18. Maren
Maren
I’m with an army of Venusians posing as Riveans. Aegir is here.
I sent the message to both Kye and Nori. Brief confusion rebounded from Kye; I was certain he’d never heard the Videre’s name, nor had he realized a colony resided under the Venus Sea.
Acknowledged, Nori replied.
I clenched my teeth. Find Selena.
Seeking her out felt like asking for help against my will.
She was the only one who knew of Aegir’s note to Thaan.
The four words rang clear in my mind: I have your weapon.
I’d looked her in the eyes and asked what he meant.
Only now did I realize she’d never answered.
She’d artfully skirted around the question, explaining Cebrinne was my mother instead.
But I understood now. She’d given the same response when I’d asked her if she was a Prizivac Vode, shrugging her shoulders like the thought had never occurred to her.
A weapon. That’s what I was. To Thaan. To Aegir. To Selena. A knife made to kill. An army assembled to destroy. A token collected to gamble with Fate. They’d each pointed my needle in the direction of their own wind, aiming me like an arrow without ever telling me why.
“I have six hundred Naiads in Rivean uniform pretending to march after the Calderians now,” Sindri said, unfolding a map and tracing the topography with a finger.
One of the Naiads behind him raised his torch, offering a dose of firelight.
“We can blow cover and fight them off, though we don’t have the numbers to gain the upper hand.
Exactly how many Naiads did you bring?” He glanced at me and Aegir’s gaze followed.
Back straight as a bolt, I studied them both, unsure how to answer.
The only time I’d met Aegir, Selena had been afraid of him. And then he’d hired pirates to take me from the beach at Cynthus Castle. The idea of offering him details of my colony raised my hackles.
“Why would Venusians pose as Riveans?” I said instead. “Why would Naiads care about a human war?”
“Human war?” Sindri echoed, blinking at me. “Do you not understand who started this war? Who steals Naiads from these mountains?”
Ah. Thaan.
“Am I a prisoner?” I asked, my voice a hardened line.
The side of Aegir’s mouth twitched under his clipped beard. His whirls of tattoos disappeared beneath his silk cloak, so dark they drank the flickering light as he cocked his head up at me in humor. “No.”
I raised my hand, the silver over my wrist glinting. “Why am I still wearing these?”
“Because I can sense the static between your fingers.” Aegir’s shoulders were slack, his hips loose as he leaned into one foot and crossed his arms. “And there’s nothing more dangerous than a fresh Naiad monarch with unchecked power.”
I suppose his words were true, but I bristled anyway, opening my mouth to fire back when Nori slid into my thoughts again. I have Selena.
She knows Aegir is here?
Yes.
There are a few hundred of them with me and probably as many disguised as Rivean soldiers waiting to meet you. I murmured into both Kye and Nori’s heads, failing to suffocate the sting of electricity caged in the veins of my hands. I don’t know if this is a trap.
We can’t stop now to assess, Kye broke in. They’re on our heels.
“How many Naiads do you have?” Aegir asked again. Patience marked his tone, though the question was more demand than request.
“A hundred,” I answered, deciding they could have guessed the number whether or not I supplied it.
“A hundred against ten thousand?” He aimed a sideways glance at Sindri.
My nostrils flared. “We had a plan. It went awry.”
“Indeed.” Stroking the short length of his beard, Aegir’s attention dropped to the map, wind kicking at its edges.
The low flames of annoyance seeded into my stomach.
“Fight or flee, Sindri?” The prompt rolled so easily from his lips.
As though either option were easy, as painless as choosing whether to spread jelly or honey on his morning toast.
Sindri tucked his jaw to the side, scanning the map as though it offered answers.
“Fighting might cost us in numbers. We could create a diversion that would lead to Juilean’s escape.
Cut down at least some Rivean forces.” He nocked his chin toward me.
“It’s unclear why the Queen led her Naiads here. ”
“I suppose it depends on what the Queen wants,” Aegir answered. His hunter eyes locked firmly onto mine.
Torchlight flashed and sputtered. The soft wind died, leaving the corners of the map in Sindri’s hand to droop. No one uttered a sound.
“My choice?” I blinked. “You’re leaving me to decide what to do with your own soldiers?”
Aegir tilted his head. “Juile and Venus have always been allies. I don’t know why you came to Rivea, but you must have had a reason. If you need us, we’re at your disposal.”
The cold of the silver clamps bit into my wrists. I narrowed my eyes. Nori.
I’m here.
Unease wormed its way into my belly like an eel tunneling under rock. Ask Selena if I can trust Aegir.
I waited for Nori to relay the question, ignoring the weight of hundreds of silent eyes over my face. Seconds ticked, my guard only raised as they passed, my suspicion surrounding Aegir at odds with the mistrust I’d gained for Selena.
She says it depends on what he’s offering and what he’s requesting in return. She says it’s been a long time since she’s—
I don’t have time for a full breakdown of motives. I huffed a silent exhale. Did Sidra trust Aegir?
Nori was silent for a beat. Yes.
I suppose that was enough.
I straightened, fighting the caution that nipped at my edges.
“I’ll accept your help creating a diversion.
” Fighting the Rivean forces might have been the better option.
Might have solidified more safety for Kye if war called him back in the coming weeks.
But there were too many unknowns in what Aegir offered.
Too many lives to lose—and find myself in Aegir’s debt because of it.
Something glimmered behind Aegir’s sharp gaze, as though my decision was a puzzle piece to tuck alongside other details he’d keep to himself.
He raised his head in a sharp nod to his Naiads, and a group of them cut into the night, silver cloaks flashing through the dark.
“Come with me,” he said, climbing into Sindri’s mount and pushing in the opposite direction.
Kye murmured into my thoughts. What’s happening?
I’m fine.
His heart pulsed through his mind, ticking loudly. If anything changes, tell me.
I stole a slanted view of Aegir. His rough cheeks, the braids thrown over one side of his head, the other side sheared so low that his black tattooed whorls peeked through.
The short, sharp angle of his beard, grown just past his chin.
He squinted into the shadowed trail ahead, a near-scowl I had once run from.
I will, I murmured back.
Aegir spent the next ten minutes canvasing the low incline in silence before he said softly, “You’ve changed.”
“I suppose so.” I shook the mountain chill from my spine, drawing my own Byssus silk across my shoulders to stream out behind me. “Playing hostage for pirates tends to have that effect.”
The impulse to watch his expression as I said it almost overpowered me, but I kept my back straight, eyes fused on the road. From the corner of my eye, Aegir rolled his jaw left and right in thought.
“We had a plan,” he finally said, turning to look at me. “It went awry.”
I refused to look at him. “Indeed.”
“Did they hurt you?”
I opened my mouth to say no. To do what I would have done as a child, hiding any weakness or shame. suffocating the thought that anyone had enough power to hurt me, burying it deep instead. So deep it remained unseen and unnoticed. So deep the truth became a lie.
Once upon a time I’d thought concealing my own weaknesses protected me. Now I realized, it only protected everyone else.
I aimed my attention directly at the Videre. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not shying from my hard stare. But I wasn’t finished.
“They attacked us on the beach. Held me underwater. Forced me to turn. Struck my head against the side of a boat. Lifted me into their ship by the fins of my tail. Chained me in a tiny cabin. Poisoned me. Prevented me from seeing the moon. Threatened to kill me.” The words thickened, venom in my mouth, each one the lethal edge of a knife.
“And that is nothing—nothing—compared to what they did to my cordae.”
“Your cordae,” he breathed. But I wasn’t done.
“We escaped to find ourselves in Western Rivea. In Brána Do Podsvetia. The Gateway to Dark—”
“I know the channel,” he said. His naturally rough voice was gentle. Too gentle. It only stoked the sudden burn in my lungs.
“We were so weak and starved I searched for food in that channel. Fought a monster to escape and then fought decompression at the surface. The Riveans almost hanged Kye. The pirates flayed my back. We ran from an avalanche, lost a horse, and made it to Calder to find Thaan waiting at the gate. And he told me”—my jaw grew hard, releasing each syllable like stones thrown from my tongue—“that you wrote to him after we’d been taken. That you called me a weapon.”
My hands shook against my thighs. I curled them into fists. Mountain air breathed as cold as ice, but I no longer noticed. My blood pounded inside my ears, my heart thudding with the sudden desire to thrash and fight.
At the corners of my mind, I sensed Kye, lured not by invitation but my own spewing emotions. He didn’t say a word, though he hovered within me. Waiting in case he was needed. I didn’t acknowledge him, though I looked down to find myself spinning my ring around my finger.
Hooves clomped against rock and compact dirt. Stars blazed overhead. The Venusian Naiads walked quietly behind us, almost silent, though I could feel them there, watching us.
“I didn’t know you were cordaed. I thought he was your human husband,” he finally said, and though he didn’t apologize again, soft remorse clung to his voice.
“Was cordaed, yes.” I tsked in silence, my vision burning. Out of everything I’d spat at him, that was all he could say? Though I’d come to realize, through Nori and Olinne, that Naiads honored the bonds of a corda-cruor more than humans honored marriage.
Aegir glanced sympathetically at me. “Did you lose him? Your human?”
Ah. There it was. There was my line. The boundary my words couldn’t cross. They bubbled inside me, gathering in a lump against my throat, raw and hot. They stung the backs of my eyes, burned inside my nose, gouged at my heart.
I swallowed and didn’t answer.
I see you, Kye rumbled quietly into my head. At least, I see torches ahead. I think it’s you.
It’s me.
The mountainside carved a jagged silhouette against the night sky, but among the few trees in our path, figures stepped from the trail.
I couldn’t see his face, but I recognized him anyway.
His height gave him away, taller than the others.
That, and the shape of his shoulders, the soft way his shadow faded at the top of his head where light became lost within his curls.
And the internal stream of relief that flowed from him the moment he spotted me.
Aegir started in surprise as I heaved to the side, pushing off my saddle, though the Videre did nothing to stop me from running to Kye. He and the Venusians halted where they were, content to give my troupe a wide berth.
Snow crunched under my heels, my silk-spun toes scraping rock and ice, my breath loud against the quiet night.
And then I was in Kye’s warm arms, my cheek against his hard chest. And nothing else really mattered.