The Mermaid They Never Knew

Chapter 10: The Secret Path

Within only a few days of her conversation with Myrta, Liren’s decision was made.

Following through with it, however, would prove far more difficult.

Life in Sevil’s palace followed a strict and unchanging rhythm. Her sisters noticed even the smallest break in routine, and their grandmother, despite the endless demands of ruling the kingdom, possessed an observant eye that rarely missed a change in the mood of any of her granddaughters.

Before she could leave, Liren needed to discover where the Sea Witch could actually be found.

Myrta, for all her stories, had known little beyond the old legends. Somewhere in the darkest, deepest part of the sea, she had said. Somewhere no respectable merfolk would willingly go.

It wasn’t enough.

So Liren began asking questions.

Carefully.

Patiently.

Never enough to arouse suspicion.

She gathered fragments of information from the most unexpected people.

One afternoon she spoke with a palace guard stationed near the kingdom’s outer borders.

She made her question sound like idle curiosity.

“What lies beyond the last patrol routes?”

The guard shrugged.

“No one really knows, Your Highness.”

He glanced toward the distant darkness.

“We’ve been ordered not to go any farther.”

“By whose command?”

“Your grandmother’s.”

The answer came without hesitation.

“Queen Sevil gave that order many years ago. Those waters are no concern of ours.”

He lowered his voice, almost as though embarrassed by what he was about to say.

“They say strange things live out there.”

“Better not to disturb them.”

That was enough.

Liren understood immediately.

The place no one wished to speak about…

…was almost certainly where she needed to go.

The next question was when.

She chose a night when the palace would be too occupied to notice her absence.

Envoys from a distant kingdom were due to arrive for a formal reception. Every noble family would attend. Every servant would be occupied. Even many of the palace guards would be reassigned to the ceremonial halls.

Sevil herself would preside over the reception until well after midnight.

Her sisters, swept up in the excitement of the festivities, would almost certainly assume Liren had retired early.

If she was careful, no one would realize she was gone until morning.

Preparation became part of her daily routine.

So gradually that no one noticed.

Hidden from the nurses and servants, she gathered the few things she believed might help her survive the journey.

A small pouch of luminous plankton, carefully sealed inside a shell, to provide light in the lightless depths.

Several razor-edged shells that could serve as simple tools—or weapons, if necessity demanded.

And finally, the one possession she valued above all the others.

A small piece of royal jewelry engraved with the crest of the House of Keilor.

She had no idea whether the Sea Witch would believe her story.

But if proof of her birth meant anything in the abyss…

…she intended to carry it with her.

At night, when sleep refused to come, Liren rehearsed the conversation over and over in her mind.

She imagined finding the Sea Witch.

She imagined asking for human legs.

She imagined promising to pay whatever price was demanded.

She never allowed herself to dwell on the possibility that she might never return.

Her longing for Adrian drowned every fear the unknown might have inspired.

The hardest part was pretending that nothing had changed.

Her sisters, though occupied with their own lives, still noticed how often the youngest princess drifted into silence.

“You’ve been acting strangely lately,” her second-youngest sister remarked one afternoon, finding Liren standing motionless before the marble statue in her garden.

There was something in Liren’s expression that went far beyond ordinary daydreaming.

“I’m only tired,” Liren replied, forcing a smile brighter than she felt.

It was not entirely a lie.

She was tired.

Exhausted, in fact.

She simply hoped the weariness would soon come to an end—not in the way her sister imagined, but through the choice she had already made.

At last the evening of the ambassadors’ reception arrived.

The palace buzzed with preparation.

Musicians tuned their instruments.

Servants hurried through the halls carrying trays of delicacies.

Guards assembled in ceremonial ranks before the great gates.

Seizing the moment when everyone’s attention was fixed upon the arrival of the first guests, Liren slipped quietly through a narrow passage leading from the palace gardens.

She had used that path countless times before when she wished to be alone with her thoughts.

Never before had she used it to leave without knowing whether she would ever return.

She looked back only once.

The palace glowed in the distance like a constellation beneath the sea, its pearl-white towers shining softly against the darkness.

For a heartbeat, she wondered whether she should turn back.

Then Adrian’s face came to her mind.

She turned away.

And swam into the unknown.

Fear and hope raced together inside her heart.

Hope won.

The farther she traveled from the familiar gardens of the palace, the deeper the darkness became.

It was more than the absence of sunlight.

It felt different.

Heavier.

As though the water itself had changed.

The bright coral reefs disappeared within the first few hours of her journey.

In their place lay endless plains of black silt.

Towering rock formations emerged from the darkness without warning, silent giants that seemed to watch her pass.

Each time one loomed suddenly out of the abyss, Liren’s heart skipped with alarm before she forced herself onward.

There was no path to follow.

Only darkness…

…and the determination that had carried her farther from home than any princess of Keilor’s blood had ever dared to swim.

The pouch of luminous plankton she carried glowed with a faint green light, pushing back the darkness only a few feet ahead. It was just enough to keep her from colliding with the next jagged rock, but nowhere near enough to reveal what lay beyond that tiny island of visibility.

Liren tried not to think about what might live in such darkness.

The tales that merfolk used to frighten their children with returned to her mind in vivid detail now that she was swimming through the very waters where those stories were said to begin. Great eyes that flashed briefly in the blackness before vanishing as soon as the light approached. Shadows slipping along the edge of her vision, too swift and shapeless to recognize.

Twice, something enormous passed close enough to disturb the water around her.

Both times she froze.

Every instinct urged her to flee, yet she forced herself to remain perfectly still.

Whatever those creatures were, they showed no interest in her. Within moments they disappeared into the abyss as silently as they had come.

With every mile, fear battled determination.

More than once she wondered whether she had lost her senses.

Wouldn’t it be wiser to turn back?

To return home?

To forget the prince and accept the life the sea had chosen for her?

But whenever Adrian’s face came to mind—his smile, the weight of his unconscious body in her arms, the quiet trust with which he had rested against her while she carried him through the storm—her resolve returned stronger than before.

Those memories no longer weakened her.

They became the very reason she kept swimming.

Time flowed differently in these waters.

Without changing light, familiar currents, or recognizable landmarks, hours lost all meaning.

Liren no longer knew how long she had been traveling.

It felt like an eternity.

Perhaps only a few hours had passed since she had slipped away from the palace.

She could no longer tell.

It was just as exhaustion began to overcome determination—just as turning back started to seem more sensible than venturing deeper into the unknown—that she noticed a faint light ahead.

It was nothing like the fading glow of her plankton.

This light was pale.

Steady.

It shimmered from somewhere deep within a narrow fissure hidden among towering black cliffs.

Liren’s heart began to pound.

Not only from fear.

From hope.

A quiet certainty settled over her.

The journey was almost over.

Whatever she had crossed the abyss to find…

…was waiting there.

She slowed instinctively.

Only now, when the end of her journey lay within reach, did the courage that had carried her this far begin to falter.

The unknown was no longer somewhere ahead.

It was only a few strokes away.

She paused.

Took the deepest breath she could beneath the water.

Then, gathering what remained of her courage, Liren swam toward the shimmering light, praying that within the darkness ahead she would finally find the answer to every longing in her heart.