Chapter 24
Amara
The lantern burns low in the corner, its glow brushing soft gold across my daughter’s sleeping face.
She’s so small. So impossibly perfect. I hold her close, barely daring to breathe, afraid that even my heartbeat might be too loud for her fragile world.
I’ve cared for children before. Wiped their noses, filled their bellies, carried them laughing through the trees, but this is different.
She is mine. Flesh of my flesh and the fear that coils in my chest is nothing like I’ve known. What if I’m not enough for her?
Being a mother is one thing, but being a mother with enemies at every door makes it something else entirely.
I don’t just need to meet her needs. I have to protect her from demons and Fae and men who would see her parents dead.
Who might be cruel enough to hurt her just to get to us.
A flare of guilt catches in my throat. I’ve brought her into a world wracked with danger.
She deserves simpler things. Simpler parents.
Not a Fae warrior and an Awakened Jewel tangled in a war that hasn’t yet ended.
I lay her gently in her crib, onto the soft furs that brush against her tawny skin.
Her lips curl. Her little nose twitches.
I brush a single dark curl from her brow and breathe through the ache in my chest. There’s no use drowning in what-ifs and maybes.
Looking at her now, this beautiful, precious thing, I regret nothing.
Her mother will bring the forest. Her father will bring the storm. And she… she will be stronger than us both.
And I will do everything in my power to protect her.
There’s a soft tap at the door, and I glance over my shoulder.“Come in,” I whisper, barely louder than breath, nevertheless, Solena hears me.
The door creaks open just a sliver, and her face appears through the gap. I’m still adjusting to the changes in her. The wild tangles of her hair, the sunburnt edges of her skin, the sea-weathered look that’s replaced the refined Solena I once knew.
“Am I disturbing you?” she asks quietly.
I shake my head. “No. She sleeps like a stone… though only because she drinks her weight in milk twice over.”
Solena steps inside, gently closing the door behind her. Her movements are nearly silent as she crosses the cabin and stops behind me.
“She’s beautiful, Amara,” she says softly. “You’ve done well. Does she have a name yet?”
A laugh escapes me, dry and a little tired. “I haven’t even had time to think of one. Everything happened so fast. She wasn’t supposed to arrive for months yet.”
“Does Daedalus have any suggestions?” she asks.
My eyes flick to the empty hammock in the corner. My throat tightens. “No,” I murmur.
She hums gently. “Well… I’m sure when the right name comes, you’ll know.”
When I turn to look at her, I study her face. Soft smile, eyes kind despite the salt and sun. Her edges are rougher now. Her beauty hardened by the sea. But there’s warmth there, too. The familiar warmth I once trusted.
And yet…
I blink once, then again. The thoughts that haunt me in the dark press at the edge of my tongue.
Not in Driftspire. I never saw it then. But here, on this ship, I’ve watched them, her and my husband, standing too close, sharing too much silence.
I thought I saw something. A glance. A breath held too long.
But looking at her now, there’s none of it.
She tilts her head, catching me watching too long. “Amara? Are you alright?”
I hesitate. My pulse stutters. I wonder if I should say it. Spill the suspicion gnawing at my insides. But instead, my gaze falls to her fingers. Ink stains the tips, dark and fresh.
“Do you tattoo him often?” I ask, voice low, eyes following the dark marks up her leathers until they meet hers again.
Her brow creases in quiet confusion, but she nods. “As often as I need to. At first, the marks lasted a week. Sometimes two. But now… they fade faster. Melt off like wax in the sun. I redo them almost daily.”
“That’s… a lot of time alone together,” I say, before I can stop myself. “Touching.”
Solena’s nose wrinkles. “Touching?” she repeats, like the word itself is offensive.
I don’t want to say another word. I don’t want to embarrass myself further, but when Solena’s eyes widen with realization, I know I’ve already said too much.
“Amara,” she says, her voice stern. “You don’t think… you can’t possibly believe…”
“I don’t,” I blurt, heat rushing up my neck, burning my cheeks. “Of course not.” I wave my hands as if I can scatter the words hanging between us. “I’m not myself. My emotions are all over the place. I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”
The words pour out fast, unfiltered, desperate to fill the space before she can speak again. Before the silence turns thick enough to choke me. I’m rambling, trying to outrun the shame twisting in my gut, but then she grabs my wrists, firm and grounding, and my breath catches.
Her grip is steady. Her gaze, sharper than steel.
“Amara,” she says again, quieter this time but no less intense. “Listen to me. There is nothing between Daedalus and me. I ink the sigils. That is all.”
Her fingers tighten slightly.
“Not only would I never betray you like that, but my heart doesn’t beat for him. It never could. Orios holds it, wholly.”
I sag beneath the weight of her honesty. My shoulders collapse inward, my chin dropping to my chest. “Forgive me,” I whisper, shame curling tight inside me. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She leans down until her face is level with mine, and I feel her eyes pull me back to her. I force myself to meet them.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she says gently. “You’ve been kidnapped, tortured, dragged through the void, and given birth in the aftermath. You’re standing in the ruins of everything you thought you understood.”
She lets out a quiet breath, then adds with a faint smile, “Not to mention the part where you burst into green flames and walked away without so much as a scratch. But I imagine you’ll tell me more about that when you’re ready.”
It’s enough to pull a smile from me, but it withers just as fast.
“You and Orios,” I say, worrying my lower lip, trying to bite back the nerves. “You trust him?”
Solena’s head tilts, her brow knitting. “Of course I do. With my heart. With my life.”
I nod, lips twitching toward a smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. It’s a cover, flimsy and transparent. She sees right through it.
“Daedalus,” she says slowly. “You don’t trust him?” A pause. “You think he’d be unfaithful?”
I let my head fall back, exhaling long and low.
“No. It’s not that.” I glance at her, the ache tightening in my chest. “I know he loves me… fiercely. But there’s so much I don’t know about him.
Parts of him locked behind doors he doesn’t let anyone near.
Secrets scratching at the inside of him like claws in the dark. ”
My voice drops. “He knew. About Lanneth. About the sacrifice. That it was his role to give me a child and then lead me to slaughter.”
Her expression hardens. “But he stopped it. He chose you. He turned his back on his family, on his father, to save you.”
“I know,” I whisper. “And I’ve told myself that should be enough. That love like that should be everything.”
Solena’s gaze sharpens, searching. “I thought you forgave him. In the Grove.”
“I thought so too,” I murmur, eyes drifting to the wall, trying to blink away the sting. “Part of me did. The part that still aches for him. That needs him. That wants him, even now. But the rest of me…”
My voice falters.
“Ronin,” I say. The name isn’t as hard to say as it once was. “He told me there’s no love without trust.”
Her expression sours instantly, that familiar scowl, the one she always reserved just for me, sliding into place. “What does it matter what he thinks?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, shoulders tightening. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”
But the way she keeps staring, eyes fixed and unrelenting, makes me wish I’d said nothing at all.
Then she asks, blunt as a blade: “Is there something between you and the Golden Son?”
“No,” I snap, sharp and absolute. There’s no lie in my voice. “But… being away from Daedalus for so long, away from his pull, his presence, the gravity of his eyes and the heat of his touch…”
I breathe in slowly.
“It’s made things clearer. Like I can finally hear my own thoughts again.”
She arches a brow. “You mean without him on top of you, you’re capable of coherent reflection?”
A startled laugh bursts from me, half-guilty, half-relieved, my cheeks flushing. “Something like that.”
The sound is enough to make my daughter stir. She murmurs softly in her crib, swaddled tight and warm. I bite down on my tongue, holding my breath, willing her back to sleep.
Ashen leaps onto the bed with the grace of a shadow. No sound, barely a ripple in the covers. He hisses at me, low and reprimanding, as if warning me to keep it down. Then he circles once and settles, curling beside the crib.
My daughter sighs herself back to sleep.
“There is nothing wrong with how you feel,” Solena says, lowering her voice. “But perhaps you should speak to Daedalus.”
“What if I can’t?” I whisper.
She lifts an eyebrow. “You’ve stood against human armies. You’ve brought down a Fae queen with green fire spilling from your palms. I think you can manage a conversation with your husband.” A pause. “Just try to keep your hands to yourself long enough to get the words out.”
“But it’s more than that,” I say, my voice thin, as if pleading a case no one asked me to defend. “It’s this... presence. This thing coiled in my belly. It fills me up, moves in my blood.”
I glance down, my thumbs brushing the pads of my fingers, the memory of his touch blooming in my skin.
“There’s a thread. Gold. Blinding when we touch. I know I must be imagining it, but…”
Solena freezes, eyes widening before she grabs my shoulders, hard enough to jolt me.
“What did you say?”