47. Maren
Maren
At the sight of those glass towers rising from the distant seam of the ocean, I tilted my head back, exhaling with relief.
I hadn’t expected my father to sail back to Calder with us.
I hadn’t known what I expected from Cebrinne.
But here we were, three people awkwardly sharing a single boat, each clipped word and clicked tongue and cleared throat like an ice pick against my skin.
It was like they’d both forgotten how to speak.
They tittered around each other, Cebrinne aloof one moment, nervous the next, my father fixed upon the waves like a man who had never in his life beheld the miracle of water.
I felt like a translator caught between two languages, or perhaps a voyager stuck between Time and Truth, some poor fool at the mercy of the Fates.
“Is that it?” Ano asked, coming to stand at my shoulder.
“That’s it.” My eyes slid sideways, searching for his reaction. I’d always found the City of Towers cold and impending—but breathtakingly beautiful. He gave little away, however, roving the view of the shining glass and latticed iron with an almost disinterested scowl.
But I’d worried he’d stand out among the light-skinned Calderians, already tall and tattooed, his hands bearing the hard-earned trophies of callused labor.
So I’d convinced him to wear a naval uniform instead—neglecting to mention my Naiads had stripped the clothes from dead sailors—and hoped that might be enough to throw any possible attention away from the man Emilius had threatened.
Cebrinne glanced away to lean over the hull, pretending a rosy flush hadn’t crept up her neck whenever their eyes met. Ano did the opposite when he looked at her. His gaze seemed to squint over her as if she were a hard glare over the water, a hazardous flame that was better avoided.
Even more exasperating was the scent of them when they did sneak glances at each other. Their hearts sped, their fingers twitched, and a green, fertile tang invaded the air. Not their cordae, according to Selena’s lessons. That scent only lasted a month after it began.
Though I wondered how many cordaes Selena had encountered that had been separated for over twenty years.
Either way, I gritted my teeth and ignored it.
Two days spent half-sailing, half-pushing the sea against the aft of the canoe, and I still didn’t know what I was going to do with this stupid boat.
My muscles depleted from hours of water-calling, I could think of little else than crawling into bed next to Kye and falling asleep.
A splash broke through my thoughts. I turned to find Cebrinne’s side of the boat empty. Ano raised his brows at me.
“She does that,” I found myself saying apologetically. “I never know what to expect with her.”
“Where is she going?”
“Swimming her way to the cliffs, I suppose.”
He gave a deep huh, crossing his arms and leaning his weight over the side of his canoe. The look in his eyes reminded me almost of Kye during the talks we’d shared as we fled through Rivea, aware of all the clues to a mystery yet unable to piece them together. “How long have you known her?”
“Only a few weeks.” We hadn’t yet informed Ano that Cebrinne had come from Perpetuum.
I imagined he thought she’d been swept away that day, caught in a vicious rip curl and pulled out to sea.
That a ship had found her, and she’d never tried to come back.
Maybe, if she wanted to, she could explain that she’d died.
It was up to her. From the way my father’s mouth curled when she strayed into his sight, I doubted he was as ready to hear it as she was to say it.
“It’s odd, hearing her voice,” he said, his voice softer now than it had been for the past two days. I glanced at him, but he was watching the approaching towers, lost in the tangle of his own thoughts.
He didn’t say anything else.
I’d anticipated a certain degree of complication at hiding my father’s sixty-foot, double-hulled canoe.
The mere sight of it invited more questions than I was willing to allow, though I didn’t know what to do with the sole purpose of my father’s life for almost an entire year besides smashing it across the rocks.
“I’ll hide it for you,” Aegir said, as if it was no problem at all.
He, Selena, and Cebrinne had met us at the lowest point of the cliffs.
The wind teased at our eyes and hair, and even though I tried to lull the water into a smooth, glassy surface, it ripped the boat back and forth like a toy in the bath, my knuckles hard and white as I held on.
Aegir helped me out first, though it was more that he’d reached out his hand and told me to jump, pulling me into his chest as I landed.
He surprised me by doing the same for my father, though he didn’t hold on quite as long when Ano’s naval boots hit the rock.
He scrutinized my father in measured silence, and I wondered what he thought.
Selena, usually cool and collected, became completely unmeasured.
She bit down on a wholly lopsided grin at the sight of my father, and after a short introduction, had bobbed and weaved around Cebrinne like a young feline who’d spent the last half hour breathing in the potent fumes of catmint and had lost the power to walk in a straight line.
Where to keep my father within the palace ended up a much more complicated task than his boat.
Aegir was currently staying in Pheolix’s old apartment.
Aitne, who had been staying in the guest quarters of Kye’s tower, was most often back in the colony these days—but Ano would have been noticed roaming the halls of a royal tower.
“There’s always the room in the servant’s quarters,” Selena said, glancing at Pheolix. “Just temporarily, until we can find something else.”
Furnished with a key, I’d walked my father down to the very core of the palace, deep into the bedrock, where the air was damp and cold and smelled vaguely of ammonia.
We unlocked the very last servant door. The room inside was small, bare.
A single bed sidled against the wall, sheets folded neatly at the foot of the mattress.
I couldn’t help but cringe, watching my father walk silently into the room, pressing a hand into the bed to test the softness. “You get used to it,” I said unhelpfully, remembering how odd it was to sleep in one after sleeping on a floor mat my entire life.
“It’s fine, little leaf.” He turned to look at me, handsome even in the stupid naval uniform. His voice was hard, but his black eyes were soft. “Where will you be?”
“In Kye’s tower. But don’t look for me there if you need me. Go back to Selena’s rooms.”
“Where Alana is,” he confirmed. Then, closing his eyes, corrected himself. “Cebrinne.”
“Yes. Actually—” I turned on my heel, doubling back into the hall. My father followed me out, down the dark corridors until I stopped and knocked on another door. “There’s someone else that might track me down faster if you need.”
Kye was reading in our tower rooms when I slid through the door. He closed his book, sitting up. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. Did you find him?”
“Yes.” I walked past him, unwinding the long sheath from my shoulders, letting my silk drop to the floor in a twenty-foot sash. “He’s in a servant’s room not far from Diara.”
“You left your father with Veratta? Is he aware that she’s terrifying?”
“No,” I huffed. “I introduced them. She’s going to give him a tour around the palace tomorrow. Also, he wants to see you.”
“Think there will be anything left of him to see after a day with her?” Kye asked, a hook-like smile in the corner of his mouth.
I shot him a scathing glance as I lifted his heavy blankets, worming my way in.
He dropped a kiss onto my shoulder, crawling in beside me.
“Selena wants Pheolix to train your Naiads to fight and think like drones.”
“She mentioned it when she met us below,” I murmured, my finger tracing a raised vein from his bicep over the curve of his arm, into his chest. I wondered if Selena did indeed think my Naiads would benefit from practicing hand combat rather than water-calling, or if she’d dreamt up the exercise as a method of keeping Pheolix’s mind sharp.
My stomach squeezed every time I mentally lingered on the subject, and I thrust my thoughts elsewhere.
“Aegir thinks it’s a waste of time. He reminded me I should be star-wielding. ”
Kye rumbled, dipping his head to skim my neck with his mouth. “What’s stopping you from practicing now?” He leaned over me, propping himself up with a hand braced against the headboard, teasing the opposite side of my neck with his teeth.
“You’re right,” I panted softly at the sharp nip. “I’m not doing anything important.”
His nose buried somewhere in my hair, his breath a quiet pulse behind my ear.
Fatigue settled over my muscles like a deep ocean, dark and peacefully heavy, lulling me one wave at a time.
But Kye’s fingers had knotted with mine, his thumb drawing smooth lines into the side of my wrist, and when I turned my head toward him, I realized his eyes were open, his thoughts gently tucked away as if he’d drawn a curtain over them while I wasn’t looking.
I watched him for a moment. The crescent scar of his lower lip, thick lashes angled down as he stared into the sheets, brown sugar freckles over his nose—only visible when I was this close.
His thoughts were shielded from me, but other clues presented themselves.
My heart had slowed to a languid tick as sleep hovered nearby, but his thrummed half a beat faster than it usually did.
The air in my mouth tasted acrid, tinged with the subtle bite of worry.
“What’s on your mind?” I finally asked.