The following day, Syryn ran into Grifan in a corridor not far from his room. Arhak had been sent away on an errand and was yet to return.

The gold mer was accompanied by two other mers of nobility. Syryn could tell their breeding by the ornaments that differentiated the commoners from the royals and nobles.

"Syryn, how are you?" The gold mer asked, seemingly concerned about his well being. Grifan gave Syryn the chills when he recalled how the mer had tried to psychically influence him.

"I'm great, and in a hurry," the mage replied. "My apologies but I have to be somewhere else right now." Syryn sped past the mer but he was pulled back by a hand that gripped him tight around his upper arm.

"You must have a few minutes to spare for me, don't you, Syryn?" Grifan's nose was inches away from his. A cloud of fog seemed to hang over Syryn's mind.

"Ye-yes... I do." The mage blinked, confused.

Grifan looked to his friends whose eyes were shining with quiet intensity.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, Syryn was led by Grifan to a secluded area of the palace. All the while, the mage fought the heavy compulsion that bid him to stay quiet and obedient.

"You've disappointed me, Syryn. Giving it away to Drevin who doesn't know how to treasure someone as precious as you are.. " the gold merman cupped Syryn's cheeks.

The compulsion over his mind played a tug of war with Syryn's willpower. It lulled him into a false sense of security and convinced him that everything was fine.

Grifan was standing far too close to him. Obedience and rebellion warred within Syryn and he placed his hand on the mer's chest pushing him away reluctantly.

"Don't fight it, Syryn," the gold mer murmured. "We'll all have fun together."

Syryn batted away the fog. A bright spot of awareness was growing brighter and bigger. It illuminated the gravity of what was happening to him. Understanding dawned on the mage that he was in a room with three hostile mermen taking advantage of him. The gold one was running his hand down Syryn's back, drawing out a thick sense of revulsion from the human.

Syryn reacted without thinking.

Grifan's mouth fell open and he looked down at his chest. There was a hole in it plugged by a human hand that was buried wrist deep inside.

Disbelief.

Syryn pulled his hand out of the merman's chest with a squelching sound. It was holding a beating heart that pulsed in his palm. Blood poured out of the merman's chest, turning the water a deep red colour.

The mage could taste the metallic tang of the blood in the water that filtered through his gills. His own heart was as calm as a windless day.

"You killed him!"

"Grifan! Oh god! Grifan..!!

"You monster!"

The merman fell forward but Syryn stepped aside, avoiding the mer's dead body.

"You," Syryn angled his head and stared at one of the merman frozen in shock by what had just happened. "You will confess to the murder of the mer prince." The now still heart was handed over to the shaking merman who took it in his trembling hands.

The mage's voice was deep, like boulders grinding under a torrent of water. It boomed in his chest and sent a wave rippling across the water between them. His aura was sharper though it was sheathed behind the lack of killing intent in him. Syryn's words compelled the mermen to obey. They were chained and bound with no escape from the human's eyes.

The merman resisted, knowing what lay in store for him but his resistance was feeble. "No.." It came out in a horrified whisper. His eyes were wide open, gills fluttering to take in water so that the feeling of suffocation would leave him.

"And you," the mage cast his terrible gaze on the other merman, "will corroborate with his confession. You will tell the guards that Grifan attacked me and this merman saved me by digging out the prince's heart."

The scared merman frantically nodded. His eyes were glued in horror to Syryn's forehead. A thin thread of self-awareness existed under the mist of hypnosis that had captured both mermen, but they were too far gone to resist Syryn's order.

Having pronounced his judgement upon his attackers, Syryn's eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted. His third eye though remained open, watching the mermen who couldn't look away from it. No longer was there was a goat eye on his forehead. The mage had a single black eyeball that occupied the socket, giving it the appearance of a dark abyss.

The eye too shut itself away when it sensed a group of guards arriving. The seam on his forehead melted into the skin, leaving no evidence of there having been an eye on it.

_______

The aftermath of the incident caused an uproar in the palace and amongst the nobles of Silisia. A mer prince had been brazenly murdered on the grounds of the royal palace by his own friends. Even more damning was their accusation of his misconduct against the human who was already embroiled in rumours with another mer prince.

Murdered for assaulting the honoured guest. Murdered for daring to lay his hands on the alleged saviour to be of Silisia. How they'd pulled out his heart couldn't be explained without magic being involved but the scene had sealed their fates.

An unconscious Syryn was found on the floor beside the dead prince. The guards also saw that a merman had a heart in his hands. Both mers wore matching expressions of horror, no doubt for having killed the prince.

There was no way out for the two mers. There was no forgiveness for the death of a prince.

Syryn on the other hand slept through three cycles of day and night. The mer healers being unfamiliar with more than the basic knowledge of human anatomy and conditions, couldn't explain why he slept like the dead. The human had a weak pulse and a pallid colour to his skin. They could do nothing for the mage short of sending him out to the surface for human healers to tend to his condition.