51. Maren
51
Maren
O ur caravan angled west towards the coast until the salty air of the sea bathed us in cool currents, and then it was a straight shot down to the tip of the continent where Calder City waited.
Landmarks became familiar. The red cliffs I knew by heart from my visits to the Venusian Sea breathed me in, and then the farms and fields, followed by the pine forest that wrapped around the palace. As I passed the first layer of trees, the tallest towers came into view. A few Winterlight guards behind me gasped; I wondered if they’d never seen it before.
I’d festered on the road, unable to speak, walk, or even scratch an itch without Thaan telling me to. He surprised me as the palace emerged from the leaves overhead, gaunt and tired from an eleven-day ride.
“I have things to take care of,” he said. “I think it wise to move up our timetable for the crowned prince. Your husband will likely arrive tomorrow. The moon will be full in three days. Cordae with one and kill the other. I don’t care how. Selena will be expecting you. For now, I release you.”
His tone offered something adjacent to the words, don’t make me regret it. He made to swing away, but I spun to glare at him fully, skin flared from the sudden burst of energy that came striking back into my flesh after being strapped down so long. Heat blazed across my temple. My hands shook with furious adrenaline. The burn of it zipped through my body, poison leaching from the unexpected freedom in my bones.
“Why me ?” I shot at him. “Why not incant some human to do it? I understand why I married Nikolaos. That you’ll use me as a Calderian queen. I hate that I understand it, but I do. Why must I kill Hadrian?”
Thaan smiled. He angled his head, as inviting me to join a secret. “Because an incanted human wouldn’t remember. They wouldn’t care what they’d done the next day. But killing an innocent man, the brother of your cordae … that is something you will never be able to strip from your conscience.”
“So, there’s no true reason, other than to hurt me,” I snarled.
Thaan smiled coldly. “You want to fight with something stronger than a stick? Abandon your unnecessary emotions, Maren. There is too much human in your heart. Corda-cruor to Nikolaos or not, you have no reason to grieve Hadrian once he is dead.”
“No reason other than my soul,” I spat.
His lips twitched. “That, too, is something you will have to trade if you ever want to fight.”
He left me scowling, hot cinders glowing in my belly. Hoofbeats approached from behind me, and I didn’t turn to see who they belonged to, though instinct informed me well enough. I leaned forward in my saddle instead, letting Kolibri sense my impatience. She shot down the road, an arrow loosed from a bow.
The shouts of men fell behind as Kolibri’s hooves crunched over gravel.
She split the world in half, throwing the fir trees into a hurricane of black and green, and though my eyes watered and wind licked down my dress, I tilted my weight hard in my stirrups and leaned forward, chasing the malice that waited for me within glass walls.
I knocked on Selena’s door, holding my breath as footsteps came from the other side. It opened, and there she stood, long and graceful, woven with beauty. Her eyes widened when she saw me. I made to step inside, but Selena lifted a hand, stopping me from coming closer.
Knowing she was listening for the presence of beating hearts nearby, I strained to hear as well. But nothing met our ears save for distant wind and tide.
“Until the ocean dries up,” she said softly, as if she didn’t trust the strength in her own voice.
It took a moment for me to remember the words she’d tasked me to memorize months before. “Until the moon burns out.”
Selena’s body deflated with an exhale, her chest going concave with the force of air she expelled. She straightened, tucking her long sable locks behind her ears and offering me a smile too watery for her elegant face. “I prayed to Theia every night. All night long during the full moon.”
“Thank you,” I said. I was done wasting time—the two months I’d lost had been agonizing enough.
As I crossed the room, Selena held out an graceful hand for me. Surprise widened her eyes when I took it willingly, and she reached out to smooth my hair.
“I would have never forgiven myself if something had happened to you. After we left things with so much unsaid.”
“No more secrets,” I replied. Selena swallowed, drawing a long breath, and cautiously nodded.
“If I ask you a question, you can't lie. You can't give me half-truths.”
Her gaze narrowed on me, full of sharp focus. She looked as though she might have argued, or at least wanted to. But she nodded again, the lines in her face hardening as though steeling herself for what was to come. “What do you want to know?”
“Are you cordaed to Thaan?”
A moment of stunned silence passed between us. Selena opened her mouth and closed it, cerulean eyes deflecting to the floor. Her hand slid from mine, crossing over her chest.
“Where did you hear that?” the Naiad asked carefully.
“From Thaan,” I answered, not bothering to mention he’d been speaking privately to Selena when I’d heard it months ago. “Answer the question.”
Selena shook her head. “It's complicated.”
“Yes or no.”
“ No ,” Selena breathed, taking a step away. “No. Never. By the sun and moon and all the stars that sing in the sky, I swear to you, I am not.”
“You'd swear on your blood?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat at voicing the open challenge.
Selena merely stared at me, all feeling washed from her face. The last words she’d spoken to me echoed in my ears.
Naiads have killed themselves swearing oaths they cannot keep. A Naiad’s body will answer above all to their own word of honor, and once you speak the words, you cannot take them back .
But I waited, unaffected by the intensity of Selena’s burning eyes. My mentor had once told me she’d refused to sign a contract with Thaan. She was a free Naiad, unburdened by loyalty to any Domus , and for all I knew, Selena had never given a drop of her own blood to any other Naiad before.
I knew what I was asking of her. I knew the position I forced her into—the stakes that waited if she lied. I knew it was unfair.
But I drew the line anyway. I had to know where Selena stood. Everything that came next hinged on her answer. Every question, every decision, every future word.
Turning on her heel, Selena drifted into her kitchenette. She calmly opened a drawer and withdrew a knife. Her long fingers curved around the smooth wooden handle. Holding her hand upright, she drew the blade across the fleshy pad below her thumb, observing as her blood slowly pooled in the center of her palm.
I leaned into her side, watching alongside her. Selena made no move. She waited as her blood welled. I wondered vaguely if there was a time limit to such things. If blood had to be fresh, or if Selena could perhaps trick her own blood into a false vow by simply waiting—
As if gathering her resolve, Selena dragged her palm down her opposite arm. It smeared, red and shiny, and her hands began to shake.
“I swear on my blood I am not corda-cruor to Thaan,” she said, tilting her chin high and haughty, daring her own blood to disagree. A flash of white forced me to squint my eyes, and when Selena gritted her teeth, I knew it was because her blood had heated over her skin.
She stared at her arm in quiet disbelief, as though she hadn't completely expected to survive the vow. Dropping the knife into the little sink, she bit back a shudder and turned on me, her eyes suddenly waxy.
“There you go,” she said, taking the clean cloth I held out to her and pressing it into her bleeding hand. “If you're thoroughly finished testing the boundaries of my—”
Without waiting for her to finish, I pulled Captain Kriska’s letter from under my neckline. Selena’s gaze fastened on it at once, her words dying on her tongue as she took it from me and opened it to read.
“It’s in Rivean,” the Naiad murmured, eyes flitting left and right as she read each line.
“I know,” I said, watching her carefully.
“You do?” Selena darted a look at her. “You can read Rivean?”
“Kye can.” Something flickered in Selena’s gaze, a twitch in her brows, a sharpness in her eyes. “Prince Nikolaos,” I amended.
“You can use his family nickname.” Her eyes returned to the top to reread the entirety of the missive. “You are married. This is a bounty note." I gently took it from her hands, folding the parchment into thirds and setting my finger under the wax seal. Thoughts wavered behind Selena’s eyes as realization dawned and thickened into burgeoning metallic heat I could taste in the air.
But Selena didn’t say anything. She simply stared at the destroyed red tentacles, reaching and poking at all angles of the hardened wax.
“He sent one to Thaan as well,” I said.
“He did?” Selena lifted the letter in question.
My chin dropped an inch. “Thaan didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
I stifled the urge to make her swear that, too. “Aegir referred to me as a weapon.”
I left the question unsaid. Selena stared back at me, mouth slightly parted.
“I deserve to know,” I said quietly, after it became clear she wouldn’t offer me anything I didn’t ask for first. “According to you, Thaan has a colony of Naiads at his disposal. I’ve only met you. He has a colony he can pick and choose from, yet he forced me from the islands. Me. I didn’t even know I was a Naiad. He’s filled my wardrobe, forced me into lessons, married me to a prince of Calder. There’s a reason why, Selena. I deserve to know.”
“There is. There is a reason why. You do deserve to know.”
I crossed my arms, impeding the tremor in my hands brought by the bite of fierce impatience. “Then, tell me.”
She shook her head. “Some things I can’t—”
I plucked the missive from her hand, turned on my heel, and left.
Selena bounded after me. She stopped me in the hall beside her dancing crane, a hand grasping my arm. “Maren.” She closed her eyes, mustering her forces. “Your mother was my twin.”