Somewhere beneath that peaceful glow, people had apparently decided that keeping secrets was a perfectly acceptable way to protect everyone.
I was beginning to hate that philosophy.
The submarine docked beneath the eastern platform of the royal district. Korrin stepped out first, exchanged a few words with the guards, and waited for me to follow.
I stayed where I was.
He glanced back. "Are you coming?"
"Still deciding."
"Selene."
"What? I'm considering my options. One of them involves staying here until somebody tells me the truth."
"That could take a while."
"Exactly. I'm finally learning to be patient."
He gave me a look that suggested he didn't believe a single word.
Unfortunately for both of us, he was right.
I climbed out.
Two guards accompanied us through the royal district. Neither spoke to me, although I caught them looking at the case containing the Ocean's Heart shards. Their expressions changed whenever the blue light escaped through the narrow gaps in its cover.
One of them whispered something to the other.
I couldn't hear the words, but I recognised the expression.
Fear.
Not fear of me, exactly. Fear of what I was carrying.
That was somehow worse.
"Why are they looking at me like that?" I asked Korrin.
"They know what the shards are."
"Everyone seems to know everything except me."
"Not everyone."
I turned to him.
He looked straight ahead.
"That was supposed to be comforting, wasn't it?"
"No."
"At least you're honest about that."
We reached the palace before I could come up with another complaint. Its entrance was guarded by two enormous statues carved from dark stone, each depicting a mermaid holding a spear. Their faces were worn smooth by time, but their eyes had been set with small pieces of luminous crystal.
I wondered how many centuries they had stood there.
I wondered how many secrets had passed beneath their gaze.
Then the doors opened, and all my curiosity was replaced by the sight of Queen Nerathe waiting inside.
She wasn't alone.
Elder Nymora stood to her right, her long silver hair floating gently around her shoulders. On the other side stood Toren, Korrin's brother. His arms were crossed, and the moment he saw me, his expression hardened.
Wonderful. A family reunion.
The queen's gaze moved to the case in my hands.
"You have heard the voice," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"And what did it tell you?"
I looked at Korrin. He remained silent.
I turned back to the queen.
"That my father is alive. Or that something wants me to believe he is."
Nerathe's expression barely changed, but I noticed her fingers tighten around the armrest of her chair.
"And did you hear anything else?"
"My mother said the Heart was never stolen."
Toren straightened.
"That's impossible."
"Really?" I asked. "Because the Heart seems to have a rather different opinion from everyone in this room."
"Watch your tone."
"Give me a reason to change it."
"Enough," the queen said.
Her voice wasn't loud, yet the entire hall fell silent.
I shut my mouth, mostly because I wanted to hear what she would say next.
Nerathe rose from her seat and approached me. Up close, she looked older than I remembered. Not weak, but tired in a way that had little to do with age.
"Selene, there are things about your parents that I should have told you long ago."
I almost laughed.
"That's becoming a popular sentence around here."
For a moment, the queen looked as though she might actually smile. Instead, she gestured for us to follow her.
She led us through a narrow passage behind the throne room. Unlike the rest of the palace, this corridor had no glowing coral or decorative shells. Its walls were plain stone, marked with symbols I recognised from the ancient seals we had encountered beneath the sea.
At the end stood a circular door.
Nymora placed her palm against its centre. The symbols brightened, spreading outward until the entire door glowed blue.
It opened without a sound.
Inside was a small chamber containing a single table and several old glass cylinders. Each held a rolled sheet of material that looked almost like paper, except that it shimmered faintly beneath the light.
I stepped closer.
"What is this place?"
"The royal archive," Nerathe answered. "Or what remains of it."
Toren stayed near the entrance, watching me as though he expected me to steal something.
I ignored him.
The queen approached the table and touched one of the cylinders. A faint image appeared above it, projected in pale blue light.
A woman stood beside a human man.
I stopped breathing for a second.
My mother.
She looked younger than she had in my memories, with dark hair falling over her shoulders and the same thoughtful expression I had seen in the few photographs she had left behind.
The man beside her was my father.
I knew him immediately.
Not because the image was perfectly clear, but because of the way he stood. He had one hand resting on a metal case and his head tilted slightly toward my mother, as if she had just said something he wasn't sure he agreed with.
It was such an ordinary gesture.
It made the sight of him hurt more than I expected.
"Where was this taken?" I asked.
"Blackwater," Nerathe said.
I stared at the image.
My father wore a dark research uniform, while my mother had a small silver pendant around her neck. Between them stood a younger Queen Nerathe.
I looked at the real queen.
"You were there?"
"Yes."
"And Korrin's father?"
"He was there too."
I turned toward Korrin. He looked genuinely unsettled.
"You didn't know about this?"
"No," he said. "I knew my father had visited Blackwater, but I was never told why."
"How convenient."
"Selene," he warned quietly.
I wasn't interested in being warned.
I pointed at the image. "Why were my parents working with the royal family?"
Nerathe took a moment before answering.
"Because, at the time, we believed the Ocean's Heart was failing."
The words settled over the room.
"Failing how?"
"The currents around several ancient sites had begun to change. Entire sections of the seabed were losing their light. Some sea creatures abandoned their usual territories, and the protective barriers surrounding Arealis weakened."
I remembered the strange silence that had followed the Heart's disappearance. The dead patches of coral. The way even the smallest creatures seemed to avoid certain parts of the ocean.
"Everyone thought the Heart had been damaged," I said.
"Yes. And some believed that human interference was responsible."
"Because of Isaac's father."
"That was the explanation we were given."
I frowned. "Given by whom?"
For the first time, the queen hesitated.
Toren uncrossed his arms.
"You're asking questions about events that nearly destroyed this kingdom."
"And I'm asking because your version of those events doesn't match what the Heart itself is telling me."
"You expect us to trust a voice inside your head?"
"No. I expect you to explain why it keeps contradicting you."
Nymora stepped forward before Toren could respond.
"The Heart was not merely an object that someone could steal, Selene. It was part of an ancient agreement between the two worlds. Its fragments could be moved, hidden, even damaged. But the Heart itself could not be taken by force."
I looked down at the case.
"Then what did Isaac's father take?"
Nerathe closed her eyes briefly.
"A fragment. One that had already been separated from the others."
"Why?"
"To study it. At least, that was what we believed."
"And my father?"
"He was asked to help."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"Asked by whom?"
The queen opened her eyes.
"By the king."
Korrin's father.
I waited for her to continue, but she seemed reluctant to say anything else.
"So my father was working with your family, my mother was involved, and Isaac's father was studying a piece of the Heart. What happened?"
"Someone discovered that the fragment was responding to human technology in a way we had never seen before," Nymora explained. "Your father believed it was reacting to something more specific than the equipment used in the research."
"To what?"
Nymora looked at me.
"To you."
I stared at her.
"That's impossible. I wasn't even born when this happened."
"Not all connections begin at birth."
I rubbed my forehead. I was going to need a notebook just to keep track of everyone's mysterious statements.
"Fine. Let's say the Heart somehow knew I would exist. What does that have to do with my mother disappearing?"
The queen walked toward the image and touched the edge of the projection. It changed.
My mother was now standing alone in a corridor. She looked frightened, and she was holding the silver pendant tightly in one hand.
Behind her, a door stood open.
A man was visible through the gap, but his face was hidden in shadow.
"That was the last recording we recovered from Blackwater," Nerathe said. "Your mother was trying to reach the lower chamber."
"Why?"
"To stop the research from continuing."
"Why would she want to stop it if the research was supposed to save the Heart?"
"Because she discovered that the fragment was being used for a purpose the king had never authorised."
Korrin stepped closer to the projection.
"What purpose?"
Nerathe looked at her son, and something in her expression made him go still.
"I don't know."
He stared at her in disbelief.
"You were the queen. You were there."
"I was not present when the decision was made. Your father kept certain matters between himself and his advisers."
"And you never questioned him?"
"I did. He told me there were things I could not understand until the danger had passed."
Korrin's expression grew cold.
"That sounds familiar."
His words were quiet, but they struck harder than a shout.
Nerathe lowered her gaze.
For the first time since I had met her, the queen seemed to have no answer.
I returned my attention to the projection. My mother stood frozen in the corridor, her face turned toward something outside the frame.
I leaned closer.
There was a mark on the wall beside her.
Three curved lines, joined at the centre.
I had seen that symbol before.
On the inside of the case containing the shards.
My fingers tightened around its handle.
"Can you enlarge that part?" I asked.
Nymora adjusted the projection. The symbol became clearer, revealing a small circle at its centre.
The shards inside my case began to vibrate.
Everyone turned toward me.
A thin blue light escaped between my fingers.
Then a voice spoke.
Not my mother's.
Not my father's.
A woman's voice I had never heard before, calm and distant, as if it had travelled through an ocean of years to reach me.
"Three fragments remember."
The projection flickered.
Nerathe stepped back.
The voice continued.
"One truth was buried."
A sharp crack sounded from somewhere beneath the chamber. The lights dimmed, and the image of my mother disappeared.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then a final sentence echoed through the room.
"Ask the king who gave the order."
The light faded.
I slowly looked at Korrin.
His face had gone pale.
"Your father," I whispered.
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Because whatever had happened at Blackwater, it was no longer just a secret about my family.
It was a secret about his.
And judging by the look on Korrin's face, we had only just discovered the beginning of it.