by Neha Yazmin
‘But you must keep this a secret. Really, I should have burned this book when I found it. I don’t know how none of us managed to remove it from the Royal Library. Maybe they thought it was safe from prying eyes in the Palace’s library? Maybe they didn’t want to get caught taking it out of there?
‘I suppose I couldn’t bring myself to burn it in the end, because you deserve to read it. And it’s lucky that I kept it safe all these years, because it’s all I have left to give you on your coronation.
‘I wish I was by your side now, telling you everything in person. But you were born in a Palace and lived at Court. It wasn’t safe for me to tell you the truth when you were no more than six years old, when you wouldn’t have understood the importance of secrecy.
‘You can’t tell anyone, even if you trust them wholly, though you’re fine talking to Myraa. I’m sure her family has told her everything by now. She is family. She is one of us.
‘I hope everything makes sense once you read this, and I hope you know that I love you.
‘Your mother, Queen Kanona Nidiya Vijkanti’.
Reading this letter that had been under the bookcase, Malin was sure of three things:
One: Her mother had written this letter just weeks—maybe days—before her death, when Aaryana was six-years-old.
Two: Her mother had intended for Aaryana to receive this letter and the accompanying book—which was no doubt the first edition of the Sea Princess’s tale—on the day of her coronation. Kanona was certain that Aaryana would win The Contest. Perhaps she’d even hoped for Aaryana to become Queen? Malin didn’t know how she felt about that, the fact that Aaryana was their father’s and mother’s favourite for the Throne.
And finally, three: This missing book contained a truth that their mother wanted Aaryana to learn. A truth that Myraa knew and was keeping to herself…
It took her hardly any time at all to light a fire and subsequently her candle, but that had been an hour ago. In that time, Aaryana had seen nothing in this small patch of land that resembled a living plant. She had searched the Isle quite thoroughly and was almost back at the spot where she’d started.
The only miracle about this place was that it still stood. The dead trees—and they clearly weren’t alive—should have rotted away, eroded into the sea. Yet, they stood firm and strong, as though frozen in time, waiting for a spring that would never come for them.
But something was coming for her.
She could hear its footsteps, smell it. It smelled of stale water and rotting fish and soft mud. She hadn’t caught this scent while she’d been searching the Isle—why hadn’t she sensed its presence earlier? What is it? Her stomach clenched with the realisation that this wasn’t some animal.
The footfalls coming closer and closer were heavy and patient, hinting at confidence, at rarely failing to catch its prey. It could smell her, too. See her candlelight.
What did it make of the fact that she was rooted to the ground, barely able to breathe? Could it tell that she hadn’t brought anything more than simple knives and daggers with her—the only weapons she had in her rooms—and no swords? Aaryana would have to get close to it in order to cause any damage with her short blades.
Right now, she needed to be as far from this forest as possible. This place had nothing to offer her but death.
That’s why I was sent here…
She had been misled, lied to. How easy it had been to fool her! So desperate was she to help Seth, save him, that she’d let herself believe there was a flower that could cure any illness, break any curse. How stupid!
How clever of the trickster!
Only, this wasn’t a trick to laugh about later. There wasn’t supposed to be a later for her. She wasn’t supposed to leave this place alive.
But she’d fight till her last breath.
Her pursuer came to a stop and its scent suffocated her. It was probably within pouncing distance, that’s why it had halted. She couldn’t cover the distance between them in one leap, no matter how good she was. And that meant she was dealing with something far superior to her. No opponent of hers had ever been in a position to make that claim.
She thought about making the short sprint to the water—the trees here weren’t as densely packed as the ones further in—but running away wasn’t in her nature. Running might provoke the beast to speed after her. It definitely was fast enough. Swallowing her dread, Aaryana took a knife from her weapons belt and turned around, lifting the candle with the other.
Her stomach shuddered at the sight before her.
Malin would be the first to say that she didn’t know much about Myraa. Rudro, on the other hand, claimed to know the girl reasonably well. The two of them seemed to be friends, albeit secretly. So, why hadn’t the Combat Master been able to tell that Myraa had always known about the book they’d asked her to locate?
What if Myraa had taken the book from this shrine? The guards outside will know… Malin returned the bookcase to its rightful position and tidied up, not wanting anyone to suspect that she’d been rummaging through the room, before marching into the hallway. The two guards that were posted at the door of the shrine bowed to her when she turned to face them.
“Has anyone else visited this room today?” she asked them in a firm but polite voice.
“No, Your Highness.”
Malin folded her arms across her chest. “How about yesterday?”
“No, Princess.”
She pursed her lips. “Any time this week?”
The two men exchanged confused glances. The taller one said, “The last two people to come here during one of my shifts were the Queen and her husband.”
She mentally slapped her forehead. Malin had forgotten that these guards weren’t permanently posted here. How many of them could she ask without explaining why she wanted to know?
“I remember because it was the first time I spoke to Her Majesty,” the guard continued. “It wasn’t long after she was Crowned, actually.”
Out of politeness, Malin asked him, “Oh? What did you talk about?”
“It wasn’t like that, Princess,” he replied with a shy grin. “And I wish I hadn’t said anything, anyway.” He shook his head, sheepish.
“Why?”
“Well, I did it out of habit,” he explained. “No one is permitted to remove anything from this room, and I said as much without thinking. I mean, she was the Queen. I shouldn’t have spoken out of turn—”
“Are you saying that my sister took something from here?” Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended.
The guard nodded. “Actually, it was her husband that was carrying it. Apparently, he wanted to read it.” He shrugged.
Her heart began pounding. “He took the book—I mean, he took one of my mother’s books?”
“Yes, Princess. It looked very old. I thought it would fall apart if he held it any tighter. And maybe it did fall apart, because he never brought it back.”
People didn’t just vanish into thin air in the aptly named Dead Forest, but what actually happened to the brave—or some would say stupid—souls that went to explore it? This question wasn’t one that the residents of Roshdan liked to ask themselves, not when they had three good reasons to fear this place.
The last time that the Island had discussed this mystery had been when the previous King of Roshdan had sent a group of mercenaries into the Isle of the Damned. He hadn’t told anyone his reasons for deploying those men, and inevitably, everyone assumed it was to procure a cure for the Fresdan curse. He had been obsessed with breaking the family curse—or outsmarting it. If he truly believed that the forsaken forest held the key to saving his family, his men didn’t find it.
None of them returned.
The girl that had gone into the Isle of the Damned today wasn’t going to return, either. She was about to die.
The… thing that had crawled out of the water and stalked into the Dead Forest in search of its latest victim was built like a bear, but wasn’t a bear. Wh
en it raised itself onto its hind legs, it walked like a man. But it was not a man.
One thing was for certain: The beast had come to shore to kill.
Its mouth was almost as big as its entire face. Aaryana could barely see the creature’s eyes—were they white or did it not have pupils?—and its nose was nothing more than two small holes above its grey lips. In fact, its entire body was a greenish-grey colour, with a little blue where the light of her candle hit it. Wait, are those scales?
Yes, they are...
The beast was covered in scales, like that of a fish, but ten times larger. They looked to be a hundred times harder than ordinary fish scales, too. Her eyes widened. This was a sea folk. A sea folk! But what was it doing out of the water?
Two rows of pointy teeth greeted her as it opened its mouth, as though realising that she’d figured out what it was and had to eliminate her before she spread the news. Would it be able to swallow her whole? Aaryana would definitely fit inside it, that was for sure.
It was the size of a bear, much larger than she’d expected considering the sounds of its footsteps, and its claws reminded her of the throwing knives back in the Royal Guards’ training field. The sea-monster wouldn’t be easily outmanoeuvred; it obviously had great stealth and speed.
Aaryana gripped the handle of her knife tighter and lifted her chin. Come and get me.
But it retreated.
Closing its mouth, it dropped onto all fours and began to back away into the trees. It kept its head up, though, watching her as it moved backwards. She didn’t notice immediately, but the creature’s body stretched and miraculously thinned out as it slid itself between the trees. How did it do that? Were the bodies of all sea folk so pliable? Could they all shrink their limbs and torso at will? How small could they become? She was fascinated and disgusted by it at the same time.
The terror made way for confusion over the fact that it had decided to leave her alone. Why? Only seconds ago, it was ready to eat her. Like it ate all those mercenaries, no doubt. The letter had said that the man that returned to the Palace warned of deadly beasts roaming the forest… Was that the only truth in that letter or had every single word actually been a lie?
Perhaps it was just her bad luck that this sea creature had come to shore? Maybe it had come only because she was here? So, what convinced it to abandon its efforts to kill her?
Dumbfounded, Aaryana watched as it turned around and started squeezing through the trees, getting further and further away from her. Her instincts told her that it had come to destroy her, like it had destroyed hundreds of others in the past. Just because it had chosen to spare her, it didn’t change the fact that it was a killer and would kill again. She had to put a stop to this. No one would ever get a chance like this again.
Aaryana gave chase.
Just because Myraa hadn’t removed the first edition of the Sea Princess book from Kanona’s shrine, Malin knew it didn’t mean the girl was completely innocent. ‘She is one of us,’ Kanona had written. ‘You’re fine talking to Myraa.’ Not Leesha, not Malin, not Ash or Sarsha. ‘I’m sure her family has told her everything by now.’
Myraa’s family… Well, the girl’s mother was dead and her father was in the dungeons. Her siblings didn’t live at Court. Malin didn’t know much else about them. She knew that the Nidiyas were close to Myraa’s family; it seemed that the two families shared a lot more than just friendship. What secret did Kanona want Aaryana to know that Myraa and her siblings already knew?
And why had this book, saved for Aaryana’s eyes only, been out in the open? Stored with her mother’s other texts? No, Malin told herself as she left her mother’s shrine to return to her chambers. Mother would have kept the book and her letter somewhere very safe. Kanona may have taken it from the Royal Library saying that she wanted to add it to her personal collection, but her letter suggested that she’d hidden it from everyone.
Before her death, she may have entrusted one of her ladies-in-waiting to hold it until the day Aaryana was Crowned. Upon Aaryana’s banishment, that loyal friend probably decided that Kanona’s coronation gift for the exiled Princess was best left in her shrine. Malin pictured a middle-aged woman entering the shrine, tearing the wrapping off the frail book in a hurry, and pushing it into a gap in the bookshelf, the letter slipping to the floor and sliding under the bookcase unseen. Yes, that makes sense.
What Malin was struggling to figure out was what truth Aaryana had to learn that Malin and her other sisters weren’t supposed to know. Had their mother singled out Aaryana because she thought Aaryana would become Queen—because the information was in relation to protecting the Kingdom—or was there something else? If Malin ever found the answer to this question, what good would that do when Aaryana was in Roshdan?
The youngest Princess was so lost in her thoughts that she forgot she was supposed be suffering from her migraine. Forgot that she ought to hurry to her rooms without being seen by too many Courtiers. Forgot to be vigilant of her surroundings.
That’s why she didn’t understand what was happening when she heard the words, “Sister, are you alright?” It sounded like Leesha. “Malin, stop.”
She stopped and looked up. The Queen and her ladies stood mere steps away from her. She would have collided with Leesha if she hadn’t halted when she did.
Then, several other details registered with her in quick succession. She hadn’t been walking towards her quarters—she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. Her sister was probably returning to her rooms after finishing lunch—Malin had eaten her meal quite early. While she’d been rummaging through her mother’s things, Leesha had spent the last hour sitting at the dining table, talking and laughing with her Courtiers. Parth wasn’t with her—he had probably returned to the dungeons after eating—but Myraa was. Finally, Malin had to lie convincingly about what she was doing out of her bedchamber on a dry day, while also signalling to Myraa that she wanted a word with her.
“You don’t look well, sister,” Leesha commented, appraising her with concerned eyes. “Why are you out of bed?”
“I don’t know…” She might as well continue giving the impression that she was disoriented. “It was so hot inside,” she added weakly, letting her shoulders droop. “I was looking for something,” she said for Myraa’s benefit, and watched the girl’s reaction surreptitiously. “But it wasn’t where I believed it to be…”
Myraa’s lips parted silently, eyes wide. Yes, she’d figured out that Malin was talking about the book.
“What were you after?” Leesha asked.
Malin palmed her forehead and grimaced. “I can’t remember… this migraine is… I wish I could go outside for some fresh air, but it’s too bright—”
“No, you should go lie down, Malin,” her sister said strictly. “You don’t look or sound well at all.”
Swallowing, Malin nodded at her sister and turned to her left, allowing her legs to wobble as she moved. Hopefully, Myraa got the message about meeting her outside the castle, at the spot where Malin had blindfolded her last night.
“Stop,” Leesha called out and Malin paused. “You’re going in the wrong direction. One of my ladies will help you to your chambers.”
She twisted around to pick one of her ladies but Myraa stepped forward, saying, “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Leesha seemed startled by the girl’s assertiveness, but recovered quickly and nodded at Myraa. Well, this was better than sneaking out of the castle as Shahan and hoping that Myraa found a way to sneak out, too. The girl walked over to her, put an arm around her, and guided her towards her quarters.
As they walked, Malin informed Myraa that Parth had the first edition now; she barely moved her lips as she spoke and didn’t let any emotion show on her face. In a similar fashion, Myraa said that she’d be able to get the book from Parth’s rooms. Once they were safe inside the privacy of her chambers, Malin asked the girl why she seemed to be so confident.
“Well, he’s always making me clean his ro
oms,” she said bitterly, “so no one will bat an eyelid when I go in there. And he’ll be in the dungeons until dinner, leaving me plenty of time to look around.”
“You want to go now?”
Myraa frowned. “Why not?”
“Why are you so eager to find this book?” Malin sounded quite a bit more suspicious than she’d intended.
“I want to help—”
“Yes, but what do you get out of it?”
The girl was speechless for a few seconds. “You and Rudro came to me—”
“What do you know about my mother’s secret?”
Myraa’s eyes widened. She didn’t speak for a long time. “Your mother’s secret?” It was obvious that she was trying to sound confused, but the fear in her eyes gave her away.
She knows. “So, you know everything, and have been pretending otherwise.” Malin stalked up to the girl and glared. “You’ve been lying to me and Rudro this whole time.”
Myraa shook her head frantically. “No, not lying, Princess. I just didn’t think this had anything to do with my father. Yes, he claimed to be summoning a sea folk, but he’d clearly lost his mind by then.” She shook her head.
“Your father? Summoning a sea folk?” Malin pursed her lips. “How does he fit into all this?”
Myraa blinked for a few seconds. “I thought you’d figured it out? Why my father was imprisoned.”
“I think I heard that Father had been very angry with him and chose to put him in the dungeons for life, but how is that linked to my mother’s secret?”
Myraa gasped. “You don’t know, do you? You’re talking about a different secret.”
“Clearly.”
“I don’t know any other secret related to your mother.”
“Tell me about the one you do know.”
Myraa sighed. “My father was in love with your mother—”
