17. Maren #2
A little further from my Naiads. From Diara and Hadrian. From Kye.
A little further, and I’d smash this scrap of mountain along with everything standing over it.
I don’t see you. Kye’s voice penetrated my thoughts like a spade thrust through hot sand. Where are you?
I didn’t know precisely where I was.
They had pulled me into their midst, past the epidermis of thousands, straight down to the heart and flesh of their army.
They were before me, behind me, edged up along my sides.
They didn’t leer at me like pirates once had.
They passed me along like soldiers circulating a long-handled weapon: carefully, precisely, and as far from their own bodies as they could stretch.
I’d lost count of how many hands pulled me through their ranks. I couldn’t see Kazimir anymore. He’d stayed near the front, where metal once more clashed and throats choked in watery gasps.
Fall back, I warned him. I’m going to raze this mountain. I don’t want you near me.
But the noise only grew louder, even as I was carried away from it.
The man who held onto me now was young, though most of them were. Rivea had sacrificed an entire generation for this war. He paused as another soldier handed something metal to him, pulling my hands to meet over my waist.
Cold metal clamped around my wrists, biting into my skin. My molars ground into each other as he turned me around.
Into the face of another Naiad.
I thought he was Thaan at first, until I remembered the Thaan I’d always known was Pheolix.
This Naiad was tall and broad, flashes of silver throughout the silky black braids of his hair, though his eyes were the same as Cain’s had been.
Cool and pressing. The prickle down my back stung, spiculae firing in icy warning, as sharp as the bandolier of knives he wore around his chest.
“Silver is the most efficient conductor of electricity,” the Naiad mused. “Call lightning again, and you will fry yourself like a fish in a pan.”
The Riveans dispersed, breaking forward to fight, and there was no one to hold me in place as I took a wide step away from him. “There’s more than one way to kill thousands of men.”
“There are, yes.” His gaze fell to the stone hanging from my neck. He waited until the last of the soldiers fell away, until it was just him and me and the cold face of the mountain above. “But then you’d never hear that I have my own Naiad army waiting to help you fight.”
“Help us fight.” I paused, lowering my brows. “Fight Rivea?”
The Naiad’s mouth stretched, though it didn’t fit him. It broadened like a stiff muscle. One that has become tense and sore after disuse. “Seems like the necessary next step,” he said, “since we hope you’ll help us kill Thaan in return.”
Kye, cut back to the main trail. South and east—as if you’re heading to Pirou. My eyes flicked to the Naiad beside me in a Rivean Commander’s coat. Watch for a possible trap.
Towards Pirou, he echoed. Thoughts flew around in his head like hornets trapped in a jar. Where are you?
I’ll meet you at the back of the mountain.
“Once we turn around this bend, I’ll remove the silver,” the Naiad said.
He’d helped me into the saddle of a sable mare that seemed to squeeze my thighs and send an ache into my low back.
Either the shackles made my riding clunky and off-balance, or I wasn’t as used to her gait as I was Kolibri’s, whose body had always moved like an extension of my own.
Either way, directing this horse in the dark while mentally calling to Kye fettered all my attention.
“What’s a Naiad doing with the Rivean army?” I asked. “Your accent isn’t Northern.”
Selena had once shown me the major colonies of the world.
At least, the ones large enough to be ruled by a Videre.
The closest one now would have been located in Illuskia.
But his voice didn’t hold the proud, heavy timbre that I’d come to recognize from Illuskian visitors in Laurier Palace. He sounded, if anything, Calderian.
He waited as a soldier rode through our rear and towards the front.
The Rivean army had stayed behind to fight.
Six of them accompanied us now, but I’d heard the Naiad command his regiment to follow our trail once my fighters were dead—right before he dropped his voice and murmured that he’d instructed Hadrian and Diara to lead our army away.
“I wasn’t born in Rivea. But I’ve been here for twenty years. ”
“What brought you here, then? What’s here for you?”
Other than the red coat, he shared nothing with the ruddy, often bearded men born here.
Though fine lines had gathered around his eyes, his face was smooth and taut as a worry stone, his flaws long since worn away from his surface.
I’d always found it difficult to guess at a Naiad’s age—especially an older one.
The Naiad sighed. “It’s more what wasn’t here.”
“Fine.” I pulled my hands to the side, testing my call against the water in the air.
Had I not taken a knife to the back, had I not burned through most of my energy already, had the moon been full and had sleep not scoured the edges of my mind, it would have been easy to thaw all the snow and ice in the air. “Why are you here. Why help me?”
Elbow bent, hand spread across his thigh, the Naiad cocked his head to look at me. “He wanted to wait and see what you’d do. What kind of siren you are. If you’d give yourself up for your friends and your colony.”
My mouth tightened. “Who did?”
The Naiad’s brows twitched as though the answer was clear. He opened his mouth—and the sounds of watery strangling broke through the trees ahead.
Sirens.
They dropped out from bare branches, twirling from behind tree trunks, stepping out of the shadow of the mountain and into the deep blue light of eventide. Our six Rivean guards writhed in the snow until the blood in their veins lay still.
I shifted in the saddle, failing to rein in my surprise.
The Naiad at my side leaned across the dead air between us, taking my harness.
Nothing in his posture or movement struck me as threatening, but I couldn’t ignore the rapid tick of my heart as more of them appeared, encircling our horses, the shimmer of their silver Byssus silk capturing the dying sun.
Kye, I sent through the trees and wind. Did you fall back?
We are heading to you. His voice was clipped. Hard. Was he fighting or was he running? Where are you?
Almost to our meeting place. I hesitated, swirling water molecules around my fingers just to remind myself I still could, though it dripped off my fingertips on its own.
What’s wrong? Kye asked.
Naiads, I answered. Then switched mental lanes. Nori, there are Naiads here.
The sirens surrounded me, more than I could count in the dark. The male holding my reins dismounted, handing them to a tall figure in the front, a face covered by a silver byssus hood, though by the breadth of his shoulders and the height of his body, I knew he was also male.
Naiads? Nori’s voice returned. How many?
“Thank you, Sindri,” the veiled siren said. He pulled the back of his hood, shaking long, chestnut braids out over his shoulders before taking me in with a pair of piercing green eyes.
Something in me relaxed. I knew this Naiad.
Something in me tightened. I knew this Naiad.
“Hello, Queen Maren,” he said.
Perched high in my saddle, I raised my chin. “Hello, Aegir.”