58. Maren
58
Maren
M y mouth parted, words echoing in my ears.
Tell me, little creature, what threat did Thaan of Safiro place on you that made you believe your only option was to sign away your life with your own blood?
Sidra’s eyes trickled over me as she lifted her chin, a proud queen unwilling to accept judgment. “The Safiro Videre was handsome and polite. He took an interest in me. All Naiads are selective of their mates, much more than any human. Humans fall in and out of love as quickly as the changing moons. Naiads do not have that flexibility.
“A Videre is even more discriminating than the average Naiad. We have more to consider than who to mate with for the remainder of our lives. We live for centuries, and we assume the responsibility of our people, which means we need to hoard every strength and skill we can. So, a Videre will only choose another Prizivac Vode for their mate, one who will also be blessed with long life and added strength upon taking blood offerings from their colony. And the one who visited chose me.
“Naiads don’t bother with things like dowries and negotiations. It was enough for my father that his blood would go on to begin a new line of Prizivac Vodes in another colony. So, I cordaed to him. Thaan of Safiro.”
“And you came here,” I said.
“He had been born here, in the Safiro Sea. He held a love for sea life. For all life. He taught me how to heal a torn fin or mend a cracked shell. How to cultivate the forests of coral and kelp. And, when a creature was past the point of healing, how to let them pass on.
“We had a daughter, Leibra. We tended to the oceans. The waters of Safiro were warm and beautiful, and I loved every creature to be found, raising life and bonding myself to the sea. The island of Nahli was close enough that I befriended the humans there. It was not unheard of, back then, for a Naiad to walk the beaches alongside humans. Like any creature in the sea, I considered the islanders my subjects. But Thaan took a special interest in the people who lived upon the sand.
“He thought that given the right amount of influence, he could control the islanders. Could use them to his advantage. The Videre of the Venusian Sea had finally grown old, even with all the blood offerings of his Domus , his life was running short. He selected his grandson as his successor.”
“Aegir,” I guessed.
Sidra shook her head. “Aegir’s great grandfather, Aethir.”
“Great-grandfather,” I repeated softly. “That would make you hundreds of years old.”
“Close to one thousand,” Sidra said, a tight smile on her lips. “Aegir himself is quite young for a Videre . He’s been alive only half a century.”
I sat back against the pool wall, suddenly feeling like one of the grain mills I used to see while riding in the carriage with Selena to the beach. Endlessly churning in a river, only able to graze the surface layer of water while the answers lay hidden in the murky bottom.
“Thaan believed that he could use the vulnerability of Aethir’s station to claim the Venusian Sea as his own. Those two were always so hopeful to invade the Siliqua Domus of the other. And Thaan thought he could use humans to do so. By gaining their trust, incanting them, leading them to their deaths below the sea by giving them Naiad air. They were grunts to him. Means to an end, and our Domus became divided as the male Naiads of Safiro agreed with his plan while the females withdrew.
“We watched, day after day, as our cordaed mates left the ocean, walking on land, fishing with human islanders, dining with them, sleeping in their houses and sharing their stories. We tended to the sea, as was our given duty, and they abandoned us, little by little, to gain the confidence of men .”
Sidra slid into the water, gracefully arching her back as she sank below the surface. She stayed for a few moments before she returned, lifting out of the pool, her lashes beaded with tiny drops.
“What happened?” I asked, watching the Naiad stand.
Sidra sighed through her nose, leaning forward into herself, her pride deflating into the water. “Our daughter, Leibra. She fell in love.” She went to the stairs, waiting for me to follow, waving the water from the silken fabric of her swath and back into the pool. I did the same.
“Leibra resisted her father’s efforts. She always defied him, and it frustrated him to no end, though I think Thaan secretly loved her all the more for it. Like the rest of the females, the thought of owning the minds of men to use as instruments in a Naiad war never sat well with her. But a sailor fell from his ship one day on his way to Nahli into a school of sharks, and she pulled him from the depths and brought him back to the surface, saving his life.” Piercing eyes flicked to me. “Something you might be familiar with.”
I watched her, revealing nothing, until she turned and continued. “We knew the islanders well, but we had never really trusted the sailors who came and went from Nahli enough to forge any friendships. But the man Leibra rescued was beautiful to her, and as she passed him to the reaching arms of his crew, she decided to follow his ship to the docks.
“They cordaed and spent the week together on the island, sealing their fates together, and when it came time for his ship to set sail, she left us to go with him. Thaan and I watched our legacy drift away, leaving her people and her heritage. Cordaeing with a human is a dangerous thing, for a Prizivac Vode .”
She paused, gently grasping my braid and running her fingers along it, zapping the moisture I hadn’t bothered to extract. The action was so motherly, so familiar that I froze, stunned. If Sidra noticed, she said nothing.
Our feet padded softly on the cool floor, the only sound other than our lungs and hearts. From behind her, I watched the curve of the Queen’s arm as she fiddled with the blue stone hanging from her chest.
“The ship returned three weeks later,” Sidra said slowly, not bothering to turn and face me as we passed the rooms of her Naiad subjects. “With Leibra’s body strapped below their prow.”
I stopped dead.
Sidra stopped too. She sighed, eyes trickling over the ceiling in the ballroom where the Naiads dined, one hand braced against the wall. “They killed her, and her new corda-cruor . You may know that sailors believe sirens to be lucky. They think a siren as their figurehead will calm the anger of the seas. They do not know that a Videre controls the whims of the sea, and the type of luck they hoped for never reached them. Her death brought them only ill fortune.”
“I'm sorry,” I murmured. I’d never quite mastered condolences. My hands felt heavy at my sides, a sensation I became aware of as I suddenly didn't know what to do with them. Ignoring that I hovered awkwardly in the passage, Sidra reached to press a hand to my cheek.
“We sank the ship,” she said softly, almost regretfully. Her palm smooth and soft against my skin, her dagger eyes held a wound long since cut open and never healed. “We pulled it apart from the keel, drinking in their screams, and when we dragged them below the sea, we did not use song or breath to quell their fear. We drowned them with our hands, every one of them. It was enough for me then, to simply fade into the waves and nurse my broken heart. But something changed in Thaan.
“He begged me for another child, and I refused. I didn't trust him to raise another heir for the sake of tending to the ocean. Of creating life to create life. We were all consumed with our hate, every one of us, but his ire delved deeper than skin and blood. He scorched his soul with his fury, and I could no longer give him what he asked of me.”
Turning the corner, Sidra began to climb the twin staircases, her long, delicate fingers sliding up the wall as she ascended.
“He became desperate, for what I still do not understand. He wanted the Venusian Sea, he wanted the island of Nahli, he wanted the minds of men to claim both and a bloodline to lend legend to his name. But he couldn't quite grasp any of it entirely. So, he did what no living soul should do. He sank into the depths where light does not touch the world and struck a deal with Darkness.”
My heart stopped.
To think the name of Pouli , or of Caecus, as Calderians called him, was abhorred. To say Darkness’s name out loud and in vain, a damnation. But to seek the third god out and strike a deal with him…
I’d signed my blood to a siren who had sold his soul to Darkness.
My breath grew tight, my skin sickeningly warm, a strange buzzing in my ears. “What did Thaan ask of him?”
At the top of the stairs, Sidra surveyed the dining ballroom, grand and empty. Her hand coasted down the wall, and I finally recognized what the carved patterns were. Tally marks. Thousands of them. Millions.
“Several things. The ability to shift his shape, I suspect. The fracture of our corda-cruor , I know for certain . ”
She slipped under the open archway, leaving me open-mouthed on the landing. Incredulously, I stepped under the archway after her.
“Naiads must die for their corda-cruor to break.”
“It is true, and it is untrue,” Sidra said, gliding down the passage of cool stone. The spiky plants lined either side the same way sconces framed the corridors of Laurier Palace. “In all of existence, there is no other pair of Naiads that I have ever known, to have had their corda broken while they both draw breath. He struck a bargain with the third spirit, Caecus, while I sat in this room, tending to the sick.”
She turned suddenly, meeting my eyes with a penetrating gaze, rooting me to the spot. “I felt it break,” the Queen said. “It snapped like a tendon in my flesh, and I was brought to my knees with the agony of it.
“Right away, I understood what had happened. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew he had broken the sacred tether between our souls.” Pausing outside an open entryway, she tilted her head. “I lost control. I had never done so before, and I’ve never since. A rage consumed me under the thrill of pain, and I submitted to it. Most of my female Naiads were safe, hidden in this colony. But the males were on Nahli, where I believed Thaan to be as well. And that’s where the force of my anger unraveled. The island cracked and shifted all the way down to the sea floor, opening chasms in the crust of the world.
“There have always been volcanoes surrounding Nahli, but that day, the mountains broke open and liquid fire rained. The world shredded under the mercy of my pain, my fury, and I was too far gone to stop. I was magma given life; I was brimstone set aflame. I buried the island, entombing the people who I’d long since considered my subjects, my friends. I killed the male Naiads of our colony who were on the surface with the islanders, and when I realized what I had done, it was too late. I rose to the waves, helplessly watching alongside my females as the magma rolled and hardened, their own cordaes lost to them. Thaan found us there, and I thought he’d be angry at what I’d done. But he watched the island melt and burn with deadened eyes, with all the feeling of a corpse. I looked at him, and knew my mate was gone. The Naiad I once loved no longer resided in his body. He was something else, and he would never come back to me.”
“You’re Nahli,” I said, the myth surrounding Neris Island coming to life as Sidra’s story unfolded.
Sidra inhaled, pausing for a moment as she opened her mouth. “And Inaina, yes. The tale was woven into two women, but they were both me. A wife betrayed by her husband, a fire-spirit longing for her child.”
I didn’t answer. It had been a long time since I’d thought about the legend of Nahli and Inaina. She promised if men walked her island, she would drown them. If women walked their island, she would bury them under molten rock. And if a child were to set foot on her beach, she would steal it and raise it as her own.
Kye had almost drowned on the banks of Neris Island, I remembered with a shudder.
Waving a soft hand through another entrance, Sidra waited as I stepped through first. The chamber was massive, the floor receding into water only a few steps in. Ahead, shallow pools were cradled in the stone, various sizes and depths, joined at the edges to allow movement from one to another. A kingdom of sea life spread across the bottom. Coral in every shade and hue, sponges, snails, fish in schools, zigzagging through the water. Three Naiads glanced at us as we entered, closing their hands and bowing their chins at their queen.
“This is our nursery,” Sidra said. “We prefer to keep creatures in the sea, but those that need special care are brought here.”
I surveyed the room. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but I couldn’t pull myself from Sidra’s story to appreciate it. Apprehension flickered at the burning question in my chest, but I forced myself to ask anyway. “What did Thaan give to Darkness in return?”
Sidra’s silver eyes drifted back to the tunnel, and she gestured for me to come as she stepped out. “To Darkness? Caecus will only give you power for that which makes you weak. In his arrogance, Thaan gave up the one thing that might have saved him. The one thing we share, as Naiads, with the other souls of the world. He gave his humanity.”
The queen tilted her head, as if taking time to formulate her thoughts before putting them into spoken word.
“I do not fully know the repercussions of such a trade. I would guess he became cold and unfeeling. That it became easier for him to use other Naiads and humans for his own games. I would also assume it stripped him of his ability to love, to create life. But I do not know for certain. We were punished by Theia.”
Studying the tallies scored across the walls as we walked, my eyes flickered sidelong to Sidra. Theia— Mihauna —Goddess of the Moon, Mother of the Sea, Ruler of the Afterworld of Perpetuum, had come down from her throne in the sky to serve her own sense of justice.
Sidra raised her chin, catching my gaze with silent confirmation. “You were quite young when I taught you the Triad. The Power of Three. Everything worth anything will happen in threes, and the gods are no different. Aalto the Sun, Theia the Moon, Caecus the Dark. Long ago, eons before my time, Theia entrusted Naiads with the power to bond to the land, the sea, and the creatures within. And we had broken that trust, Thaan and I. We destroyed a civilization with our hate. She separated us like children, and to ensure we never met again, she stripped us bare.”
Sidra drew her sleek white hair over one shoulder. Three pale lines marked the hollow under her ears, like a triple-clawed hand had slashed her skin and left it to scar. “From me, she took the ability to use my lungs, giving me gills instead. I can leave the water here, in the humidity of the colony, where the air is thick with warmth and moisture. With pools of water in almost every room if I need a dip. But I can never leave the sea. I cannot rise above the surface for more than a minute, and it burns when I breathe any oxygen under the sun.”
“And from Thaan?” I asked, gazing at her gills.
“From Thaan, Theia took his tail. She couldn’t take everything, I suppose. Not his abilities, nor whatever he had gained from his bargain with Caecus. Theia’s powers are beautiful and terrible, but even she cannot change a body enough to mend a broken soul. I cannot enter the land, and Thaan cannot enter the sea.”
The passage climbed, steep and narrow, and I trudged after Sidra in heavy thought. Thaan couldn’t enter water. Did Selena know?
“She placed my crystal, the Breath of Safiro, in the center of Nahli, under a sheet of ice,” Sidra said, interrupting my thoughts. My attention flitted to the queen, who regarded me with slow contemplation. “Where she put his, I do not know.”
My steps slowed. “His crystal?”
Sidra nodded. “The Scale of Safiro. Thaan knows its location, though like me, he cannot reach it himself. We needed our stones to heal what we had lost, though I worry I’m too far gone to regain my lungs now. I’ve worn this crystal since the day you emerged from the volcano, and I still choke on the oxygen above.
“Only one Naiad could break the ice and claim the stone. A Child of the Moon. I had thought, when your mother came, that it was her.”