65. Maren
65
Maren
T he clash echoed through the water, jarring in my ears, and I searched for the source of the sound through the roving, lacey sea vines. At the top of the stairs, Thaan leaned over the edge of the lid, looping an iron chain through the latch.
I’d drifted to the floor in my sleep, but I dashed to the surface as he climbed down a stair to peer inside. Water splashed violently as I wrenched on the lid, pushing and shoving—but he’d locked it tight. Six inches of air separated the steel casing above from the salty water around my chin, barely enough to keep my head above the surface.
“I thought to forgive you when reports came that you’d been captured by pirates,” Thaan’s voice sounded foggy and distant. He watched me twist and turn the way he might scrutinize at a dead snake in the grass, nothing to be done but leave it for birds to pick at. “But sneaking from the palace in the middle of the night is something that cannot be condoned.”
My palm pointed toward the lid, and I blasted water at it. But my attack was little more than a leak through a clogged pipe, thin and sputtering, and left my body trembling from the effort. The taste of rust flowed from the back of my mouth; a drop of blood streamed from my nose. Strength deserted my bones, and I fell under the surface, unable to paddle back up.
Thaan inhaled with agitation, waving his fingers and calling to the water to pull me toward air. “Whatever you have done to wear yourself—"
“I went to Cynthus Castle to gather the things I left behind,” I spat, the words echoing strangely as I wiped wet hair from my face. My breath caught at the sight of his eyes; the icy-blue center ringed by haggard black. Irises coming apart at the seams. Cracks had formed along the planes of his cheeks, raw gashes where smile lines should have laid instead, his creased forehead and crow’s feet scarlet and deep.
Shield weed covered me like a shroud of green, and I sneaked my hand to my chest, wrapping it around the stone. Yanking it slowly free. Then dropped it, feeling it plink to the bottom of the tank, and denied myself the urge to look down at it to ensure it was hidden.
Thaan’s chin tipped impatiently toward the ceiling as he gazed down at me, using his watery grip to turn me back and forth. “I don’t think so. Not the Royal Family’s benign private castle. Not with the way you look right now. And not without your husband.” His eyes roamed my naked skin, and I shifted away from his stare, crossing my arms over my chest and curling my pale-gold tail in front of my body for extra measure. He didn’t examine me with lust, but something about his bored, haughty eyes delved into my flesh. Fleas crawling along my skin, biting and stinging. Urging me to shudder his gaze away.
Hands gripping the edge of the lid, he leaned in so close he almost touched the algae-stained glass, then stopped. His head tilted, eyes drifting toward the door to Selena’s apartment. “Is his the heart beating outside in the hall?”
My mouth parted as I suddenly focused on the sounds nearby, but before I could speak, he turned to Cain. “Bring him in here.”
I snarled through the glass. Thaan glanced at me as though I were an afterthought.
Would Kye think of looking for me in Selena’s apartment? The entrance to Thaan’s apartment sat in a hallway separate from Selena’s. Wherever Thaan had come from, he wouldn’t have passed by her door. I tried to listen. To hear whatever sound Thaan heard. I’d have recognized it instantly if it were Kye’s. I knew his heart.
But the glass was so thick, it devoured all the distant noises of the palace, leaving me in auditory exile. Cain turned toward the door leading through Selena’s apartment and a surge of terror flooded my thoughts. I held no misconceptions that Thaan would hurt Kye to punish me.
Taunt him. Delay him. Distract him. I scoured my arsenal for a barbed word to shove into Thaan’s hide. I’d infuriated him once—enough to make him slap me—by demanding to know who he was. What chord had that struck, and how could I do it again?
Cain reached for the doorknob.
“What is it like, bartering your soul to Darkness?” I said, twisting my neck so my mouth was free of the water and my eyes could track him as he descended the stairs. Thaan sent me a withering glance from over his shoulder. Cain paused as well, one hand on the door as he adjusted his glasses. I swallowed, pushing out of Thaan’s water-grip, and he let me force it away, an odd flicker in his cursed eyes. “What’s it like, living life as a walking corpse? You deteriorate more every time I see you. I don’t think I’ll have to wait for the King to pass on. You’ll end our contract just by dying.”
“Will I?” he asked, his voice wrapped in boredom. But his scent told another story. Metallic and acrid, even through the iron of the lid. He turned away, Cain as well, and I splayed one hand wide, banging my fist with the other, though it made me flag under the surface again. “Bringing another stick into battle, Maren? You’ll have to be more creative than that. I’ve been accused of making deals with the foulest of creatures since before you were sired by your mouth-breather father. You’re not the first to jest at my supposed dealings with Darkness.”
“Fine,” I said breathlessly. “We’ll talk about your hatred for humans instead, and how it grew after they murdered Leibra.”
Thaan’s head tipped slowly to the side in an unearthly slant. He rounded on his heel, the motion ice-cold and threatening, and sent me a penetrating look. Long and venomous. “Where did you hear that?”
I swallowed, tightening my fist, ignoring the prickles in my flesh under his stare. “Enough that you led your cordae to destroy an entire island.”
He turned fully, taking a step toward the glass.
“By inciting a trade with Caecus,” I finished.
Inches from my face, Thaan’s eyes delved into mine. “You visited her. The Sea Witch.” His lip curled. “You little fool. Do you realize what you’ve done?” In the doorway, Cain hadn’t moved, watching us both with a stare drenched in cold and cloying revulsion.
My breath fogged the pane. “Was it worth it? Exchanging your humanity when you could have grieved with your mate instead? When you could have let go of your hate enough that she’d welcome another child with you?”
“How ironic that you would speak to me of hate, knowing that’s the one thing that drives your blood into action.” His eyes flickered, his white pupils fracturing against the raw void of his dark irises. “That’s the one thing we have in common, you and I. I hate the world, and so do you.”
“I do not hate the world.”
He smiled slowly, the skin across his cheeks ripping as he did. “You will. It’s in your blood, Maren. Look at your mother—”
“Don’t speak to me about my mother.”
He laughed, though the sound was more like choking. “She harbored so much hate she destroyed herself. Hate is inevitable for Naiads like us. You and I. Those who have had everything stripped from them, one thread of happiness at a time.”
I shook my head, squaring my shoulders. My nostrils flared. “You were born a Prizivac Vode . A prince among sirens. You inherited the most beautiful waters in the world. You cordaed with the Naiad of your choice. Your friends existed on land and at sea. If anyone stripped you of your happiness, it was yourself.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.” I smiled. “You’re alone, Thaan. You live alone and you’ll die alone. No one loves you, least of all the people you keep so close. Me or Selena.”
He vibrated in front of me, teeth clenched, one fist flexing and relaxing as though he wanted to wrap it around my throat.
And then a knock came from Selena’s door.
Our three heads swiveled toward the sound.
“Maren?” came a voice from the other side. Selena.
Thaan glanced at Cain. “Lock that door. Go the long way around and get the boy.”
A handsbreadth away from Selena’s office door, Cain obeyed, turning the latch and crossing the floor to vanish into his own apartment.
My heart crumpled into a terrified mass of wings and feathers, a tiny bird suddenly batting against the windows of my body, searching for an escape. I transitioned back to human, watching Thaan back away, staring at me as he waited, and without the strong tread of my tail, my mouth dipped below the water.
The thought of Kye alone in this room with Thaan drove any semblance of composure from my body. Angry at being forced to kick, my ankle throbbed as I threw my chin above the surface. The air seemed warmer than the last time I’d come up for breath, the oxygen thinner. “He can’t be incanted,” I huffed, my words spraying seawater and dripping acid. One last attempt at convincing Thaan that Kye wasn’t worth his time. “Anything he sees, he will remember.”
“We’ll see,” Thaan said. “You’ve lied enough that I second guess everything you say.”
“If you hurt him, I will kill you.” I fell under the surface again, forcing myself back up. “I’ll kill you slowly and painfully. I’ll open your veins and empty you of your life drop by drop. I'll carve your ribs from your back and splay them wide like wings of bone.”
Thaan flicked his eyes to mine. “Do not try and play macabre with me, Maren, it really doesn’t suit you.”
“I will burn this palace to the ground just to make sure you’re dead, and when Caecus comes for your ashes, I’ll tell him there were none, so that you may spend eternity searching for a way to score up with Darkness just so you can cross the Sea of Stars to Perpetuum.”
Thaan frowned slightly. His mouth thinned, then pursed. “Odd.”
I glared at him through the glass, unwilling to take his bait.
“Your blood owes its loyalty to me. You shouldn’t be able to threaten my life.”
My mouth opened, my jaw hovering in the air. “I have before.”
“You’ve said when you are queen, I’ll be the first you order to die. You’ve never said the words I’ll kill you .”
We stared at each other, the soft splashing from my kicks the only thing left to hear as my breath left my body. My heart rolled to a stop, my hands both spread across the glass.
“Maren?” Selena asked again, louder. We knew she’d heard every word between us, but neither of us bothered to answer her. Thaan rubbed his mouth slowly with a hand. He shifted, walking toward me again, eyes now traveling over me in a way that sent a shiver streaking down my spinal column.
My throat closed. I suddenly wished I could snatch the words back. But there they hung, somewhere beyond the glass wall that separated us. Out of my reach. It hadn’t mattered that I’d entered the palace with my own mental fortress stacked tall and proud. In less than a day, in mere hours, Thaan had tunneled under my walls and discovered I’d thwarted my own vow. My own blood. There was no way to pretend he hadn’t heard my threat. Nothing left to do but dig in myself.
I lowered my chin. “Well, I will. If you hurt him, I will kill you. I promise.”
“I understand.” He stopped a few feet away. “Maren of Leihani, I call to your blood.”
I waited for my skin to harden into a shell, just in case I hadn't really become Queen of the Juile Sea. For the pain of his voice inside my head to reverberate through my mind. For my body to move in all the ways I didn’t tell it to. But there was no way to pretend that he could do that, either.
Thaan gave a single, cold laugh. “My Queen,” he said. “I hope you’re comfortable here. You’ve just changed the entire game. I no longer need you to bond to the boy. I no longer need Calder. The only thing I need now—“ He pulled in close, both hands on the glass. The sun lifted from the eastern horizon. Silky strands of light fell through the window, tumbling across the water. “Is a single drop of your blo—”
Thaan’s voice extinguished in midair as his eyes fell to the bottom of my glass box. Where something blue now sparkled in the sunlight.