Chapter 19
Caspian tried to put off our visit to Theia for as long as he possibly could. He ordered the crew about all morning while Zephyr and I trained, and only stopped when I—in deep annoyance at his procrastination—managed to shape the wind and water into a little personal storm cloud and threatened to rain on him until he was done.
He then tried to stall by expressing interest in this combination of my magics, which I responded to with a heavier downpour of constructed rain.
“I’m just saying, it’s an extremely useful bit of magic,” he grumbled, shaking water from his wings as the weak morning sun did little to dry him. “We should see what else you can do.”
“Later,” I replied, dragging him by the hand down the docks toward the town. A different sea dragon, one with yellow scales and eerie green eyes, now guarded the ship. He snorted a stream of water into the air in greeting as we passed, and I sent a mental hand out to scratch his scaly snout. “No more stalling, you cowardly seagull.”
“You would be a coward too if you’d met her,” he grumbled darkly. “This won’t be a pleasant visit, Urchin.”
“Then prepare me,” I insisted, slowing my pace only when the market had come into view amidst the fog. “Who is she to you, exactly?”
Everything I had heard about Theia had not prepared me for Caspian’s resigned reply. “My aunt.”
“Your aunt?” I stopped dead, Caspian staggering to a halt beside me with a sheepish expression on his face.
“Probably could have told you that earlier.”
“You have a living relative?” I pinned him with an indignant glare. I had believed all his family to be gone. The stakes for this meeting felt suddenly much higher.
Caspian laughed dryly. “Living? Barely. And relative…she’s something like my great-great-great aunt. We’re not close, and she doesn’t leave Nordhavn.” His expression softened as he felt my anxiety claw its way up my body. “You’ve nothing to be worried about, Urchin. She hates everyone—including me.”
“But—”
“You don’t need to worry about her opinion of you,” he insisted, continuing down the dock now dragging me behind him. “I can tell you now that it will be poor. Let’s find her a gift.”
I was too stunned to properly register this bizarre non sequitur, but I hurried after him as he began weaving through market stalls. He seamlessly shook hands and exchanged pleasantries as he perused, and again I had the sense he knew everyone in town as he hunted for something shiny.
“What does she like?” I asked, not sure what kind of gift the estranged great-great-great aunt of my mate would like.
Caspian snorted. “She likes nothing unless it dulls the senses, but she’ll settle for something shiny she can pawn.”
“She’s an addict?” I frowned, trying to remember what I knew of mind-altering herbs and flowers. They were forbidden on the isles, but I knew some still managed to smuggle the substances in.
Caspian paused at a stall that had a large collection of gold chains. “All fake,” he muttered in disgust, picking one up to examine. “And yes. It’s how she copes with her pain.”
“She’s sick?”
“Injured.” Caspian replaced the chain and turned to look down at me. “I want her to tell you her story, Urchin. I promise to answer all of your questions after you meet her.”
He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it before twining his fingers in mine and pulling me past the next stall.
“You have proven that you keep your promises, I suppose,” I conceded. Caspian grinned as an idea struck me. “Let’s go to the bookshop.”
“You want to buy a book?” Caspian clasped my hand tightly as I wound through the streets toward the bookshop I’d perused on my first visit.
“There are books of maps,” I explained, slowing my pace as a cough threatened and willing my lungs to calm. “Atlases. You say she goes nowhere. I propose we bring other places to her.”
“Urchin.” Caspian drew me to a stop a few yards from the bookshop, whose door was open invitingly in the misty morning. He looked down at me, eyes wide and unreadable.
“Is it a terrible idea?”
“You are…it’s…” He bent to kiss me, catching me behind the neck and claiming my mouth fiercely right there on the street where anyone could see. His voice was a little hoarse as he pulled away, lips brushing mine in a final kiss. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
I beamed, dragging him on toward the bookshop.
I chose two books of maps for Theia—one of the whole continent, and another of lands explored beyond, some of which I had never heard of. The second book was so fascinating that Caspian insisted we buy a second copy for me, and I also selected several books of histories and music that I had coveted on my first visit.
Had I not already loved him, seeing Caspian laugh in resigned amusement as I piled his arms with books would have had me falling hard and fast. For what girl doesn’t want a mate who will buy her all the books her heart desires and then carry them for her?
“We’re going into a seedier area of town,” Caspian warned as we left the bookshop and headed up the street. “Do you need more tea? Should we stop by the apothecary?”
“Mira’s medicine is still working,” I replied, squeezing his arm. “She sent me with enough for another week at least.”
“I’m glad it seems to be working. But my offer stands, Urchin. Say the word, and I’ll beg the Witch Queen or the Demon King to heal you. We'll even travel as far as the Seelie Realm to ask their queen.”
“I wonder what it’s like in their kingdoms,” I mused, still holding Caspian’s arm as we headed into an alley that was darker and more cramped than the main streets. It smelled terrible, and I wrinkled my nose.
Caspian laughed at my expression. “Only a little further. And I’ll take you if you like. When our kingdom is settled and we don’t have to do quite so much politicking.”
Our kingdom. Because it would be one kingdom, unified by the first mated Siren King and Selkie Queen in centuries.
“How many centuries away will that be, do you think?” I asked, meeting his eyes.
Caspian guided me around a puddle of smelly murk that made my stomach turn before stopping in front of a decrepit door.
“We will do it together, Urchin,” he promised, brushing his thumb just under my jaw. “No matter how long it takes, we will unite our people and restore the isles. And then I will take you on a proper honeymoon.”
And despite the fact that we were standing in quite possibly the most unromantic place in the kingdom, the kiss he brushed to my lips made warmth suffuse every pore of my being and my heart thump a little harder.
Caspian lowered his hand to grasp mine. “Ready?”
I nodded, and he pushed open the door. It creaked on ancient hinges, opening to darkness and smoke and the smell of cloves.
Caspian led the way, stepping into the darkened chamber and shutting the door behind us with a heavy screech.
“Back so soon?”
I peered through the smoke, trying to find the source of the ancient voice that filled the small chamber. Caspian cursed as something clattered, then a candle lit and spread a golden glow through the cloying smoke.
“Hello, Theia,” he said, pulling me with him as he kept his body between me and the ancient figure who sat at the small round table in the center of the room. “Miss me?”
“You’ve brought the girl,” Theia said, interest piquing her tone.
“Marina,” Caspian corrected, pulling me forward until I stood beside him before the low table. “My mate.”
Theia grunted as if this were obvious. “And my gift?”
Caspian placed the books atop the table and slid them to her, where she tore into the paper with long nails that were almost claw-like in their appearance.
Theia was old in the way only near-immortals became old—her body withered and gnarled as if she had dried up in the ages of her life. My stomach turned as I took in her face and the dark, empty sockets where her eyes should have been.
“I didn’t know—” I started, hesitating when those empty pits met my eyes. “Caspian didn’t mention you had lost your vision. The books—”
Theia waved her clawed hand dismissively then continued to tear the paper from the tomes. “I can see well enough.”
It seemed rude to contradict her, but I couldn’t see how this was possible when she clearly had no eyes. I looked to Caspian for clarification, but he just shrugged.
“Maps of the world,” Theia murmured, her hands touching the leather bound covers and tracing the foil titles as if that alone were enough to read the contents. “Why?”
She looked up, not to Caspian, but to me. He squeezed my hand, urging me to answer.
“Since you do not leave to see the world,” I replied, stifling a cough as my lungs struggled with the scented smoke, “we brought the world to you.”
“Sentimental nonsense,” she muttered, caressing the covers lovingly in sharp contrast to her derisive words. When she looked up, her sightless sockets were narrowed on Caspian. “Why are you here?”
“For your wisdom, as always.” Caspian perched on one of the low stools before the table. He looked almost comical, his giant wings taking up far more of the room than anything else.
A draft came from seemingly out of nowhere, and Theia hissed in annoyance as she huddled in on herself. She had no wings, but Caspian had called her his aunt. His great-great-great aunt. A dawning realization of horror hit me.
“You’re her,” I said, dropping to the stool next to Caspian. “You’re the Siren Princess.”
Caspian’s subtle nod told me all I needed, but Theia scoffed in derision.
“I was,” she confirmed. “Now I am no one.”
“But I thought that if your mate died…”
“Only if the bond is consummated, Urchin,” Caspian reminded me gently.
So Theia had never even experienced that kind of love with her mate. It made her situation so much worse, somehow.
“Was it my people who did this to you?” I asked, fearing the answer.
“The selkies took my wings after they took my mate. But it was the sirens who took my eyes as punishment for their exile. Why should I see, if we would never see the Isles again?” Theia laughed, a horrifying, eerie sound. “But the goddess gave me a different sight. And now you’re here to ask me questions to which you already know the answers.”
Her voice was bitter and agonized, and I realized now why she holed herself up in Nordhavn. She’d been exiled. Mutilated and betrayed by both peoples, her mate dead and her life as good as forfeit. It was a wonder she survived.
“The selkies took your mate?” I asked, mind hitching on the words that didn’t match the story I’d been told.
“His own father killed him because he loved me,” she said flatly, as if she’d gone suddenly very far away. “Of course, he told his people that I had cast him from the cliffs. I wish they’d taken my heart, as well as my wings.”
My heart cracked for her—for the betrayal that was not one of siren origin, but of selkie lies.
“I am so sorry,” I said quietly, reaching out to take her hand.
She pulled it away with a hiss, baring her yellowed teeth at me. “Do not pity me, little goddess. Pity those foolish enough to think they can change the hearts of others.”
I blinked in surprise as Caspian looped a protective arm around me. “What did you call me?”
I thought Ran’s nickname had just been a quirk of his personality. Caspian told me she had visions, but why would she have seen that?
Theia grinned. The expression was not friendly. “I call you what you are, little goddess. I see all, even that which you refuse to see yourself.”
“We didn’t come here for your games,” Caspian growled, laying several gold coins atop the table. “We came for—”
“I know why you came,” Theia hissed, considering the coins briefly before pushing them back toward him. “The truth is my price,” she spat. “Sea and sky and sky and sea.” She spoke in an eerie, singsong voice that made the hair on the back of my neck rise. “Tell me, little goddess, who you must be.”
“You want me to answer your riddle?” I asked, trying to work out the meaning of her words. I looked to Caspian for assistance, but he was frowning at Theia.
“Theia—”
“She answers the question, boy,” Theia repeated, releasing Caspian. He gasped, gripping the table with both hands as he sucked in a lungful of air. “You leave with nothing if you answer for her.”
I clenched my jaw in frustration, hating every second in that horrible, smoky room. My lungs were burning and my head was swimming unpleasantly, and it was nearly impossible to focus with Theia’s claw-like nails clicking against the table.
Caspian squeezed my hands in reassurance, shaking his head. “Think, Urchin. Answer the question.”
“Sea and sky and sky and sea,” Theia repeated in that eerie song. “Tell me, little goddess, who you must be.”
Sea and sky and sky and sea. A ridiculous answer came to me so abruptly that I disregarded it as I tried to come to a more reasonable one. But no matter which way I turned her words in my mind, I kept returning to the day Caspian suggested I could manipulate the wind.
A reason I could speak to the creatures of the sea as no one else could. Why I could shape the air as well as the water. Why Rannoch had saved me from Morar. Why the sea had saved me from drowning the day we crashed into her inky depths. Why the sea dragon feared my mother’s wrath.
“You think I’m Melusine.”
It had seemed such a ridiculous idea when it first struck me that I’d pushed it away. But now, faced with Theia’s sightless, gleeful face and Caspian’s tight-lipped frown, I knew it was the truth.
“How?” I asked, looking to Caspian, rather than Theia, for answers. “Melusine was a goddess. Born of sea and sky. I have selkie parents. There was nothing special about my birth.”
“Wasn’t there?” Theia crooned.
“I wasn’t breathing,” I said with a shrug. “My lungs are bad. Even more reason I can’t be a goddess.”
“The sea giveth and the sea taketh away,” Theia intoned. “No magic comes without a cost, little goddess. Mine was my eyes. What was yours?”
“When you were born,” Caspian murmured, taking my hands in his, “it took several minutes for you to breathe, yes?”
“Yes,” I frowned, meeting his amber gaze. “So?”
“So what if, in those minutes,” he said slowly, “the sea saved you, in exchange for granting her daughter life once more?”
“Your soul bound to Melusine’s,” Theia agreed, looking triumphant. “A little goddess.”
“But I have no memories other than those I have made,” I argued. “Wouldn’t I know if I were part goddess?”
Theia shrugged as if this were inconsequential, but Caspian replied, “You told me you can feel the sea. That she is like a friend to you. Perhaps that’s because she is not just a friend. She’s—in some way—your mother.”
I sat with this notion, turning it over to examine in my mind. A distant brush of sea against my thoughts confirmed what part of me had already accepted.
“So what?” I asked. “I’m meant to reunite the isles somehow? That’s why she saved me?”
“I don’t know for certain, Urchin,” Caspian said gently, brushing a tear from my cheek that I hadn’t realized I’d let fall. “But since that was the task given to me by the kelpie, I think yes.”
“I’m ready to read the stones,” Theia interjected, sounding impatient. “I accept your payment.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” Caspian spat.
“I prefer bitter, old hag,” she replied lightly, producing a small bag. Something clicked together inside it. “You know what comes next.”
“Three stones,” Caspian sighed, offering the explanation for my benefit. He squeezed my hand as he reached for the bag, a promise that we would continue the conversation when we were out of Theia’s odious presence. “No more, no less. I want to know who plots against us. How Marina and I will unite the Isles.”
“So greedy with your questions,” Theia murmured, accepting the stones that Caspian dropped into her upturned palm. They clinked together as she rolled them in her palm, the gnarled fingers of her other hand tracing raised symbols I’d never seen before. “The betrayal comes from someone close.” She placed a single stone before us on the table. “The crow doesn’t hunt alone.” A second stone joined the first. “The isles wither. The same force that tore the islands asunder will unite it.” She frowned, her thumb tracing the stone for markings. She hissed, dropping it as if it had burned her hand. “The gods wish me to say no more.”
I didn’t understand most of her message, but one thing became clear at least: someone had hired the Stormcrow. And if Theia couldn’t tell us who, then I knew what we needed to do next.
“Brilliantly cryptic as always,” Caspian sighed, rising from his tiny stool. “Now you know where I get it from, Urchin.”
He offered me a hand and helped me rise.
“It is not my fault if you refuse to see,” Theia snarled.
Caspian sighed, guiding me to the door. “Take care of yourself, Theia. I’ll return when I can.”
“It was nice to meet you,” I added.
Theia’s empty eye sockets snapped to mine. “Bring me home, girl.”