63. Maren
Maren
Leal had nodded off an hour ago.
His head rested against the wing of the chair’s backrest, legs crossed and hanging from the armrest. I suppose I should have woken him. Mihauna knew Kye would have expected me to.
But I didn’t.
I’d struck a nerve with Kazimir, and not one that led to any type of anger.
In the month since I’d begun questioning the Naiad, I’d learned to read his signals.
Some things were easy for him to discuss, such as his early training with Oberon, who had intended to make Kazimir an assistant.
The tasks Oberon performed leading up to his death.
Where Oberon had been buried, and the few things that had been buried with him.
But I always knew when I toed too closely to a detail Kazimir was determined to keep veiled. He grew pensive, choosing his words like they were waves in a sea he was steering by ship, the safest route through dangerous waters.
“Where was Cerbin when Oberon died?” I’d asked, and he’d dropped his gaze to his hands as if they were less threatening than my eyes.
I let Leal sleep, knowing I’d glean more from Kazimir than if he were awake.
“In Verica,” he said, knotting his fingers together in his lap.
I studied him quietly, then transcribed the word. “The capital of Rivea.”
“Yes.”
“What was he doing there?”
A half shrug. “Learning to read, I think. We were kids. Five or six years old.”
Pen in hand, I propped my chin into my palm. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Cerbin?”
Leal snored, startling me. I smiled into my hand, offering Kazimir a small nod to continue.
“Four months ago, I suppose. After the solstice feast in Verica.”
“Mmm.” My stomach growled as I pulled my chin away from my hand, rolling the feather pen between my fingers. It was nearly dark, and Kye would return soon, but a meal was still an hour or more away. “Did you meet him in secret?”
I’m not sure what made me ask, other than the way he navigated all my questions surrounding Cerbin as though they were something to be peeled apart and handled with care. His pupils dilated, the space between us sparking with surprise.
“I did,” he slowly said.
The ocean hummed outside the windows, quieter in my old tower than in Kye’s, which faced the open sea. I let it engulf the room for a few long moments, the only sound besides Leal’s snoring and our hearts softly beating.
My voice skimmed the soft silence. “Are you in love with him?”
“With Cerbin?” Kazimir laughed shyly, a glow lighting under his cheeks. He shifted, sitting up a bit higher, a bit firmer. His heel tapped the floor fast enough his pants rippled, though he didn’t seem to notice. His attention had returned to his hands, laced together in his lap.
“I don’t care if you are,” I reminded him, watching his foot. “I just want to find Selena.”
We’d agreed before he vowed in blood and I’d unlocked the cell door: Kazimir didn’t have to volunteer information, but he did have to answer my questions. With only truth.
His mouth clamped tight enough it may as well have been sewn shut. He was fighting his blood, battling the compulsion to answer me.
“Never mind,” I said, tossing my pen on the table with a sigh, my fingers pinching the bridge of my nose. Whether Kazimir was in love or not wouldn’t get me any further to Selena and Thaan.
He released a gush of air, his heel relaxing to the floor. “Are we finished for the day?”
“Yes.” I felt like I was circling an answer I couldn’t see. Like tracks in the snow that ended without reason. Like someone had lifted the answer off its feet and thrown it across the world before I could reach the end of the trail.
“Selena,” he echoed. “Like a moon.”
“Yes.” I kneaded my brows, suddenly tired. A snore divided the room; Leal’s mouth now hung open, the rim of his teeth visible.
“What does she look like?”
I clicked my tongue. “Dark hair, blue eyes. She was with us in Rivea.”
“Among a thousand others.”
“And with the dozen of us that traveled back.”
“The miles in which I was dragged behind a horse and then stuffed into a prisoner cart?” He scoffed. “I wasn’t looking at anyone’s faces.”
“There’s a painting of her in her quarters,” I said, the image flashing into my mind.
A small portrait, perhaps the size of a book, lines creased in the canvas as if it had been folded and handled often.
It had appeared after Thaan had locked me in my glass box and then fled the palace.
I harbored a small suspicion it had belonged to Pheolix, that he’d kept it close during his years as a blood servant.
“She’s much younger in it, I think, but she still looks the same. All Naiads look young.”
I glanced up to find him looking at me oddly, as if I’d just asked him to describe his appearance, and he’d suddenly realized he didn’t know. His brows furrowed softly, his gaze shifting left and right like he was reading the room as a letter, though I don’t think he saw the room at all.
“Do you think you might recognize her?” I asked. It seemed unlikely. So much so, I hadn’t even thought to ask until now. Kazimir was Rivean, born and raised in the far north, and Selena had spent the last thirty-five years here in Calder.
“I’m not sure,” he said, almost in a whisper.
A throaty snore rattled from Leal. He twisted in the chair, rolling onto his side, legs haphazard over the armrest. Then settled again.
I stole a glance at the sky.
Everyone would be returning soon. But for now, Selena’s apartment was empty. Kye would grumble if he knew I’d left this apartment with the Rivean prisoner.
But Kye wasn’t here, and we would be fast.
I stood, Kazimir tracking the movement like a hound. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to see it,” I answered, voice soft to avoid waking Leal. “Come with me.”
“Turn around.”
I waited until Kazimir’s back aimed at me before fishing Selena’s key from the dancing crane. Then leaned into the door, listening for the scuff of feet or the ventilation of lungs or the beating of any hearts. But only silence unfolded from the gap over the threshold. Empty, muted silence.
The iron lock gulped the blade of the key, my wrist twisting it open. It gave a small jump as it unlatched, the door swinging in without my pushing it. I pursed my lips, releasing a small wind.
It was dark. The apartment had been empty all day, the sconces unlit.
I reached for the nearest one, striking flint into flame, waiting for the dancing glow to light the room and hoping we wouldn’t have to turn over the entire apartment to find the small painting.
But it only took a few seconds before my eyes caught the shadow of a pleated canvas on Selena’s oak table.
“Here,” I said, unfolding it with care. Cracks in the oil paint lined the creases like gossamer strands. Faint fingerprints gilded the edges of the frayed canvas, locked inside the tiny bumps and grooves of the fabric. I waved Kazimir back to the sconce light, offering the portrait out to him.
“Oh,” he breathed, the tick of his heart staggering a beat. His mouth lingered open, and a long pause stretched between us before he closed it and swallowed. “She’s beautiful.”
“She is,” I agreed, studying him.
His hands held the portrait with something close to awe, and he swallowed a second time, blinking hard against the flood of buttery light. “And this painting belongs to?”
“Pheolix.” I gestured to Thaan’s old apartment through the adjoining office before remembering he didn’t even sleep there anymore. “Her cordae. He’s a drone.”
“A drone?” he asked, surprised. Then cleared his throat, attention shifting back to Selena. “Drones can’t cordae.”
I doubted that was true, but I didn’t know very much about drones. Certainly not enough to argue with him. I’ll ask Selena tonight, I thought by habit, before remembering, like a sharp thorn that ached in my side only when I twisted a certain way, that I couldn’t.
“Do you recognize her?” I asked, though I knew he did. Still, something in my gut squeezed. That I’d hoped so hard his answer would be yes, I’d only imagined the way he stared at her like a page torn from a book he’d forgotten he’d once read.
“I do.” He shook the strands of auburn from overbright eyes, folding the portrait and offering it to me. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. She was a friend. Of Oberon’s.”
“She was?” Sparks lit in my chest. Fresh tracks in the snow—an answer I could finally see under all my wild circling. “Do you know if she left a message with him? A letter for Pheolix, or maybe directions somewhere? Of where Thaan might go if he ever left the Palace?”
“Sorry,” Kazimir whispered. “That I don’t know.” He pushed the portrait closer toward me, like it had suddenly grown too heavy for him to hold.
I reached for it. Wrapped my fingers around it, around his hand.
But I couldn’t make myself take it. My throat swelled, air collapsing before I could send it to my lungs.
The frayed edge of the canvas became a blurred line, and my mouth forgot how to remain still, my lower lip twisting and pushing into my top.
Taking the portrait from him was like accepting defeat, and I didn’t know why. I’d been so angry with Selena. I was still angry. She’d led Kye to his death, forcing me to sacrifice my cordae to bring him back.
But she’d also transitioned me. Held my hand through the pain, reminded me I wasn’t alone. Spent countless hours teaching me, coaching me, training me.
Until the ocean dries up. Until the moon burns out.
I wanted to forgive her, and I was terrified I didn’t know how.
That I might never get the chance. That being angry was like swallowing a hurricane of wrathful voices and vicious words, whirling and whirling inside me until I was dizzy and sick with fury, with no one to hold my hair back as I forced it back out.
That something would happen, because something always happened, and I’d be stuck with a storm inside me, a cyclone of words that sliced like knives and shredded my soul with every thought.
“That’s all right,” I said, my voice a weak, feeble thing that didn’t even sound like mine. I could almost see myself reflected in his eyes, a Naiad Queen reduced to begging an enemy of Calder for hope, a stone’s throw away from tears.
Kazimir’s steely eyes almost softened. “You care about her.”
“I—yes. I care about her. She’s my aunt,” I said, because for some reason it was easy to admit to him.
He hadn’t known Selena or the message she’d delivered to me from Theia.
That I was the warrior of a Triad, that I’d crossed the stars.
That he’d killed Kye once, and I’d undone his death like a knot pulled from fate’s loom.
There was no need to pretend with Kazimir, because he was Rivean, and even if he judged me, he’d eventually return to Rivea, and I’d never see him again.
A moment came and went, light racing behind his eyes, perhaps the universal panic of a man realizing a woman might cry. He pushed the canvas at me again, and this time I took it, laying it neatly on the table.
The walk back to Kye’s tower was silent without my questions.
I floated deep within my own thoughts, a broken ship as the sea slowly devours it into the dark.
The tower steps groaned twice as loudly as we climbed the stairs, the soft creak in the windows like shouting in my ears.
Kazimir reached to open the door for me, and I looked up at him, a final question shimmering into my head.
“What did Selena do, when she used to visit Oberon?”
He opened his mouth to answer, hinges creaking as he pushed into the door with a hand.
Light glinted off silver, a flash in my eyes. A blade plunged into his stomach.