71. Maren
71
Maren
“ P ull him from the warfront.”
I shook my head. “I can’t, Nori.”
“ Incant the human king. The generals. The advisors.”
Frigid water lapped over my shoulders as I leaned into Selena’s arms, bracing myself to allow my tail to float along the surface where Aitne and Aoede each held the base just above my flukes. Both healers pretended not to listen to the ongoing argument between Nori and myself, their eyes focused on their work. But I wondered what thoughts roamed inside their heads.
“You know that won’t work, Nori.”
“Why not?” She raked impatient fingers through her wine-red hair. “It worked for Thaan when he wanted the human to marry you.”
“That took weeks of planning on Thaan’s part. He had to incant Kye several times. For different audiences.”
“It should be enough that he is royalty,” Nori grumbled. “Why do humans send their own Prizivac Vode into peril?” I opened my mouth to answer, and Nori waved a hand, excusing the matter. “And will he be there in battle as well? Thaan?”
My mouth closed, impatience building. I used to suffer through the Naiad’s interruptions without complaint, but something in my blood stirred at the way Nori spoke over me now. Still, I found myself seeking Selena over my shoulder for the answer.
She chewed on the thought for a moment. “He might be. It’s impossible to know.”
“Might be, might be,” Nori chanted to herself. “Might be a flower, might be a flame. Might borrow my skin, my face, my name.”
“Are you finished?” Selena asked, unamused.
“Might be the sunshine, might be the dark. Might walk on my feet, might stop my heart.”
“Nori,” I all but snapped.
“Thaan was the monster in the nursery rhymes I was told as a young Naiad,” Nori ground out. “You say might be as though all you need is to keep your wits. But he could be anywhere or anything, in any time or any place, and you would never know.”
“So, we’ll pretend that he could be anyone. We'll come up with codes in case we grow suspicious he's invaded our midst. But he can only take your body if you give him your blood,” I growled. “Do you plan to give him your blood, Nori?”
She reeled back, mouth curled in disgust.
“I didn’t think so.” I became aware of the waves snapping and popping against my hands, and Nori subdued herself as she watched the icy winter sea fizzle under my touch. “I can’t do anything about Thaan. I can’t do anything about Kye being called to Winterlight, either.”
“Does Thaan know you retrieved the stone?” Olinne asked. I paused. My hand curled around it, hanging from the delicate chain around my neck. The answer must have read plain on my face. Nori’s rigid shoulders drooped slightly. Olinne nodded. “What’s done is done.”
Nori’s lips thinned. “You are new. You are untrained. Your body is still absorbing Queen Sidra’s power, and you have not practiced with it. You can’t control it. You are not ready for this fight, My Queen. But you plan to accompany your cordae to the North.” It wasn’t a question, but she fixed me with bright copper eyes and waited for my answer.
I ran a hand under my hair, withholding the urge to scratch an itch along my neck. “I haven’t decided.”
“Yes, you have,” Olinne said softly. Nori shot her a look.
“I might not be able to,” I said, ignoring Nori. “The last time he left for Winterlight was the morning after our wedding, and I was never invited to go with him. I stayed in the palace alone.
Olinne nodded. “And slowly fell apart with worry. But you were not a queen before. And a queen does not ask permission to walk beside her cordae .”
“No, but…” I leveled each of them with a glance, finding them watching me with the same resolute expression, as though they’d already assumed the decision I’d make, and were simply waiting for me to say it out loud. “It feels like I’m abandoning my colony if I travel so far away.”
“Your colony goes where you take them, My Queen,” Aoede said, massaging her fingers gently under a layer of golden scales. “I can stay here with a few Naiads to tend the nursery. You will not enter war without an army of your own.”
Nori closed her eyes. “If your cordae rides to war, so must you. And so must we.”
Selena raised her brows in my periphery. Hand still curled around the stone, I nodded, relief waging its own war with uncertainty in my chest. Would I be able to take responsibility for each life lost in my name?
So goes the test of an untried queen , Kye’s voice answered in my thoughts.
Aitne returned to the palace with Selena and me. Her amber eyes grew as round as the moon as she followed us under the arched stone of the palace walls to find the glass towers waiting beyond, drenched in wrought iron and naked vines of winter ivy. Snowflakes fell around us, and though we’d called the water from our hair and bodies, I knew my lips were as blue and quivering with cold as theirs were.
Still, I couldn’t regret my short meeting with the Juile Naiads in the bracing sea. My gait straightened after Aoede and Aitne’s ministrations, I knew Mihauna would be full for a second night once the sun leveled with the horizon. With luck and an ample dose of water calling, I’d be walking normally by the time we left for Winterlight, or close after.
Kye met me in the doorway of my old apartment, having heard every thought I’d blasted across to him about the Naiads and the war with Rivea. I’d heard plenty of his as well. Aren would be riding with us to Winterlight, along with two other friends of Kye’s named Dimas and Leal.
At a profound lack of mounts for my Domus , Nori left to brave the cold water with a message to the Naiads of the Anatoly Sea, asking permission to travel through their territory in the east. There, my colony would follow an inlet just beyond the vineyards of Ascento, where, according to Nori and confirmed by Selena, they could swim upstream through the Sylus Mountains and cut across the lake, barring that it wasn’t frozen. The Sylus Lake was the deepest lake in the world, and they’d find themselves only a day’s journey from Winterlight. If all went to plan, they’d reach the Calderian fortress before we did.
Aitne gave Kye the same wide-eyed stare she’d given the palace, scuttling inside my old rooms to avoid him. He raised his brows, leaning a shoulder against the wall. I shrugged. I’m not sure she’s seen a man before. I bit my lip. At least, not one up close. Alive.
Do I need to worry about her knifing me in my sleep?
I laughed nervously. No.
My hands met over my waist, the itch to weave baskets suddenly twiddling my fingers. Nori’s unexpected reaction to learning Kye might be in danger had been a convenient one. Too convenient. I’d thought the Naiads would turn up their noses, offended at the very idea of helping to keep a human safe. But their unyielding determination to do the opposite left a pool of doubt swelling in my stomach.
Something about Kye placing himself at risk unsettled the members of my colony.
And I wasn’t sure why. But I knew it didn’t stem from love for him.