Chapter Seven
I sometimes wish I had lived during the years when the storm god first came to our shores.
How thrilling it must have been to watch their courtship, to watch as our goddess tamed the storm itself.
But the priestess of that time will never know the joy that I do, of watching a love that has bloomed across years beyond counting. It is beautiful.
The lost journal of High Priestess Tona
To Aleksi, the story of the goddess’s demise had always sounded like a legend.
Everyone knew that she had raised a wall of water to protect her people and held it for three days and three nights, until the mortal danger had passed, sacrificing her own life in the process.
The tale had a certain inescapable poetry to it, the kind that spoke of generations of storytellers gently nudging events to fit a beautiful narrative.
Reality was rarely so accommodating.
He had not doubted, not for a moment, that their goddess had died while trying to save the people of Rahvekya.
But he had imagined it to be a far more sudden and violent, even humble end, one that would not make such a pretty ballad to be sung in the taverns.
The idea of anyone, even a god, standing for that long—bleeding power, slowly dying—was unfathomable.
Or perhaps Aleksi simply had not wanted to fathom such a painful thing.
And so the goddess had perished, and her people had not. Aleksi had assumed that, in their quest to glean some meaning from such unthinkable tragedy, they had turned her end into myth.
Now, watching Naia smile and offer reassurances in the midst of an unending crush of ecstatic villagers, he finally understood. She pulsed with power, but also with exhaustion and a raw vulnerability that made his chest ache. But she would not leave a single soul unacknowledged.
The story of her slow-moving death could very well be true, because she would give and give and give until she had nothing left.
The others—Gwynira, Isa, even the rest of the High Court—hovered, strangely reluctant to interfere in this reunion.
In an instant, Naia had claimed the ultimate authority over this place, a long-standing stewardship that no one else, even another god, could hope to match.
They would not stop her, even for her own good.
Fuck that.
Aleksi grasped Einar’s arm. The other man still looked dazed, but Aleksi turned him until their gazes clashed. “After what’s happened, she needs to rest, Einar.”
His expression cleared, and he nodded firmly. “Of course.”
Einar waded into the throng of devotees, anxious to dispel the crowd. It was clear that only his status as Crown-Prince of Rahvekya kept them from shoving him aside and continuing their pursuit of Naia’s attention.
Then she swayed on her feet and nearly fell, eliciting horrified gasps from the crowd, and Einar’s voice rose enough to carry clearly. “That’s enough for now.”
He wrapped her arm around his shoulders, his around her waist, and half carried her toward Aleksi, who met them midway.
Where can we go, and quickly? He was opening his mouth to ask Einar when Naia’s free hand seized his.
“I know a place,” she murmured, her voice all vine-covered cliffs and dry seashells and sand-smoothed stone.
The world fell away.
Aleksi braced himself for the inky blackness and the disorientation and the sick lurch in the pit of his stomach, all the things that knocked him flat when Zanya carried him through the Void.
But this was not the Void. It was dark, yes, but more like a warm, moonless night. It felt close, as if he dwelled for the moment not in empty nothingness but in a careful, protective embrace.
As if he was being spirited away to safety.
They came back to the world in a secluded glade, beside a deep-blue pool that bubbled and steamed lightly. Despite the chilly air, lush trees in full leaf bent all around them to shade the mossy bank.
Naia knelt beside the pool and trailed her fingers through the water. “That was abrupt. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Einar hurried to tell her, despite his breathlessness. “What is this place?”
Naia stared up at him, and her hand trembled in the water. She quickly rested it on her lap and took a deep breath. “The island created it for us. A long, long time ago.”
Then she could not mean for the three of them. “Who is us?” Aleksi asked softly.
“Me and Theron. The storm god,” she clarified.
“The Kraken,” Einar breathed.
A light that looked almost like hope lit Naia’s eyes. “Yes.”
But Einar’s eyes were clouded with confusion. “This is on no map of Rahvekya that I’ve ever seen.”
“It wouldn’t be. There are no paths that lead here. It can only be reached through the aether.”
The word was unfamiliar to Aleksi. Perhaps she meant through the Dream, only that wasn’t quite right. The darkness that had surrounded him had not felt like Zanya or the Void, but neither had it felt like Sachi. It had felt . . .
Like Naia.
The truth struck him, hard, and he hit his knees before her, heedless of the unyielding stone beneath the moss. “You are the island.”
“I do not know which of us came first.” She drew her knees up to her chest and folded her arms around her legs. “I would tell you if I did. Maybe . . . we have always existed together, as one.”
Einar rubbed a hand absently over his chest, as if soothing an ache.
“Petya always said that when the first people came to these shores, the goddess welcomed them. They settled here because they knew she would keep them safe. As for what came before . . .” He shook his head.
“There are so many stories, each one different.”
“I see,” Naia whispered.
“But one thing never changes: the goddess is the Mother of Rahvekya.” He stared down at Naia, soft wonder dawning once more on his face. “You are the Mother of Rahvekya.”
She smiled. “It was a word, a dynamic, that the people understood.” Her expression dimmed. “And it was better than some of the other things they wanted to call me.”
Aleksi took her hand. “Such as?”
“Creator. Savior.” Her voice lowered to a grim whisper. “Ruler.”
No, Naia would not have wanted that. She was too circumspect, too thoughtful, and she cared too much about independence and the freedom to choose one’s path.
And now Aleksi understood. Someone as young and new as Naia should have required time to learn the wisdom and necessity of such things. But she had simply arrived with those beliefs etched firmly on her heart.
Just as she had arrived with all that power.
By all rights, it should have been raw strength, coarse and clumsy.
But she had exercised a delicate and precise command over her abilities that Aleksi had rarely seen.
Gods of a thousand years or more could not wield their powers the way she had.
And she had stood fast during the battle against Sorin and his Empire, holding the line with fierce determination when even a seasoned soldier might have fled.
Her wide-eyed appreciation for and curiosity about the world, he had chalked up to eager inquisitiveness.
Now, he could instead see in her the sheer joy of rediscovery.
She behaved as though she was visiting a place she remembered, but only vaguely, so that seeing once more the exact shapes and colors of stone and earth was a wonder too glorious to bear.
Even the memories she’d brought with her from the Dream marked her as an ancient soul.
She had so many, more than Aleksi ever had, and he had always remembered feelings and sensations more than events and places and skills.
Did she bring more of the material details with her because she had lived before, and as such possessed the context required to understand and remember them in a way that he never had?
He lifted her hand, and a warm breeze caressed his skin as he pressed his lips to her palm. “You make so much more sense to me now, little nymph.”
She laughed softly and curved her fingers to cup his cheek. “Did I mystify you before?”
“More than a little,” he admitted readily. “Not that I minded, not one bit.”
Einar sank down beside them, still looking stunned. “Does this mean . . . Do you remember? The truths behind all the myths?”
“They’re not myths. Not to me.” Sadness wreathed Naia, and at first Aleksi thought it was the ache of memory. But the pain intensified somehow when she looked at Einar, even as she offered him an encouraging smile. “What do you want to know?”
Einar did not answer. He seemed lost in all the endless possibilities, struggling to decide where to even start.
The silence stretched on for so long that Aleksi almost stepped in, but then Einar squared his shoulders.
“They called my mother goddess-touched. Petya said that was why she was so much stronger than a mortal man. But I’ve never understood what it meant. ”
“The title started out as a blessing,” Naia told him.
“A physical ward, rather like when Aleksi bestowed his protection on young Queen Anikke. It allowed the recipients to access the power of the island in a very small way.” She paused and laughed softly, as if to herself.
“The island must have continued to honor those blessings, even after I was gone.”
“It did.” Einar touched her hand, folding his fingers around hers with the reverence of a man touching a sacred relic. “If it hadn’t, I would not be here. Petya only escaped with me because my mother had the strength to stop an army on her own.”
No wonder Einar could not seem to find his footing in the face of Naia’s awakening. In an instant, she had become not only his future, but the entirety of his past, as well.
Naia opened her mouth, then closed it again and rose. Once on her feet, she kicked off her shoes and began to slowly unbutton the bodice of her dress. She let the garment fall across Einar’s knees, then shed the rest of her clothes.
For a long moment, she simply stood there, naked, with dappled sunlight and shadow caressing her curves. Then she slipped into the rock-lined spring, submerging herself completely.
When she broke the surface of the pool once more, her hair and skin steamed in the frigid air. Wordlessly, she held out her hand to Einar.
Just as quietly, he rose and tugged off his boots.
His shirt had been left behind, abandoned on the village beach, but he stripped off his pants without taking his eyes off of Naia.
The same intriguing juxtaposition of light and shadow played across his skin as his muscles flexed with anticipation, then followed him into the water, where Einar reclaimed Naia’s hand and pulled it to his lips for a soft kiss.
Then they both turned expectantly toward Aleksi.
Though the water looked warm enough, the air around it was as frigid as the rest of the island. He was feeling better than he had since before having his connection to the Dream wrenched from him, but he could not tell how much better.
Finding out that he was still physically weak by dying of hypothermia while naked with his lovers after exiting a bubbling pool would just be sad.
So he gently shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m up to it.”
Naia tilted her head in silent challenge. “Do you trust me, my lord Lover?”
“You know I do, love.”
“Then join us.”
Aleksi felt oddly self-conscious as he undressed. Not about being naked, but about shivering under their gazes while goose bumps pebbled his skin and his lips turned blue.
Except . . . that did not happen. The chill air seemed strangely distant as he dropped the last of his clothes to the rocky ledge and slipped into the water. Even his now-wet skin, above the waterline and exposed to the cold air, felt warm.
Naia smiled and stroked his jaw with her thumb. “Goddess-touched, remember?” she murmured. “Who in this world now can carry that mantle more truly and faithfully than you and Einar?”
Startled, Aleksi met her eyes. “Surely you don’t mean—”
“Yes, I do.” The air stirred around them, hot and redolent with the scent of tropical flowers. “The island protects me, and the two of you are my heart. It will shelter you.”
Einar brushed her wet hair back from her forehead. “It always has.”
The words served as a stark reminder. They had all known that Einar belonged here, on this island. His parents had lived and died to protect it. Rahvekya was his legacy.
Now, with the morning’s revelations, it seemed that it was Naia’s, as well.
The two of them shared a destiny, and there was no room for Aleksi in it. Even the warm, steaming pool was small, as if the island had created it for only two. Which, of course, it had.
For the goddess and the Kraken.
Einar nuzzled Naia’s jaw and cheek before resting his forehead against hers. As affectionate physical contact went, it was almost chaste. Yet it somehow managed to be more intimate than a kiss.
When Aleksi had considered leaving them before, it had been out of sad necessity, because he had been anticipating his own death. His absence could still wind up being no less necessary . . . and no less tragic.
Because Aleksi loved them both too much to stand in the way of their shared destiny.
Naia’s hand brushed his hip beneath the water, driving away his melancholy thoughts in a rush of liquid heat. Aleksi moved closer and wrapped his arms around them both.
The time for difficult decisions would come, but it was not here, and it was not now.
So he sought Naia’s ear with his lips and whispered, “Welcome back to the world, goddess.”