Page 63 of In Rising Tides
“Your turn,” Lyra prodded, feeling anxiety coil around her.
She had worked out the basics: that Drystan had murdered her father and taken the throne, but she had yet to hear the details.
“It was awful. The entire kingdom believed your father had coerced the elves into abducting you as a way to get you out of the marriage.”
Lyra felt as though the breath had been forcibly pulled from her chest, and it left her gasping.
“What?”
Marina nodded. “Apparently, you hadn’t been very subtle in your repulsion of Drystan, and Aegir was convinced your father wanted to help you out of the arrangement. When the scouts returned, they told us you had been kidnapped by elves. Drystan sent the wulvers after them to get you back, but when the Prince of the Wilds defeated them, and they came back empty-handed—Drystan was furious.”
Lyra’s nostrils flared with her reproach. She had killed Igneous, not Wilder.
But that little snippet of information Lyra tucked away for later.
“Aegir?” Lyra pressed. “Who?—”
“There’s more,” Marian cut her off. “Before King Auris was slain, things around here … changed.”
Lyra’s brow furrowed, but Marina remained perfectly blank, as if she were worried that any reaction might set Lyra off completely.
“How so?”
Marina clutched Lyra’s hand and lowered her head. “King Auris appointed a Tidal Master.”
Lyra had read about the position, but one had never been appointed before. “Why?”
Marina shook her head. “At first, I thought it was merely figurative, but then he started making decrees.”
“Who is it? And what kind of changes?”
Marina was silent for a moment, as if trying to find a way to best describe this merman and his position.
“Aegir is the Tidal Master.”
Marina said it as if Lyra should know already who that was.
“Aegir? Is he from Zeal?”
“No, he’s from one of the outlying territories,” Marina shrugged it off.
It dug at Lyra.
“Outlying territories?” she questioned. “That’s all the territories outside of Atlantis!”
Marina nodded, but her eyes were saying more than her lips were. “I know. But no one knows exactly where he came from.”
“And what does a Tidal Master do?”
“He’s in charge of the ‘morality of merfolk.’” Marina swallowed forcibly. “From our ceremonies to the way merfolk behave and everything in between.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed as she thought through the vague answer.
In her absence, her father had created a new position of power that more than likely centered around the lack of equality that mermaids had.
“Let me guess,” she muttered. “This Tidal Master has focused the bulk of his power on the imprisonment and subjugation of mermaids?”
Marina’s eyes skittered to the closed door before meeting Lyra’s gaze.
