48. Maren
Maren
“It’s a simple little island,” Aegir said, resting his hands on his hips and glancing around.
The word simple offered more complexity than Evenstar probably deserved. The isle was smaller than Paria, tree-less and grass-less, a flat little raised shelf of rock and pebbles just higher than sea level.
“Venusian females moon bathe here when the weather is warm,” Aegir continued.
His gaze scoured the bare isle, and I couldn’t decide if the harsh line between his brows was drawn from deflecting the brightness of the sun or the lack of appeal Evenstar held for anything other than lying on cold rock.
Exiled from Aalto’s heat, I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to banish the shiver over my skin.
Across the isle, Leal kicked pebbles into the water below.
Aren and Hadrian wrapped Nori and Olinne’s wrists in strips of leather.
Already wrapped, Aitne and Diara hovered nearby, stroking the dark blue of Kolibri’s fur, watching Pheolix as he shaped their fingers into fists, positioning Aitne’s in front of her chin.
They’d arrived only minutes ago, surprising me like Cebrinne had a few days prior, Kye avoiding my eyes as he reminded me Selena had asked him to help train the Naiads and they, too, needed somewhere secluded.
That okay with you? he’d asked, and I’d answered yes, because it seemed like the polite thing to say, the responsible, queenly thing—because they were, of course, my Naiads.
And yes, I wanted them safe. Against one of Thaan’s drones, I wanted to give them any chance I could at a fair fight, if not a fair escape.
But Kye’s words from the night before had burrowed into my chest, as hard to swallow as glowing coals in the fire. A night of spotty sleep had done little to nullify it, judging by the mild heartburn at the base of my throat every time I recounted the conversation.
I suppose that’s the risk of growing close to someone, close enough to let them see the chinks in your armor.
You condemn something a problem and decide to kill it within the same breath.
It wasn’t that it was untrue. It was true, and I had no argument against it. Not only that, he’d hurled it at me as an accusation, a defect or shortcoming or weakness of character.
Aegir gathered his braids behind his shoulders, twisting sea water from the length. “You want help getting started?”
“I’ll be fine,” I answered, lifting a finger to test the presence of electricity in the air. A flash ignited at the end of it. Somewhere behind us, I knew Kye was pretending not to watch. I’d barely glanced at him since we’d woken.
For now, just do nothing.
“Force ice crystals into the clouds and you’ll get a larger spark,” Aegir said, watching me. “Precipitation will help too, and as much warm moisture as you can generate against the cold.” He chewed the inside of his cheek, folding his arms and indicating for me to start with a terse nod.
I exhaled, closing my eyes and listening to the sound of my lungs venting all air into the wild, turning away from everyone and everything. Voices faded into wind and sea, brine and salt and mist heavy on my tongue. The two stones hung in the hammock of my pocket, a weight over my hip bone.
Light behind my eyelids slowly collapsed into dark.
A soft sheet of water sprinkled over my cheeks, and I opened my mouth, inviting the taste of it in. Fresh, sharp, almost wintery. Rain then, not sea spray.
A fizzle around my fingertips.
And then waves. Monstrous, towering waves, titans of the sea.
I felt them even without my eyes open, a push and pull and thrash, over and over, growing taller, darker, mightier.
Aegir had pulled back his power, letting me take the helm of his Venusian waters like a captain offering control of their ship, and I wondered if he’d known I was desperate to unleash my frustration upon the sea and sky or if he’d planned to give me control either way.
There was too much I’d lost control over, too much I’d let slip right of my own hands.
Thaan was out of the palace—but was he really?
My father and my colony were safe, but were they really?
And the King was nothing more than a little man, a sad, pathetic little human with a child’s temper, a problem easily disposed of and forgotten, buried like the bones of a chicken.
But was he really?
And maybe Kye was right. Maybe I acted too quickly—and reacted even faster.
But only because I knew what it was to ignore a problem, to let it fester and chafe and gnaw like a tumor left to root in all the corners of life.
Better to cut a cancer and walk away than watch as a disease grew, helpless and unguarded by anything except yourself.
Rain pelted my face, harder now. Wind kicked in my hair, winding it around my eyes. Waves slammed left and right, warriors of the sea colliding under the shadowed sky. My body warmed, a heat somewhere between searing and soothing as my tattoos woke under my skin.
Somewhere, over the horizon, thunder broke.
My hand coiled tight, rising toward the clouds as I extended my arm.
I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t frantic. Not rash or reckless or impulsive like all the other times I’d called for lightning.
I was in command.
Somewhere above storm clouds, light blazed and dimmed. A resounding boom rolled through my bones. I let it ebb away like the tide, giving a little at a time, and only after I’d finally traded command back to the sea did I turn to find Aegir still standing near me, satisfaction in his eyes.
Days seemed to bleed and blend, one fading into the next.
The sun grew brighter, the hours longer.
Tulips cleaved through blades of grass, frosted in the morning but vibrant by noon.
The King hadn’t yet returned from his hunt, and his name didn’t pass between Kye and me.
We steered around it like rocks at low tide, eyeing it yet keeping our distance as if Emilius’s presence was safer kept in sight and yet ignored.
I didn’t ask, though I knew Kye was planning something.
He waited until he thought me lost to sleep, slipping from the bed, padding to his sitting room. After a few nights I followed, creeping to the door and cracking it open just enough to peer through to find him reading late into the night—brows furrowed, chin in hand.
At times he would drift away from conversation, his focus aimed at something that wasn’t there, a wrinkle in the curtains or dust along the shelves.
Even in the weeks that held the last of winter’s chill, on the tiny isle of Evenstar, he would dip and twist as he caught punches in his hands, though it was more like watching someone go through motions than practice a fight, a dance of muscle and memory and little else.
We continued coming to the little island.
Aegir’s Naiads began to watch, peering from the water before I tore it to shreds, cleaving stars from the wind.
A few of them climbed ashore on human legs and silver silk, interested in the blind gnat teaching Naiads to fight drones without the call of water as a weapon.
Aegir’s Oculos, Sindri, even joined for a few sparring matches, testing his skill against human fighters.
“Relax.” Aegir’s voice cut through the static din of my mind. “You’re fighting for power. Join the sea instead of contesting it.”
I gritted my teeth. In two weeks, the sea would respond to my every whim. But today, the moon was new—dark and shadowed, invisible against the stars, and the waves challenged my call like an unbroken horse on a lead, kicking and bucking against my every word.
I settled for pulling rain from the clouds instead, sifting through the drops, angling them this way and that. The Naiads at my back paused every so often to watch, as if rain answering a Naiad’s call was a sign from Theia herself.
My power wasn’t nearly as effective as Thaan’s. I hadn’t forgotten the way he’d blasted the water of my glass box into thousands of hardened droplets, fixing us like articulated specimens along the walls and floor.
I suffered a small shiver at the memory.
I’d tried, of course, to solidify water without turning it to ice, to keep droplets small and clear and uncorrupted, sharpening them at the same time so they moved like glass.
I wondered if, like the ability to spread wings or steal a face, Thaan had bartered Darkness for it, a skill I’d never master.
So I shifted the rain instead, more a plaything than a weapon, no matter what the other Naiads liked to think.
It wasn’t long until I relented, too tired to fight against the untamed ocean below.
Pheolix’s lessons were winding down. I joined Diara, who had perched along the edge of a raised rock, Selena and Cebrinne curled near her feet.
I’d wondered, when Selena first mentioned the training, how Pheolix would manage to teach what he couldn’t see.
How he’d correct things like posture and strength.
But he stood with his head angled slightly to the side, listening to each breath and footstep and scuff of hands against leather, patiently offering critiques.
“Imagine a triangle under your feet,” the drone said, smacking rain-drenched rock with the end of a stick.
Adjusting the leather straps between her fingers, Nori frowned at the offending branch between her feet.
“If you move a foot forward, place it here—the point. If you move back, keep your feet wide like a base. And bend your legs. You’ll move faster if you don’t lock your knees.
” Pheolix’s mouth quirked. “Is he smiling like a smug little welp?”
Nori’s glare lifted to Kye, who stood across from her, ready, fighting to keep his mouth in a straight and respectable line. At the isle’s edge, Kolibri nickered.
Pheolix leaned in, whispering into Nori’s ear. Then stepped back with his ear angled toward them, a saccharine glint in his clouded eyes. Nori settled her weight into her heels, fists tucked against her chin.
“Get him, Nori,” Aren said.
Olinne sent him the same scowl she sent the other humans when they spoke to Nori.
Leal grinned. “Punch him in his filthy human face, Nori.”
“Yeah,” Hadrian agreed. “His traitorous face.”
Cebrinne chuckled. From the corner of my eye, Aegir smirked.
“You’ve got this, Nori,” Diara chimed in. At the sound of her voice, the coppertail Naiad’s eyes settled into determination.
Kye smiled tauntingly, hitting the flat of his knuckles against his open palm in an invitation to catch her blows.
Before he’d fully lifted his hands again, Nori launched.
She struck, laced fingers against his hand, then struck again, feigning a second attack before spinning into a low kick.
Kye dropped to dodge it, and her knee connected with his jaw.
The isle burst into cheers and applause from the humans. Olinne rolled her eyes, though a pleased shadow hung over her mouth. Hidden between their bodies, Selena and Cebrinne bumped fists.
Kye rubbed the corner of his jaw. He extended an open hand to Nori, whose gaze simply shifted down to it and back to him before she turned to take her seat beside Olinne.
Pulling at the ties of his leather, Kye glanced around.
“Anyone else?” No one offered to stand. We’d been on the island for hours, and from the surrounding sounds of sighs and groans, everyone was as tired as they looked.
Kye rolled his shoulders slowly. Heavily, letting the invitation expand into the salty air before unwinding his leather from between his knuckles.
“Sure,” Dimas said, lurching his weight forward in slow motion. “I’ll dance.”
Kye’s teeth flashed as he reached to help his friend to his feet, coiling the leather once more up his wrist.
After days of lending the use of their arms and hands as a punching bag, bruises covered the limbs of both men. Dimas sported a shining eye, and a heavy scrape graced the corner of Kye’s mouth, raw and angry. But they grinned at each other, shaking out their arms, driving heat into their muscles.
The air changed around us, our attention piqued as both men readied to strike. Dimas flexed his fingers.
“Nine fraggs on my cousin,” Leal said, twisting a peanut and popping it into his mouth.
“Maybe if Kye was drunk,” Aren muttered.
Elbow propped into the nearest rock, Hadrian smiled. “He favors throwing his weight in his right hip, Dimas. Focus on taking out that knee.”
“Shut it,” Kye said, mouth curving.
“Make him spin,” Diara added. “He’s slower when he’s twirling.”
“He only twirls when he’s fighting two at a time,” Aren argued.
Leal turned his head, ejecting a peanut shell. “We’re waiting.”
Dimas burst forward, fist extending in a blur, but Kye was already swerving to the side, deflecting the attack with the shin of his arm.
Dimas struck a second time—punch, swipe, dip.
They sprang away from each other, bounding lightly on the balls of their feet, the gravel crunching under their weight.
“Stop flirting,” Aren called out.
Dimas shot ahead, fists aimed low at Kye’s stomach.
Kye braced it with his left knee, leaning in to grab Dimas by the elbow, yanking him in close.
Dimas thrust his hip to the side, trying to pivot away—but Kye’s grip was too tight.
He threw Dimas to the cold ground, gravel flying under the quiet man as he slid between Kye’s feet.
With a grunt, Dimas chopped the back of Kye’s knee with a hard wrist. But Kye was already on his way down, pinning the center of Dimas’s chest with a bent leg.
Wind knocked from Dimas’s chest, he coughed and sputtered, slapping Kye playfully away.
They rolled in opposite directions, tossing insults back and forth, hands held out to each other as they both stood.
Kye’s eyes twinkled as they swept to me and rebounded away, rotating the sapphire ring over his thumb.
Cheater, I mocked, shaking my head. You’re as slimy as Olinne says you are. Take that ring off and give Dimas a fair chance. Did Nori even actually—
A shadow surged overhead.
It covered us like a cloud, snuffing out the sun’s rays in a single pull like a shroud thrown across the sky. Black and shapeless, it vaulted east toward the mainland, the City of Towers, as if Darkness himself had defied the laws of day and night.
I slid off the stone ledge, the hair at the back of my neck standing on end.
The sky began to caw.