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."