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After Marrying the Siren King, I Made His Son Speak
Novelix
new
Completed
"I woke up in the body of the Siren King’s vicious queen. Everyone expected me to abuse my autistic stepson just like she had. Even the little prince himself trembled when he saw me, writing with his magic stone: I HATE YOU. I’M GOING TO HAVE FATHER FEED YOU TO THE DEEP-SEA MONSTERS. What none of them knew was that I used to be a child therapist. And children like him were exactly the ones I knew best how to reach."
Chapters (3)
Chapter 1
I woke up in the body of the Siren King’s vicious queen—and suddenly found myself with an autistic stepson who hated me.
Every day, the little prince wrote with his magic stone:
I HATE YOU.
GO AWAY.
I’M GOING TO HAVE FATHER FEED YOU TO THE DEEP-SEA MONSTERS.
The Siren King also warned me to stay away from his son if I wanted to live.
I listened to neither of them.
I even bossed the little prince into helping me make seaweed cakes.
Until his birth mother came back.
I divorced the Siren King and packed to leave.
The little prince chased me all the way to the palace gates, his eyes red with tears.
“...But...”
“You forgot me.”
“Who else is going to make seaweed cakes for you?”
……
I was a child therapist. After a car accident, I woke up as a mermaid.
Then I heard a child scream, I followed the sound into a vast coral hall.
Several white-robed figures with fish tails hovered around a giant shell bed, singing a lullaby to put a small boy to sleep.
They looked like the Sirens from old myths.
Inside the shell, the boy was curled into himself, both hands clamped over his ears, his small blue tail striking the cushions.
I could tell immediately that the singing was hurting him.
“Stop singing.”
Two guards crossed their tridents in front of my chest.
"One more step, Your Majesty, and we strike," the taller one said.
"The King's order — if the Queen goes near the prince again, she dies."
The memories came flooding back.
I was in the body of Nerissa, a mermaid princess sent to marry Cassian Veyr, King of the Sirens.
The boy was Cael, Cassian’s six-year-old autistic son. My stepson.
And apparently, I was the most hated woman in this palace.
Because the last time Cael refused to answer Nerissa, she had called him a useless little mute before shoving him into a coral pillar hard enough to crack two ribs.
On the shell bed, the boy was getting worse, his screams going ragged.
"Listen to me," I said,"he is overloaded, and every note you sing is one more shock to his head."
The healers faltered for a moment, then voices rose around me.
"What would you know about Siren healing, Your Majesty?"
"This lullaby has been used in the royal palace for generations. It is a sacred tradition."
"Enough," I raised my voice,"That is an order from your Queen!"
The singing stopped.
"Let me through," I said.
The guards did not move.
“If I hurt him, kill me.”
The tridents lowered.
As I moved toward the shell bed, whispers broke out behind me.
"The King will punish her when he returns."
"She’ll only make the prince worse."
Cael also flinched the moment he saw me.
He grabbed the small glowing stone at his belt and dragged it through the water like a pen.
I HATE YOU. COME ANY CLOSER, AND I’M GOING TO HAVE FATHER FEED YOU TO THE DEEP-SEA MONSTERS.
“All right.”
I stayed where I was.
“I won’t come any closer.”
Then I called on the mermaid magic I found in Nerissa’s memories—the kind that could soothe distressed minds and lull them to sleep.
The water around Cael grew calm as the magic settled over him.
His sobs faded.
His grip on the stone loosened.
Within minutes, he was asleep.
No one moved or spoke, they all stared in disbelief.
Then, at the far end of the hall, the great doors swung open.
A tall man in black and silver filled the doorway, and every guard in the hall bowed.
Cassian Veyr. My husband.
His eyes moved from the sleeping boy to me, his voice cold.
"Who gave you permission to go near my son?"
“Do you have a death wish?”
Chapter 2
I did not like his tone at all.
"I was the one who put him to sleep."
The head healer shifted uncomfortably before she spoke.
"It is true, Your Majesty. This is the earliest the prince has fallen asleep in months."
Cassian's eyes flicked toward the shell bed, and something in his face loosened for a second.
Then it hardened again.
"What are you plotting?"
I knew I could not erase what Nerissa had done by defending myself, so I didn’t try.
"Nothing," I said. "I will prove myself with actions, not words."
"And lower your voice. You will wake him."
The whole hall held its breath at that, but Cassian only lifted Cael out of the shell bed, his hands slow and careful.
"Remember this, Nerissa," he said. "Hurt him again, and not even your kingdom will save you from me."
The next morning, I passed the dining hall and found Cael with his arms crossed, an untouched plate of silverfish and sea grapes in front of him.
Cassian sat beside him, a powerful king defeated by a six-year-old.
I stopped beside one of the maids.
“Does he do this often?”
“All the time, Your Majesty,” she replied. “Once he decides he won’t eat, no one can persuade him.”
I looked at Cael and an idea took shape.
"Bring me the ingredients for seaweed cake from the kitchen," I told the maid.
“And bring Cael a small tray. He’s going to make his own.”
"You want His Highness to do kitchen work?" a servant gasped. "He has never done anything so lowly."
Cassian's eyes narrowed. "If this is your way of tormenting him—"
"Children trust what they build with their own hands," I cut in. "Unless you would rather watch him starve."
“But if he still refuses to eat, you’ll rot in the abyss dungeon,” he said.
I took that as a yes.
When the tray of kelp flour and roe arrived, Cael refused to even look at it.
So I started without him.
I mixed and kneaded by myself, asking him for nothing.
I shaped one small cake, then another, and left a third lump of dough between us.
One small hand slowly reached for it.
After that, he forgot to hate me for a while.
He patted the dough into crooked shapes, his little blue tail swaying with focus.
When the cakes were ready, Cael took one cautious bite.
Then another.
Soon, the plate was empty.
I laughed when a tiny burp escaped him.
Cael's cheeks went red, and he snatched up his magic stone.
I STILL HATE YOU.
The servants stood frozen in shock, but Cassian only snorted. "Luck."
After the meal, Cassian kept Cael at the table for speech practice.
“Try one word.”
Cael picked up his magic stone.
NO.
“Any word you want.”
NO.
Cassian's hand moved toward the stone. “If you won’t use your voice, then you don’t need this.”
Cael jerked back, hugging the stone to his chest as tears filled his eyes.
I caught Cassian's wrist before I even thought about it. "Don't."
He was already angry, and sirens are fast.
His clawed hand closed around my throat before I could take another breath.
Chapter 3
Cassian's claws pressed against my pulse, and his eyes were colder than the deep trench.
“Don’t push your luck, Nerissa.”
I forced the words out through his grip.
"That stone is his voice. Take it, and you might as well cut out his tongue."
The pressure on my throat eased a fraction.
"Give me one month," I said. "I will teach him to speak."
Cassian studied me, his hand dropped away from my throat.
“Fine, one month. If you make him worse, I end this.”
I lowered myself until my eyes were level with Cael’s.
He was still sniffling, both arms wrapped tight around his stone.
"I know you can talk," I told him softly. "And you can wait until you want to. No one here will force you."
He stared at me through wet lashes, and slowly his breathing evened out.
Later that day, I took Cael to the coral garden, but two armed guards followed us.
Cael kept glancing back at them.
“They’re making him nervous,” I told Cassian. “You’ve seen me help him sleep and eat. If you want me to teach him, give me some space.”
Cassian reluctantly waved the guards away.
"Stay within sight of the east tower."
In the garden, I pointed out seahorses, starfish, and tiny crabs while Cael wrote every name without making a sound.
And I did not rush him once.
His tail had started to sway, which I knew meant he was happy.
Then the horn came.
It rolled through the water from the palace walls, deep and huge.
I looked up toward the sound for one second.
When I looked back down, Cael was gone.
My heart slammed so hard I could feel it in my throat.
"Cael?"
I searched the nearest groves and called his name louder than I should have, but he had vanished into the open water.
Cassian came the moment he received the news.
"You lost him."
The words were quiet, and that made them worse. His black claws sliding from his fingertips.
“Seal the palace. No one enters or leaves until my son is found.”
Then he turned to me, and there was nothing in his eyes but murder.
"If anything happens to him, you will not outlive him."
Everyone in the palace joined the search for Cael.
Every minute he stayed missing was a minute he spent terrified and alone, and it was my fault.
I made myself breathe and think like a therapist instead of a dead woman.
After being overwhelmed by noise, a child like Cael might instinctively seek somewhere quiet, enclosed, and away from people.
“Stop looking in the open,” I said. “He may be hiding anywhere the noise and people can’t reach him.”
We searched deeper into the coral garden, where dense coral blocked the palace from view.
Near the far end, I caught a glimpse of a silver tail inside a narrow coral cave.
“Don’t shout for him,” I warned the guards.
I moved closer and softened my voice.
"Cael, it is safe now. The horn is gone."
A small figure was curled up inside the cave, trembling.
"Take your time. Come out whenever you are ready."
After a moment, Cael slowly edged out of the cave.
I gently pulled him into my arms and stroked his hair.
“It’s okay. It’s over.”
Over his shoulder, I saw Cassian watching us, his expression unreadable.
He checked Cael for injuries and gave me only one sentence.
“There will not be a next time.”
Once Cael recovered from the scare, I resumed our lessons and kept working with him over the next month.
Every day he came a little faster, and every day he stayed a little longer.
That was when I started lying to him on purpose.
"Look," I said, pointing at an octopus. "A whale."
He grabbed his stone.
THAT IS AN OCTOPUS.
Then I pointed at a branch of coral.
“Barnacles.”
NO IT IS NOT. ARE YOU BLIND?
I pretended not to see a single word and called the next fish a jellyfish.
He wrote faster and faster, and his corrections grew larger and angrier every day.
Then I pointed at a sea turtle and called it a crab.
“No!”
The word hung in the water between us, small and clear and real.
We both froze.
Cael’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Then I broke into a smile and clapped.
“You made it!”
The next second, I looked up and saw Cassian standing beyond the coral arch, staring at Cael with his lips parted and his eyes slightly red.
