16. Maren #2
“Because,” I half slurred through the drunken fatigue that warred on my bones.
Kye knew too much about Naiads these days.
That we needed rest, days of sleep, after suffering a major injury.
My hands slapped against his as I fumbled for the reins, but he fastened an arm around me, pulling me to the side until it was out of reach.
Nori. Answer me, I snapped. “Stop, Kye.”
He’d hauled me deep into his lap, hugged up against one thigh, stealing another empty glance behind us. “I know they’re not fighting because everything in this canyon echoes. We’d hear it. You can look at me that way all you want, Leihani. Where are they?”
I growled my frustration. Nori.
Keep moving, she murmured into my head.
But her voice was thin. Tight. Bound with focus—too much focus.
Cold water dumped over my shoulders, freezing in the pit of my stomach. For some reason, Nori was water-calling.
Nose next to mine, Kye watched, waiting for me to report what she’d said back to him. His shoulders remained relaxed, but his palm nailed my leg down to his, the veins of his forearm pulsing against his corded muscle.
“Turn around,” I said again. This time, he tilted, directing Kolibri in a narrow circle, though his brow hung low and hard over his eyes, his arm stiffening as it wrapped around my waist.
I called to Nori again, but she didn’t answer. The walls of her mind shut me out. As her Videre, I could knock them down if I wanted. A small skirmish broke through my thoughts as I fought myself over whether or not I should force my way through.
Nori, what’s happening?
Don’t come back.
But through the cracks, a familiar voice hammered into her thoughts. Deep and angry.
Where’s the witch?
I angled my head just enough to look at Kye. “The Riveans have my Naiads.”
His jaw lengthened as he stared ahead, glowering at Kolibri’s fresh tracks like they’d personally insulted him.
The sun hovered low, painting the snow golden-pink, stars beginning to glimmer into the sky.
I leaned against Kye, letting my weight sag into him as we rode, unsure what might lie ahead.
What might demand energy I wasn’t certain I had.
Mentally, I prodded at Nori’s barriers, the lines in my forehead carving deeper with every passing second of silence.
Nori.
Silence.
Nori.
Nothing.
Nori, I burst, banging at her walls. I sensed her there, acutely aware of my presence. Don’t make me call to your blood.
I’d never thought I’d make such a threat. Thaan had stolen my body once. Locked me inside my mind so he could use me as an instrument, taunting me with a vacoused Kye. Unwittingly, my fingers spread across the back of Kye’s hand.
He squeezed my thigh in return. “She’s not responding?”
“No.”
“Bring her to me if you want your prisoners.”
The voice came from north and west, somewhere above the mountainside we’d fought along. It resounded through the nearby trees, the menace slicing through the words a stark contrast to the gentle wind that carried them.
The whites of Kye’s eyes widened. His hand clamped down on my leg.
“Rivea has part of my colony,” I said with perhaps too much force. “I can’t leave them.”
“Let’s make a plan,” he shot back. I was already sliding from the saddle.
Water clung to my fingertips, brushing my nailbeds blue with cold.
But my body cast away the chill, heat gathering along my core, flaring along the center of my chest. My lungs still burned with every breath, but each exhale left me with less vapor and more smoke.
Fire and ash and claws ripping against the base of my windpipe.
Rivea had part of my colony.
My. Colony.
Clouds shifted, blotting out the dying sun.
Ahead, torchlight flickered through bare branches, outlining a small ridge in the rock.
Static nipped around my hands and face, crackling in my ears.
It danced in the air, a nymph of white fire, insultingly beyond my control.
But I’d never needed to control lightning in order to wield it.
I’d only ever needed to be angry.
From behind, Kye grabbed my shoulder. “I’m not trading you for a bunch of sirens,” he growled.
Electricity snapped from fingertip to fingertip as I held my hand up for him to see. And I wasn’t sure if it was my voice or the rage within me that answered, “I do not plan to barter.”
I’d killed an entire army before, in another life. I could do it again. But I didn’t want Kye or any of my sirens nearby when I did.
Kye’s eyes narrowed. “That’s your plan? Hand yourself over and then wipe them out?”
All I needed to do was level him with a look that answered for me. Kye swore under his breath.
I didn’t let him see my power was flagging. That it hissed and spit like the last drops of water in a pot boiled dry. That I knew my words were just that, words, and though the sky had deepened and the air was charged, I harbored an astonishingly small amount of command.
Kye drew his sword before we crested the incline that divided us from my colony.
Rows of Naiads stood just beyond, their byssus silk dresses catching the wind as they stood locked in a fighting stance.
Mist swirled gently around their feet, palms waiting and ready at their sides, water sliding off their fingers in small drips.
Across from them, the Rivean army. Thousands of crimson-coated men stacked behind each other, disappearing into the dark.
And in the center, Kazimir, the tip of his blade held at the neck of a figure kneeling in the snow. Not one of my sirens. A young woman with a riot of golden-red curls.
And beside her, the future King of Calder.