Page 84 of Hymn of Breath and Bone

“On the condition that no weapons were brought ashore, yes.” He nodded, his black beard shot through with more silver than I remembered. “Your mate’s second claimed that these records will verify your story. Someone named Ana is supposed to meet with your mother and me later this afternoon.”

I smiled broadly. Zephyr and Astraios deserved far more pay than whatever Caspian was giving them for their hard work these last few days.

Then again, the work was for all of us.

“Do you want me there?” I asked, surprising myself with the question. “At the meeting?”

My father hesitated. “If you can leave your mate, then yes. I assume my advisors will wish to be present as well as your mate’s first and second.”

“They all have names, Father,” I chided gently. “Caspian. Zephyr. Astraios. They are my friends. My family.”

My father’s jaw tightened. “And what of your mother and I? Are we no longer your family?”

“I will always love you and Mother,” I said, knowing in my soul it was the truth. “But I will not choose you over the family I have found. There is room in my heart for all of you. For both of our people, if you are willing to try.”

“The priestesses are convinced,” he said casually, down to study his hands. “Your display on the beach, the end of the storms; they are ready to worship you as a deity. Our people, as well.”

“Seas, I hope they don’t,” I scoffed. “I’m barely able to comprehend being a queen, let alone a goddess.”

“I am not sure what to make of what happened on the beach, Marina.” Father shook his head, looking lost in thought. “Is it true that you can speak to the ancient fae creatures? The dragons and the horses? That you speak to the sea and the sky?”

I nodded. I could show him again, but if my display on the beach—my wings of water, Caspian’s sacrifice, the blue skies above us—hadn’t convinced him, then there was nothing I could show my father that would lend any more credence to my story.

The fact that he was no longer trying to kill my mate seemed a vast improvement.

“It will be difficult,” he mused, moving to join me at a window as we gazed across the sea, “to reunite a people so long divided. To build trust where none has been for centuries.”

“It’s already begun,” I said, nodding at the Nordhavn selkies and sirens, who were chatting and laughing with those from the cliffs as they helped unload crates and boxes.

My father’s arm brushed mine, and I wondered if we had ever spoken like this before. Frankly. Honestly. As equals, rather than father and daughter. Ruler and heir.

“I suppose if anyone can manage it, it is a queen who is also a goddess,” he said, lifting the crown of silver twisted coral from his head and placing it on the window sill. It was so strange to see him without it that I blinked. “It will need to be reshaped, I think. Your head is smaller than mine.”

I looked down at the crown, the one he’d worn all of my life as king of these islands, then back up at him.

“What are you doing?”

My father sighed. “It has become clear to me in the last few days that my time ruling these isles is at an end,” he said gently, placing his warm, brown hands on my shoulders. “If the events on the beach weren’t enough to show me that the world is changing, then my people demanding your ascension as Queen would.”

I blinked in surprise. “Right now?”

“They have been gathered on the streets for two days clamoring to see you,” he said, sounding exhausted, but smiling faintly.

It wasn’t what I meant, but he went on before I could clarify. “I may not know what to think of your powers, Marina. Whatever gift you were given at birth, be it the divine power of Undine or just the wonderful stubbornness of your mother, I may never know for sure.” His eyes were lined with silver at his next words. “What Idoknow is that I saw a male willing to die to spare your people from more war. To spareyou. I could wish nothing more for you. And that devotion and love is what our people—all of our people—need now. Someone born to dream. To believe. To trust. To love. You, Marina. You and the male who loves you beyond life itself.”

He cupped my face, wiping the tears that had slipped past my defenses away with the pads of his thumbs. “I thought I had lost you, my dearest. But it is now clear to me that I had lost only myself. I am sorry, Marina. For the hurt I caused you and your mate.” I frowned, and he sighed. “Caspian. For my debt to him, I pledge my crown to you.”

He kissed my brow, leaving me too speechless to reply as he left me alone in the hall, the silver crown still glinting in the sun on the sill.

Chapter 30

Caspian was ordered torest for two more days, and I had to ask my father to move the meeting with Ana to their bedroom to stop him from reopening his stitches and trying to join us.

Mira had inspected his wings and, with a few minor adjustments that had both of us flinching in pain, declared that they would mostly heal.

“You may lilt to the right,” she warned, frowning at the wings. She pointed at a section with short, stubby feathers. “This bonehas been broken too many times. There will likely be scarring in the tendons surrounding it.”

“What does that mean?” I asked anxiously.