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

Chapter 11

Caspian arrived less than an hour after Zephyr and Ana had left me in his rooms, and I was grateful to stop attempting to read the same page of the novel I borrowed over and over again.

Part of me worried I might look at him differently, knowing that he killed his father, but he was the same. The same tall, proud frame, the same silvery hair and elegant wings, the same golden eyes.

Perhaps slightly more wary than usual.

“Urchin,” Caspian said in greeting as he dismissed the guards beyond the door and came to join me. He sat on the low table before the sofa, where I was perched cross-legged with the abandoned book in my lap. “You’ve been busy, I hear.”

From the look on his face, I knew Zephyr must have told him what I’d discovered.

I had realized on my way back to his rooms that the story of how he became king might be more painful than he was willing to share. Caspian had loved his mother, and I knew that somehow he must have been responsible for her death as well.

“You don’t have to tell me—” I began.

“I want to, Marina,” Caspian interrupted, scrubbing a hand over his face before dropping it back to rest on his bent knees. His eyes met mine, and I sensed the flicker of pain that shone in them. “I’m trying to decide where to begin.”

“Start with the wings,” I suggested quietly, placing the book aside and leaning forward to clasp his hands in mine.

The contact seemed to steady him, and he took a deep, shuddering breath.

”I was twelve the first time,” he began, speaking quietly and looking at the floor beneath our joined hands. “It was my first time sparring with him, rather than with one of my teachers, and he bested me in seconds. Keep in mind, I was barely out of my blood feathers, and practically still a fledgling, but it wasn’t good enough for him. His general held me down while my father broke every bone in both wings.”

I squeezed his hands, imagining the sickening crack of bone. It was betrayal I felt through our bond now. Anger and hurt and cold betrayal.

“And your mother healed them,” I pushed.

Caspian laughed, the sound lacking real humor. “She set the bones,” he corrected. “Talked me through the injuries and gave me something for the pain. Healing such an injury with magic is beyond any siren skill, but she knew enough to ensure I’d fly again.” Caspian looked up finally, his eyes lined with silver. I reached out to brush away the tear that threatened to fall. “My father was furious with her, but they were mates. He couldn’t hurt her. Was physically incapable of allowing her to be hurt. So he took it out on me.”

“Seas below,” I murmured, stroking my thumb over his cheekbone. “What a monster.”

“I suppose Zephyr told you some of it,” he went on. “About his fanaticism. His cruelty. I’m not sure you can really understand how bad he was, Marina.”

For a moment, Caspian’s broken wings flashed through my mind, and my stomach soured.

“My father did the same thing to you,” I whispered, feeling sick at the memory.

“Your father is a fool, and he can be vicious,” Caspian agreed, making me wince involuntarily. It was the truth, but it was hard to hear about the male who loved me and raised me and would never lift a hand to me in anger. “But he’s not cruel in the same way. I don’t think your father would hurt you like that. Hurt anyone the way my father did. There’s a reason the selkies fear the Siren King. He did terrible things to both of our peoples. Burned selkie villages to the ground. Executed his own people without trial. Sent hundreds to die on your beaches without remorse. Slaughtered children, Marina. He couldn’t be allowed to keep his crown.”

“So you killed him,” I said evenly, squeezing his hand to tell him that I understood. That I didn’t judge him for it.

“I challenged him,” Caspian corrected, frowning as he met my gaze. “I was willing to let him walk away. To kill him in name only and let him leave the cliffs.”

“And he didn’t let you?”

Caspian sighed deeply, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Honestly, he might have. My mother begged him to walk away.” He ran a finger down his chest, over the long scar.

“But?”

I lifted my hand to his cheek, stroking gently as Caspian considered his words.

“My father’s general—Ilya Stormcrow—convinced him that I deserved to die for treason.”

“The same general who held you down as a child?” I asked, feeling rage spike so suddenly, I knew it wasn’t entirely Caspian’s.

Caspian nodded, and I knew right there that if this Stormcrow wasn’t already dead, I would end him myself. “The Stormcrow was even more vicious than my father. Told him to keep fighting. In the end, I didn’t have a choice.”

“Why do you call him the Stormcrow?”

“It was always what he was called,” Caspian shrugged. “I think he liked the idea that he was some great bird of violence rather than a mere mortal.”

I moved Caspian’s hand aside and traced the edges of the thick scar across his chest. “He did this to you?”

“I still won, Urchin,” Caspian said, a flicker of his usual swagger creeping through. “Believe me, he looked worse.”

“And your mother?” I asked softly. I knew this was the part of the story he didn’t want me to hear, and his agonized sigh nearly broke my heart.

“I lost so much blood,” he said, his voice flat, “that I wasn’t even conscious until a week later. When I killed my father, the bond…it…” He shook his head, eyes on the floor, and I felt the emptiness and pain that flooded him. "I thought she could fight it. She hated him, in the end, for what he had done to me. But it took her, too.”

I understood now that this was one of the risks of completing the bond. One of the reasons Caspian had refused to do it on the island. If something happened to him, I could die too. “It wasn’t your fault, Cas.”

“I know,” he said with a heavy sigh. His eyes were silver lined when he looked up, and I ached to kiss away the tears. “I’ve had fifteen years to come to terms with that. But that doesn’t mean all of my people have.”

“Arctos?” I asked, remembering the most hateful of the councilors.

“Among others,” Caspian confirmed. “The males who attacked you swore they were sent by Ilya Stormcrow.”

“You let him live?” I asked. I knew Caspian had mercy in him, but admittedly, this surprised me.

Caspian barked a sardonic laugh. “No. I broke his wings and threw him into the sea. I was sure he died.”

“Then how—”

“I don’t know how, Urchin, that’s just the thing,” he replied, running a hand through his hair agitatedly as his wings rustled. “But that piece of shit who attacked you swore it was him. That he’s hiding somewhere in Nordhavn.”

“Everything seems to point to Nordhavn,” I sighed, wishing Astraios would come back already. It would be at least another week until he returned with my father’s reply, and then another several days for us to make the trip there by boat. “Why does he want me?”

“I don’t know,” Caspian replied wearily. “Whether it’s the real Stormcrow or someone adopting his identity, he wants you for something. Which is why I have to go. Tomorrow.”

I started. “What? But we’re meeting my father there in only two weeks.”

“I can’t wait two weeks to deal with this,” he replied, shaking his head. “If I fly overland, I can be there and back within the two weeks it will take for Astraios to return. I can find the Stormcrow and end him properly before he has another chance to hurt you.” Caspian’s eyes met mine, a fierce fire in their depths.

And I knew, somehow, that he meant for me to stay behind, safely ensconced in the cliffs with nothing to do but wait for him.

“When do we leave?” I asked casually, as if this were the only obvious conclusion.

Caspian blinked. “We are not, Urchin,” he growled, his eyes flashing in warning. “You will stay here where you’re safe.”

“I suppose I could probably make the swim if I had to,” I mused, studying the veins of moonstone in the ceiling of the cave and ignoring Caspian’s growl of protest. “I’d probably be a day behind you, as long as the sea dragons don’t eat me first.”

“Urchin…” Caspian warned.

“Caspian,” I replied, using the same tone as I unfolded my legs to stand and climbed into his lap. He was so surprised as I straddled him that I managed to sneak in a kiss before he could protest, crowing a little in victory when his hands came to my hips and he let out an unwilling groan.

“If I am to be your equal, your queen,” I continued, twisting my fingers into his hair and tugging slightly to make sure his eyes remained locked on mine, “then you need to treat me as such. I am coming with you to Nordhavn. I will help you hunt down this Stormcrow and end him before we deal with my father. Nothing will happen to me as long as you and the sea are protecting me.”

“If something were to happen to you…” His throat bobbed on a swallow, and I silenced his fears with another kiss. This one was deeper than the last, and his arm was firmly around my waist, his tongue brushing mine when I finally pulled away.

“Nothing will happen to me,” I whispered, brushing a hand over the edge of one wing and smirking at the shudder that racked him. “I am yours and you are mine, and in case you’ve forgotten, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

As a reminder, I tugged on the raging sea outside and pulled a wall of water around us, the sound of it rushing and fierce as it soaked Caspian’s wings and flooded the floor.

Caspian raised a brow at me as I banished the water, letting it cascade out of the hidden window in the cliff and leaving everything rather soggy.

“It would be more impressive if I weren’t wet,” Caspian commented dryly, earning a pinch on the bicep.

“Insufferable.”

“Prickly.”

He kissed me again, this time pouring his anxieties and fears for me into me. I took them and held them close to my heart as I kissed him back, and he let out a shuddering breath as we broke apart.

“I love you, Urchin,” Caspian murmured. “Just in case that wasn’t clear.”

“Even though I’m prickly?” I teased.

Caspian’s kiss was not teasing as he replied, “Especially because you’re prickly.”

I laughed, stroking my thumbs over his eyebrows as I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you too, you impossible, insufferable seagull. Just in case that wasn’t clear.”

Another heated kiss sent fire racing straight to my core. “You wouldn’t like flying long distances,” Caspian commented, breathing a little heavily.

I smirked, knowing I’d won. “And I doubt you’d enjoy carrying me, but we all suffer what we must.”

“Oh no, Urchin,” Caspian grinned. I was glad to see his feral amusement returning as he stroked a hand over my backside. “As much as I’d enjoy it,” he squeezed enough to make me yelp, “I think we’ll have to sail. We’ll take my smallest ship to try to avoid notice. I’ve no desire to announce to the Stormcrow that we’re in Nordhavn when I’m hunting for him. I’ll have warriors follow us on a more official vessel.”

“But how will Astraios—”

“I’ll send a messenger,” Caspian replied, cutting off my question with another kiss. “Eos is terrifying enough to keep Arctos in line, and we’ll negotiate with your father once we’ve dealt with the Stormcrow.”

“So when exactly do we leave?”

“Tomorrow evening,” Caspian said. His golden eyes met mine with another confession. “After the handfasting.”

“We’re being handfasted tomorrow?” I tried to push myself out of Caspian’s arms, but he held me fast. “And you were just going to leave me after? What about—you know.” I blushed, and Caspian leveled a wicked grin at me.

“What about what, Urchin?” he asked infuriatingly, his fingers drumming against my hips. “I can’t think of what you could possibly mean.”

“The claiming, you evil prick,” I snapped, scowling as his grin widened. “You were just going to leave me pining and alone for a week?”

“Now, Urchin, that’s ungenerous of you,” Caspian scolded in a mocking voice as he loomed over me. “I would have left you extremely sated before leaving.”

“And now?” I asked a bit breathlessly.

“Now,” Caspian replied, pressing a feather-light kiss to my lips, “I will leave you extremely sated and take you with me.”

He scooped me up and I yelped as he carried me to his bedroom, and my heart galloped in a happy little beat. This was it. He was going to claim me finally.

“Tonight,” I pleaded, holding his face in my hands. “I want you tonight, Cas. Please.”

Caspian groaned in agony as he dropped me unceremoniously on the bed and leaned over to press a chaste kiss to my lips. He kneeled before me on the bed like some fallen god, and my breath caught a little as his eyes slid from my toes all the way to my lips.

“It's…bad luck to spend the night together before a handfasting,” he said.

I barked out a laugh, which died in my throat when I realized he was utterly serious. “You’re joking,” I said, scowling up at him as I propped myself up on my elbows. “You promised—”

“It won’t be romantic,” he said, pushing my hair back from my face with a chagrined look. “Not if we do this now. You deserve romance and softness and all the things that I’ve imagined when I imagined claiming you.”

I melted a little at the idea that he wanted this to be romantic and gentle.

But it wasn’t what I wanted.

“I just want you,” I breathed, nipping his lower lip between my teeth and enjoying the rumbling growl that vibrated through me in response. “Wild and rough and honest and real. Tonight. Now.”

Caspian kissed me again, his hand roaming slowly over my back and toward the ties that held up my gown. His fingers hovered there, teasing and patient as if waiting for something.

“Please, Caspian. You promised.”

“I did,” he murmured, fingers slipping beneath the edge of the gown to brush my bare skin. “And I plan to deliver on each and every one.” He leaned closer until we shared breath, his body hovering just above mine on the bed. “I will fulfill every filthy fantasy you can think of.” He nipped my lower lip, and I let out a little moan. “Fuck, you’re not making this easy.”

“Me?” I scoffed, laying flat on the bed and spreading my arms wide in invitation. “I’m right here, Cas. Come and claim me.”

“Fucking skies, Marina,” he groaned, leaning down to catch my lips in a feral, plundering kiss. “You are a menace.”

The kiss deepened, and I moaned a little as I felt his hands roam down my body, pausing just below my navel.

“Cas,” I whispered.

A sudden flurry of wind made me open my eyes to find Caspian gone, the curtain to the door swinging wildly as if he had just bolted.

I screamed in frustration, scrambling from the bed and running to the main room, where the curtain to the sea and sky was held aside, Caspian framed by the rock.

“Sleep well, Urchin.” He grinned and shot me an irreverent wink before launching into the sky.

I ran to the curtained entry, scowling at his retreating form. “I hate you!”

In the distance, Caspian laughed, waving back at me as he flew into the night. “Tomorrow, Urchin. You’ll love me tomorrow.”