Sea Queen

Chapter Nineteen

The next few weeks were chaotic. The meraphins were put in hard-core training for the next week or so, and everyone else was busy making weapons for both the meraphins and the naiads. Meanwhile, I had a task of my own.

The Fae were powerful and immortal. I knew that we would need their help in winning this war.

I had gone back to the beach where I met the fae boy several times but he hadn't appeared. By looking through many old scrolls, Fae people were shown to have a base, a home somewhere, but none of them mentioned where it might be. I had run out of clues, all lead to a dead end.

And so I sat here, in the library, clueless and bored out of my mind. Frustrated that I couldn't find what I needed.

"We do so love to play..." a familiar voice said. I jumped and  searched for the boy's head to appear, but it did not. Maybe I could talk to him. "Solve the clues, seek what is lost, and the Fae will hear your plea."

It was the boy from the beach.

"Come back! Talk to me!"

All I heard back was the sound of soft laughter.

"Ugh!" I shouted in the abandoned library. My fist banged on the table, but instead of hitting the hard wood, it hit paper. Thin, blue paper with silver writing on.

Tall I am young
Short I am old

Well it's a riddle I've heard many times. A candle of course, but what the hell did that have to do with the fae? I wanted to ask someone, but I didn't want to tell the Mer about what I was doing just yet, nor the Naiads.

Maybe I could tell one Mer.

I swam to Seb's chambers, making the mistake not to knock. He was getting changed, and didn't currently have a top on, showing lean muscles. I blushed, and turned around whilst he put one on.

"I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright, Jade. What did you come here for?" He asked. I turned around.

"Okay so I'm kind of trying to find the Fae. I met one of them, and if we had their support, it would be so much easier to win the war. They're also the only ones who can teach me to control air."

"But no one's seen them in at least a thousand years."

"One of them, a boy, he looked about our age, keeps appearing to me. Twice now. He knows I'm looking for them."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?! What did he say?"

"He said we do so love to play, solve the clues, seek what is lost and the Fae will hear your plea. And then he left this." I showed him the riddle.

He looked at it confused.

"Is it... some sort of poem?"

Okay so maybe they didn't have riddles down here.

"It means candle. Does that have any relevance to the Fae?"

"How... How did you get candle from that?"

"I'll explain after, but please, is there a link between candle and the Fae?"

He looked down, scouring through his mind for an answer. His face then lit up slightly.

"The CANDLE project." He said, and rushed to the library, where he pulled out a dusty scroll. "We did it in history. The Mer and the Naiads, about 500 years ago, wanted to find the Fae. They searched for years, but it all lead them to dead ends, or so we thought until each member of the project disappeared, no traces left. It's one of the biggest mysteries in Mer and Naiads history."