Page 67 of Hymn of Breath and Bone

My mother had paled significantly. She ran a finger through one of the watery wings of the figure of Melusine, and I made the figure fly to thewindow before I shut out the storm.

“Do you believe me now?”

“I—” My mother swallowed, then blinked and nodded. “I must show you something.”

She took my hand, and I grabbed a seal skin wrap to cover myself as she pulled me from my room. The halls were empty, all the guards likely directed to the dungeons while Caspian was down there. I sent a tug down the bond as we rushed down the stairs toward my father’s private rooms. A faint tug laced with pain returned to me, and I gasped.

Caspian was hurt. I needed to get to him.

My mother didn’t notice my momentary distraction as she led me into my father’s study. She shut and locked the study door behind us before pulling me toward the archives.

“He keeps his key somewhere in here,” she murmured as she moved to his desk and began opening drawers. “Aha!”

I shivered, the cold stone floor on my bare feet not chased away by the seal skin. Mother unlocked the door to the archives and ushered me in.

“You probably don’t know this, but most of our books on sirens and our shared history have been destroyed,” my mother said, locking the door behind us. “But these are the archives that remain.”

I didn’t correct her as I took in the familiar room, which I’d snuck into many times as a child. It was much smaller than the library in the cliffs, lit by candles and lamps rather than mirrors and moonstone, but it was similar otherwise. The space was round and tall with stairs that led to the stories above, although it contained none of the comfortable places to sit. I’d never ventured to the higher levels, taking care to not be seen whenever I snuck in, but my mother now ushered me toward the nearest set of stairs.

“Go to the top,” she commanded as she moved to the center of the room, which contained three large wooden tables for scholars to work at. Bookswere stacked high atop them, and she began shifting piles and moving tables as I climbed.

When I reached the top floor, I looked down to where my mother continued to shift books.

There was a pattern of stone upon the floor, several areas painted in blues and greens and browns to depict a scene. Images were inscribed around the edges in an intricate pattern, and I gasped as my mother shifted the final table out of the way.

It was a compass, similar to the one on Caspian’s table in the cliffs. A table that likely used to sit in these very archives, I realized. At the east and west cardinal points was a silhouette rendered in pure white—a selkie female. There was a gash of broken stone on each side of the figure, and I realized that it must be where the wings were once painted.

Melusine.

And in the center…

“It’s us,” I whispered, looking down toward the scene of a selkie female with brown skin and teal hair that became the ocean waves. She was reaching out of the water to clasp the hand of a siren male with golden eyes and white hair, his white wings blending into the clouds painted around him. “It’s me and Caspian.”

“It is Undine and Zephrus,” my mother corrected, looking up at me from the center of the painted stone. She raised a palm and gestured to the broken images at the points of the compass. “And their daughter.”

“This has been here the whole time?” I asked, eyes wide as I took in the painted stone. Zephrus looked so much like Caspian, it was hard not to believe it was the same male. And Undine…she looked exactly like me, just without the freckles.

“I knew,” my mother said, her voice hoarse as I descended the stairs to examine the painting in closer detail. “When you were born, your hair was dark like mine. A fine, downy midnight blue, like your lips.” She was crying, I realized, tears running down her face. “And when you finally took a breath, when you lived despite the healers telling me there was no hope, it changed. It lightened as if your first breath had brought color back to every part of you.”

“At first, we thought nothing of it, and I told myself that your resemblance to Undine was a coincidence. That you were blessed by her—had been saved by her as an answer to my prayers—and so she had blessed you with her beauty as well.” I smiled sadly as I took my mother’s hands, and she squeezed them gently. “But when your father presented that male as his prisoner—”

“Caspian,” I corrected.

She nodded. “I knew the moment I saw him that it meant more. That it was no coincidence that you resembled every depiction of Undine I had ever seen.”

I thought back to the illustration of Melusine in the old books that Ana had shown me. Of how much I’d resembled her—it was because I resembled her mother.

“I believe you, Marina,” my mother confessed. “Your father and I argued about this very painting the night you disappeared, and when the ransom note turned up, I somehow knew why. That fate had finally taken you from me as repayment for your life.”

“I’m still here,” I argued, squeezing my mother’s hands. “I’m here, and I’m alive, and now my mateneedsme.”

Mother nodded, then shook her head. “Your father won’t listen. He will kill your mate, and then you will die.” She looked up at me, terror and pain in her eyes. “I know the stories. When one true mate dies, so does the other.”

My stomach dropped. I knew this, of course, but it only really occurred to me now that Caspian’s death would mean my own. I had never even considered not consummating our bond because of this risk, but it made my need to save him that more urgent.

“What are true mates?” I asked.

“A story that many, including your father, don’t believe in,” she replied, worrying her lower lip. “Some mated pairs seemed to have an instant, binding connection, but it’s not common. The priests and priestesses adopted the fae way of mates centuries ago—a chosen mate whose bond can be forged. And while it can be just as strong, just as permanent and real, it is not innate. It is not a soul bond the same way true mates are soul bonded.”