57. Kye
Kye
“Keep your fists high, Aitne. Protect your jaw.”
The Naiad’s hands made tight little balls. She narrowed her eyes at Leal, who stood across from her, palms wrapped and ready to catch her blows.
Pheolix started the training as he had the last few weeks, head bent and ears waiting, listening and offering critiques.
As the hours passed, he’d dropped into near silence.
A procession of emotions passed over his face like a hard-marching convoy, though he mostly glared into the rocks past his feet, swallowing hard at whatever thoughts trooped through his head.
Hadrian and I took the lead, partnering Naiads with humans, watching carefully as they strung attacks together.
Striking combinations and feints, footwork to lead their opponent forward or walk them back, angle changes and counterattacks and pressure-weaving to limit movement and reach.
Our fighting style was rougher than Pheolix’s, more hard-won against the smooth precision of his hits.
But I’m not sure I’d ever seen anyone match Pheolix’s fighting—the blind drone moved like a scorpion, every limb in his body a weapon.
Aitne pushed forward, blocking Leal against the rocks, dodging his strike.
She’d been trying to pin him for twenty minutes, each punch leaving him just enough room to spin out of reach, but determination fleshed out her edges, hooking the side of her mouth into a smile.
The Naiad healer slammed her leg into his as he spiraled away, laying him flat on the rock.
Then anchored him to the ground with a knee to his chest before he could move, fists poised for a lethal strike to his chin.
Hadrian leaned into my ear with a smirk, clearing a rasp in his throat. “We should teach them to fight with knives.”
“No knives,” Pheolix barked. Hiding a small cough against his arm, Hadrian’s eyes snapped to mine in the guilty way they had when we were kids and had been caught stealing chocolates from our mother’s jar.
“Don’t depend on anything that can be taken from you,” the drone continued.
“Knives, swords, water-calling. Drones will steal everything you have but your own hands.”
“I’m ready for a break,” came Leal’s worn-out voice from somewhere behind Aitne’s knee.
She leaned away, offering a hand to pull him to his feet.
He brushed sand from his back and lifted his leather pouch, the crest of a wrapped slab of beef just inside.
He raised a brow at the healer. “I’ll share my snacks if you want. ”
Dimas snared Olinne’s knuckles in his open palm with a flinch. “Why didn’t you offer to share your snacks with me?”
Olinne sent Nori a look of deep suffering. Nori sighed with aggravation back, yanking the ties of her wrist wraps. “When will our Queen arrive?”
“I’m not sure she’s coming,” I answered.
“Why not?”
I leaned casually against the rock. “She said she had something to do that I would get in the way of.”
Olinne snorted. Aegir sent her a small smirk that made my teeth clench.
“Is Selena with her?” Pheolix asked, glancing up.
Diara’s gaze jumped to meet Hadrian’s, her mouth pursed in silent, sad frustration. He coughed softly, but no one answered Pheolix. The water beat against the rocks, and every few minutes the wind swept a soft mist over our skin, just enough to keep the overcast sun from warming my hide.
“She’s away,” Aitne finally said, taking Pheolix’s arm. “We’re figuring out how to go find her.”
Pheolix nodded as though he just remembered, motioning for us to continue practicing. I wondered how often he feigned living in the moment alongside the rest of us. How often he pretended.
I’d always been afraid of becoming a king.
Of gaining the crown and losing my mind.
I’d never considered how much worse it might be to lose my memory.
To have moments stripped from me one at a time without warning, like walking along a forest and realizing the trail had somehow abandoned me.
That I was lost, and without the people I loved, I might not find my way back.
Hadrian coughed again, turning away from a cloud of mist and blinking tightness from his eyes.
“You all right?” I asked him quietly enough no one might hear, still watching Pheolix for any spark of recognition.
“Fine,” Hadrian answered, his voice thick. He stepped politely away, coughing into his elbow. A deep grating from his lungs, he drew a rattling breath.
I cursed under my breath, moving to him.
“I’m fine,” he said, waving me away. But patches of red bloomed across his face, and his voice came out as a forced whisper.
“Sit, Hade.” A small thrum of panic lodged into my own throat as I realized Maren wasn’t here to help as she had last time. I glanced back at them, searching for Aitne, but she was already at my side, unwinding her leather strips from her hands.
“What’s wrong?”
“He can’t breathe.” I winced at the need to say it out loud.
Hadrian had always worked so hard to keep his salt sickness a secret.
To expose such a weakness made him, at best, unfit to rule.
At worst, it placed a target on his back.
I settled in beside him, my knee against his back, and felt the strength ebb from his body, the small slouch in his muscles.
We’d roamed all the way from the mountains in the middle of winter, through cold rivers and an underground labyrinth of tunnels, just to have Hadrian choke on fucking mist here on Evenstar. I’d almost swear the small island was cursed.
Hadrian blinked, staring hard at the uneven rock between his feet.
I knew he was avoiding the eyes of everyone else, frustrated they were here to witness one of his spells.
They’d followed, hovering just close enough to watch.
A curtain of rose-gold hair hung in my periphery, and I forced myself not to glance at Diara.
“How can I help?” Aitne said, crouching against his opposite side.
“His windpipe is blocked—” I reached for her hand, needling it through the gap between Hadrian’s shirt buttons, resting it above his breastbone where Maren had helped him breathe once before.
The other humans crowded around us, Maren’s Naiads watching with apprehension. Dimas lowered himself along my shoulder, waiting for instruction.
“Help me hold him up,” I said, passing Hadrian’s weight over to him. My stomach knotted as Hadrian’s head gave a lethargic roll, his lips a ghostly blue. “Breathe like you’re making fog, Hade.”
His air sounded like a slowly cracking bone, a bright sheen radiating across his brow. Aitne had closed her eyes, her small hand soft and calm as she called to the water inside his body. “There is…a lot in here.”
My nostrils flared, and I had to keep my fingers from biting into Hadrian’s arm. His episodes didn’t just materialize from nothing; he must have been fighting shallow breath and fatigue for weeks. And he hadn’t told me, hadn’t given himself a chance to rest and heal.
Hadrian’s eyes rolled. His lashes fluttered shut.
“Aitne,” I said. Calmly.
I wanted to scream.
“I know,” the Naiad answered so softly I almost didn’t hear her.
I didn’t have time for fucking patience.
“Get back,” Aitne snapped, grasping his collar and pulling him forward. He coughed, pale green mucous and slime landing between his feet. The humans surrounding us scrambled out of the line of fire, and I realized, as Diara released his hand, that she’d been holding it.
“Keep holding him up,” Aitne barked at Dimas like a commander chiding a new recruit, harsh and focused. “I’m getting the rest out. I want it clear.” She spewed it almost like an accusation, like the rest of us had allowed his salt to build out of callous neglect.
Hadrian stole a shaky breath, eyes opening to crawl slowly across our faces.
His skin grew hot yet clammy under their weighted gaze, and a surge of guilt knit my brows together.
He’d be embarrassed later, and that thought already dragged against me like a slowly caving roof.
All these years of carefully monitoring his sickness, keeping it secret from even his closest friends, had collapsed in a moment.
And it didn’t matter that I trusted everyone here—at least I trusted the humans.
Hadrian coughed up more muck, and then even more. Aitne pulled it up in waves, and even when he cleared his throat and assured her he felt fine, she forced him to sit down like a wizened old crone, calling the last dregs from him until she was satisfied.
“Your lungs can’t vent air properly. They’re bad,” she said at last, immune to the bright red ribbon of shame that had crested his temple.
Sitting on her knees between his legs, she pushed her hand under his shirt again, feeling along his chest. He blinked, tilting his head an inch in surprise.
People were rarely so forward with a crown prince. But Aitne wasn’t really people.
“Your heart is weak,” the healer continued. “I see inflamed passages, some small infections.”
“Thank you, Aitne,” Hadrian wheezed softly. He reached for her hand, limply pulling it out of his shirt.
“A high concentration of salt. And mutations in your lower core.”
The flush deepened, a furious luster under his skin. He clicked his tongue, smiling in a way that clearly indicated he didn’t know what that meant, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“You’re sterile,” Aitne clarified.
“Aitne,” I prompted, a hand reaching to help her to her feet. “You can stop.”
Aitne’s brows kissed as she took it. “He should know.”
“Tell him later. In private, maybe.” My stomach had folded in on itself, an acute nausea I hadn’t felt in months.
The Naiad’s eyes widened through strands of her honeycomb hair as she took in the awkward silence I lifted her away from.
The way Hadrian, breath stronger and clearer, was rubbing the back of his neck.
Diara had stood, the tendons in her neck tight.
Dimas and Leal pretended they hadn’t heard, which was almost worse. Everyone had fucking heard.