Chapter Thirteen - Painful Truths

Aurelia awoke hacking up water and sand, once again in the great hall before the king and prince, and most of Atlantis.

Beside her, Mera was in a very similar state.

"W-what happened?" Aurelia slurred.

"Aurelia, they're tracking you."

"What?"

"They were tracking you-" Mera nodded to Aurelia's wrist.

She looked down. Orm's mother's bracelet was staring her in the face. "You son of a bitch-" In one swift movement she slipped it off, it falling to the floor, and raised her fist above it-

"NO!" Orm's cry came too late.

Her fist came down upon the piece of jewelry, crushing it with one blow.

When Aurelia looked up, she was met by the devastated look of the prince as he stared at the shards that had just seconds ago been his mother's bracelet.

He gently and with great care scooped up the pieces. "This was my mother's bracelet. I trusted you with it."

"And I trusted you. And you were tracking me!"

"You see, I knew she couldn't be trusted," spoke-up Orvax.

But Aurelia and Orm were too busy shouting at each other to pay the king any attention.

"Spoiled brat!" she spat.

"Dirty, rotten half-breed," he shot back.

That hurt, she felt it strike in her chest like a wound.

"Enough." Orvax rose to his feet. "You saved me a lot of work. Because of you I am now one step closer to recovering Atlan's trident." He held up the bottle she and Mera had found in the Deserter Kingdom, giving a smug grin.

"You don't deserve it. I hope you never find it! I don't care though, I just want out of here. I hate it here!"

"My banishing you and forbidding you to return failed before."

"I'll leave - forever. But first, I want to see my mother."

The silence following her request was broken by the chuckle of the king. "Oh, you foolish girl. So hopeful. Your mother is dead."

If Orm's words had hurt, these words were agonizing. For years, unlike her father's ability to see the truth, part of her had accepted that her mother wouldn't be returning to them. But hearing it confirmed with such certainty and smugness knocked her breath from her body and left her feeling limp and frail.

"Atlanna was a deserter, and closely associated herself with the surface dwellers. She abandoned her home, people, and duty."

"Duty? Cause she wouldn't marry you? So you killed her?"

"She had to pay for her crimes. She was sacrificed to the Trench, left to the mercy of the savage creatures there."

The room spun before everything became clear in striking focus - all she knew was rage.

She began heaving heavy breaths, gritting her teeth, eyes narrowed. With a roar, she dove forward. Orvax seemed strangely calm despite her attack, like he had anticipated it, and simply waved his trident towards her.

The next thing she knew, she was struck by a burst of water and swallowed up by a whirlpool.


Both she and her mother's trident shot up from the depths, landing hard on the sand of one of Amnesty Bay's beaches. She coughed up more water, throat and chest burning, gripping the trident in a firm grip, sensing a presence behind her.

AHHHH!" With a scream, in one swift motion, she spun around and launched the trident behind her.

Vulko, quick as ever, swerved out of the way and caught the weapon sent his way in fury. Aria gave a startled cry.

Aurelia was still shaking with rage. "There anything else you're hiding from me? Cause I want to know it now."

"Aurelia-"

"How dare you! How dare! You have such nerve! How could you even look me in the eyes all these years knowing full well that I'm betrothed to that asshole and that my mother is dead?! You told me she was exiled! You lying bastard!"

"She was. To the Trench. But anyone who has been cast out and sent there has never returned."

"Then don't say 'exiled'! Just say 'dead'! Don't get my hopes up! Mine, or my fathers!" She looked to Aria. "Even you, her adviser and friend? How could you?"

"How were we supposed to tell you that your mother would never be returning to you? How could we destroy that hope?"

Tears were threatening to fall, but she fought back against them. "Better than giving me false hope. Any hope at all." She pushed past them. Vulko held out the trident to her, but she refused. "Get that thing out of my sight. And for the last time: leave me the hell alone."


It was dawn in Amnesty Bay. Aurelia knew for certain that a certain lighthouse keeper would be waiting on the docks watching the sunrise, waiting for his beloved to return to him. She now also knew that Atlanna never would.

Aurelia was so upset and so homesick that even the heart-wrenching and heartbreaking sight of her father waiting for the woman he loved to come back when she couldn't was so familiar it still made her smile.

"Hey!" Tom's solemn face lit up when he saw her.

"Dad-" Moments later she was in his arms, face buried in his shoulder, breathing in his familiar scent. She never wanted to let go.

"Hey, Kiddo - you're back. You okay?"

She shook her head awkwardly as she was still pressed against him. "No."

"Hey, what happened?" Tom pulled away and brushed the hair from her face.

"It was awful. I hate them all so much." Thank god she was out of that terrible place.

"Did they hurt you?"

"No." Such a lie.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No, I just want to go home."

"Well, we can do that." Tom put an arm around her and led her back to the lighthouse. He didn't say anything about cutting his usual morning sunrise-watch short that day.

Once back home, Tom put on some coffee and began to fry some eggs on the stove while Aurelia curled up on the couch.

Her dad had the TV on, but she wasn't paying any attention. Her eyes were instead locked on the framed family photograph sitting on the side-table - the original frame had been cracked when the Atlanteans attacked to take her mother away all those years ago - but Tom had preserved the photo. It was of him, Atlanna, and baby Aurelia, snuggled together on the couch - together as a family.

"Ah, I love that photo," Tom sighed, leaning against the doorway and smiling fondly and longingly.

Aurelia couldn't tell him. Not yet. "Yeah, me too."

"When she comes back, I want to recreate it, then put the two photos side-by-side. Then and now."

Then and now.

Back in the kitchen, the coffee pot beeped, and Tom went to tend to it. While he was gone, and checking to make sure he couldn't see, she, still wrapped tightly in her favourite blanket, knelt before the picture, gaze locked on her mother's smiling face.

"I'm so sorry, Mom," she whispered, feeling the tears returning and willing them not to fall. "I'm so sorry."

Part of her wanted revenge, while the other hoped she could hit her head and forget that Atlantis ever even existed. Wishful thinking.

Then she remembered the war, the whole reason she had gone there in the first place - or so she had originally thought. Oh, it would come, Orm and Orvax's war, it would come to the surface, of that she was sure. But she would be ready, for it, for them. She would be ready.

Let it come.

And when it did, she would show them the same mercy they had shown her mother.

And that's the end! :) Book one of three complete! Thank you so much for reading!

I am so eager to continue that I have already started writing the next two books, so expect to see it continue soon! ;)

Thank you all again so much and I hope you enjoyed! :) Please let me know what you think! Bye for now!