80. Maren
80
Maren
“ Y our arms, My Queen.”
Aitne’s soft voice rocked me out of the depths. Still holding Kye’s arm across my chest, I opened my eyes, staring numbly at the faint lines that had emerged from my skin. Patterned tallies, crossing, uncrossing, zig-zagging from my fingers to my shoulders.
“Her legs, too,” I heard Olinne say.
“Maren.” Selena knelt in the snow at my head, leaning in to tuck a lock behind my ear. Someone gasped quietly at the reveal of my bare neck, and I thought I caught the word gills on the wind. I looked up at Selena through a blurred lens, blinking away the haze. “We can’t stay here. We have to leave. You must stand.”
“Give her a minute,” Nori said again, hoarse as though she’d been screaming.
Selena smoothed sweat-licked hair off the back of my neck. “We don’t have time,” she said thickly.
“I don’t understand.” Olinne’s voice cracked. “They were newly cordaed . Her blood should have protected him from dark fates these first few years. In Leihani, we couldn’t touch him when he dove in the water after her. That’s how we knew they were bonded.”
My mouth thinned. I turned my head, delving my face over Kye’s chest, and felt my own slowly caving in. Mouth, throat, lungs tight, oxygen sent me into exile, and for once I didn’t care.
“I don’t understand, either,” I heard Nori say.
“The Fates marked Nikolaos for dead,” Selena murmured.
My eyes cracked. The world swam around me in hues of white and red, but I wiped my cheeks. Wiped the blood trailing from my nose. And pushed myself to sit upright where I, along with the other Naiads, gazed at Selena in aching confusion.
“Thaan forced your hand in revealing your Naiad tail,” Selena said softly. Apologetically. “A human cannot see a Naiad. It is law. Whether or not you cordaed to Nikolaos, your blood came for his.”
A stunned silence followed.
“I did this?” I asked, breathless.
“No,” Selena whispered. “The Fates did. The candle of your cordae’s life had already been waxed and set. Thaan simply lit the wick with your blood.”
My fingers tightened around Kye’s sleeve, her words falling from strings around my head. Your blood came for his, your blood came for his, your blood came for his. Nori and Olinne had always— always —warned me against bringing a human to meet them. It had been one of their first and sternest rules. And even after I’d left them, intuition had taken the place of their warnings. Instinct voicing the dangers of revealing myself to Kye. Even my own contract had forbidden it, Thaan protecting his assets by ensuring I wouldn’t deviate from my vows.
But I’d fulfilled my oaths. And Thaan had locked me in a glass box. And I’d tried to fight the need for oxygen. But I’d run out.
Their heads turned toward me as the sound of ragged, rippling torture escaped my lungs.
“Stop this.” Olinne sounded on the verge of tears. “We can discuss it later.”
But Nori’s voice had hardened. “When did this happen?”
Selena’s eyes remained on mine. “Thirteen days ago.”
“And you didn’t think to tell us?”
My mentor, my mother’s sister, opened her mouth. Her chin gave a small shake. “I could not. I was the messenger. I couldn’t breathe a word until now.”
Nori growled, “The messenger for who? Thaan?”
Selena shook her head. “Theia. The Triad calls you, Maren. You must stand.”
I swallowed thickly, angling myself just enough to catch the stares of the other Naiads. Because surely those words meant something to them. But they watched her with a doubtfulness equal to mine. My fingers stroked Kye’s soft curls. “What?”
Ocean eyes pulled close, somber and sad. But serious. “The Triad calls you. You’re the third. Remember the story I taught you? Xeno, Corvus, and Androma? The lover, the blood, the warrior?”
A chaotic breath vacillated from my chest, in and out and in again. I smeared ash and dirt and blood across my cheek, dashing tears away to gaze furiously at her, my hand never leaving Kye. “Yes?”
“Twenty-five years ago, your mother lit a Moirai candle and sent a prayer to Theia. To rid the world of Thaan. Because he’d grown too strong, his ambitions too dark. And Theia answered.”
I shook my head, blinking profusely now. The screams had stopped along with the wind, but heat still pulsed over us from across the ravine, magma crawling to the center of the canyon, pushing down trees like a snake’s belly over weeds.
I knew we’d have to leave soon. Have to turn back the way we’d came, find the Calderian army, deliver Kye to them. The Rivean unit that had found us hadn’t made up the enemy’s entire force. And we’d have to face that too.
I understood all of that. But I stared blankly at Selena, unsure what she was trying to explain to me, or why she had to explain it now.
“Three lives lost. One creature of Darkness destroyed. The crossing of the Sea of Stars. Your mother asked Theia for a child of the moon. She left Calder for Leihani knowing she’d someday bear you. Her blood. And she knew she’d die because she abandoned her vows. She knew you’d take a corda-cruor , and he’d die as well, marked for death in battle. She even knew who he was. She went to see him as a baby before she left. Before you were even born. Theia gave her all of it. Every instruction. Every detail.”
“I don’t understand,” I breathed, pushing straighter to face her, still holding onto Kye.
Selena took my free hand, our knees touching as we sat in the snow. “Three were chosen. Your mother, willing to die. Your lover, slain in battle. And you. The warrior. You are the child of the moon, Maren.”
The Stone of Safiro hung from my neck, a small weight against my skin, and something curled into my chest at her words. The first small twinkle of warmth in hours.
Selena held my stare. “I’m Theia’s messenger. And this is her message. You have three days. Three days to rid Theia’s seas of a creature of Darkness. To cross the Sea of Stars. To find the Gates of Perpetuum. Doing so will end this life. Your current life. But if you succeed, you’ll come back. Here. To this mountain. With a power to rival Thaan of Safiro.”
I glanced at their faces. Beautiful. Streaked with dirt and sweat and ash. Some of them, blood. “And if I fail?”
“Then you are lost. I’ll have Nikolaos taken to Pirou. Hadrian is there, he can bring your husband home. Your mother will remain where she is, her ashes buried on the islands.” Selena bit back a quivering breath, her voice faltering. Weakening. “But if you fail, you will be lost.”
I stood, gazing down at her, Kye’s hand firmly clenched in my fingers. And the strength that had abandoned her words entered mine. “And if I succeed?”
Selena stood too. Stood and took my shoulders and didn’t try to catch the tracks that carved through the filthy layer over her cheeks. “Then you will re-enter life. And return here. To this day. Maybe even this hour. And you’ll bring Ceba and Nikolaos back with you.”
“She lit a Morai candle? A flame of the Fates? And left Maren three days to cross the Sea of Stars?” Nori shook her head. “Do you even know where to find a creature of Darkness? They exist in myth. I’ve lived my life in the waters of the Juile Sea and I’ve never seen one.”
“The Juile Sea is not dark,” Selena said, still watching me. “It is bright. And we don’t need to know where to find one. Maren knows.”
I did?
My mouth cracked open. Then closed.
“She does?” asked Olinne, turning her head to look inquiringly at me.
Selena nodded. “Theia said you’d encounter one. Have you, Maren? Encountered a creature of Darkness?”
I took my time answering, lacing my fingers with Kye’s, running my thumb across his knuckles. “Yes. In the Brána Do Podsvetia.”
Nori shook her head. “That’s weeks from here.”
I barely heard her. I knew a way to shorten weeks into days. To slow time to the span of a single grain of sand, turn that grain in my fingers, and reset it along the beach.
And I’d gladly meet that thing again. Spearing hooks. Long legs. A ribcage that walked, bone-thin and fast. And pincers that snapped in my ears. Click, click, click, click, click.
I’d meet it. I’d fight it. It had come so close to killing me before. I knew it might again. Might feast on my flesh. Or abandon me to the throes of decompression sickness, with no Kye this time to pull me out. But the risks didn’t matter.
Selena reached for me again. “You must be sure. It must be your choice.”
My voice became stone. “It is my choice.”
Kye’s fight was my fight. And his demons were my demons. And I’d spent eternity ensuring our enemies knew their names. I’d tear the world apart to reclaim Kye from Perpetuum. Gates be damned. Guardians be damned. Sun and moon and Darkness be damned.
I’ll come for you.