54. Maren
Maren
Theia descended from the sky from steps that materialized from air, her dress moonbeam white and glowing. She wasn’t as lustrous as she’d been in Perpetuum. I wondered if she was always less bright when she left her home in the cosmos, or if hiding in the sun’s shadow stole her light.
Even without that brilliance shining through her pores, she touched a bare foot onto the rock before me, radiant and terrifying, pearlescent dress spilling out behind her in a long train that vanished into the mist. She fixed me with a challenging stare not unlike that of a mother whose child had frayed their patience until it was threadbare.
“Wise mortals would not summon me so,” she asked simply, her voice full enough to reverberate through my head. She cast a chilling glance over the group behind me as if they’d shared in the crime of a dishonorable prayer.
“If you wanted me to fear you, perhaps you shouldn’t have already led me to my death.” I rested my weight firmly in my heels, secretly surprised she’d come.
Dark moon eyes flicked to me. She waited.
“Xeno, Corvus, and Androma.”
“The Triad,” she confirmed, offering nothing other than an elongated neck.
“You gave them gifts.”
Her stare bore into mine, and her mouth barely moved as she said, “The moon gave them immortality. But some curses arrive cloaked as gifts. Would you have me curse you?”
The Scale and Breath of Safiro bit into the center of my fist. “I would have you prepare us for the impossible demand you’ve given us.”
“And how shall I do that?”
“Knowledge.” I motioned to Cebrinne and Kye, who leaned against the rocks, watching with an expression of mild apprehension. “Answer our questions.”
She gazed at me, and I had the inclination she was waiting for me to change my mind. To think better of a poor choice. “Knowledge can plague a soul as much as any trial of the body,” she said slowly, sending her withering stare over to Kye and Cebrinne. “Is this what you desire?”
Still leaning, Kye gave her a slow nod. Cebrinne stepped carefully next to me, hands behind her back as she faced the goddess of future.
Theia’s attention settled into her, stoic as a warrior who had found their wounded on the battlefield, unaffected by their impending death.
“You have called to ask me for information before. Do you not regret the answer I gave you then?”
Cebrinne’s jaw worked in terse silence. I swallowed the urge to steal a glimpse of my father, to see if he were watching from somewhere behind us.
“No. I do not,” Cebrinne said, soft but firm.
Theia rotated her head, eyeing Cebrinne at a slant, awaiting whatever she might ask.
My mother’s hand twitched. She clasped them behind her back as if they had a mind of their own. “Where is my sister?”
For a moment, I might have thought Theia was surprised that Cebrinne hadn’t asked where to find Thaan—the more obvious question, in my mind. But the right to choose her own question belonged to Cebrinne, even if the wording made me grind my molars together.
The seer of the moon barely moved her mouth when she spoke. “She is at the divide.”
Cool air fanned from the waves below, shifting the ends of my hair.
I waited for more. For a goddess who had laid such a clear path for my life, Theia seemed content to let us flounder near the very end of everything.
The silence following her nonsense answer trickled across me, reckless heat rising through my blood.
My patience with the goddess worn to a thin and nearly broken wire.
“A riddle?” My mouth hung open with contempt.
Theia’s eyes didn’t leave Cebrinne. “I see what is to come. Like you, I cannot see what is happening now unless it’s unfolding before me.
I only know where Thaan of Safiro meant to take your sister.
But the future is not a tunnel, weaving in one direction.
It is the wind, ever shifting, changing its mind on the slightest whim.
Forcing the future to obey is like catching a breeze in a bottle. ”
With that, she dismissed Cebrinne and leveled Kye with dark eyes, the luminous outline of her silk dress like a floating specter among shadows.
He pushed himself away from the rock with a low cough, making a soft fist with one hand and popping his knuckles with the other as he took his time considering his question. Finally, he peered up at her, a small strike of trepidation between his brows.
“How can I reopen the door?”
The door? Impatient wings brushed against my fingertips like a small tic as I waited for the question to make sense, though perhaps Kye’s method of presenting a mystery to a riddler worked.
Theia’s stern mouth expanded into a slow, knowing smile.
“The door never closed. The then was then, and the coming is coming. But the now is now. A transfer of power is all you need.”
His face cracked with frustration, finite frown lines and tightened lips like he wanted her to clarify. But Theia’s gaze shifted to me, and everything else became a still and silent blur in the background.
I let the impulse to cross my arms burn against my limbs, ignoring the desire to shield myself from her penetrating stare. Kye’s words from Perpetuum sparkled in my mind like the sun dancing over the surface of water.
We’re nothing more than cards in their hands, Leihani. Face down on the table. Which card are you?
A queen.
My eyes hardened as I aimed them up at her. “What do you gain by using us?”
I could almost feel the collective breath of the others, the tick of nervous hearts, the eyes meeting behind my back, recoiled necks and tight shoulders and grimaced mouths.
A shudder rippled down my spine, some survival instinct that begged me to rescind the accusation within my own words and ask something else.
Theia, Mihauna, Goddess of the sea, the moon, the very future, locked onto me like an archer drawing back a bowstring.
“When the world ends, eons beyond your time. When I seek my final rest, my final waning light, a new blood will walk the shores and seas and skies. And I can finally sleep.”
“A new moon?” I asked.
But she was thinning, darkening. As if she’d stepped behind a shadow, dissolving into air.
My feet felt numb below me, the world a colorless drift of dust and earth.
“So much for making a plan,” Aegir sighed. “Or seeking the help of a god, for that matter.”
“Theia was never going to help us,” I said, angling my gaze toward the patch of black that lay curled behind Kye along the rocky cliff. It snaked along the jagged stone, pouring itself into the shape of a man, tall and glimmering with mischief.
“Suns alive,” Hadrian swore softly. Olinne hissed, batting at the air with a gasp, sending flecks of ocean spray to hit Darkness across the cheek. The drops turned inky, sliding off him like oil over water.
“Calm yourselves,” I snapped at them. Turning toward Darkness, I let myself finally cross my arms. “A deal is a deal. I asked Theia your question. Now explain her answer.”
“Sweet wraithling,” he cooed, stroking a long, glittering shadow under my chin. He almost looked gleeful at hearing Theia’s words. “The moon is devising her own replacement. Designing a bloodline fit for a future goddess.”
“How would that have anything to do with Thaan?”
Darkness gave an icy laugh. “How should I know? I cannot see the future.”
“Fine,” I answered through my teeth. Aegir’s gaze pressed like a needle in my back. “What of the other answers?”
Darkness tilted his head playfully. “What of them?” He read the look in my focused eyes as I realized he wouldn’t clarify Theia’s other answers without making bargains with Cebrinne and Kye. The shadow grinned like a cat. “Anything else before I go?”
He’d already begun to drift away, fading into the night. I snatched his arm, pulling him back. It was like plunging my hand into the frigid waters of the Brána Do Podsvetia.
“Yes,” I said. “Release my mother entirely.” Gravel crunched as someone behind me shifted their weight. My fingers tightened over his wrist.
“Oh,” he clucked, the black wisps around his arms coiling and writhing in excitement. “What will you offer me if I do?”
“Nothing.”
Darkness barked a wet laugh. I leaned into him close enough I could almost see his dark, rich skin under his smoldering shadows.
“You will,” I said, my returning smile laced with the sweet taste of a Naiad vow.
“Because I am no fool, and I know Theia’s replacement means more to you than you let on.
Theia plans to use my bloodline. But mark my words, Caecus—if my mother dies a bauble on your shelf, there will be no further blood from me. Unravel that riddle.”
Darkness’s smile leveled for only a moment before he closed his eyes and chuckled.
The thorny heather caught in his shadows like claws in a cape, but he twisted into a shrinking poof of air.
I could never understand exactly what he was, sometimes more ash than solid, more liquid than vapor, but then his shadows would stretch and shrink and glimmer in a way that demanded he was none and all of them at once.
“All right, pet,” he said, humor dripping into his shadowed eyes once again. He dropped his voice to a soft murmur. “I don’t mind parting with her knowing I will someday claim you among my treasures.”
He let the wind carry him like grains of dark sand, vanishing into mist and night. A small glow remained in his place, as small as a seed for Cebrinne to claim. I shook my hair from my eyes, turning into the current of air rising from the wild waves, my sea silk dress whipping wildly behind me.
“We’ll see,” I whispered.
Aren glanced up at the sound of us returning. He motioned toward the office, brows lifted in a slightly concerned he’s in there sort of way.
Pheolix hadn’t left the office.