73. Maren
73
Maren
H ow long have you known Dimas and Leal? I asked as Kye checked his pockets for his key, the beef stew still warm and cozy in my stomach.
He paused, counting years in his head. Since I was about fifteen. One fucker never speaks, the other doesn’t shut up. He fit the key in its lock, twisting the knob, and I crossed my arms as I followed him into the room. Four walls, wood. One floor, wood. One ceiling, wood. They pulsed softly.
I closed my eyes. And Aren?
Kye’s hands found mine, pulling me gently to the edge of the bed and sitting me down. Aren’s only a few months younger than I am. He was born in the palace; his mother is one of the cooks and his father retired from the royal guard a year ago.
I nodded. I remembered him explaining Aren’s father was a captain. I hadn’t realized his mother lived in the palace, too.
Fabric stretched, and in my mind’s eye Kye knelt on the floor, hands tugging at my otter fur boots. “How’s your leg? Should I ask Aitne to come work on it?”
“No,” I sighed. I’d gone without my splint for a few days now. “It didn’t pain me at all today. I think I could almost run on it.” I laid back on the mattress, stretching muscles sore from riding, tired enough to fall asleep without even shedding my clothes.
“There’s a clawfoot tub in the bathroom.”
My eyes popped open. There is?
I knew we’d be stopping here so I packed a couple jars of sea water.
My sea water? From Juile?
Elbow bent against the mattress, Kye held up a jar for my inspection. Mostly clear, with a hint of teal gray. I took it from him and uncorked it, bringing the jar to my nose and breathing in the scent of salt and sea. Sand and rock and wind and stone.
Home.
Kye pulled me to my feet, leading me under the slowly shrinking wooden ceiling to a bathroom that would have been magnificent in the springtime, with a window the size of the wall that opened on hinges, overlooking the mountainside. The fireplace shared the same wall as our room, the tub cast in glorious iron.
“I’ll ask a servant to boil water for you,” Kye said, gazing at the bathroom from over my shoulder.
“Don’t bother.” I stalked to the window, unlocking the latch and swinging it wide, calling to the ice crystals outside to melt so I could summon them in.
Kye fit his fingers into the doorframe above his head, leaning as he watched me work. “We need to talk about what will happen when we reach Winterlight tomorrow.”
My eyes darted to him. “Okay. What will happen?”
“The generals will fill me in on whatever they’re planning. My guess is some kind of attack. My unit won’t be at the front lines. They’ll keep me near the back. But I’d like you to stay in Winterlight.”
I snorted.
It’s a small favor to ask when you remember that you tied me up while wearing night clothes, giving me an appetite for unsavory things, and then left me hungry for three days.
I closed the window, suppressing a shiver at the cold, and sat on the edge of the tub to heat the water. “I have plenty of things I can throw in your face if we’re playing this game.”
The smugness melted from his expression. Let’s not focus on the past.
Fine. When I meet Nori tomorrow, I’ll pass along the details of where you’ll be. Where we’ll be.
Kye blew an reproving breath from his mouth, slow and deep.
I turned around, pulling my braid aside so he could help me with my corset. “Between the two of us, we both know I can do more damage with my water than you can with a sword.” He shot me a look of impatience with his mind. “No offense.”
“You’re not experienced in war, Leihani. You don’t know formations or defensive maneuvers. No one’s taught you war strategy. I’m more than a man with a sharp object in my hand.”
“That doesn’t make me less than a woman with water at her call.” I pulled a strap off my bare shoulder, letting the garment slide to the floor, and leveled him with a willful stare.
“You can’t win an argument by getting naked.”
Mihauna bathe and burn me. “I wasn’t trying to.”
“I’m being serious, Leihani. I’m glad your siren army is meeting us there. I have no idea how to explain a hundred women in black silk to the generals tomorrow, but I’m glad regardless. I’m glad you came. I’m glad Aitne worked so hard on your leg and Selena’s here to do whatever the fuck Selena does. I’m glad you haven’t complained about Leal and Dimas. I’m glad I got to keep you with me, rather than leave you behind. But I won’t be glad to enter battle with you.”
The water steamed invitingly, but I crossed my arms. “What are you going to do when it’s my war?”
“What do you mean?”
“Thaan’s plan is to wage war. His colony versus the Venusian Sea, then his colony versus Juile. My sea.”
“Thaan doesn’t have a colony.”
I almost barked out a laugh. “How do you know?”
“Don’t they have to be in the sea?”
“I was part of his colony, Kye. Did you once see me in the sea?”
His eyes narrowed in thought, gaze bouncing across the floor. “How many does he have?”
“Selena doesn’t know for sure. She estimated several thousand. He takes nomadic sirens in their youth, before they know they’re Naiad. The way he did with me.”
“Several thousand? How many do you have, for comparison?”
One of my shoulders drooped. The chilled air raised my skin, and I finally gave up and let a foot drop into the hot water, sliding all the way in so only my chin and the tips of my knees broke the surface. Kye occupied my seat on the edge of the tub, leaning his forearms lazily on his thighs as he watched me from over his shoulder. “I’m not sure,” I said quietly. “Maybe several hundred. They’re not all fighters. Most of them tend the ocean.”
He said nothing, but I heard his thoughts in my head, shifting around uncomfortably the way I did when Selena laced my corset too tight, grasping for a way to breathe.
“The Juile Sea Naiads are a dying colony,” I murmured, reaching for the leather strip holding my braid. “They used to be thriving, but now they’re small in oceanic terms. The size you’d be more likely to find in a lake.”
Kye leaned toward me, taking the rope of my hair and separating the strands of my braid with his fingers as he considered my words. “So, the Venusian colony is larger?”
“I believe so.”
You took your first breath as a Naiad in their waters.
The memory of Selena’s words flitted into my head on near-silent feet and without warning. I quickly stashed it away, though I wasn’t sure why. My gaze snapped to Kye’s.
“What was that?” he asked, freeing the remainder of my hair.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t.” Instinct had pulled the sentence through my mind, not reason. And I wasn’t sure how to dissect it. But intuition warned me against trying to do so now, with his attention trained on me. “But yes, their colony is larger. I don’t know how large exactly. I heard Thaan and Selena fighting over it once. Would you hand me that jar, please?”
He reached back, grasping the jar of seawater from the counter and uncorking it with a small jerk, still lost in heavy thought. Then upended it into the tub. The salt immediately stroked my skin, soothing and soft, and my legs fused together as they elongated, golden scalloped edges rising over the surface of my tail.
Kye raised a brow, though he didn’t try to hide his interest, taking in the pale armor of my scales with sparkling eyes. He leaned far enough to stroke a finger across what would have been my thigh, and a cool shudder twisted down my spine.
I sighed, closing my eyes and curling my flukes in toward my face, my tail too long now to remain completely underwater. “You said my demons were your demons, Kye. My fights were your fights. It goes both ways. You’re my cordae-cruor . We’re bonded for life. You can’t keep me away for the sake of your own peace. You’re right, I don’t know military strategy. But I know the fear of losing you. And I promise it’s as strong as your own.”
Kye massaged his forehead hard enough to leave a white circle in his skin when he pulled his fingers away. He stood, shucking off his boots and shirt, unbuttoning his pants. “Scootch forward.”
I did, and he clambered in behind me, water sloshing dangerously close to the surface. A little animal tittered in my stomach at our conversation, something erratic and skittish like the squirrel Hadrian had once pointed out to me in the Corrum Wood. But Kye pulled me into him, and my back deflated against his bare chest and abdomen, warm and hard and familiar. Rain and mint drifted through the air. And the animal inside me finally slowed enough to curl into a ball and lay its head on its tail, beady eyes drifting shut. I found myself staring at our hands, folded together in my lap, the tattooed helmet-and-laurel-leafed crest of his mother’s family peeking out from his inner forearm.
Kye’s chin found the top of my head. “Swear you will not cross the front lines. Even if I do.”
“No.”
“This is as good as it will get, Leihani. Swear or I’ll throw boiled shield weed in your morning tea and you’ll spend the afternoon waging war with this bathroom instead of leaving with us.” He caught my chin with his thumb, angling my head so I looked upside-down at him, and his metallic eyes melted into mine. Please .
I suppose if there is one word that was my undoing, it was that one. Spoken with that voice. While those irises drank me in. And these arms wrapped around me. I spun slowly, revolving until we were stomach to stomach, and he took my kiss the moment it was within reach, lips soft and cool and sweet.
Okay lout, I sighed, fingers twisting into his. Only because you asked nicely.
Hands wrapped together, Kye tugged my arms above my head, dragging me up his body to better claim my mouth.