Chapter 36
“Did you know that would happen?” I asked. Too apprehensive to return to the water, we’d packed up our belongings, dressing ourselves over wet skin and hair, and trudged up the rocky trail to the carriage. The stride and incline helped relax me, giving my feet a laborious job to perform. My muscles were at home under the weight of the exercise, the initial sting of flesh and sinew settling into a refreshing burn.
“I anticipated it, yes,” Selena answered between breaths.
“I thought they were going to attack us,” I said, frowning sideways at her.
Selena was calculated, her thoughts planned and deliberate. It didn’t seem to fit that she’d walked us knowingly into a trap.
“They might have, but I didn’t think they would. Naiads are too curious to attack first and question later. They wanted to see you up close.” Selena said. She sighed loudly and stopped, arching her back, then sat on a large stone, her chest heaving from the climb. I sat next to her, placing the basket at our feet.
“They sent Thaan a letter, requesting an introduction to you, though it wasn’t truly a request. They do have the right. You took your first breath as a Naiad in their waters.” Leaning her head into the rock, thick strands of hair bristled around her face, sticking to her skin and waving in the breeze.
“But they can’t claim me for their colony, because I’ve already signed a contract with Thaan?” I asked slowly.
Selena lifted her head in quiet affirmation. “Naiad laws are not written on paper. They’re written in our blood. Yours belongs to Thaan.”
“What good does an introduction do, then?”
Selena sighed again. Sitting up, she combed her hair back with her fingers, collecting the damp strays and twisting them into submission at the base of her neck. “It does them some good. Now they know your name. They’ve looked you in the eye. Aegir could recognize you later. When you free yourself from your binds, he could find you and claim you. By then you’ll be married, but he doesn’t know that.”
When you free yourself from your binds.
We hadn’t approached the topic of my contract before. Royal etiquette, fashion, marriage, speech, reading, politics, diplomacy, swimming, diving, and transitioning made up ?all our conversations. But not my blood vow.
I watched the ocean. The sun was high. It was mid-day, and the heat fell over us in heavy layers. My hair, draped in a thick mess over my shoulder, dripped into the red dust at my feet. The rock absorbed the water, desperate and thirsty, smoothing into firm clay.
“Did you sign a contract with Thaan?” I asked. Selena didn’t answer, and I glanced across my shoulder at her, waiting.
Staring out over the water, Selena took another deep breath, holding the air inside her lungs, releasing it slowly.
“No,” she said softly. “My sister did. Ceba.”
“Why?” I asked, unsure if she’d answer. It seemed an intimate question.
“He kidnapped us,” Selena said. “We grew up like you, on a small island called Cyrpia, with a port sailors used not only for trade but as a checkpoint to restock for the voyage. He found us there. He was doting at first, under the guise of courting my mother. Charming. He brought us gifts and food, satin dresses and flowers and books. We were poor. We trusted him.
“He took us one night, Ceba and I, into the water on a full moon, where other Naiads waited. They pulled us under, as Nori and Olinne did to you, and forced our first change. The colony claimed us. We stayed for six months, trapped with only each other.”
She stopped to exhale through her nose, her gaze lingering over the water. I waited.
“He approached us, offering to help us escape if we signed our loyalty to him. I refused. Ceba didn’t. If you were ever curious why Thaan’s contract seems to offer you some semblance of flexibility, she’s why. He made her sign a contract that stripped her of all freedom. She couldn’t walk further than her room in the palace, couldn’t wear what he didn’t approve, couldn’t eat or drink without his saying so. Within a year, she was lost and desperate to find herself. Desperate to fight him. He knows his mistake, though he’d never admit it. He knows his contract bound her too tight.” Her gaze fixed on the water, a longing in her eyes. A reluctant acceptance, an unhealed grief.
“Where is she now?” I asked, though a sinking feeling in my stomach already guessed the answer.
“She did the only thing she could to sever the bonds of her contract without fulfilling the tasks written out for her. She killed herself.”
My mouth parted in quiet horror. Gazing ahead, her usual elegance nowhere to be found, Selena leaned against the hot rock and swallowed, her neck tightening.
“If the colony claimed her, how could she sign her loyalty to another?”
“Thaan was part of the colony. He orchestrated an agreement with outsiders, rogue Naiads, and let them in. Naiad blood doesn’t allow betrayal—I don’t know how he did it. It’s as if his blood is no longer—” She shook her head, unable to find words, and sighed. “He brought in the outsiders, they attacked the colony and killed the Videre, and because Ceba had signed herself to him, he freed us during the massacre. I could have gone home to my mother, but I was too worried to leave Ceba alone with him. He brought us back to Calder, and I’ve been here ever since.”
“How can you stay here? How can you help him?” I asked, a tremor of recklessness in my voice. Selena gazed at me, the Naiad’s eyes deep and searching.
“I stay for her.”
I sat up, hands flat against my thighs, staring at Selena in disbelief.
Selena gave me a pitying glance. “Thaan is always three steps ahead of everyone. He’s clever, but he trusts no one. He lures in his servants and traps them in their blood. He has spies, near and far, across the kingdom. He likely has spies here, in the Venus Sea.” She gazed back down to the water and sighed.
“I took my first Naiad breath in waters he”s since abandoned. I have no contract with him. My blood is free, so he believes I stay out of loyalty. And I let him. I let him believe it, because he is three steps ahead, but one day he will stumble. He thinks he is invincible, but I have been with him for far too long. I know his secrets. I know his weaknesses. I know how to stop him. And by now, I have sacrificed everything to do so.” Selena watched me, waiting for a response, her eyes daring me to oppose her. ”Everything.”
I sat on the rock, taken aback. A warmness which had nothing to do with the heat of the sun caressed my insides, setting a small glowing fire within me.
“Stop him from what?” I asked softly.
“Oh, Maren.” Selena exhaled again, closing her eyes, the sun bright on her face. “He destroys colonies. Have you not realized? He says your duty is to protect Calder and has sworn you to it. A day will come when he’ll tell you a colony has threatened Calder. Venus or Anatola… Though, I believe he will send you to Juile. To Sidra. He will use you to unseat her and kill all the Naiads that live under Leihani.”
Every ounce of moisture left my tongue. “Why?”
Selena’s eyes danced across the surface of the water, trailing the surges on the beach. “Anger. Jealousy. Hatred.”
“And that’s why you’re here with me? You think if I meet the demands of my contract before he sends me to the Juile Sea, after I become queen and fulfill my blood vow, that we can stop him?”
Selena reached for my hand, taking it firmly between her own, her intense gaze burning into mine.
“With every fiber of my body. Yes.”