As they approach the statue, Kade notices the statue's dressed in what looks like a shell bra, and her skirt flows down over her legs and forms into a tail. Around them, the sound of trickling water and an odd avian call echoes off the walls.

Kade's eyes snap up towards the sound on instinct, knowing it must be a gigantic bird with the wingspan he glimpsed and the volume of its call. "What is that?"

"A phoenix." Shane flatly tells him.

Right... Kade nods as his brow raises. Voodoo in the morning, and now god knows what this is. They worship a mermaid, that's all he knows for sure, and there's no known religion to his knowledge that has one of those statues.

Orison pulls back a large fern, blocking the base of the statue where a woman kneels at the feet with large baskets of fish laid out in front of her. She's dressed exactly like the stone goddess, down to the gold crown placed upon her head. Chains hang off of coral-shaped branches with starfish, shells, and pearls set in them.

Throwing Shane one last look that hides his annoyance only so well, Kade reluctantly strides up to the Priestess and tips his head. He recites a portion of the greeting he remembers, at least getting that part of it right, "Arreoou, arrnah ehee." He's experienced enough with languages to know better than to wing the rest. People will take offense if you really butcher their language.

To his shock, Truly whips her head around to look at him, making the chains on her crown jingle. "Kade!" She gasps as her eyes fill with tears. Truly quickly jerks to her feet.

"Treasure?" Surprise crosses his features as he moves towards her.

Truly pulls the crown from her head and runs toward him before leaping into his arms. She tightly hugs her arms and legs around him as she buries her face into his neck. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again," she weeps quietly in his ear.

"Apparently he took ta hug option as well," Orison chuckles behind them. "Corse, she's given ta lad bigger hugs t'an she normally gives me. Ain't fair. I haven't gotten a hug like t'at since she was five."

Kade's arms slide instinctively under her ass to hold her, and he leans his head against her shoulder as the familiar smell of citrus he's missed greets him. "I'm just glad they managed ta get to you and keep ye safe. The last place I wanted ye was with me."

"I wanted ta come for ye. I tried ta get away ta rescue ye." Her gaze drifts to her father. "Can I leave ta temple now?"

"Aye, lass, ye can leave now. We'll leave ye ta show him ta entire island." He nods to them both before he and Orison turn, heading back up the path.

Truly slides herself off Kade when they are alone and pulls just far enough away to look up at his scruffy face. Her blood-shot eyes and soaked cheeks make her look like anything but a priestess.

"I'm sorry I worried you." He lightly caresses the side of her face.

"Ye didn't worry me, luv, it was ta feckers t'at took ye t'at did." Truly sniffles and takes his hand. "I need ta show ye... a lot."

"Apparently." His eyes slide over her before they lift to the statue behind her, noting the similarities. "Not sure how I feel about all the men here worshiping a statue of ye. You're my treasure, not theirs."

Truly laughs as she glances up at the goddess. "T'at ain't me, fear not. That's Triteia, t'ough, it's said me people were born from her. So maybe it's jist residual DNA passin' down." Her lip curls up in a smirk.

Truly replaces her crown before grabbing her sea-foam green skirt and pulling it up to make it easier to walk. "I'm not sure where ta start first, but it might be best ta explain our history."

"Yer father gave me a bit on the way over. He said they're indigenous and prefer ta live in hiding after we persecuted them." His eyes flick over to her. "I don't recall us doing that. I thought we blended a bit better." That said, they taught him a lot of different things that don't seem to match the descriptions he got from Drake and Orison, so it probably shouldn't surprise him.

"Aye, I'll take ye ta t'e cave. It's got pictographs t'at help explain." Truly leads him out of the temple and down to the shoreline, where several partially covered glass domes sit against the coast, mostly covered in plant life. As they pass people on the beach, the chocolate-haired people stop and bow as he and Truly pass.

At the end of the beach, a solid cliff blocks their path. "We need ta swim around t'at point." Truly points out into the ocean. "I need ye ta promise me ta keep yer head above water. I promise, I'll explain it all, jist do t'is for me Kade."

He raises a brow. "How strong's the current?" It's hard to fight against a good one and swim the way she's suggesting.

"It's pretty gentle here." Her look turns pleading. "Please, Kade, I need ye ta trust me on t'is."

"I do. It's just a weird request ta make when ye know I love the sea and studying it."

"As a reward, afta I show ye ta cave, I'll show ye ta rarest fish in ta entire ocean." Truly smirks.

"The one that's supposedly why this whole fucking area is closed off and they never let me dive it." He raises a speculative brow, having tried to do just that since he was eight or nine. "The one even me professor hasn't glimpsed and the man's seen everything. That fish?"

"Aye, luv, that fish." Truly laughs as she pulls off her skirt, relieving swim bottoms underneath, and nestles the crown on her head into the fabric. "I'll even let ye touch it."

A light frown crosses his lips, knowing better than to do that. And she should too. "You don't touch them. It's bad for their scales to remove the mucus. It's like touching reefs, ye just don't."

"This one has very resilient scales. Now, do ye want ta see ta bloody fish or not?" She places her hands on her hips.

A light scoff escapes Kade's lips, "Of course I do, and ye know it. It's why yer baiting me with it."

"T'en stop tryin' ta correct me on a bloody fish t'at I know more about t'an ye do and get yer arse in ta water." She raises a brow before walking out into the surf.

"The one time I don't have a suit with me." Kade mutters as he removes his dress shirt from the formal and lays it on a rock along with his phone. Sitting on it, he undoes his boots, not foolish enough to swim in those. Not liking the obvious rocks beneath the surface, he reluctantly leaves his jeans on, knowing they'll be a nightmare to swim with. They'll decrease his maneuverability, but it's better than ripping himself to bits on the unseen when she won't let him dive ta see what he's getting into like he normally would. "The things I do for ye, Treasure. This is going to bloody suck, but if I can't dive ta see where those rocks are, I'm not doing it in me skivvies."

"I swam in me skivvies in front of ye." She grins as she steps back to the point she has to tread water.

"In a lake," he counters, striding in after her. "With no chance of being thrown into rocks."

"I promised ye, if yer with me, I'll neva let ta sea take ye." Truly guides him around the cliff and to a private cove with a deep-sea cave. The waves kiss the cave's opening.

Inside the cave, Truly points up to several drawings of what looks like humans, but from the waist down, their bodies come to a point where legs should be. All of them are facing one large humanoid with a crown upon its head. "T'e large one is Triteia, and t'is is ta creation of Atlanteans." Several other pictographs show the people with fish and other marine life. Towards the back of the cave, what looks like large black, ominous ships sail in over the people, who look to be fleeing in terror.

Kade's head tilts as his eyes focus on the ships. The King's Misery? Bonnie's ship has the most distinctive shape besides Calypso's Cruelty's robust back. There are enough ships to be more than a typical fleet. "This is the great fleet, isn't it?" His head snaps back to her. "This one drafts in the water like Stonewall's galleon."

"Aye." Truly wraps her arms around herself. "T'ere is a written account of what happened t'en, but some of ta people came in here ta draw t'ese, along with ta others. T'ey wanted an account of what happened on land too, in case t'ey didn't make it." Truly dryly swallows as she takes a step back. "I need ye ta trust yer eyes Kade, and if ye want ta leave ta chains afta t'is, I'll undastand."

For the second time in a matter of hours, a wariness fills him. "Why are ye phrasing it like that? Ye know I normally do."

"Aye, I know. Come with me inta t'e water. I'll show ye ta fish." Truly nervously walks out into the water with Kade following. She stops when he gets waist-deep. With a nervous breath, she takes her swim bottoms off and hands them to Kade. "Hold t'ese for me, please, and don't touch me till I'm done. Ye won't help. It'll only make it worse."

At her comment, Kade lightly stiffens. "If this is like that spell ye did, I don't need ta see the fish. It isn't worth you hurting yourself again."

Truly cuts him a look before dipping beneath the crystal blue water. To his shock, Truly takes a deep breath in sending alarms instantly through him since she just breathed seawater, but he stills from jerking her up as her legs pull together. The skin of her legs quickly melts together like wax on a candle as she twitches and looks as if she's screaming in pain. The sight of her in agony has him gritting his jaw as his hands fist, but he fights the urge to comfort her since she warned him it would only cause her pain.

As her legs elongate and the tip fans out into a fluke, white scales sprout across her tail, and tiny light pinkish pearls pop out along her lower abdomen and upper tail. Long pink and white fringe grows along the bottom of her fluke as she stills on the bottom of the surf, taking several labored breaths in.

For several minutes Kade just stares, unable to process what he's just seen. People, after all, don't turn half fish. It's not logical.

'The world's not black and white as ye hoped, boy,' Drake's words from before replay in his head.

She's like a ghost.... Okay. What's next, the Kraken? I mean, she's... She's a bloody...

Truly finally moves in the water and slowly glides to shallower water, where she can sit up in the surf. As she turns to sit, she spits out the excess water in her mouth. A nervous look is plastered on her face as she watches Kade.

"Mermaid." Kade numbly says, still in semi disbelief.

"Aye... Are ye alright?" Her voice shakes, unsure of how he's going to react when he snaps out of his stupor.

"Aye... My wife's a mermaid..." With at least some common sense still intact, he wades far out of the water so as not to drown himself before he plops on the sand, his hands sliding up to cup his head. "I thought you'd maybe summon it up with yer magic, not become it."

"Are ye angry?" Truly turns to look at him.

Thankfully, he shakes his head no.

"Do ye want me ta leave ye alone ta t'ink for a bit?"

"I've had enough time away from ye, it's a bit ta process."

Truly nods and comes closer to him, but only enough that she can still keep most of herself in the water. "If ye have a question, I'll answer t'em."

"That day in the cove, when ye were drownin'," his eyes flick up to her from where they'd been unseeing at the surface of the water. "Ye weren't, were you?"

"Noh." Truly shakes her head. "I was switchin' from me tail ta me legs. I usually do it on shore or in shallow water, cause it's hard ta swim, but I didn't want ta wake ye. Switchin' from fin ta legs hurts more, and I tend ta shout a bit. Ta more ye do it, t'ough, t'e more ye get used ta it."

Kade's eyes drop to her lower body, studying the luminescent whiteness of her tail. "It wasn't artificial," he says to himself, remembering the day on the Devil's Sapphire. "That's why Brody didn't want me ta give you yer crown."

"Aye, ta closer ye are ta more ye realize ta scale are real." The end of her tail splashes as she moves to keep herself in place with the waves constantly pushing and dragging her.

"Can you breathe underwater? Is that why you inhaled, or are you like a dolphin?"

Truly nods. "Aye. I have a set of lungs for breathin' on land, and behind t'em are a set of gills in ta shape of me lungs." Truly lifts her chin and points to her throat. "T'ere is a flap in me throat that flips ta guard one from te otha, dependin' on what I'm using at ta time."

Kade nods as his brain tries to visualize it as he would any other creature of the sea. As his scientific mind runs through their visual differences, a nagging question comes to mind. "Can ye even have a child with me, or are we too different?"

"Aye, I don't see why not." Truly frowns. "Orison and Pasha had several sons, and Drake and Amphitrite had two. Unless ye don't want ta anymore."

True, why did I forget about that? Kade blinks, caught off guard she'd think that. "I've not changed me mind about us having children." Standing up, he moves further out in the surf to sit where the waves hit his chest so he can be near her. "I was just wondering since there are many species in the sea that are similar and they can't just breed because of it. Given that you have two forms," he splits his hands apart in front of her, "there's an off chance you can only breed in one and since I doubt the land one is yer natural one, it'd likely be the other."

"I can in both." Truly tries to hold back a smirk. Out of all ta questions he'd ask, he chooses t'at one. "T'ough I've only been active in one form, not te otha, so I can't give ye personal experiences on how ta breed as a siren."

Kade shifts, resting his arms on his knees, preferring to ignore the siren statement after the last three weeks with the Adébáyọ̀s. "Do ye only have our usual five senses, or is it more like a dolphin and other animals? Sonar, sensing electrical currents of animals and such," he clarifies. "Is that how ye knew the Keep's lagoon had a deep rift in it?"

"They're stronga sense, aye. I can see fartha in water, but on land I struggle a bit, which is why I'm so clumsy. I can hear sonar, and Atlantean's spoken in it undawater. All ta basic senses ye'd expect ta find in oceanic aquatic life."

He lightly nods. "That's why it seems so songy when you speak it. The tones would carry better. That makes sense," he softly says, as his mind tries to categorize things for its own sanity. "Can I touch it?" He nods at her tail.

"Aye, ye can. It won't hurt me." Truly swims up closer to him and sits next to him.

Tentatively Kade reaches out and runs his fingers over her tail, growing a bit more confident in his touch when she doesn't flinch. "They're smooth, yet rough." His fingers slide up to graze what looks like pearls at her waist. "Pearls?" His eyes flick to her for confirmation.

"Aye, when I change back t'e scale becomes sort of like a dust, t'e skin tears apart as t'e muscles shift back, and t'e pearls will pop off." Truly runs a finger over one pearl. "I'm ta only one t'at has pearls t'ough. It was ta first sign t'at I'm ta returned Amphitrite."

"Her pearls..." Recognition fills his eyes as he remembers Drake's words about eating one. That's what he meant. Amphitrite must have had him do it, too. That's why he knew. "These are the ones Drake meant." He lightly touches a strand that runs across her lower stomach. "When he said I had ta eat one of yer pearls." His warm brown eyes lift to meet hers. "Why would I need to eat one soon if I wanted ta stay with you forever?"

"It's complicated, Kade, and I'm not even sure if what Drake's hopin' will happen will work on ye." Truly leans back and braces herself against the sand. "If it does, ye need ta know what ye'd be getting inta first. But accordion' ta our records. If ye are part siren, taken a pearl like a pill will pull ta siren part of yer blood forward and make ye a full-blooded siren."

Kade's brows lightly furrow as he turns to face her. "And if I'm not? What would it do then?"

"If yer not part siren?" Truly frowns. "I t'ought ye were from Dour's line."

"I am," he confirms with a small nod, "from his eldest son, but it's been five hundred years. I can't say for sure I inherited that specific strand of DNA from the man after all these centuries."

"Aye, but ye've got some in ye. Not sayin' it'll work, but it might be enough." Truly gnaws on her lip as her gaze drops to the waves. "If not, t'ere are accounts of Orison and Drake takin' t'em. T'ey were able ta hold t'ey breathes underwater for longer tan humanly possible."

"So it won't kill me, that's good. But it doesn't explain why I need ta do it soon. Do yer people not approve of relationships with humans?"

"It makes t'em nervous, but t'ey don't mind." Her gaze drifts up to him as she lets out a sigh. "He wants our ages ta match, I reckon. Ye know ta man t'at met ye and me daddy on ta dock?"

"Aye," Kade nods. "He seemed ta be a close friend of the Lieutenant Governors."

"T'at's me granddah, Kade." Truly holds her breath, hoping she isn't slamming him with too much too soon. "He's turnin' eighty-five in a few months."

A light laugh escapes Kade's lips at the idea of him being that old until he abruptly cuts off when he realizes she's serious. "Yer serious?"

"Aye, I am. We live on average ta be about two hundred years old." She tilts her head from side to side. "Give or take a decade or two." Her gaze drops, and a broken-hearted look passes over her face. "When ye die at ta normal age for a human, I won't even be at me mid-life mark."

"How old are you now then?"

Truly smirks. "I'm nineteen. Me body has traveled around ta sun nineteen times."

That's an odd way ta phrase it. "Why do I feel yer phrasing it that way so I understand yer age? Do ye not account yer years in the same rotation as... what do ye even call us?"

"We do, but me granddah can't exactly tell ye t'at he's eighty-four without gettin' looks from ye, can he?" She raises a brow at him. "And we call ye humans. Ye seem ta call yeselves t'at so, jist followin' suit."

So I'll live ta maybe sixty since that's what granddah did, and she stays young like this. "So I'll age while you'll stay like this most me life? Or do ye match our growth to a certain age?"

"Noh, I'll age at half ta rate. At forty I'll still look twenty, and so on and so forth." Truly twirls her hand, showing how the rest of the years will basically follow suit. "We start ta show actual signs of agin' around eighty or so. Fine line, maybe greyin' hair, but true age hits in our mid one hundreds."

Kade's lips thin as he thinks over her words, his eyes dropping to stare at the water. So if I want ta be with her for the rest of her life and my own, I'd have ta change now. That's what Drake meant. Otherwise, I'll die long before her. His mind jumps oddly to Drake laid out in his treasure trove preserved like the day he died, and all the stones around that she said were prayers for him. The idea of her doing the same to him causes his chest to oddly tighten. I don't want her crying over me body like Amphitrite did him for centuries.

"And if I take ta pearl and become like ye, what does that mean for me? Would I even be able ta return to the islands? I'm a Brovern, the Brovern ta most. I have responsibilities ta the islands. Would yer people even want me as one of 'em in the first place when I'm one of those." He gestures towards the drawing of the ships. "And the bastard ta a man who stole the heart of their queen. I can't see that going over well if Drake's own kids had ta hide who they were."

"Ye can return ta t'e main islands. Ye jist obviously have ta keep t'is," she gestures to the surrounding island. "A secret. Ye can't expose us, whether or not ye change. Me people don't have hard feelin's toward Drake, his crew, or t'ere descendants. T'ey don't like t'e Adébáyọ̀s because t'ey killed two innocent sistas when t'ey first arrived here, but we don't act on ta revenge t'reat t'at was decreed five-hundred-years ago."

"To them it's still fresh." He shifts, his fingers reaching out to glide across her scales. "Mama took me ta cleanse me. They kept sayin' I was under yer thrall." Was I wrong ta dismiss the idea so quickly? "I can't say they won't try something again, and I'm sure yer dad thinks the same. If I went back ta school, would ye even be able to?" His eyes lift to hers. "He said he couldn't allow ye ta come to me earlier. Are ye allowed to return to the islands, Treasure?"

Truly shrugs. "I don't know. As far as me daddy goes, obviously he wants me ta stay safe. Me people would prefer me ta stay here, but they won't keep me if I insist on returnin' ta t'e main lands."

"Because yer their high priestess?" Can those even marry in yer culture? He knows many religions keep their leaders pure, and she had been before he married her.

"Aye, t'ey'd prefer me near ta temple. I can't exactly pray ta t'e Triteia statue for them if I ain't here, but I didn't choose ta be ta priestess, I was born inta it." Truly runs her hand along his arm. "I luv ye, Kade. It doesn't matta what t'e othas want, cause I'm gonna do whatever we figure out tagetha."

"And what is it you want?" His eyes slide around the cave. "Do you want to stay here or go back to the islands?"

"I want ta be with ye. I might balk a bit if ye try ta get me ta settle on Wintershall, but I'd eventually follow ye." She playfully grins.

Kade throws her a slightly annoyed look. "I don't have plans of going back ta me house there. I don't even like the fact me Omma's living there right now." I'm gonna have to find a way ta lure her to live down in Davelvon, but not near Raven and Hailee. "I guess I'd need ta know more about the culture. What's expected of me. Do they even like ta fact we're married? Yer a high priestess, lots of religions expect someone like that to stay pure."

"If I wouldn't have married ye, t'en I have a feelin' t'at ta prince here would have eventually asked, so noh, t'ey don't care t'at I lost me virtue." Truly chuckles. "As far as what's expected of ye, jist keepin' our kind a secret, and ye may want ta stat believin' in magic, luv. T'at might make ye a weird outcast."

"I'm good with ghosts and still wrapping me mind around mermaids. Speaking of mermaids. Why don't we ever have tales of mermen? Why do only yer women seem to come to the surface?"

"Ta women are ta ones t'at have t'e most influence." She taps her throat for emphasis. "We can in a way control livin' t'ings around us with our voices."

"Ye mean the siren's song? Mama wasn't as mad as the others thought when she said she was removing the thrall I was under."

A hurt look passes over Truly's face as she pulls her hand away. "Ye weren't unda any t'rall."

"I didn't think I was." He reaches out and caresses the side of her face. "They're her words, not mine. Ye can ask your father if you doubt me. I only know she thought she was trying to save me. She and Ada could'a done far worse ta me if they'd wanted. I'm under no illusion of that."

"Different songs do different t'ings. There's just our language, which is laced with a bit of magic." Truly eyes a small fish that's taking too much of an interest in the fringe at the bottom of her fluke. With a quick flick, she pushes the pesky thing away. "T'en t'ere are the lurin' songs t'at bring our prey inta t'e sea for dinna. And last t'ere's our matin' songs t'at get our lover's feeling..." She blushes a little. "Frisky."

"You mean the songs you sang ta me. Since you like to point out I often bed ye after them."

"Aye, but ye seem ta crave t'em, so ta help ye I started ta talk ta meself in Atlantean, and sinin' radio songs. Seems ta ease ye mind. But it only makes ye want ta bed me, and the desire doesn't last long."

"Hate ta break it to ye, Treasure, but I wanted to bed ye long before I heard ye sing." A smirk crosses his lips. "I just never ended up with a closing shift with ye ta try."

"Scoundrel." She playfully shoves him. "What I meant was, I can't make ye fall in love with me, jist want me, and only for long enough ta get ta job done, basically. I don't have as much control as ta Adébáyọ̀s say I do."

"Apparently, cause yer failing that ta get the job done. It's been almost six months." He grins, the innuendo clear in his glinting eyes of what he means.

Truly light smacks his shoulder. "T'at's not true. I got a monkey out of ye, and she looks jist like her daddy."

Kade rolls his eyes. "Har har. Ye sure you even have one now and she's not Wess's monkey?" He raises a brow at her.

"Aye, Petals, Navi, and Coco were brought ta me a few days afta I came here." She points over her shoulder to the island behind them. "Ta dogs run free on ta island most of ta day, and Coco usually stays with me afta I feed ta phoenixes."

"I'm gonna ignore the mythical bird comment right now." There's only so much he can handle at one time.

"Well, when ye are ready ta handle it, ye should see t'em. T'ere gorgeous birds. Little stuck up t'ough. T'ey have ta live in ta temple, and be fed by ta High Priestess, who has ta dress jist like ta goddess. Damn birds."

"Give me a week, I'll break them of the habit." He flashes a twisted grin she's seen him and the others use before they do something to the pledges. "Now, is that tail just for show, or am I not allowed ta look under the surface still so I can watch ye swim?"

"Aye, ye can look now. I didn't want ye catchin' sight of ta city movement before I had a chance ta show ye t'at we're real."

Kade's eyes instantly snap with interest to the ocean outside. "There's a city below?" Does that mean the locker exists too?

"Aye." she slowly replies. "Where did ye tink we lived?"

"On the isles. Yer dad made it sound like they lived on the surrounding islands and the main preserves. I saw a few houses on the way in."

"T'e houses are for our elderly, t'e tides eventually become too much for t'em, and a few t'at choose ta live on land, can. T'en our hospitals are on land, cause it's easier ta keep t'ings sterile up here. But most prefer ta live around ta islands in ta city below."

"How big is it?"

"As big as ta chain, and a few kilometers out past t'em."

Kade lets out a low whistle. "No wonder the bastards never let me dive it no matter how hard I tried to sneak in."

"Ye really are a scoundrel, ye know it?" Truly chuckles.

"Did you expect anything less from a Brovern?" He raises a brow.

"Noh, definitely not." Truly laughs as she scoots deeper into the water. "If ye want ta see me swim t'en I need ta get out of ta shallows. It's hard ta move up here."

"Then go." He stands and starts walking in further before he swims out of the cave. Taking a few deep breaths, he dives below the surface, going a few feet down so the surf doesn't obstruct his view. 

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