10. Maren
Maren
Palms grew in the distance, though they disappeared as we grew near, a mirage in the sand. Hills, too, seemed to collide with the horizon, though we never reached them. The air tasted old, like brimstone left under burning rain.
We passed buildings erected from ancient slabs of marbled white, though none of them looked like houses. Pillars marked entrances and walls, grand and smooth and ageless.
Kye led me up stone steps to the largest one.
Silver fire danced from the tips of torches, the flames smokeless.
Naiads roamed in and out of the open pillars, that prickle still snapping down my spine as my eyes met theirs, nodding at them as they bowed.
But ordinary humans filtered out as well.
They milled about, often in groups or with a partner, floating dreamily by.
We stepped into a wide room, its ceiling tall and deep. It reminded me of the throne room in Laurier Palace, though there was no throne here.
A translucent sheath hung ahead. Shimmery like a calm waterfall, shapes and lights moving behind it. Kye halted over the moonstone floor, nodding at the attendant who waited at the curtain’s entrance, a young Naiad with white hair and pale eyes.
“She will only be a moment,” the female said.
The air cracked softly behind us, and I caught only the brief sight of silver-dust wings streak through before disappearing again, as though an owl had entered through an invisible pocket and left again. An old man stood in its place, blinking at us with watery eyes.
A small crowd drew him in, voices soft but excited. The man walked away, age dropping off him with each step. His back straightened; hair thickened, teeth brightened. The small crowd rounded a corner out of sight.
Kye squeezed my hand.
“Was your mother here to meet you?” I asked.
He responded with a caress of his thumb over the back of my hand. “Yes.”
I glanced at him, wondering if there was more. He’d once told me he’d seen her in the water of Neris Island. That she’d sent him back. He’s always been elusive when speaking about his mother.
But then, I suppose, so had I.
Another quiet crack, the faint sound of paws scampering over the stone like a pup set loose.
A small boy stood where the man had landed the moment before.
No one waited to greet him. It was clear he didn’t recognize me, but he stared back, a hopeful question in his eyes. A cold spark trickled down my neck.
“Theia will see you now,” the attendant at the curtain said.
I tore my gaze from the boy as we followed her inside. We left him standing in the center of the moonstone floor, alone.
Night-blooming flowers waited on the other side of the curtain. They were the first thing I noticed. Pots and planters of them, their blooms heavy and pale. There must have been hundreds.
I almost missed the woman watering them, her back to us.
A pool of shallow water lay in the center of the room, not unlike what I might have found in the Juile colony, and the fabric of her dress streamed from her shoulders, long enough that it sifted over the surface of the pool.
The deep corners of her shoulder blades shifted as she lifted her glass watering can.
“The third Steward,” she said, resting her can on a stone table and turning to face us.
Theia was tall. Graceful and curved, her frame a feminine hymn of dips and swells.
She straightened, clasping her hands gently together expectantly as she studied me.
Her umber skin gleamed, rich and dark, light bouncing from the sculpted edge of her cheek.
Sleek black hair draped off her shoulders like strands of silk.
An overwhelming urge to bow settled over my bones. In the corner of my eye, Kye tilted his head forward. I shook the feeling away, lengthening my neck instead.
“I was unsure, when I sent that message through your mother’s eclipse, whether I’d someday find you standing here,” she said.
A firm snap stirred in her words, a smooth command layered through them. Again, that need to bend skittered through me, but I hardened my jaw. Any softness that might have been in Theia’s moonbeam gaze cooled. “Ask what you need to. I know the question that brings you here.”
If you know it, why should I ask?
I shuffled the insolent words to the corner of my mind. “I completed your task.”
She watched me smoothly. “Did you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.” I was aware the word left my mouth with an abrasive edge, the flick of my tongue a sharp blade. “When can we go back?”
“To the realm of mortals?”
“Yes.”
Theia reached for her glass watering can once more. “To form a Triad, you must become a team. Complete my errand. Work with those who have also been sent here by a Morai candle.”
“An errand?” My nostrils flared. Kye opened an eye towards me, though he kept his thoughts silent as I curled my fists. “I did what you asked. We all did.”
“Calm, child. Soak in the lunar energy. Restore yourself.”
All my life, I’d worshipped Mihauna. Worked in my gardens on the nights she was full.
Offered her prayers and thanks. Followed her light without question or thought.
Just for her to lead me to Kye’s death. To a broken cordae.
Abandoning my colony, bargaining with Darkness, standing here with no idea what comes next while she watered her thousands of moon-forsaken flowers.
Heat stroked my edges, the same impatience I’d tried to suffocate when dealing with the god of shadow.
“When you are sent back, you’ll arrive only a few moments before Death took him,” Theia said, not even bothering to look at Kye, or even use his name.
“I won’t send you back into battle without healing you first. Time is not relative here the way it is on mortal ground.
You lose nothing by completing a simple request.”
Maybe so. But hearing it did very little to ebb my displeasure.
“What is your errand?”
Theia tipped her watering can, watching a smooth cascade of liquid pour from its spout.
“Find the first Steward. The one who lit the candle. Climb the Mountain of Truth to the top where you’ll find the Temple of the Fates.
You must remove your shoes before stepping inside.
Walk to the center and dig deep into the sand using your hands.
Ask a question.” She paused to raise her eyes to mine. “You will get only one.”
“Climb a mountain and ask a question.” I couldn’t keep the annoyance from my voice. Brows low, I purposefully avoided Kye’s gaze.
“Yes. You’ll know when you’ve dug deep enough. You may go,” Theia said before disappearing through the rows of her night flowers. I could have sworn her lips twitched before she faded behind the starry leaves.
“Fine.” I opened my mouth to demand where to find the one who lit the candle, and Kye caught my hand, tugging me back through the water-curtain.
The little boy had vanished. Kye waited until we’d crossed half the moonstone floor before sighing. “I know you want to return to mortal land. Let’s avoid angering the gods before we do.”
“The gods are playing us for fools,” I hissed.
A nearby attendant paused, raising a critical glance in my direction.
I ignored her. “Darkness and the Fates were the same. They’re ancient and bored.
They don’t care about our lives. They don’t care about Thaan.
They’re placing bets across the table from each other, each one guarding their hand. ”
“All right, well, they’re still gods,” he said, crossing his arms and leveling me with a more indulgent look than I’d have liked. “We’re nothing more than cards in their hands, Leihani. Face down on the table. Which card are you?”
Hands on my hips, my eyes lifted to meet his.
“A queen.”
He studied me for a long moment before giving a small nod of approval, flicking his eyes to the open exit ahead.
We made our way across, and his question thrummed in my thoughts.
We’d just climbed down the bright steps outside when a blur made me cast a casual glance over my shoulder.
The motion was thoughtless. Careless. My eyes simply tracking a shift in environment.
But at the sight of the Naiad leaning against a tall pillar, I stopped.
I don’t think she meant for me to see her. She tensed, just slightly. Her mouth parted in apprehension, though she didn’t say a word. The silver light of Perpetuum hit her raven hair, staining it almost blue.
Her throat tightened, though her body remained as still and hard as the stone she leaned against. As though she’d been caught and fossilized on the spot.
I’d seen her before. Not in my own distant memories.
In Nori’s.
My brows furrowed. “Are you hiding from me?” I’m not sure what I expected. To have seen her in the crowd of Naiads that had gathered at the edge of Perpetuum when I crossed the sea of stars? A reunion like the old man’s? Intimate and quiet, yet somehow profound?
I’d have rebuffed her, even if she’d been waiting among them. Maybe she understood that. Maybe that’s why she’d kept to herself.
A year ago—Mihauna, even mere weeks ago—I’d clung to any details about her life. Had cradled the book Selena had given me. Had hung on Queen Sidra’s words as she recounted meeting Cebrinne. Had even paused at learning Pheolix had known her.
Had I known then that I’d find my mother, I would have probably been nervous. Excited. Ready to sit with her for hours, soaking up everything from the shape of her eyes to the sound of her voice.
But I gazed up at her now. And only felt hollow.
I didn’t wait for her to answer. I’d waited my entire moon-damned life.
“We have a mountain to climb.” I turned on my heel and walked away. Her stare sat heavy across my back all the way across the sand.