Chapter 3
The crack of Damien’s palm across my face snapped my head sideways. My skull struck the glass wall of the brine pool, sparks of
black swallowing my sight.
“You’re still lying!” he roared.
His hand clamped around my throat, dragging me out of the water. I thrashed weakly, gills fluttering against the air, his grip bruising my skin.
“A mermaid’s child cannot die so easily. She must be alive somewhere!”
Pain lanced through me, yet I forced myself to meet his eyes. My voice trembled but did not falter.
‘Damien… you killed your own daughter with your own hands.”
“Silence!”
He flung me to the ground and barked toward the House Guards standing at the entrance.
“Take her to the underground chamber. Blast her with light until she admits where Liora is hidden!”
Rough hands seized me, dragging my tail across the stone. I was thrown into the underground chamber. A dozen lamps blazed on at once, flooding the room with white fire.
Merfolk feared such light. Without scales to shield me, every beam felt like a blade driving into raw flesh. My skin blistered, my wounds cracked open. I curled on the floor, trembling, my voice lost in a strangled cry.
Consciousness blurred. Through the haze of agony, memories rose–fifteen summers past.
I had been a foolish young mermaid, darting too close to the shallows. A fisherman’s net caught me, dragging me onto the jagged reef. The sun beat down mercilessly, drying my scales, stealing my breath.
Death would have claimed me that day—until a noble couple found me. Lord Gregory Blackwood and Lady Eleanor. They cut the net, carried me back to the waves.
T
I owed them my life. And so, I began to watch them from afar, slipping to the shallows to glimpse the family who had saved me.
One day, I saw them walking with a boy. Damien. His face was pale, his parents‘ expressions heavy.
“What if he has it too?” Lady Eleanor whispered, anguish in her voice. “The cursed bloodline illness. Just like Gregory… if so, Damien won’t live past thirty.”
That night, I made a vow.
I endured the agony of tearing scales, shedding my tail for legs. I became human, offered my blood to Damien and his father. Mermaid essence could delay the curse, but only a child of mixed blood could truly alter fate.
Lady Eleanor pleaded with me, her voice desperate, begging me to marry her son. She swore he would treat me with kindness.
I remembered the boy’s striking profile, the way his dark hair caught the sunlight, My heart beat too quickly, too foolishly.
And thus I sealed my doom.
The heavy door creaked open. Damien entered, switching off the lights. He carried a physician’s case, setting it beside me with deliberate care.
He knelt, his movements uncharacteristically gentle, swabbing ointment onto my bleeding wounds. His voice softened, almost tender.
“Does it hurt?”
Chapter 3
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The question pierced me more cruelly than any blade. For a moment, dazed by pain, I almost believed I had returned to the early days of our marriage, when his touch had been reverent, his love consuming.
“Damien…” I whispered.
His dark eyes lifted, searching mine. His next words froze my blood.
“Tell me, Seraphina–how can I bring Amelia back?”
I blinked, uncomprehending.
“…Amelia? Who is Amelia?”
His face hardened instantly. He pressed down on one of my open wounds, forcing a cry from my lips.
“My sister. The sister your people drowned fifteen years ago!”
His voice cracked with fury.
“She wore a red swimsuit. She was playing on the beach when your cursed songs lured her into the waves. She drowned because of you!”
My chest constricted. The memory slammed into me–storm clouds, crashing waves. A little girl in red flailing in the current. I had pushed her toward the shore, lungs burning, strength spent.
She had still been breathing when I left her there.
“No,” I whispered. “I saved her. I never harmed her.”
“Enough!”
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Damien wrenched open the case, pulling free a pair of gleaming scissors. He thrust them into my hands.
“If you won’t confess, then pay with your tail. Cut off your own fin.”
My fingers trembled around the blades. For a mermaid, losing a fin was like having flesh stripped from bone. Yet when I looked into his eyes–burning with hatred–I felt only resignation.
“…Very well. I owe the Blackwood family this much.”
The blades sank into my flesh. Blood burst forth in a scarlet tide. bit down on my lip until I tasted iron.
Damien watched, cold and unmoved. No flicker of pity touched his gaze.
The door burst open. A servant’s voice rang out in alarm.
“Master Damien–the Lady Isolde is unwell! She requires mermaid blood at once!”
Chapter 3
