While Syryn slept, he saw many dreams that showed him slivers of what his life had been. But the moment he woke up to reality, the memories of his dreams dispersed, leaving loneliness in their wake. Syryn had been happy in the dream. He remembered having a family.

Waking up, the mage was incredibly hungry. He lay motionless on his bed, thinking about the final moments he spent awake before Grifan was killed. Syryn had felt another presence overlapping his conscious self. This entity had fed words into his mouth and used his body like a puppet. He had been aware of every second that the mysterious presence made use of his body.

The mage was still trying to puzzle out though how it had convinced the mermen to take the blame for what he'd done. His thoughts segued into wondering about how much trouble he was in. He also should have been more afraid of the entity that puppeteered him, but since the mage would have gone down for the crime of having killed Grifan if the entity hadn't interfered at the right moment, his curiosity overcame the fear.

Hello?

Is someone there?

"Hello? You saved me. There's no need to hide. I just want to thank you."

Silence.

Well, he tried.

Syryn then left his bed and exited the room to find a guard who wasn't Arhak.

"Honoured guest."

"Where's Arhak?"

The merman didn't meet Syryn's eyes. "He has been replaced. Arhak failed his duty of protecting you and thus was found wanting. I am your new guard."

It hadn't been Arhak's fault that Syryn had wanted to eat sea fruits. He had been sent away for food when the mage was ambushed by Grifan.

"I want Arhak back," the mage told the merman.

"Honoured guest, I am your new guard," the merman informed him with finality.

New guard, new spy.

"Don't follow me." Syryn left his room and went searching for food.

The mage meandered through the corridors and was the focus of everyone's attention. Being at the centre of a murder that had rocked the inhabitants of Silisia, it was natural that all the mers would stare at him.

"Am I in some kind of trouble?" He asked the merman guard who was following him.

"Only the ones that killed the prince are in trouble, honoured guest," the guard replied.

That wasn't a no, Syryn thought to himself. He then turned around with wide eyes and an open mouth. "What did you just say?"

The guard halted. "Hon-"

"Who was killed? Was it Grifan?" Syryn stared at the guard and broadcasted panic.

The merguard was out of his depths. If Syryn didn't know that Grifan had died, he wasn't supposed to be the one telling the man about it. The human had to be taken to an interrogator who could glean inferences from Syryn's reactions and words.

"Guest, please follow me to meet with someone who has been waiting for your awakening. He will explain to you what happened on that day you were attacked."

"How long have I been sleeping?" Syryn abruptly asked.

"Five cycles, honoured guest."

"Five cycles!" Syryn sounded even more alarmed. He wasn't faking it because the mage hadn't realised how long he was out of commission. "I want some food before I get questioned about this mess."

"Would you like me to get you food?" the guard respectfully asked.

"Oh, Grifan..." The mage lamented softly and turned away from the confused guard. "Take me to the kitchen, please."

Syryn found the kitchen with the guard's help. He waited for the mer to get him fruits and a bowl of raw fish meat cut into thin slices.

"Lead me to this person you mentioned so I can understand what's going on," Syryn said as he wiped his mouth after eating everything.

____

"Tell me what happened to you, Syryn."

The mage was asked by an older looking merman who went by the name Talaan. They were sitting in a large chamber that was filled with rows of bubbles stacked atop each other. Within each bubble was a book or a scroll protected from the water.

"I heard that Grifan was killed. Is that true?" Syryn asked the merman.

Talaan folded his hand on the table and nodded solemnly. "What did you see before you lost consciousness?"

Syryn pressed his face into his palms and was silent.

"Syryn? You appear upset by the death of Grifan."

The mage let his hands fall to the table, revealing reddened eyes. "Those bastards killed him, didn't they? Grifan shielded me when they said some very disturbing things about what they were planning to do to me."

The archivist's mind reeled from the twist that this convoluted plot had taken. The attacker had turned defender and the defenders had turned into liars. He studied Syryn's eyes but there were no signs of deception. His job had been to psychically analyse the human's answers for lies, to separate truth from deception. And he had found only truth.

"You mean to tell me then that Grifan was killed for defending you? That is absurd. Those mers were his loyal followers. They wouldn't kill him unless-"

"Unless?"

The archivist rubbed his face with a broad palm. The mers had been checked for signs of compulsion magic but they had found none. Nothing was making sense.

"Syryn, what exactly did you see?"

"I saw Grifan standing before me. I fainted. And then I woke up and was told that someone had died. I don't know anything else that I could say to you."

Killing a prince came with heavy consequences but the mage was not going to entertain the trials against him. If they had any evidence of his crime then he would have already been locked away or killed for it, not sitting here with an old mer and recounting what had happened. It meant that they had nothing on him. And Syryn was going to muddy the waters further till the merpeople could no longer separate fact from fiction. Grifan was dead and his cohorts were carrying the sins of the mage. He no longer cared what became of Grifan's reputation so long as the suspicions weren't pointed at him.

"You did not see anyone else in the room when all of this took place?"

Syryn frowned while he thought it over. He shook his head at the archivist. "It was just the four of us.... but I can't speak for what happened after I fainted. Maybe more arrived... I don't know."

The archivist leaned back into his chair and looked at the human who was at the centre of this mess. To have conveniently fainted for some inexplicable reason when the prince was getting murdered was a point of suspicion that bothered the mer. Perhaps, he thought, if they figured out why Syryn had fainted, they would get more answers to the more puzzling parts of the incident.

"What's going to happen to the mers that killed Grifan?"

"The King will decide," came the disappointing reply.

Syryn wanted them dead. It was an extreme but unavoidable step he had to take because the only reliable way to silence a witness was to have them eliminated. They'd taken the blame for his kill so he might as well take another step and push them to their deaths.