Mermaid Tear (The Fated #2)

Prologue

They were memories, but not. Pieces of reality that felt like they should be hers, but weren't. It clutched her mind, spinning it into chaos that was impossible to separate from.

Arms clutched her tight to their chest, a warm chin settled on the top of her head. Despite knowing the person was a stranger, the arms felt familiar to her. Comforting.

This isn't me.

The knowledge hung heavy in her mind even as the woman kissed the top of her head and tightened the already suffocating hug.

"Listen close, Lita," the woman said. The words were foreign, but the meanings came to her without a second's pause."If things do not go as they should tomorrow, there is something I need you to know. It is the biggest secret I have ever bared, and it is one that you will likely carry to your grave. Can you do that for me?"

She trembled. Foreign emotion flooded her mind, as her limbs moved on their own accord. Fear, worry, determination. The her that wasn't her was scared to hear the words this woman would whisper, but was also unwilling to disappoint her.

"I can, Mama."

Tension fled her mother's frame, her arms relaxing. "Good."

Silence encased them for several seconds, before the woman released a heavy sigh and lifted her head. She didn't step back, instead simply shifting so their foreheads met. Her sapphire eyes stared deep into the her that wasn't her. Lita.

"You love your brother."

It wasn't a question, but confusion still flooded her. Of course she loved her brother. What did that have to do with any of this?

"I know the stories they whisper," her mother continued. "But, more than anything else, you must understand this--the stories are wrong. He is not Ayo's son. He is so much more than that monster.

"You must know...you're a treasure, Lita, my treasure, and you are worth the world. But he, your brother, if they knew what he was, they wouldn't dare say as they do, that he is valued less than you. They would fight over the right to control him."

A shiver racked her spine. She'd always known there was more. Her mother had never protested the rumors, but she knew they couldn't be right. Her mother wasn't such a selfless person. She may have loved them. She may have been willing to sacrifice everything for them, but if the rumors were true, she wouldn't have. Her brother would have been a living reminder of everything she hated. It would have shown.

"He is sea-marked, and I need you to understand what that means."

The world broke. The woman was gone. Time shuddered and shifted, flicking into a different place. The world was still foreign, still a place that this her recognized, but the real one didn't. A room coated in shadows. Empty buckets tossed to the side. A child drenched from head to toe, staring at their clean hands.

She was hollow.

She knew that she needed to do something besides stand and stare at the boy in front of her, but she couldn't. Because, it was her mother who had died. They may have shared her, but it wasn't her brother who listened to all of their mother's fears and stories. He wasn't allowed to sleep in their room. He didn't curl up at her side every night and drift off to the sound of their mother's heartbeat.

She stared at the invisible blood on his hands and wondered how she was ever going to smile at him again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't."