5. Maren
Maren
I’d entered the Gateway to Darkness knowing I’d stolen from Time. And once Truth had described my crime, I couldn’t deny that I’d broken the ancient blood laws of Naiads by transitioning in front of Kye, even if I hadn’t done so under my own free will.
But I couldn’t imagine how I might have stolen from Love.
She read my confusion with a growing smile that cramped the corners of my stomach. “Do you not remember, young mortal? The promise you made?”
I blinked away the brightness of her light. “What promise?”
She swirled the stars with a lazy finger until they settled in a constellation over the palm of her hand. The burning outline of a young woman bent over a man as he lay in the snow, pumping madly at his chest.
Please. Please bring him back, the distant stars chanted softly.
I’ll never blame anyone for my vows.
I’ll never complain.
I’ll never argue.
I’ll resolve myself to my oath and never want otherwise.
I’ll do what I’m told. When I’m told. How I’m told.
Please give him back.
The starlit woman wrenched the man’s coat open, thrusting her palm flat against his sternum, and my eyes closed as the familiar crack of Kye’s breastbone reverberated through my fingertips.
“We could have taken him then,” Love said, watching the man sit up heavily. The pair dimmed and faded until the constellation in her hand disappeared. Luminous eyes shifted to me. “But I let you keep him a while longer, under the promise that you would obey. Did you obey, mortal?”
“No,” I murmured.
“No,” Love echoed, and though her voice was sweet and flirtatious, her edges flared like drops of fire. “No, you did not. You returned to your master, the one you swore your blood to, and then betrayed him.”
“I was meant to betray him.” My leg ached under my weight, but something in me refused to show the Fates any sign of weakness.
They gazed at me with equal stares of calculation, and I suddenly became very aware of what it must feel like to stand and wait for judgment before a jury.
“My mother lit a Morai candle. A flame of blood and moon. I was fated to leave Thaan’s power. Fated to become a siren queen.”
“And fated to lose your bond,” Truth said.
My jaw worked in silence, chewing the words that tangled in my mouth. “You took my promise knowing I was fated to break it. So that you could collect payment from me here.”
A small giggle flitted from her lips. She rolled onto what might have been her back, tilting her head to gaze at me upside-down.
“You’ve traveled far from your little beach on an island.
But we are endless. We are eternal. We are bored.
Amuse us with a trade that will truly challenge you.
We are not like Darkness, saving an unknown recompense for some time in your future. ”
I frowned. “What else would Darkness ask of me?”
Death drifted to the silver dust path. A small plume sparkled as he landed, vanishing like a cresting wave into the sand.
Time’s falling stars ticked softly at her corners.
“Love’s toll need not be the one you pay.
We are the guardians, keepers of the sky, and you seek to pass through to the Gateway to Perpetuum.
To the truly dead, crossing the sea of stars is a mere step through the dark, escorted by Death.
But you are not dead. Nor are you alive.
You could pay any one of us for the right to passage. ”
Death flicked the tips of its wings, still buried in the dust. I watched as ash stirred and fell still again. “What would you take for payment?”
Time rubbed her chin in thought. I flexed my fingers, nails biting into my palms as she hummed to herself, each second that passed dropping into the center of my belly like small bolts of iron. “From you, mortal, I would take the weeks you stole from me.”
Mihauna, my ankle burned. I pressed my teeth together, inviting the pain elsewhere. Begging my bones to carry it into other muscles instead. But it remained where it was, thick and hot, radiating into my lower leg. “I would make that payment and give you those weeks at the end of my life.”
Time watched me askance, the corners of her mouth a sharp smile. “I want them now.”
My brows furrowed. I couldn’t pay her those weeks now.
I only had three days. She cocked her head slyly at me, eyes twinkling, and I wondered if she knew I couldn’t take her bargain.
Her edges ticked, pulsing as though Time were an ocean tide.
Coming and going, filching small bits of rock and sand with each retreat until what was once significant and whole suddenly erased.
I straightened, disappointment threading through my shoulders.
I knew better than to make a deal with Time.
Time was a trickster. A swindler. As deceitful as Darkness.
She guessed my answer well enough as my eyes passed to Truth. Of the Fates, Truth’s stars were the clearest, and she waited solemnly for me to ask, “What payment could I make to you for my passage?”
Truth took less time to consider my question than her sister.
She blinked at me, somehow earnest and unendearing all at once.
“From you, mortal, I would take the truths you hold most dear. You could complete your task without recollecting why. Give me the memories of your bond, your heritage, your station, and I will grant you passage.”
My fingers found the corners of my waist. I clasped them over my hip bones, the disappointment at my shoulders now trickling through my spine like sand in an hourglass.
“How will I know to complete my task without any memory of it?” I asked.
Time cocked her head with a patient smile at me.
Truth made no move to answer. Frustration licked my skin in sharp strokes.
“You don’t care if I succeed,” I hissed.
“Your payments will completely disarm me. I didn’t choose to steal weeks from you, or to let Kye see my Naiad tail.
I didn’t choose to find this stone, or bond by saving a life, or fight a giant monster at the bottom of the sea.
Those things were chosen for me when my mother lit a candle. ”
“Offer your payment or return to the living,” Truth said, her stars not even bothering to flicker in response.
“Take your mortal complaints along with you. We have been here before the dawn of life. We have heard these protests before. Do not pretend you intend to remain in Perpetuum. We know you plan to steal two lives back with you. You will not fool the Morai into an agreement with a lax fee.”
I sighed, though that hardly described the harsh burst of breath that shook its way out through my teeth. Something in my gut churned and clenched as I finally looked at Love. I trusted her the least.
Perhaps because I’d spent most of my life believing she’d turned me away.
Shone her light on everyone else, leaving me in the dark.
Perhaps because even in the moments her name had fit so easily in my mouth, I hadn’t had enough time to trust saying it out loud.
Perhaps because I knew that although she’d offer me the only deal I might afford, her toll would be the steepest.
I swallowed softly, bare toes digging into the silver dust just beyond where Death lay. Love met my eyes, her nebulas swirling slowly inside her, blooming and arching and dying in chaotic vibrancy. “What payment could I give you for letting me cross the sea of stars?”
Love giggled, chin tucking into her shoulders as though I’d paid her a compliment. “Young mortal. You already know.”
I rocked my head back, wishing I could lean on something. A whirlpool of dread stirred through my center, hard and heavy and foul. But I held her burning gaze as stars exploded slowly behind her eyes. Astral. Eternal. I finally nodded.
“You want my corda-cruor.”