66. Maren #2
“I am just as close as you,” I said, the words like grit in my mouth. “We could have crossed the line together. Could have ruled as you and Sidra once had, two colonies side by side.”
“We could have.” Green eyes flashed to mine. “But then I always would have wondered.”
“Wondered what, exactly?” I shot calmly back. “Why I chose him instead of you?”
He chuckled under his breath. “When you’d come for my colony.”
For a moment, I blinked up at him, unable to make sense of his words. But then it ignited, like flame to tinder, a blaze loud and bright and crackling inside my head.
“You are his granddaughter, are you not?” he said, watching the flare behind my eyes.
“We both know what you’re capable of. Even he ran from you.
At my side, cordaed to me, I would have had nothing to fear.
But you’re not even bonded to the human.
His life will burn out fifty years from now, and you said yourself, you wouldn’t have me even then. ”
“I am nothing like him,” I whispered, though it came from deep in my chest like a growl, louder and harder than I’d intended. A lie camouflaged by rage. My fingers twitched, a sick twist churning in my belly.
“Nothing?” He licked his lips, bowing his head closer to mine.
“Did you not bargain with a god to break your own cordae? Do you not prefer the company of humans, those who are lower than you, who are vulnerable to your song, easy to manipulate? Did you not force a prisoner into your service, just weeks ago?” He rocked his head back and forth reproachfully.
“You might mean well now, letting Naiad principles slide because you think you can justify your methods. But that’s how it starts.
The fall is a slippery one. You’re a future danger to my colony. ”
I was surprised at how calm my voice was as I asked, “And who helped make me dangerous, Aegir?”
The Videre shifted close enough that his body heat rolled against my skin through our silk.
He dragged an index finger under the side of my jaw to my chin.
“If you were truly my ally, you would take my cordae. Apart, one of us would have always fallen to the other. Me or you. Theia may send me to Perpetuum someday to whisper my regrets to the stars—but falling under your hand won’t be one of them. "
His words turned in my stomach like fetid meat, nausea warping them into a shape more foul than they sounded as they tumbled from his mouth.
I tilted my head back, my eyes still locked with his, pulling my chin out of his stroking fingers.
He waited, as if I might suddenly understand the gravity of what was happening and suffer a change of mind.
“You have to realize,” he said, after it became clear I had nothing else to say, “I don’t want to kill you.”
“I don’t care what you want,” I snapped.
The air in his colony entrance tasted of the sea, spiced with the current of slowly dawning hate.
I thought of Kazimir, stabbed deep with shield weed and thrown into a wall, left for dead.
Of Leal, throat slit while he was still asleep.
I thought of Kye, left to find the both of them, the windows blown and the tower destroyed and no trace of me but my ring, tossed to the floor.
I thought of my final words to him that morning, encouraging him to leave even though he hadn’t wanted to.
“If my choice is either you or death,” I said, “death offers me far more than you ever will.”
Aegir’s jaw worked, and I wondered how many more times he might offer his cordae to me.
How many more times I might refuse, leeching his pride like marrow from bone until it was brittle and hollow.
But he turned on his heel, cloak flapping at his wind, storming down his winding colony hall.
Even without him commanding it, my feet followed like an obedient hound led by a leash, the compulsion in my blood potent until he released me.
The city within his colony opened like a vast maw.
Almost a living painting, Naiads with their children in the steaming pools below, tails gleaming against the blue lights in the water, the rows upon rows of walkways that hung from distant walls teaming with insect-sized Naiads as they wove in and out of their city tunnels.
Aegir took a nearby right, into the grand hall he’d guided me to once before. His throne room.
The room where Naiads dined.
Sirens waited inside, cloaked in silver. They clasped their hands together and bowed their heads at Aegir as we passed, and I recognized their faces. The Naiads who had accompanied him to my tower.
“This is my grand council,” Aegir informed me, commanding me to stand before his throne with the sharp point of his finger. “They’re here to witness my statement.”
To declare me an enemy of his Domus and give himself the right to kill me for my blood. I passed by them without giving them the courtesy of a glance, my shoulders rolled back and my head high.
I have your weapon.
I should have listened to instinct long ago, when I’d seen the letter Aegir had sent Thaan. That was how he viewed me from the very beginning, either a weapon to cordae or power to steal. A knife to possess, an arrow to aim, a spear to throw.
Aegir paused then, gazing into me as if imploring my blood. My heart and bones and very soul.
I lifted my chin as I stared back, every muscle in my body as heavy as stone.
He lowered himself into the throne in the pool of his dais, smoky-gold scales breathing through his legs and around his back.
“Maren of Leihani,” he began, his voice taut.
“Child of the moon, Queen of the Juile Sea, and once ally of this colony. Your crimes against the world of sirens have been counted and recorded to be etched into these ancient walls. You endanger all Naiads by transitioning freely before humans, using only a blindfold to shield their eyes from your tail. You speak openly of our existence in front of these humans, flaunt your water-calling abilities for their observation, and though you are Queen, you have all but abandoned your own colony to live among humankind.”
His voice carried loudly in the throne room, a soft echo chasing his words. The Videre exhaled. “Maren of Leihani, I hereby declare you—”
A cry broke the quiet beyond the throne room walls, followed by distant gasps and shrieks.
Locked under Aegir’s control, I couldn’t turn to look.
But I felt the gaze of Aegir’s council leave my shoulders, felt them look back through the opening of the room, where it sounded like something of a small frenzy was unfolding.
Aegir descended the dais, but he only made it a few feet from me before Sindri’s voice rang out.
“My Videre. A human stands in your colony entrance. He asks to parley with your audience.”
Every vein in my body turned to ice.
“A human,” Aegir repeated slowly. He angled his head, considering me. “He’s already seen the whole of Venusia?”
“Y-yes, My Videre.”
The Naiad families. Their tails. My heart stabbed through my chest, the throne room suddenly barren of air.
“Well then,” Aegir said softly. “Bring him in.” Sindri’s feet turned, steps sharp as he padded away. Aegir’s green eyes met mine. “He’ll stand here. Sit on the dais.”
I knew what he was doing, forcing me to sit where the Queen of Venusia belonged. But I couldn’t make myself argue. I was falling, slowly, madly, into a well in my mind, bottomless and cold.
The blue water drank my legs as I lowered myself in a haze, silver silk floating around me.
And then he strode in. Kye. Still wearing the soft black leather shirt he’d laced himself into this morning, his baldric nowhere to be found.
The water had been called from his curls, dark gold like a midsummer night, just long enough for the ends to kiss his brows.
A small glow flickered around his edges, embers in the bed of a fire.
He was the most beautiful, most excruciating thing I’d ever seen. He didn’t even look at me.
He stopped before Aegir, hands relaxed behind his back.
Behind him, Nori, Olinne, Aitne, and Cebrinne marched forward, glaring up at Aegir from the floor.
My Naiads—my Oculos, my mother—had brought Kye here, sealed his fate with the evidence of sirens and their tails, a betrayal so deep it cut me to the bone.
“Human,” Aegir said, the softness he’d offered me now traceless in his voice, “You have come here uninvited, unwanted, and in violation of Naiad law. I will grant you my audience before I end your life. What is it you came to say?”
“I’ve come to offer you a trade.” Kye’s voice was strong, confident—but the shadow behind his Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed. “My life for Maren’s.”
Aegir’s mouth split into a soundless laugh. “No.” He raised a finger at Sindri, summoning the Oculos forward. Sindri’s hand reached for his knives.
Kye tilted his head back an inch, shaking his hair from his eyes. “I know enough about Naiad customs to understand you want Maren for her blood. That it will strengthen your own. I offer you mine instead.”
“And why would I be interested in your blood?” Aegir mocked.
Kye smiled coolly. “Because I’m one of the three last living descendants of Aalto. The sun.”