’s brow rises slightly, surprised that I’m aware of this fact.

“Not exactly. What precisely did Saturnus tell you?” He looks at me, his eyes scanning my face intensely.

“He told me you were exiled, to keep the peace with the other couples. You were exiled for falling in love with my mother. He didn’t want the other mer knowing it was possible. Something like that,” I shrug my shoulders, feeling my heart rate calm a little. My body feels the chill suddenly seeping into my flesh once more and I shudder.

“Sounds about what I’d expect from the likes of him,” Gideon rolls his eyes and I narrow mine.

“You knew he was evil?” I ask him, more confused still.

“I know he’s not right in the head.”

“He killed everyone. The Occulta Mirum, it’s gone dad,” I use the term, seeing how it feels rolling from my tongue. It’s kind of nice and I smile. Gideon smiles too.

“God, how long I’ve waited for today… but wait, the Occulta Mirum is…”
 

“Destroyed. Saturnus, he dropped the protective glimmer, the Psirens, they overtook everything.”

“Atlas, he must have known…is that how you all got out?”

“Atlas is dead,” I say sourly. It feels all too awful to have to break the news again. The death of such a wise, wonderful man still stings. Gideon sits back into a throne, draped with sodden furs. It towers with cascades of ice swirling upward, twisting and creating the seat itself. My father’s eyes widen and then his shoulders sag slightly. His tail is still, it’s snowy whiteness lost amongst all that is frozen.

“That’s why we’re here,” I admit, my voice small.

“You… fled?” He bites his bottom lip, furrowing the brow of his thick skull. He’s such a large man.

“Yes. We’re all that’s left.”

“But the Psirens… how did such a small number manage to overtake a whole city?” He looks so confused. I breathe in, knowing I need to explain. I look around for a place to sit. This is going to be a long conversation and I’m so cold. “Allow me.” Gideon flicks his wrist lazily and the water behind me transforms, manipulating itself into a delicate chair made of ice. “Here.” He passes me the furs on which he’s sitting, smiling.
 

I turn, draping them over the seat before placing my scaled behind down. Gideon goes back to sit in the now bare throne, I wonder how he’s not frozen, sitting with his scales on the bare ice.

“Here’s the thing. The Psirens, they started growing; turning others, humans to be like them. Alyssa… she would lure boys out and then kill them. Mixing her blood with theirs.”
 

“Alyssa?” My father’s eyes narrow slightly, and my breath catches in my throat. The woman I killed, my father’s soulmate… how could I ever explain that to him? Will he hate me? I don’t want to ruin our relationship before it’s begun, but I worry I have no other choice.

“Yes, she was mixing her blood, making ‘children’. That’s what she called them anyway,” I know I must sound nervous all of a sudden and I shift in the chair.

“We need to stop her,” his face is stony, horrified. I hold up a palm, silencing his emerging rant.

“She’s dead. I killed her,” I whisper it, like it’s the darkest secret I know.