Free The Sea King's Daughter by Miranda Simon

away.

CHAPTER TWELVE
     
    I spent every possible moment with Lysander, trailing through the villa after him as often as I could. On this day, though, he was the one who sought me out. As I sat in the shade of an ancient, twisted olive tree, Lysander collapsed cross-legged into the grass next to me. His expression was sullen. 
    "What is it?" I asked. "What's wrong?"
    Lysander plucked at a scarlet poppy, dismembering it petal by petal. "My father thinks I'm a child. He's an overcautious old fool."
    "What happened?"
    Lysander shrugged. "We're going to bargain for wool in Thessaly. I suggested a new route. He won't listen. Says the old ways are better, the ways of his father and his father's father." Lysander nearly spat each word. "Someday, I will inherit my father's business. How can I ever learn to trade if he never lets me make even the smallest decision?"
    I nodded and peered solemnly into Lysander's face. "He ought not treat you like such a child," I said, and added, without thinking, "My father --"
    My throat closed up. This was forbidden territory. Lysander, however, had already noticed my slip. "Have you remembered something?" he asked. Excitement animated his features, lighting his face from the inside. He'd gone from morose to sunny in the space of an instant.
    Quickly, I shook my head, still gasping for breath. "No, I just --"
    "You did! You remembered something." He reached out and rested his fingers against my arm. His touch sent pleasant shivers through my body.
    "No, I -- perhaps for an instant, but it's gone now. I'm sorry." I dropped my eyes.
    "Don't apologize, little one." Lysander grinned at me. I smiled back. His charm seemed to push back the darkness in my heart. When he was with me, I found sadness almost impossible.
    He lay back in the grass with his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky. Quickly, to distract him and also from curiosity, I asked him the question on the tip of my tongue. "Your mother says you were in a shipwreck, not long ago, and almost died. What was it like? Where you very frightened?"
    Lysander rolled onto his side, propping his head up with his elbow. His eyes were suddenly hooded, his face solemn. "I don't remember much."
    "Nothing at all?"
    "Only -- only waking up for a moment, and seeing a girl, a girl with the face of a goddess. She smiled at me, and then -- nothing. I don't remember anything after that. Next I knew I was waking up at the physician's house, in that small village, with my lungs sore and my throat aching."
    My heart beat a little faster at his words. I was the girl he spoke of. I knew I was. He'd opened his eyes underwater and stared straight at me. I had to grit my teeth to keep from saying this. It was part of the past I could not speak about.
    "What did she look like, this girl?" I asked instead, smiling at him in the hopes that my expression might jog his memory.
    Lysander shrugged. "It's all such a blur. She had big green eyes -- rather like yours, little one. I can't describe her exactly." He let out a heartfelt sigh. "Maybe she was nothing but an apparition. I know I ought to just forget her."
    I choked down a cry of frustration. How could Lysander be so blind? I was the girl from his vision -- me, Nyx -- and I sat just inches away.
    "Never mind," Lysander said, smiling fondly. "Who needs dream girls when I've got you to keep me company?" He reached over and brushed a lock of hair out of my face. "Come on, little one. Let's go and see if Mother has our dinner ready, shall we?"
     
    On the sixth day after my recovery, Lysander took me to the village for the first time. Halfway down the path I tripped on a pebble and fell, scraping my knee and the palm of my hand. Lysander helped me up.
    My scratches stung, but they were nothing next to the pain in my legs, which had not yet stopped hurting. It felt almost as they were straining to become a tail again. It was like an endless river of pain, sometimes filling my head with its agonizing roar, sometimes