66. Kye
66
Kye
" S he’s this way,” Thaan’s little scribe said.
Arms crossed, shoulder blades and foot planted against the wall, I shot him a heated stare. “ Who is?”
We both knew who the fuck he referred to. I’d been waiting for Maren for three days. Waiting to rage and scold and vent and check every inch of her to make sure she’d returned in one piece. I’d thought I’d seen her climb from the cliffs an hour ago, just before the sun came up. And I’d intended to meet her halfway to my tower, bounding down the stairs two at a time and burning with anger and relief. But I’d walked the entire route from my rooms to the rocks overlooking the sea and hadn’t found her.
I’d gone back. Tried a different direction. Then another. And then found myself here, nothing to do but wait and spin my wedding band in endless circles around my finger, the flames of my anger spent. Smothered by the same ruinous worry that had banished anything resembling calm thoughts from my sun-damned body while scanning the Brána Do Podsvetia.
Cain pointed sharply at my baldric. “Leave that here.”
I gnashed my teeth together, unbuckling the sword and sheathe from my back, tossing it away from myself without looking at it. It hit Selena’s wall with a dull thud, but I was already following Cain down the main corridor.
I’d never studied the man before. I’d never really had the chance to. Thaan’s little silent shadow. His master had always commanded a room with those creepy fucking eyes and his bored, haughty stature. People avoided Thaan because he made their skin writhe, but no one ever gave Cain a second glance.
He was thin. Stringy, but not in a weak way. He walked with more confidence than I’d ever noticed without Thaan to soak up all the air in the room, his short-cropped hair out of vogue with what the lords at court preferred and his glasses round and thick. His clothes were likewise unassuming, not the attire of a commoner but certainly not that of a high society prick, and I wondered why Thaan dressed Selena and Maren so lavishly and left Cain in clothes so plain they rendered him nearly forgettable.
We rounded the corner, and I realized he was taking me through Thaan’s rooms. My back suddenly felt too light without the comforting weight of steel within reach of my fingers. Alarms rang through my head. I flexed my hands, straining to control the sudden shake in them.
What was Maren doing in Thaan’s rooms? Cain led me through the most dour fucking living area I’d ever stepped foot in—a feat for any space in a palace carved from glass—and opened the door to what I was sure was a shared study if I knew the layout of this wing well enough, although all I could see inside were blue patterns floating across the ceiling and walls.
In the doorway ahead, Thaan blocked my entrance.
“Out of my fucking way,” I said.
He brought the fingertips of both hands together. “I beg your pardon?”
“Then beg.”
The smile that earned from him only left me more impatient. I shoved past, leaving him to stand in the doorway, and my eyes immediately narrowed on a black dress folded on top of a small desk, though as I crossed the threshold the sight of an enormous tank came into view. It took up the entire wall, almost as tall as the ceiling, the water inside a lusterless green, but I recognized the seaweed that grew in abundance inside, a forest so shifty and thick I could barely see the window behind the glass. Dawn illuminated the aquatic plants, leaving their outlines fuzzy with light, and a face appeared through the long leaves. Under the water line.
I locked into those eyes like a hawk driving toward its prey, precise and unerring, cutting through the distance of the room with talons wide and ready to fight.
“What in Aalto’s fucking name,” I murmured, stalking to the glass. Thaan’s voice trailed me in quiet song, not with words I could identify, a series of notes and tunes that send goosebumps over my flesh.
An arm, a knee, a hand. Parts of Maren’s body emerged between the cloud of seaweed, unmistakably naked, but it was the few inches of air between the lid and the water that stopped my heart, and I stormed to the stairs to inspect the lock on the lid as she swam up to meet me.
“It’s secured,” I heard her say. I ducked down to find her pointing to the chain in the iron lid.
“How long has she been in here?” The chain clanked as I turned it in my shaking fingers then wrenched back around to glare at Thaan. “Get. Her. Out.”
The man didn’t respond. He watched her, the shadow of a smile on his fucking face. “You gave your human husband shield weed?”
“I warned you that I did,” she seethed back at him before her head dropped underwater. Something about her wasn’t right. Maren usually shifted like a wraith in the water, but her movements seemed stunted now. Choppy and aimless. She bared her teeth as she pushed back up to the surface, though I couldn’t tell if it was in anger toward Thaan or the grin of a pain ignored.
“Fool,” Thaan spat.
I pushed off the top stair, landing on my feet and streaking to Thaan, fist cocked. “Open the lock.”
Thaan’s eyes never left hers. “Selena,” he called.
I grabbed him by the front of his fucking tunic. “Get her out.”
“Yes,” said a breathless female voice behind the closed door across from us.
His brows tightened. “Why would Maren visit the Sea Witch?”
Silence came from Selena's quarters. Behind me, Cain stepped from the room, shutting his own door. The lock tumbled in my ears as he turned it, leaving Thaan alone with me.
“Can you hear from behind that door?” Thaan asked, and I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to Cain or Selena. “I want to make sure you’re paying close—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. My fist slammed into his mouth with an audible crunch, and for a moment, life left his eyes. My knuckles split on the edge of his teeth, and I ignored the electric jolt that ran the length of my wrist and into my arm, ready to do it again. Thaan stumbled backward, hitting the desk, hands roaming behind him for balance. I followed, arms ready to deliver another blow, and Thaan watched me approach without trying to run or defend himself.
“No!” Selena shrieked. “No! Stop, please !”
I pushed the bastard upright. “Where’s the fucking key?”
Blood smeared his mouth, a cut from my ring. He didn’t answer. I’m not even sure he heard me. My hands searched the folds of Thaan’s tunic, finding nothing. I gave him a violent shake, inflamed enough to break his fucking neck, but buried in the depths of my own fury, I knew I was wasting my time. I stole a glance behind me where Maren was watching from underwater, the pads of her fingers and palms discolored as she pressed into the glass. Her gaze had locked onto Thaan’s, something halfway between alarm and understanding widening her eyes.
He flopped like a ragdoll when I released him, shaking the ache from my hand. I reached for my sword on instinct, thinking to ram it inside the chain and turn it until the iron broke. But my hand hit empty air instead.
That creepy little fucker.
The door to Thaan’s rooms rattled as I raised my leg and kicked it. But I knew well enough from being locked in my own rooms a few days before, the only thing that broke these solid palace doors down was a sharpened blade.
“Selena,” I called, storming up the steps to inspect the lid of the tank again. It was as large as my fist, a massive bolt. I yanked at it futilely, my wrist crying in protest, but quickly gave up. My hands ran along the edges, searching for flaws to the seal to exploit.
“I’m here,” Selena said, loud but weak.
“My sword is outside your apartment door. Get it and find away to break this door down.”
Maren rose to the surface. She moved sluggishly, air fogging as she came near, and something about it sent white-hot panic into my veins. “I already tried,” she said, pointing to the chain in my hands as they tried to pry it open, her voice muffled through the glass. “You need to leave—”
“Hold on,” I cut through her words. My eyes darted to hers, our faces inches apart. My jaw locked, lips drawn wide as I threw the iron bolt away from me. Wrenching around, I roared down at Thaan, “Where’s the key?”
He watched Maren from beside the desk, lifeless on the floor, devoid of expression.
I swung back, punching the glass. The sound inside must have reverberated in the water. She ducked under the surface to escape it, face pinched in sharp anguish, hands covering her ears. I pulled away, tormented that I might hurt her. How thick was this fucking glass? Vaulting over the side of the staircase to the floor, I grabbed Thaan and shook him again. “Where’s the key?”
But I knew where the key was. It had walked out of this office and locked the door.
Thaan’s eyes focused and unfocused. I shoved him away, my panic evolving into full-blown terror as Maren finally gave up treading over the surface and floated to the bottom of the tank. She sat, knees drawn, leaning one shoulder against the glass wall, hair a wild plume around her head, and looked as though she might fall asleep.
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck.
“Selena!” I shouted.
“I’m trying,” came an overstretched voice from behind her door.
“Get out here, you fucking little coward,” I bellowed at Cain. But I knew I was wasting my time with him, too. He might not have even been there. Might have taken the key and run. It would have been the wisest decision for someone in his shoes, knowing what I’d do to him once I broke his fucking door down.
The office chair sat inches from my hand, and I ripped it from the floor, lifting it over my head. It flew through the air. And bounced off the glass.
Maren’s eyes popped open. She let out a strangled yelp and heaved to her side, hands over her ears as she twisted into the glass wall. The sight sent my heart spinning into guilt and deeper fear, but I reached for the chair again. Two of its legs cracked, separating from the seat, and I grasped one like a wooden club. Then stepped over the destroyed chair, winding my arms to the side and lighting into the glass with the chair leg.
And watched as shockwaves sliced through the water with each stroke.
Maren curled into a tight ball, flipping over herself to evade the sharp cracks, then opened her mouth and screamed. The sound impaled my skull from every angle, driving into my head, piercing me to the core. Panic ensued within me. Paralyzing, engulfing, it wrung my bones to jelly.
“FUCK,” I shouted, tossing the wooden leg away. I leaned into the glass. “Leihani. Come back up to the surface, baby. Swim back up and get a breath.”
But she laid on her side, ears covered, staring at me. I watched her cough, a cloud of red blooming from her mouth.
And that’s the moment I understood true and raw horror, and the vice that it locked around my heart.
Horror’s voice was the cold whisper across my shoulder blades as I watched her eyes close. Its gaze was the shadow that crawled beneath my skin as her body ceased all movement. Its breath was the sharp intake of air before my scream. And its grip was the world narrowed to a single second that stretched for eternity.
I watched my own personal nightmare unravel before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to wake up from it.
“Any second now,” Thaan said beside me, watching her as though waiting for something.
Behind me, a steel blade bit loudly into wood.
I grabbed the desk by its side. Not the largest desk, but heavy oak, too solid to pick up. Still, I tried, my arms and neck bulging as I hoisted it off its feet. And threw it.
I’m only human. The desk didn’t go far. But it did land hard.
The vibration of the clash made Maren’s spine arch, and for a moment I thought I’d given her a seizure. But then she thrusted onto her back, the arch curving into her legs, her knees, her feet. She writhed as though fighting the way her thighs locked together, the frothy shield weed around her flattening as she beat it with her legs, and her skin split and resewed at the seams, pale and shining gold emerging from her hips down to her toes.
She twisted. Knotted. Rolled over and coiled, warping, stretching—until she stopped.
I stopped.
Time stopped.
Time fucking stopped.