To be fair—or at least, to pretend to be fair—Nalia couldn’t justly be blamed for the queen’s death, no matter how closely her sudden decline coincided with the birth of Puffer Fish Face. Or maybe she’s more like a hammerhead, since her eyes are set so far apart.
Grom smirks to himself as, at that moment, he passes a slab of ice with two deep-set holes spaced an arm’s length apart. “Nalia,” he says to the contorted, makeshift face, “still so icy after all these years?” He even allows himself a chuckle at her expense. Why not? After we’re mated, everything will be at my expense.
After a long stretch of brooding, Grom senses the two Trackers guarding the entrance to the Cave of Memories. No doubt they sensed him before he sensed them, possibly as soon as he set off on his journey. Which has always amazed him. All Syrena can sense each other within close proximity, but Trackers have a special sensing capacity. The ones who impress him the most are the elite Trackers, who can sense their kind even from opposite sides of the world. Only the elite can stand guard at the Cave of Memories. Only the elite can be trusted with such precious relics.
And to Grom, none of those relics are more valuable at this moment than the answers that lie in the Ceremony Chamber, the place where all of Syrena history is documented. Matings, births, annulments, deaths. With any shimmer of luck, Grom will find evidence that he’s not third generation. Or that he’s not firstborn. Or, better yet, he’s not even of Triton descent! He’d take any of those options over the last one: He is all of the above, and he will mate with Nalia and her hammerhead eyes.
When Grom senses the Trackers directly below, he swoops down and approaches them at the entrance. Both—one from each Royal house—move aside for him.
“Is there a Royal function here today, my prince?” the Triton Tracker says.
Grom pauses before he passes. “No. Why do you ask?” And then he senses her. Nalia. Why is she here?
The Tracker nods when he sees that Grom recognizes Nalia’s pulse. “Her Highness arrived not long ago, my prince. We just thought…” The Tracker shrugs, unable or unwilling to theorize further.
Grom presses his lips together in a tight line. “Did she say why?”
This time, the Poseidon Tracker shakes his head. “She did not, my prince.”
Grom nods. “As you were, then.” Careful to hide his grimace until he passes, he makes his way into the enormous first chamber, a cavern filled with long rocks that look like icicles dangling from the top and protruding from the bottom. It reminds Grom of the mouth of a piranha.
You don’t have to see her. Just find what you came for and leave. But the more he winds through the maze of caverns, the more his heart sinks. He passes the Scroll Chamber, full of human and Syrena relics, none of which are actual scrolls; all the true scrolls, the ones scrawled onto papyrus and birch centuries ago, have disintegrated into bits of nothing to be stolen by the current. Then there’s the Tomb Chamber, the final resting place for all Syrena dead, preserved by the freezing water and, most importantly, kept from washing ashore on any human beaches. He eases past the Civic Chamber, full of monuments from many human civilizations. Each tunnel, each chamber, brings him closer and closer to the Ceremony Chamber—and closer to her.
Finally, he reaches the entrance, and the female Tracker on guard meets him with a surprised look. “Your Highness,” she says, bowing her head in reverence.
Grom scowls. Nalia’s pulse pounds against his chest, his head, his entire body. He doesn’t remember her pulse being this strong, this intrusive. She’s in the Ceremony Chamber. Why, why, why?
“As you were,” Grom nearly growls, making his way through the elongated opening.
The Ceremony Chamber is nothing but century after century of Syrena records etched and carved into aged rock—a much more practical material than the humans’ papyrus, Grom is sure—stacked atop one another, maintained for an eternity by the Archives and the Trackers and the freezing waters. Grom has always been in awe of this chamber, even before it meant something to him personally. Before it meant his possible escape from the law. He’s always felt as if past lives, past experiences called out to him from the stone tablets, as if this place held answers to future questions he might have one day as a Triton king.
But now, it feels as if this place has closed off access to itself, replaced by the suffocating pulse of her.
Deciding the meeting is inevitable—he knows she senses him just as clearly as he senses her—he chooses the diplomatic course and follows her pulse until he finds her draped over a stone tablet in a far corner of the cave.
Nalia is all grown up.