Hymn of Breath and Bone (The Whispering Sea Duet #2)

Chapter 9

“Ran!” I cried, throwing my arms around the kelpie’s neck and earning a very wet head toss in return. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“If only,” Caspian muttered, leaning against the rock of the cliff behind me.

I frowned at the flicker of fury I felt in the bond between us as Ran let out a watery neigh of amusement. You seem less than pleased to see me, winged one.

“I wonder why,” Caspian replied sarcastically, reaching out his hand for mine and pulling me closer to him. “Perhaps something to do with the fact that you let my mate drown and stopped me from saving her.”

My stomach lurched. This was the first time I’d heard Caspian describe what happened beneath Morar’s lake with the added realization that we were mates. Based on the anger I felt through our bond, he would be a long time in forgiving the kelpie for his role in my temporary demise.

Rannoch seemed completely unfazed. She seems fine, he pointed out, neighing in irritation. I wouldn’t have let real harm come to her. And for all the good it did—you’re still not officially mated, I see.

“You insufferable horse,” I sighed, squeezing Caspian’s hand lest he decide to go head-to-head with the water horse right there in the open sea, where he would definitely be drowned. “We’ve been rather busy.”

Then it’s time to unbusy yourselves, Ran said imperiously. I’m here to call in your debt.

“My debt?” I asked, frowning at the kelpie. “I already paid my debt by drowning, if you recall.”

Ran neighed irritably again, but it was Caspian who replied. “He means my debt.” His hand tightened on my hip as he pulled me a little closer. “For saving you.”

Anxiety pulsed steadily down our bond, and I tried to send back reassurance. Seas, if I could already feel so much, what would happen when we finally consummated the bond?

And I gave you two weeks to recover before coming to claim it, Ran argued, as if this was a great gift. Your magic works well together, but your task won’t be possible until you are properly joined.

“Shall I take her right here on the rocks?” Caspian asked sardonically. I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow, but Ran took no notice.

It would be rather uncomfortable, he replied, tossing his head and splashing us with his watery mane. I can give you one more week. Fae beings appreciate comfort, as I understand it.

“Fucking skies above,” Caspian groaned, his face turning slightly pink as I tried not to laugh at how seriously Ran pronounced all this.

“What exactly is it you need us to do?” I asked, trying to save Caspian from further discussion of how we might formalize our bond in front of the nosy horse. “You told Caspian he had to unite the Isles. What does that have to do with blending our magic?”

Everything, Ran replied, stamping his foot in annoyance. And you cannot possibly understand yet, anyway. One week, little goddess. I must return to my lake until you’re ready.

“Rannoch—”

My protest was lost to the wind as Ran dove beneath the waves and disappeared, leaving me confused and Caspian somewhere between embarrassed and irate.

“I hate that fucking horse,” he growled, lifting me once again and shooting into the sky.

“No you don’t,” I sighed, wrapping my arms more tightly around his neck. “Where are we going now?”

“To see the council about a horse.”

It was tradition, Ana told me after Caspian dropped me off at the library, for siren royalty to be handfasted when they were mated.

I had forgotten, in all the activity since it happened, to ask Caspian about the attack on me and Ana. He must have some idea who was behind it, but he had been so irritable after Ran’s unexpected visit that I didn’t want to push him yet.

Caspian had offered to bring me along to go bully the council into accepting me, but I preferred to return to the library with Ana. The council had made it clear that they disliked me, and I doubted I could say anything that would convince them otherwise.

“We need to talk later,” I whispered as he kissed me goodbye. “I have questions.”

“I know,” he murmured back, squeezing my waist. “Tonight. I promise.”

Zephyr was with us, ostensibly to ‘help’ with research. I knew she was really there as a guard.

“So how exactly does this handfasting work?” I asked once we were settled with a pile of old books on a comfortable couch.

“It varies from couple to couple,” Ana explained, still looking a little worse for wear. She limped slightly as she moved, but she refused to sit when I suggested she rest, pulling every text she could find on handfasting for me. “Sometimes it’s very small with just one witness. Other times it’s a grand affair with feasting and dancing and whatnot. Ah, here it is.”

She placed an ancient and very dusty book in front of me that was written in a text so old or foreign I couldn’t read it. But the page she held out was a drawing of two winged people standing before a priest or priestess, a ribbon binding their clasped hands.

“It symbolizes the unbreakable bond,” Ana said a little wistfully, pointing at the couple’s bound hands. “A promise to love each other, made before witnesses and the gods themselves.”

“Were you two handfasted?” I asked, looking between the mates who looked like total opposites, yet completed each other wholly.

Ana blushed as Zephyr snorted out a laugh. “No. We were…uh…a little too eager to plan a ceremony.” She winked at her mate, whose dark skin managed to turn slightly pink beneath the force of her blush.

“I still think we should have done it,” Ana sniffed, frowning at her mate. “My mother would have appreciated the symbolism.”

“Your mother hates me,” Zephyr pointed out, sounding not even slightly upset by this fact. “She actively tried to convince you not to accept me.”

“She hates everyone,” Ana said, waving away Zephyr’s argument. I had to agree with this assertion, having experienced Eos’ ire myself. “And she tolerates you now.”

“Yes, and it only took twenty years,” Zephyr said dryly, kissing Ana on the cheek. “Would you like a ceremony now, my love?”

“Too much work,” Ana replied, batting away her mate as she flipped to the back of the book. “Look here, Marina. This is the prayer that’s usually recited by whoever officiates. Generally a friend or family member of the couple, but in your case it will likely be a council member.” She grimaced in distaste. “And then you sing the vows and that’s it. Most couples have a party of some kind, but since winter is coming, it will likely be minimal.”

“Sing the vows?” I asked, panic rising a little.

“I’ll teach you,” Ana offered. “They’re not difficult, and the tune is fairly simple.”

I nodded, frowning at the words of the vows, which were joined with music that I couldn’t hope to read. And seas, I’d have to sing them in front of everyone. “And do all royal couples wait to…finalize their bond until after they’re handfasted?”

“You haven’t—” Ana choked out a cough as Zephyr elbowed her in the ribs, clearly having not told her this piece of gossip.

“No, we have not,” I said firmly, frowning to cover my embarrassment and rolling my eyes. “You two are as bad as the damned kelpie.”

“Oh—no, I didn’t mean—it’s just—” Ana stammered so much that I had to work very hard not to burst out laughing at her discomfort.

She shrugged helplessly at Zephyr, who sighed fondly at her. “You do have such a way with words, my love.” Zephyr turned back to me with a grin. “She means that she’d waste no time jumping Caspian’s bones if he was her mate.”

“That is not—” Ana spluttered so indignantly that I lost my battle and burst out laughing, Zephyr grinning like a madwoman at her mate’s suffering.

“Believe me,” I said, wiping a tear of mirth from my eye as I finally got a grip on myself. “It’s not for lack of trying. Don’t you prefer females, anyway?”

“I’ve dabbled with males,” Ana replied, giving both me and Zephyr a look of bemused annoyance. “Zephyr prefers females. For me, attraction is attraction.”

“Thank the skies I got to you before Caspian,” Zephyr declared, kissing Ana on the cheek again. Her eyepatch made her look rather fiendish as she continued grinning. “How about you, Marina? Who will Caspian have to compete with?”

“Seas,” I breathed, finding it my turn to blush. “No one, I think. My experiences before him were fleeting and rather lackluster.”

“Weren’t you betrothed though?” Ana asked, looking confused.

“Yes, but not by choice,” I said quickly. “Thank all the gods I didn’t end up having to mate him.”

At their look of confusion, I explained the difference between siren and selkie mating customs as far as I understood them.

“They would have made you mate him against your will?” Ana gasped, her face a mask of horror as she reached out to grip my hand as if I needed comforting. “Skies, Marina, I am so sorry.”

“It’s just tradition,” I said with a shrug, feeling a little awkward at their shock.

Ana shook her head. “How can that be when so many sirens have been mated to selkies?” she asked, looking at me as if I must have an answer for her. “We cannot force the bond. What if a selkie mates another, then finds their siren mate?”

“Well, that hasn’t been an issue for several centuries,” I pointed out, frowning as I remembered the previous lesson on siren history. “It’s a good question though. Why has it been so long?”

“There’s no official explanation in any of the books I’ve read,” Ana mused, unrolling the parchment that contained selkie and siren genealogies. She found the spot where the line of connected royal families had broken, tracing it down until the page ended. “We have all our royal families recorded though,” she added, unrolling another scroll atop the first which continued the genealogy.

Down several more branches of the tree that spanned almost a millennia was the siren prince who died in the Betrayal. I leaned closer, examining the line of siren kings. The dead prince’s brother had taken the throne once his father passed. Then his son. And then…

“Caspian,” I murmured, pointing to his name and moving back upward. “These were his parents.” I looked up to see Zephyr and Ana exchanging a look I didn’t understand. “What happened to them?”

“Cas hasn’t told you?” Ana asked, biting her lower lip as she glanced at her mate. Zephyr’s face was unreadable, but she didn’t look surprised.

“He told me that his mother was a healer,” I shrugged, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t aching to know more. “I assumed they died, since he is king.”

“They did,” Zephyr said, voice still unreadable. “Fifteen years ago.”

I nodded, remembering Caspian telling me how long he had been the Siren King. “How?”

“You should really ask Cas,” Ana said, sounding anxious at the turn of the conversation. “It was…difficult for him. He should tell you.”

“He keeps saying he will,” I sighed, frowning down at the names of his parents. They were so smudged they were hard to read, as if someone had pressed a thumb to the paper and tried to wipe them away. “Was it bad?”

Ana glanced again at Zephyr, and I knew the answer was yes.

“The former king was a hard male,” Zephyr said, carefully skirting around the truth she wanted me to hear from Caspian. “Vicious. Obsessed with destroying your people. He nearly ruined us, Marina. It was…” she trailed off, heaving a sigh. “When I say it was bad, understand that he pushed us to the brink of extinction. Nearly killed both Caspian’s mother and Caspian in his fits of rage. Punished Caspian as a child by breaking his wings if he disobeyed.”

I swallowed bile, remembering Caspian’s resigned tone as I bound his wings on the beach.

“I’ve had worse.”

“His fanaticism nearly destroyed us all,” she added. “Caspian didn’t have a choice.”

“A choice about what?” I asked, a truth I wasn’t sure I was going to like beginning to coalesce in my mind.

“There are clear rules for the line of succession,” Ana explained, seeming to feel more comfortable sharing something that could have come from a book. “Only the death of one king can lead to the crowning of another, either by natural causes or by challenge.”

“Challenge?” I asked.

“To the death.” Zephyr frowned as if remembering that moment. “He tried to spare them, understand, but his father was unhinged by the end. Caspian barely escaped with his life.”

More of the few pieces of his history came back to me, flashing like lightning across my mind.

“Someone who is long gone and who is not your concern.”

“Wait,” I said, shaking my head and frowning between Ana and Zephyr as I tried to understand. “What exactly are you saying?”

Zephyr pursed her lips, but Ana sighed. “Everyone else knows, Zeph. It’s not a secret. They were there.”

“It is not your story to tell,” Zephyr argued back, looking torn but resolute. “Cas should be the one to explain.”

“Sirens wear scars with pride as a sign of victory in battle. Some of these are battle scars. Others are…a different kind of victory.”

“Caspian challenged his father for the crown,” I realized. “And then killed him.”