52. Maren
52
Maren
S hock led me back to Selena’s rooms as numb as a vacous .
She placed me on her couch, fighting back tears, then walked to retrieve something from her shelves. A pretty little book, the spine pristine, the pages so crisp it might have never been opened. But it had.
My heart sped as she laid it in my fingers. I knew this book. I’d learned to read from this book. But my version had been in tatters, so delicate I’d grown afraid of even lifting a page. This one was whole. Its canvas cover was glossy and hard from varnish, as though it had been bound only the day before. Selena’s own heart pounded as she opened it for me.
To Senna,
Happy birthday. May the filth on these pages keep you up on the nights that Pheolix does not.
Love, Cebrinne
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Senna.”
She smiled briefly, as though she hadn’t heard the name in years. “Yes. Senna and Ceba. Selena and Cebrinne. We were born on the island of Cypria to a single mother who was shunned for our existence. Thaan was the first Naiad I’d ever met.” She sighed, sitting beside me. “He found me on the pier, and I remember that first cold shiver that whisked down my spine. He didn’t look or act then the way you know him to now,” she said slowly, a slight frown separating her brows. “He was strong and tall and handsome. He walked me home and I watched a light glow in my mother’s eyes for the first time in my life.
“Ceba hated him right away, but she hated everyone. His ship left without him, and he stayed to court my mother. I was happy for her. Happy for all of us. Ceba and I fought over whether he was good enough for our mother, but even she couldn’t argue that our mother had fallen for him. A couple months after we arrived, Thaan said he planned to ask her to marry him down by the water and wanted us there to witness it. To celebrate. That he’d left a note for her. And told us she’d be close behind. So, we followed him down to the docks, and then he pushed us into the water.
“And that was your first transition? Thaan forced it on you, the way that Sidra tried to do for me?”
She nodded. “They were waiting for us in the water. Thaan's Domus . All so young. Like us. I imagine Thaan had done the same to them. Found them just starting life, the door to their transition almost closed. Roamed port to port for human-born Naiads without a colony to protect them, who didn’t know siren blood ran in their veins, waiting for his spiculae to trickle down his back whenever he saw one. Stealing them from their homes.”
My brows twinged. “You said he made an agreement with the Naiad colony that took you.”
“He did. Much like your agreement with him.”
I scoffed, my throat catching at the sound. “That’s a loose way of putting it.”
“The Siliqua Domus in Cyprian waters was a small one. Fragile and in need of Naiads. As a gift for letting us transition in their water, Thaan offered his little group of us to their Videre . Ceba struggled with it. The colony, the way we’d been tricked. We knew the night he planned to attack their Domus and take it for himself.
“We’d been warned to stay back and do nothing. That if we joined, we’d be killed. We’d both made small friendships with the Naiads there by then. And when we watched them die and didn’t do a thing to help…” She closed her eyes. “It carved a wound into my soul. A hole I always hoped one day would fill. But I think it was different for her. It didn’t carve anything from her. It soaked into her instead. Filled her with acid, corroding her like a cancer slowly takes a heart. And when she signed her contract with Thaan, she didn’t realize how final it was. Neither of us did. She thought she could betray him the way he betrayed us, and when she realized she couldn’t, that corrosion in her only festered.
“I don't think she ever forgave herself for the fact that she’d distrusted Thaan from the start, and he’d still tricked her. The fire she had—I see it in you. I’ve seen it in you since the day we met.”
My tongue stuck to the hard palate of my mouth. I swallowed again, trailing my mother’s scrawl across the inside of the cover. “Who is Pheolix?”
Selena shook her head, pain laced in her eyes.
“My mother had this same book.”
“I know. I gave it to her.”
I slowly turned the pages. “It was inscribed to Alana.”
Selena sighed, then nodded.
I glanced at her. “She knew she was going to run from Thaan? She made up a name for herself first?”
“She studied the registrars for a common Leihaniian name. One that would pass under an inspection of the yearly census, in case he ever looked.”
I frowned. "She didn't do the same for me. My name isn't Leihaniian."
Selena smiled softly. "Maybe she wanted something familiar-sounding to remind her of home." She leaned into the cushions of her backrest, studying the open book in my hands. “We always gave each other the same gift. Every birthday, every solstice. We would believe that we’d discovered the most unique item in the world, something the other could never come up with. But somehow, we always surprised ourselves.” Her eyes flicked to mine, and she reached for one of the lazy curls that hung from my head. “My message to Alana inside was my blessing to leave. To go to Leihani.”
All the years of my childhood, wondering where my mother had come from. Wondering where I had come from. They washed over me slowly, trickling like rain in a forest. Damp and cold, but utterly clean.
“Does Thaan know that I’m Ceba’s daughter?”
“He knew instantly.”
“How? Do I look like her?” I’m sure the question was borne deep in my inner conscious. The girl who had waited for the sun to set against the tide pools, offering just enough reflection to almost see herself in the water. Now I looked at Selena from a new perspective. Twins . “Did she look like you ?”
Selena returned the lock of hair to my shoulder. “I see pieces of her in you,” she said softly. “But you’re your own being, Maren. And we weren’t identical. But yes. She and I caused plenty of mischief in our younger years, aided by the fact that we resembled each other so closely.”
I placed the book on her table. “My uncle Naheso tore out all the scenes where the characters made love.” A quick flash lit at the words. I’d never realized how hurt I’d been that he’d done it. Destroyed the only piece of my mother I owned.
Selena offered a quiet mmm . “You can take it, if you want it.”
I glanced up, a tiny thrill running through me. “But it’s yours. She gave it to you.”
Blue eyes twinkled. “I have plenty of things she gave me.”
The note in her voice etched another raw slice in my throat. I gazed down at the book. “Thank you. I always wished I had more of her things.”
“You have a few.” Selena propped her chin into her hand. “The hairbrush and jewelry box I gave you were hers. And the mirror. And the juniper tree.”
“I wish you’d told me,” I said, still gazing at the book. I’d been angry at her for giving them to me at the time. Determined not to be bought by gifts.
“Me, too,” she murmured. “When you came here in Taurennos , I considered it. But I knew you held no trust in me. And when I began to feel small flickers of trust building…” She gave the smallest shrug. “I was too afraid to lose it. I’m sorry, Maren. For choosing myself over you.”
I shook my head, her apology unnecessary. We sat in silence for a moment, listening to the roll of the ocean outside her window. “Why did she choose Leihani? Was it because of the stone?”
“How do you…” Selena’s mouth opened; her dark brows gently furrowed as her eyes shot to me, clarity suddenly ringing in their depths. “ You took my notebook.”
I offered a tight smile.
She sat up straight. “I’ve been searching everywhere for it. I thought I’d lost it. Where is it now?”
“Still at Cynthus Castle, probably,” I said apologetically.
Selena deflated with a short huff. Then, eyes trained forward, she frowned. “It’s written in code. How do you know about the stone?”
I chewed on my lip long enough to earn an impatient glance from her. “Prince Hadrian translated it.”
“Prince Ha—” She cut herself off to fix me with another incredulous glare. “Does he know you’re a Naiad?
“No.”
“Does he know I’m one?”
“No. He only worked out the alphabet enough to translate a single sentence. About your sister.”
Her gaze softened by a fraction. “Ceba and I made that alphabet up to keep things from Thaan. How did he translate it?”
“Honestly,” I sighed, wrapping my arms around my knees, “I have no idea.”
She harumphed . “That prince is too clever for his own good.” Her eyes shifted to me. “And where is your prince?”
“Pissed off that I abandoned him and on his way here, I’m sure.” She raised her brows as I dropped into an uncomfortable silence.
The moon will be full in three days. Cordae with one and kill the other.
“I should go,” I said, slowly rising from Selena’s couch. “I have things to plan.”
She watched me straighten, then pushed to her own feet. “Anything I can help you with?”
“No.” I met her eyes with a small smile. “Thank you for the book.”
Selena offered one back. “You’re welcome, niece.”
Something small and warm and bright squirmed inside my stomach at hearing the word, even under all the weight of what I had to do. She walked me to her door, and I felt her eyes on me as I passed through it, the perfect little book cradled in my hands.