8. Maren
Maren
Kye caught me, drawing me up and pulling me in, my body covered in ash and burns and blood and the solid weight of his arms. The pain in my leg vanished the moment I fell through, though a limpness conquered my muscles instead. Everything in me liquefied, leaving me slack and listless.
“Did I make it?” I asked, my airway tight with skepticism and relief, and only then realizing I hadn’t expected to.
The thought caved into my center, leaving me hollow with ice.
Every moment since watching Kye fall into a white bed of snow had been a dream, a dream that had only grown darker, and I hadn’t let myself imagine I might wake up from it.
Kye’s fingers laced through the tangled hair at my crown. “You made it,” he murmured against me.
“You’re fucking welcome.” My voice cracked against the blood-stained cotton of his shirt. His chest was hard under my weight. Dense and compact and real. But the heartbeat I’d grown so familiar with didn’t drum against my skin. Lungs didn’t vent against my cheek.
And the scent of him, that herby garden storm, was nowhere to be found.
His throat tightened against my temple, thumb sliding a soft stroke over my arm as he tucked me in close. We sat for a few minutes, cradled into each other, Kye squeezing my arms like he hadn’t yet convinced himself I was there.
Naiads drifted along the veil, called by the arrival of one of their own. They floated past us like gleaming phantoms wafting through smoke. Face buried in Kye’s body, I watched them go.
Except for one. A young woman remained nearby. Not close enough to disturb us, but near all the same. She closed her eyes, tilting back her head, and released a slow exhale.
My fingertips found a narrow hole in the center of Kye’s shirt, just long enough to have been carved by a blade. “You left.” The words burned against my throat, my voice a sudden fracture. “I called and called, but you didn’t answer. You left.”
Kye swallowed against my hair. “I watched you at every step. Until you found the Fates.”
“I bargained it away.” I pulled back enough to look up at him. I didn’t clarify what I meant. I knew he wouldn’t need me to.
His thumb caught a streak under my eye. “I don’t need it.”
Something in me firmed. Perhaps it was the Naiad in me. I didn’t need it either. I’m not sure I ever needed it.
I wanted it.
Kye’s mouth curved as he studied my eyes.
He was luminous here. Perpetuum shrouded him in gold, and every part of him seemed to gleam from within.
Moreso than the Naiad standing behind him.
Silver sparkled under her skin instead, cool and pale.
She watched in silence, midnight hair twisted loosely over one shoulder.
“Are you Cebrinne?” I asked her. The question left me in a flat voice. Unfeeling and harsh. Something thorned and sharp wound deep in my stomach the longer I gazed at her.
The Naiad took her time answering. She resembled Selena enough to be her sister. Staring at me in silence, her eyes remained unreadable, though I thought I caught a shine of pain along their edges. “No,” she finally said. “She is waiting for you, though.”
The thorns inside me dulled. I hadn’t had time to examine my feelings regarding my mother.
The woman who decided to leave me before I could speak.
Who sentenced Kye and me to death when she chose her own.
Who led me down a path that ended with the severing of my cordae, a bond so sacred Darkness had called it blasphemy to break.
I hadn’t had time—but my jaw hardened. My fingers closed into my palm. A hard, grating knot closed around my silent heart, walling me off. She’s waiting for you.
She could keep waiting.
“Come on, Leihani.” Kye squeezed my hand, pulling me gently away. “Theia knows you’re here.” He led me down the beach, where starry waves washed silver through the veil and crawled away, a trail of glittery foam along its edge. We left the Naiad standing alone in strands of golden light.
The air tasted like it had when I crossed the sea of stars.
Reminiscent of something burning for eternity.
Naiads strolling along the same beach, pausing to let us pass.
They pressed their hands together and lowered their heads, waiting for us to leave before resuming their walk.
The same bow as the Naiads of Juile. I raised a sidelong brow at Kye.
“I assume it has to do with these,” he answered, stroking a finger down my arm.
The patterns over my skin shimmered softly under streaks of dried blood.
Down my hands and across my fingers, under the silk of my byssus dress and wrapping the length of my legs.
“Can’t escape being Queen, even in death. ”
“Am I dead then? Officially?” I asked as the sea rolled over my toes. Crystalline silver-blue water, though it felt the same as it had on the other side of the veil, like stardust over my skin. It whisked away the blood at my ankle, leaving it clean and sparkling in the golden light.
Kye’s smile slipped. “You crossed the sea of stars with Death.”
“Yes, well. I had to prove something to you.”
“And that is?”
I wove my arms together. “That I’d come for you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said smoothly.
“I had to fight Darkness’s seaspider.”
He clicked his tongue. “A big spider.”
“Massive.”
“I know.”
I leaned toward him. “Un-der-water,” I enunciated. “In the dark.”
Kye nodded. “I watched.”
“It was horrible. And ugly.”
“Yes, it was. I told you that channel was cursed.”
“If you wanted me to stay out of it, you should have stepped out of the way.”
“I did step out of the way.” Kye waved a hand. “I fought the first three Riveans.”
“Well, the fourth was the one you needed to watch for.”
He gave a half-smile. “I’m aware.”
“Duck next time.”
“Yes, wife.”
Gazing out at the water, I sighed, unclasping the baldric from my shoulder. “Can I swim here?” My belt and knife loosened under my fingers next, tossed into the sand.
Kye tracked my line of sight. “If I say no, will that stop you?”
Already halfway out of my skirts, I merely grinned.
Kye tugged his shirt off over his head, and my gaze dragged over the closed wound in his chest. He tossed his shirt away, following me into the water where I unraveled into Naiad form, letting a wave wash over my head, cutting into the view of the sirens along the shore.
The water wasn’t wet. It felt dry somehow, washing over me like waves of light, weightless and sleek.
Curious, I called to it and it ignored me.
A hand grasped mine, and Kye pulled me into him. My tail wrapped around his hips, bolting us both under the gentle waves. We didn’t need oxygen, and it occurred to me that we could just stay forever. Curled up under a silver ocean.
Kye nuzzled against my side, into the crook of my neck. His fingertips trailed the small dips and angles of my arm all the way to my shoulder, spreading out across the column of my neck, turning my jaw so he could kiss directly under my ear.
I almost didn’t make it. I sent the words into his mind to see if I could now that realms no longer separated us. To see if he heard them. If he’d answer me back.
The sound of my voice screaming his name shattered the quiet walls of my mind without warning. Kye went still, and I wondered if he’d heard that, too.
His nose brushed hair away from my nape, his mouth a quiet blade against my skin.
I had no doubts that you would.
Starry water sent my hair flying as it rolled over the top of us.
Kye tugged me over him. Golden brown hues drank me in as my tail wound around his waist, an anchor I wasn’t willing to forfeit.
A bright flicker flashed behind his eyes, primal and impatient.
Hands carving through my hair, he pulled my face into his.
A lifetime of torrential wind passed between us through that stare.
His thoughts shot like stars, vivid streaks against a black night, a rapid fire I couldn’t catch.
I held onto him under the gentle current, the muffled noise of a stardust sea over my head.
Latched to sculpted shoulders, a hard abdomen, solid thighs. Real, real, real. Here, here, here.
Under my fingertips.
Mine.
It feels like it’s been years since I touched you, he murmured into my mind.
I gave a slow shake. It’s been three days.
It’s been an eternity.
I smiled, though the words were a sharp edge in my chest.
I watched you bring down the mountain. Kye slid a thumb across the corner of my jaw. I tried to stay. I’m sorry, Leihani.
You cannot deny Death when he comes to collect you.
I tilted my head, tracing the ridge of the vein that traveled the side of his neck.
One I had studied plenty of times before.
A smooth bridge from heart to head, one that I’d spent hours watching tick.
Planned to silence it, once upon a time.
Then, to kiss it. Caress it. Lean against it and let it drum over my temple, a steady rhythm I would recognize across time and space.
It didn’t tick now. It simply sat embedded in the muscle lining his throat. Stagnant. Silent.
All of a sudden, it didn’t feel real.
Kye was here. But he wasn’t whole.
Neither of us was.
And this place gleamed with luminescence everywhere I looked. But no warmth sat over my shoulders. No songs from dancing trees, chirping birds. The air was not fresh, the taste of water not brisk and clean and salty over my palate.
Here, we were safe. But we were also no more than dust.
Kye laced his fingers into mine. Pulled them away from his chest and to his mouth, where he planted a firm drop into my knuckles. We could stay.
I stared at him as the tide swept away, sending my hair over my shoulders again. Is that what you want?
Kye’s thumb delved into the center of my hand. He drew a slow line across my palm. Distant screams echoed back to me. Desperate and fraught with pain. My voice. Kye’s name. Over and over and over, until the thought snapped off, a lid slammed over a box.
His gaze fell away, studying the inner curve of my hand. Death does not scare me. Mortality does.
Inevitably, human, you will abandon her to a life without you.
Nori’s words bloomed in his head, echoing in mine. Kye blinked at hearing them, even more determined to avoid my eyes. An ache drifted through my bones.
I settled back, leaning into his hips to better look at him. What do you want?
Kye slid a hand down my hip, fingertips soft as they glided over the bumps and ridges of my scales. If we go back, I can never see you like this again.
No, I murmured, watching him.
Even though it already killed me once? He stopped at a particularly bright scale, shining like a newly minted fragg. I let my eyes answer for me, tilting my head in apology. If we returned to the realm of mortals, I wasn’t interested in anything that might end either of our lives early.
He smiled, though something about it tugged sadly at my chest. I don’t care where we are. I just want you within reach. Even in my arms, you feel too far away.
If I’d been alive, heat would have crawled into my cheeks at that. I tamed my hair over my shoulder, a smirk delving into the corner of my lips. Yes, well. Duck next time, lout. This detour was very inconvenient.
Kye’s smile grew. A wicked spark gleamed in his eyes as they dipped, landing on my mouth. Yes, ma’am.
I refuse to fight another house-sized spider.
You looked good with my sword, though.
Of course I did.
Kye’s chuckle vibrated within my head, and I latched onto it. A sound I thought I might never hear again. He reached for me, clasping my chin, drawing me to him. That intent glare returned in his gaze.
It began softly. A smooth, slow lash of his mouth against mine. I rotated my head, the tip of my nose swiping his, and pressed in. Searching his tongue for his brand of mint and thunder, but all I tasted was my own urgency. My own impatience.
My own feral need.