Chapter 45
After Selena’s story of the Triad, I looked for things in threes. But nothing seemed to manifest itself in any sort of trio.
Sitting at my table alone, I stiffened at a knock on my door. Kye hadn’t spoken to me for two days, and Selena usually waited for me to come to her apartments. My ears adjusted, searching for familiarity in the sound of the heartbeat just outside. Strong and light, not one I immediately recognized.
Leaving my book open, I shuffled to the door, surprised to find Lady Diara on the other side.
“Hello,” she said brightly, holding up a canvas garment. “Just delivering your clean dress.”
My backless midnight blue gown. Grass stains painted the back of it where Kye had held me down, and I’d forgotten Selena had sent it to be cleaned.
I opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
Diara’s brows lifted, and I wondered if palace residents didn’t normally invite others into their apartments. If the invitation was odd, Diara didn’t say so. She floated into the room, her eyes taking in our surroundings with curiosity. “I’ve never been in this tower before.”
“It’s a package deal. Just have to get shackled to the lout next door.” Some wiser voice in my head cautioned against openly mocking a member of the crown, but I didn’t really care. In any case, I had a feeling Diara wouldn’t hesitate to join in.
She smirked, laying my dress over the back of a chair. “Bit of light reading?”
I glanced at the tome on my table with a sigh. It was a register of the estates of Calder. Dry reading. Selena had raised a brow when I’d asked for it, amused and perhaps impressed, returning with it the following day. What I was looking for, I didn’t really know. Knowledge of trades, growing familiarity with Calder geography. Nothing seemed of substantial use. Ascento made wine, Willowood grew timber, Ochire forged steel.
Leaning over me, Diara lifted the cover enough to read it to herself, and let it drop with disgust as though it had been covered in slime.
“Bleugh, what is this?” she laughed. “Researching if any eligible lords are richer than the crown?”
“Yes. In fact, is your brother in here?” I teased, flipping the pages to look for Pirou.
Diara’s nose scrunched. “You can do better. Than him or the prince.” She stood to pour herself a glass of water, and I smirked, amused that she so easily made herself at home. I wondered if she had duties to get back to, though I didn’t ask.
She dropped into the chair opposite me just as I found Pirou—and quickly closed the book. The other estates had listed their paid annual taxes in black ink. Lord Bernard Verrata’s was a pageful of red.
“Have your summer invitations come?” Diara said.
“Yes.” I opened the drawer of my secretary’s desk, handing her a short stack of bright, cheery letters. Tea parties, jousts, feasts, hunts.
Eyes wide at the volume of inquiries, Diara thumbed through them.
“Which are you going to?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as timid as I felt.
“Oh—this one for sure,” Diara pointed at a silver envelope, its wax seal imprinted with a snowflake stamp. “The Harvest Festival. The King’s brother, Marcus, is rumored to go, and everyone at the palace loves him. He’s kind of the darling of the country.”
My eyes flicked up at her over the edge of the card. “Prince Marcus is the darling of Calder? Not the King himself?”
Diara laughed. “Of course not. Kings are stuffy and boring. No one actually likes a king. Have you never noticed how dull Prince Hadrian is?”
I smiled at her. “I’ve only spoken to him once.”
“Ugh,” Diara gave an exaggerated sigh. “He may be easy to look at, but he’s insufferable to speak to. I’m convinced they’ve abolished smiles in prince school. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if his face cracked in half if he ever tried.”
I laughed, even though her words struck me as odd. Hadrian had smiled easily enough when he’d walked me to meet Kye in the training yard. “I’ll count myself lucky they’re not marrying me off to him, then.”
Diara’s smile faltered; her eyes suddenly dropped to the table as her hand crept up her opposite arm.
Mihaunaalive. “What?”
She cringed, as if unwilling to say whatever it was that had crossed her mind. I ducked down, forcing my face into her view.
“Diara, I’m marrying the idiot in three days. If there’s something wrong with him, you could at least tell me.”
She laughed lightly. “Prince Nikolaos seems…difficult to manage.”
I snickered. That was what she’d been hesitant to share? “I’m aware.”
“He’s predictable…but in a way that’s unpredictable.”
Shifting in my seat, I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just that—” She bit her lip. “He seems to care about little else than going against whatever the crown expects of him. Whenever he’s publicly given a task, he goes and does something wild. When the King asked him to give a speech during Apple Blossom, he disappeared and they found him in a hunter’s cabin in Sumnlea. When he was asked to host last year’s autumn hunt, they found him in Ochire, learning to forge steel. This past spring, when his engagement to the princess of Illuskia was simply mentioned—”
“He went to Leihani,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “And brought back a bride. And no offense to you, because you’re—well, you’re completely stunning, and any man in Calder would take you for a prize. But I wouldn’t expect to be romanced by Prince Nikolaos. For him, all you are is a giant middle finger to the crown.”
Diara invited me to ride horses with her in the mornings, and I sheepishly confessed I’d never ridden.
Halfway out my door, she spun around, eyes alight with excitement. “I’ll teach you.”
I smiled, though my belly squirmed. “Alright.”
“After your wedding. I’m sure you’ll be busy over the next few days.”
My eyes swerved to Kye’s closed door. I nodded, forcing a smile on my face, even though the writhing in my stomach amplified.
To be honest, my role in my wedding seemed to be little more than show-up-and-stand-there. The tailor had acquired my measurements when I came to the palace, and the food, music, and decorations were being chosen for me by party organizers who likely had a sharper eye for such things than I could offer.
Though the Calderian vows had been delivered by scroll. They were sitting in my desk, waiting to be memorized.
I probably could’ve used the distraction of learning to ride, but I nodded along anyway, watching her descend down the tower stairs.
Heaving a sigh, I gathered my things to meet Selena.
Half an hour later, I sat opposite my mentor at her dining table.
Filling a teacup with water, she set it down on the wooden surface and slid into the chair next to mine.
“This is our power as Naiads,” she said, watching the little cup with a serene smile. “To communicate with water. You ask a question. The water will answer. It’s known as water calling. To not only engage with water, but to manipulate it, use it, transform it. A gift you’ve had your whole life, if I’m not mistaken.”
Laying her hands on either side of the cup, she stared at the water. A drop separated from the surface, ripples forming on its exit. It rose in the air—not a perfect bubble the way soap floats, but like a living drop of liquid, shapeshifting and malleable, traveling through empty space and coming to rest in front of Selena’s chest.
“Water is always easier to control in a single body than in multiple forms. The entire ocean, vast and deep, could be tamed if you were strong enough, but several thousand raindrops pelting through the air in a thunderstorm might never be. If you’re ever caught in a downpour, you’d be better off saving your energy than trying to master the rain.” Another bubble of water, much larger than the first, levitated up. They danced together, uniting and drawing apart, splashing softly into one another, flattening like small planes of glass.
I watched, transfixed, as Selena called the water into the air. Glancing down into the teacup, I realized it was now empty. Selena pulled my hands forward, laying them flat. “I’m going to let go,” she said, still focused on the levitating liquid. “And you’re going to take over.”
I gave a small nod, having no idea how to call to water, but willing to try.
“Don’t break eye contact. Feel the moisture in the air and let that connect you to the water that hovers before you.”
My fingers twitched. I had no idea what to feel for. Moisture in the air? Selena held the liquid for a moment more—and released it.
A static shock tingled in my fingertips, and the pocket of water dropped, dissolving into a shower of lifeless spray. It peppered my hands, hitting my forearms and bounding off my skin, flecking my chest and face with dull inaccuracy. Deflated, I glanced at Selena, ready to try again.
“Some Naiads can’t do it,” Selena said softly, immediately quashing my hopes. She laughed softly at the look of disappointment on my face. “Don’t worry, Maren. You will. With more than seventy full moons under your skin, I can feel your energy pulsing every time I see you in the morning, when the speculae run down my back. You are a force. You just need time.”