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

Chapter 32

The day before Astraios and Sereia were due to leave for Nordhavn, we spent the day exploring the cliffs to check for inhabitable dwellings.

“And he’s an inflexible prick,” Astraios complained, fuming over an argument with Vitulus that had been the only thing he could talk about all morning. The two of them had been charged with integrating their soldiers into a single united army, and it was most amusing to watch them butt heads. “Arrogant and self-righteous and wrong half the time.”

“Perhaps you’re the arrogant one?” Sereia suggested innocently as we cleared debris from the entrance of one of the cliffside dwellings.

“He needs to get laid,” Astraios growled. “I wish Hesperus would do us all a favor and fuck him already.”

“Your language is horrifying,” Zephyr scolded.

Ana and Sereia exchanged glances as their mates bickered.

“We’ll need to explore further,” Ana sighed. “None of these rooms are big enough for the new library.”

“Perhaps we need several libraries,” I countered. Caspian raised his brow at me as he heaved rocks to clear a path to the back of the cave. A beam of moonstone shot across the ceiling, and I smiled. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about lighting the cliffs. “We can have the books copied and stored in multiple libraries across the archipelago. And we should open them to the public.”

Caspian, wiping sweat from his brow, crossed the space and kissed me soundly.

Zephyr groaned loudly, to which Ana responded by kissing her as well.

We parted ways as evening approached after enjoying a picnic dinner in a pretty little cove Caspian had discovered while he stretched his wings.

“We should get to the ship,” Sereia commented, looking nervously at the setting sun. “We’re supposed to sail at dawn.”

“It’s not like they’ll leave without us,” Astraios grumbled, taking a bite out of another sandwich. Sereia glared at him, and Caspian coughed and nudged him hard in the ribs. “What? Oh, I mean, yes, you’re right.” He cleared his throat and stood, offering a hand to my friend. “As always.”

Zephyr rolled her eyes, and I had to hide my smile as Astraios scooped Sereia into his arms and flew her to the waiting ship.

“Five gold pieces say they come back mated,” Caspian said, pulling me up to stand as we cleaned away the picnic.

I laughed and shook my head. “Ten says she throws him overboard on their first day at sea.”

We were flying lazily back to the keep, the sun nearly set and the stars beginning to prick the sky as the moon rose.

Something flickered on one of the cliffs beside the keep, and my heart sank.

“Caspian.”

“Shit,” he growled, swooping down toward the figure. “Theia.”

Theia had arrived on the island a week before. I hoped that she might find some closure with our new, tentative peace, and I couldn’t think of what she meant by “bring me home” other than home to the Silent Isles. Caspian had snorted, told me I had a soft heart, and then flown to retrieve her himself since she refused to let anyone else help her.

But rather than improve her spirits or give her some peace, she seemed more haunted by the day. She grew less and less coherent, and Mira explained that her age and trauma had likely just caught up to her. That she had maybe a few good weeks left at most.

Caspian had been prodigiously kind to her, despite the fact that her response was often to stare blankly at walls and say nothing, which he joked was an improvement on their prior relationship.

Despite this, I knew he would feel it when she passed, and his anxiety over her now as she stood a hair’s breadth too close to the cliffs for comfort was proof.

“Theia,” Caspian called, alighting a few feet away from the cliff’s edge so as not to startle her. “Aunt. Come away from the edge.”

She didn’t move, standing like a statue as she looked out over the sea.

“I want to go home,” she said, unmoving as Caspian and I edged closer to her.

“Let’s go back to the keep, Theia,” Caspian said softly as if trying to corral a spooked animal. “I’ll take you home.”

“He’s here,” she repeated. “Home.”

“Your mate,” I said, pieces clicking into place. “This is where your mate died.”

Theia flinched, and Caspian glared at me. “Come away from the edge first, Theia. You can tell us all about him at home.”

For that’s what the keep had become to us, more than it had ever felt to me before meeting my mate. Without wings, the cliffs wouldn’t be comfortable for me, and though I knew he felt most at home on a ship, Caspian had certainly grown to love our new bedroom.

“Home.” Theia turned slowly, her empty eyes on me as, for the first time, she smiled a true smile. She closed her lids over the place her eyes should have been. “I’m going home.”

It happened so slowly, yet so quickly, as if time sped and slowed as I watched, powerless to intervene. Theia fell, her arms wide as if in supplication to the sky as she threw her body from the cliff and fell out of sight.

Caspian swore, diving for her as I ran to the edge.

He swore again, shouting her name.

But there was no splash. No sound of a body hitting the rocks. Just a veil of mist floating out across the sea as Theia, whose doomed love had started a war five centuries before, rejoined her mate, her home, at last.