"My father never had a daughter," Nixian repeated himself.

He burned tracks into the ground as he paced, while Kealie stared in horror at the bile on the Caster's floor.

As if she'd be ejected from her body.

The only thing Kealie couldn't wrap her head around was the way in which her mother could be capable of ensnaring another man.

Her step father was just as corrupt and everything Kealie had ever heard about the King of the Sea was many moons away from that.

Nixian stopped to examine Kealie, drawn up tight on the ground. She was shaking her head slowly at first.

She felt him truly looking at her.

A human girl - a weak, fragile mortal - curling into herself.

"You're wrong," Kealie stammered, trying to pull herself together.

Nixian's brows furrowed together. He looked from Kealie back to the Caster. "I don't understand, how did you hide his daughter, my sister?"

In the middle of a mental tug of war, Kealie did realize Nixian was on the outside. So unaware of what the Caster was saying to them, to her.

"I'm not wrong," she replied, still watching Kealie. "When the King wouldn't join his lover on land, she swore a great many vows and when she discovered she bore his offspring, a greater piece of her broke."

Kealie felt her throat swelling again, burning with every breath.

She kept her eyes trained on the hardwood, unable to meet her friend's stare.

The Caster took several calm strides toward her before squatting down in front of Kealie just as she had done all those years ago. She offered her hand, palm out, very slowly before holding onto the jade gem hanging around Kealie's neck.

She watched with bated breath as the woman gave it a gentle tug before making eye contact with Kealie's soul.

"When the King's lover attained power and rose to her throne, she began her despicable acts, torturing anyone that reminded her of all that she had lost," The Caster murmured, explaining very softly. "And one night, when her meddlesome daughter drowned four sailors who were trapping and killing Leviathan, his lover dragged her all the way to my home in the dead of night to have me fix her."

Kealie felt like she was going to be sick again.

Fate might have bound her to Nixian, but being prepared to accept just why her mother had become so evil was the most challenging thought of all.

The words were enough to make Kealie consider asking for a towel or a bucket.

"What are you saying?" Nixian demanded again.

The Caster held Kealie's gaze. Steady. Reassuring.

"That was the night I made her daughter a potion. One that would conceal her true identity and bide her time before her mother grew too frustrated and took a life that was not hers to take."

Kealie swallowed roughly, eyes widening.

She found herself chanting the same thing over and over again in her head until it was tumbling off her lips.

"I don't want to live this way anymore," she said.

The Caster hummed to herself and released her hold on the necklace. She stood and stalked into her kitchen, pulling a vial down from the highest cabinet. It was dusty and untouched, a spell made once a very long time ago.

Turning back to face Kealie, she held it out in front of her. "I was a High Priestess in the northern mountains of Zavere. We were trained to heal, not harm," she said. "Never would I have taken something from you permanently."

"I won't die...?"

She shook her head. "When I warned you never to speak of this, it was to ward off your mother."

She felt the ice flooding her veins. Not wanting to know the answer, Kealie couldn't help but ask. "You truly think she'd kill me?"

The Casters tight lips and cast glance was enough of an answer.

Kealie snatched the vial from her hands and stared at it in awe. The liquid inside sparkled and swirled with the violet blues and incandescent greens she always felt herself searching for.

Using her thumb, she popped the cap from inside and aimed to down it in one drink.

The Caster stopped her, gripping her wrist and giving her a warning look. "This must go first," she explained.

Reaching out, her hand locked on the necklace again and snatched it from Kealie's neck.

"Now drink, quickly."

Kealie didn't hesitate, tipping her head back and the vial with her. It poured over her tongue and down the back of her throat in one slippery motion.

She didn't care anymore.

She wasn't concerned with what her mother would do to her or if it was right.

Kealie drank the potion as quickly as possible and felt the strange sensations she longed for flood her body. Her vision cleared, her senses heightened, she could smell the hints of creatures and magic brushing through the rain.

The sea roared around them for miles.

Kealie coughed, swaying and leaning on a side table.

Nixian swore, stumbling a step backward.

"What?" Kealie mumbled, feeling weirdly punch drunk.

Growing down into her vision, she saw waves of golden blond hair. Even her braids extended down in front of her. Her eyes burned and she knew the bright, searing green was blooming to life.

Kealie's limbs grew longer, her fingers and arms narrowing and sharpening.

The once tiny tail barely sprouted from her spine was now long and beautiful. Mesmerizing. It flicked back and forth behind her, a strange new appendage she felt way more than the scales returning to her face and shoulders.

After a moment, Nixian let out a noise Kealie had never heard before.

"I need some air," he almost growled, the sharpness in his voice nearing guttural.

He turned and threw open the door, exiting quickly.

The words felt like a swift kick deep in Kealie's gut.

She closed her eyes to focus and listen, taking deep breaths. Voices were growing louder on the shoreline, with the echoes of metal and yelling mixed in.

The sound moved closer like a cloud of death.

"There's no escaping them," Kealie whispered, clenching her fists at her side.

Nixian could've fled the second he left, hearing those guards rampaging. Searching.

The Caster looked down, frowning. "I have nowhere to hide you where you'd be safe."

Kealie nodded.

She knew that as she glanced around the small home, where there were only two walls separating the sleeping quarters from the living space.

Even if she could escape Natansia without being noticed, she wouldn't escape what she'd done. Becoming Nerydian, embracing her blood and undoing the spell.

She made a choice.

"Thank you..." Kealie said.

"Isla," she offered, resting a hand on Kealie's arm.

For a second all she could do was smile. Isla. A lovely name. A name Kealie wanted to remember forever.

The door swung open again. A frantic Nixian threw his wide eyes around the room until he locked onto Kealie. "They're at the port, they're heading straight for the house."

"Okay," Kealie replied calmly.

"We need to get you out of here," he snapped.

The only thing Kealie could think about was how he still stood in front of her. How he hadn't left without a word. Nixian was throwing his arm around her back and ushering her through the threshold with a haste she'd never witnessed.

No one had ever bothered to protect her.

No one had ever made an effort to try.

If they survived this, she'd remember to thank him for that.

But for now, all she could do was stumble after him in a daze as Nixian led her head on into the budding dawn light.

The silhouettes of a hundred guards emerging from the fog.

Word Count: 1,301                   Total Word Count: 12,848