King Marius the Conquerer

Kai sat by the roaring fireplace, cupping a hot chai glass cup in his hands that was part of a beautiful set gifted to his mother by the Turkish Prime Minister. Following his life-altering, life-endangering swim in the Black Sea, he'd followed his pale mother into their house and had suddenly experienced an ominous chill down his spine, so he'd gone to sit in front of the modern, open fireplace in their living room. He looked down at the red liquid in the cup, stirring as he stirred, stilling as he stilled. It mirrored his every reaction.

"Kai?"

On the outside, he looked calm, but on the inside... he was coming apart at the seams. As it turned out, Kai Kozcuoğlu was not really Kai Kozcuoğlu, son of American mother Priscilla Evans and Turkish father Emir Kozcuoğlu, but rather Kai of Astria, son of American mother Priscilla Evans and Astrian father King Kaerius of Astria. He was not even fully human, but rather the half-breed Crown Prince of Astria and the next in a line of long, proud merpeople to be king.

Him. A fucking mermaid.

"Kai? Say something."

Oh, but it didn't end there. Not only was he half-human, half-merman, he had apparently inherited a... power of sorts that was only passed down his bloodline (the aquatic one), one that had transferred to him from his father when he passed away. His moment of need at the bottom of the Black Sea had awakened that power for the very first time, and the golden merman had come to the rescue of its master. The golden merman he'd summoned was apparently not really a merman, but a monstrosity in disguise that was capable of unimaginable horrors, which was about all his mother could tell him, because it was all his dead father told her.

But wait, there was more!

His royal title came with a heavy burden. A war. A 100-year-old war to be exact. If his mother was to be believed, then the acquatic Kingdom of Astria -a Goddamn underwater kingdom-was at war with the Empire of Nostraza, another Goddamn underwater country that was currently the mightiest country in all the Seven Seas.

"Kai, you're scaring me! Say something!"

Kai felt himself begin to reel.

He took in a deep, shuddering breath, attempting to calm himself, but it proved as useful as trying to soothe himself with a cup of brewed Turkish tea that only served to burn his hands. As the weight of everything that was revealed to him suddenly settled on his shoulders, he let out an audible gasp and let the cup slip from his hand, instantly shattering to a dozen pieces on the tiled-ground.

His mother was upon him in an instant, quite vocal about her concerns. But he couldn't quite make out the words above the roar of rushing blood in his ears. He was frozen with a potent mixture of shock, disbelief and horror, mouth agape, panting slightly.

So this was what it felt like to have an existential crisis.

He wanted to accuse his mother of lying or of being clinically insane even if that was bad manners, but he'd seen the golden merman with his own eyes. He'd been touched by it. He'd seen his powers in action, the powers that gave him the ability to breath underwater. He knew inside that what he saw was real.

Finally, a few minutes later, when his heart rate returned to semi-normal and his breathing steadied, he looked into his mother's watery eyes, who was sitting next to him on the couch, half-hugging him. She was drop-dead gorgeous, even in her fifties. Wrinkles hadn't begun to mar her face yet and she was as fit as the best runway model, if a little short. Well, a lot short. 5'2. She had his eyes, a unique jade color that, when hit by sunlight, made it look like their eyes were glowing. What he didn't get was her raven black hair. He guessed his red mane had come from his father.

"Why did you not tell me sooner?"

"Because I was afraid. I never expected you to inherit your father's powers until... until much later. I expected him to come tell you... He said he would. He promised."

For the first time ever, his mother was speaking about his father of her own accord. Even when Kai still thought him a human being, his father had been a forbidden topic in their household. He assumed he was a sensitive subject, so he'd avoided talking or asking about him as much as he could out of respect. Yet he'd never stopped wanting to know more about him in order to feel just a little closer to him. So, it was no wonder that she now had his full attention.

"You see, it's forbidden for humans and merfolk to..."

"Fuck?"

"Language! And no, it's forbidden for humans to know about the existence of merfolk! That is the reason why your father could never be with us. That and to keep you safe from all who would use you against him, against your people."

So it was the classic forbidden love-child scenario.

"How long has he been dead?" he asked, trying to affect an unemotional air, but he was surprised to feel a pang of hurt in his chest for a father he had never even met.

"I... do not know, actually." Her face was a pale mask when she said that. She looked away, but not before he saw the tears glistening in her eyes.

"What? How can that be?" he asked, incredulous.

"They came to tell me a few years after it happened. When I found out, you were four."

"Who is 'they'?" he said as he bent down to pick up the shards of glass and deposit them into his open palm.

"Your father's most trusted advisors."

Yes, kings tended to have those.

"What else did they say?" he asked, avoiding eye contact.

What he was asking was: Did they tell you how he died?

He saw her visibly tense from the corner of his eye. He finished picking up all the broken glass he could gather by hand and dumped it in the bin nearby, and then went to fetch a brush and dust pan from the storeroom to finish tidying. He took his time cleaning, repeatedly brushing the same spot in case he missed a minuscule piece of glass against the white tiles. Just when he began to think she wouldn't answer him, she said, "He was killed by the King of Nostraza, Marius the Conquerer."

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

He watched the calm sea from the very edge of the cliff, arms folded across his chest. It was a beautiful full moon tonight, one of his favorite times when it wasn't too dark to go for a swim at night, because swimming under moonlight was almost magical and it almost always worked to clear his mind. On any other such night, he would have never wasted the opportunity to go swimming, but on this particular night, Kai was afraid. He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt such strong, almost tangible fear and uncertainty. For the first time in all his years of existence, he was afraid to swim. Or rather, he was afraid to enter the sea for fear of what lay under the water, waiting for him. According to his mother, his 'awakening' had somehow exposed his existence to the sea and its occupants, and now, they were coming for him.

He was coming for him.

Go, now, before they come for you. Go!

He recalled the urgency by which the golden merman had dismissed him, how he'd peered into the darkness that was the Black Sea with sheer horror, his handsome face pale. Had he perhaps seen him?

King Marius the Conquerer, his father's killer and, apparently, his greatest enemy. Even his name and title sounded fearsome. The first time he'd heard it out of his mother's lips, his spine had been gripped by the sinister hand of a chill. Goosebumps had erupted across every visible piece of skin and evidence of them could still be seen peeking from the sleeves of his pajama shirt.

He wondered what such a, er, merman was like to have earned the title of 'conquerer'. A warmonger, for certain, and a victorious one at that. Yet his father's country had held strong for a hundred years if his mother's outdated information -that came in the form of messanger advisors every decade or so- was to be trusted, even with his murder presumably some twenty plus years ago. And since his father, the former King, was dead, that made him...

Kai ruffled a hand through his hair. He had no idea what to assume or what to think. To say that he was in way over his head was the understatement of the century. All he knew was that he had to leave his home now, and judging by the tone of his mother when she'd announced their move, it was for good. To keep him safe from an enemy she only knew by name, she'd said. Frankly, Kai fervently wished that they never, ever crossed paths.

An abrupt shiver skittered down his back. He was suddenly consumed by the nagging feeling that he was being watched. Surreptitiously, he scanned the nearby shore, looking for anyone who might have been secretly watching him. Kai was a deeply instinctual person, so when his instincts told him to distrust a stranger, that he was being followed or that he was being watched, he trusted those feelings.

Yet he couldn't see anybody on the shore, unless they were concealing themselves somewhere in the trees. Was he imagining things because of his current... predicament? Probably.

Kai let out a worldweary sigh and raked his hair in frustration again; he desperately needed to clear his head. At his current state of mind, he couldn't think straight and he certainly couldn't put together a plan to keep him and his mother safe from harm's way.

The soothing sound of waves crashing against the bottom of the cliff drifted to his ears. His eyes were instantly drawn to the churning waves and to the foam of white forming at the base, as if by some invisible power. Nothing, absolutely nothing could clear his head the way a good swim could.

Kai breathed in, held it in for a few seconds, and then let it all out.

It was time to conquer his fears.

More than that, he wanted to see if he could breathe underwater now. He understood why he could do it -he was half merman for crying out loud- but could he do it at will now? It seemed that his awakening had not only summoned the golden merman, but it had awakened the merman in him. If he had to be honest with himself, this was the one thing out of all the mess that he did not mind. He briefly pictured a scenario where he challenged the Guinness World Record for holding your breath underwater.

Also, he wanted to see if the golden merman would appear again. He hoped he did. Rather, Kai prayed that he would. He had a feeling that the golden merman had the answer to many of the questions currently plaguing his mind.

He started to undress.

"Kai!"

He was about to take off his pants when his mother startled him and he whirled around to see her standing a few feet away. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn't heard her coming.

"You can't be meaning to do what I think you're about to do?!" she demanded, incredulously. Even at twenty-seven, his mother's reproachful tone still worked wonders on him. He thought to tell her what he was planning, but the sheer terror he saw reflected in her shiny eyes immediately dissuaded him. She looked like she'd have a heart attack right then and there if he even dunked a toe in the sea.

He'd test out his theories another day.

"Come inside. There's a lot of packing to do." she told him and he obeyed out of respect for his mother, taking her outstretched hand and walking with her to the house.

The whole time, he felt eyes burning into his back.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

I hope you guys are ready for the next chapter. ;) Don't forget to vote and comment what you think will happen next!