70. Maren
Maren
Astone-faced Dimas left early the next morning, escorting his cousin back to Ascento to be laid in the family grave.
Aitne watched his entourage until they disappeared under the skirts of the pine trees behind the palace, and then she remained long after, stationed at the window in silence. I’d asked if she wanted to go, but she’d said no.
Words of consolation bloomed within me, though I said none of them out loud.
I might have tried to explain that life as a Naiad cordaed to a human was hard.
That both sides harbored hurt and distrust against the other, that other Naiads would look at her bond to a man and recoil in disgust. That finding a mate among her own kind would have been safer, easier.
They may have been true, but they were worthless words.
“The royal carriage is making its way to the King’s tower,” the healer said.
I didn’t miss how Hadrian and Kye met each other’s eyes. But we had more important matters to discuss than King Emilius’s return.
“Are we ready to begin?” Hadrian asked. Beside him, Aren leaned against his forearms, clasping his hands patiently. A month after his fall down the stairs, with daily mending from Aitne, and he was back to training.
“I’m waiting for word from Nori,” I answered. She’d left only hours ago, and though she would have arrived at the heart of the Juile Sea by now, the sun had only peeked its rays over the east minutes ago.
Diara shifted, uneasy. “Are you sure they won’t attack her?”
“No.” I sat a little higher. “I’m not sure. Though I believe their intention is to hide, and they wouldn’t risk discovery unless it was a last resort.”
Nori knew the waters. She’s grown up exploring them under Sidra’s rule. If she needed to escape, she’d know how.
I glanced across the faces seated around Selena’s table.
Then to the ones leaning against the walls.
Kye and Aren to my right; Cebrinne and Ano to my left.
Pheolix across from me, flanked by Aitne, Hadrian, and Diara.
Though we’d taken up every chair and surface but Selena’s, the room felt empty.
Olinne was helping prepare the Juile colony for Venusia.
The silence hovered like a tall shadow, Leal’s playful complaints and Selena’s calm voice drifting like ghosts among us.
Knuckles rapped quietly.
Kye pushed to his feet, darting a quick glance at me. I hope this isn’t a mistake.
It’s not, I answered, watching him walk to the door.
Kazimir stood on the other side, his black-rust hair pulled back in a low, rumpled pony.
It looked like he’d provoked a fight with shoe polish and lost. Black rimmed his right eye, shining where it caught the light, his lip swollen.
Kye stood aside, inviting the Rivean who had once killed him through the door.
Kazimir waded to the table, sliding into the empty chair beside Pheolix. His eyes caught mine, and his mouth offered a shy tilt.
“Fair luck to you if you’re still sitting there when Selena comes back,” Pheolix said.
Kazimir’s eyes widened, as he realized where he’d just sat—why the rest of us watched him with such rigid focus. “I’ll stand,” he said quickly.
I waved him quietly back into the chair. “You’re fine where you are. I’m just waiting for—"
My Queen.
I stilled, and their faces perked as they noticed my eyes slanting sideways, listening to the voice inside my head. Yes, Nori?
The beach is bare, with no sign of anyone. But inland, beyond the canopy of the palms and ferns, I’ve caught movement. Twice.
My pulse skipped. You’re sure they’re not Leihaniians? It was nearly pointless to ask—Leihaniians didn’t step foot on Neris Island. It was forbidden, cursed by Nahli, the volcano goddess who slumbered there.
No, Nori murmured. These are not humans.
A flare of heat sparked, deep in my chest. Thaan on my island, right under my nose.
It seemed almost fitting that he’d shelter there, the islands in which I’d been raised, while I sat here in Laurier Palace, the city of towers he’d once lived in while searching for my mother.
My teeth ground together, though something smooth and enticing unrolled before me like a spool of triumph.
I knew exactly where he was, and he had no idea.
I leaned into my backrest, unable to help the curve that stole across my lips as I raised my eyes to look at the faces gathered across from me. They straightened, sharpened, glanced at each other with dark light behind their eyes.
For once, we held the element of surprise.
For once, we held the upper hand.
He is three steps ahead, but one day he will stumble. He thinks he is invincible, but I have been with him for far too long. I know his secrets. I know his weaknesses. I know how to stop him.
It had been nearly a year since I’d sat over the red cliffs with Selena, listening to her promise to help me end Thaan, but the words were as clear in my memory as the day she’d said them.
Two pieces of a crystalized heart pressed against my thigh, hidden within my pocket.
Nori’s consciousness grazed mine, waiting for orders.
Return to the water and let no one see you, I said.
Find Olinne and tell her that Thaan and his drones are on Neris Island.
Tell her to gather anyone who can’t fight and send them—I hesitated.
My eyes skimmed the table in thought. Send them to Xiane in Paria.
Yes, my Queen.
“All right,” I said, pointing to the map I’d drawn on the back of one of Selena’s scrolls.
“In three days, we’ll invade Neris Island, a small volcanic isle north of Leihani.
We have two objectives. Get Selena safely out.
And kill Thaan. We will have to fight Thaan’s drones, but once he’s dead, they’ll be free. ”
“Why wait?” Aren asked.
Aitne pushed to her feet, drifting from the red-dusk window to our table, staring numbly across its surface. “My Queen needs a few days to recover from the shield weed in her blood.”
Kye nodded, twisting his soul ring over a knuckle. “Pheolix, what can we expect after they’re released? Will they continue fighting us?”
The drone leaned forward, crossing his arms and considering the question.
Though his recent memories seemed to sometimes twist and turn out of his reach, his mind remained a stronghold for older memories and knowledge.
“It’s possible. Drones are a bit like worker bees.
Kill the queen in her hive while they’re in the garden and they’ll go on harvesting pollen. ”
“How many drones does he have?”
Pheolix blew a small raspberry. His brows furrowed, his gaze sliding over the wooden surface of the table, catching along the intricate grain. “Sixty.”
Sixty trained assassins. My mouth pinched, and I avoided crossing eyes with Kye, though I knew what he was thinking.
Sixty drones seemed manageable. Simple, even, compared to the ten thousand Riveans we’d faced.
But I’d seen Pheolix fight. I knew each drone was worth at least ten warrior Naiads, perhaps even more.
Six hundred, I whispered into Kye’s mind. That’s how many we need.
Aegir’s army boasted close to four hundred. My own warriors counted another ninety.
We needed more.
That’s how many average Naiads we need, he whispered back. We also have you.
I dragged my teeth over my lip. What good was wielding the stars against assassins who held the power to steal mine?
Kye was watching me as I looked up at him, subdued, like he knew what I was about to ask.
Feel anything yet?
He shook his head, glancing back to Pheolix, who had rescinded sixty and offered a guess of forty drones instead.
A transfer of power—that’s the answer Theia had given Kye when he’d asked how to reopen the door. I hadn’t understood what he’d meant. But Selena had just been taken, and I’d let myself become swept up in a flood of frustration over the riddle Theia had given me. To find Selena at the divide.
But now Kye’s question to the goddess seer burned clearly in my mind.
And after drinking Aegir’s blood, evidence of a power transfer existed in Kye’s body.
The trace of symbols lay deep under his skin like light shining through the surface of water, too faint to make out but undoubtedly there, the promise of a Videre’s power dancing in his veins.
It had taken Aegir seconds to call heat waves over his hand.
He’d done it so effortlessly I could only imagine calling solar flares—lumenum, Kye called them—felt much like calling to water.
But it had taken me months to learn the gift of water calling, almost a full year.
I didn’t have time to teach Kye in a matter of days.
He stared into the center of his palm as Aegir had, frustration glittering in his golden eyes. I could see the question lurking inside his head, reflected in my own mind.
Would a drone’s eclipse obstruct the power of Sola?
“What about regular Naiads?” I asked Pheolix, driving Kye’s attention back to the conversation.
Thaan’s oceanless colony numbered in tens of thousands, but it was impossible that they all might fit within Neris Island.
Beyond that, I hadn’t felt unknown Naiads in my water.
I wouldn’t feel a drone, according to Pheolix.
Thaan would have flown in with Selena. But while it was possible for Naiads to pass through my detection by ship, it seemed unlikely that that number would have managed it unnoticed, as closely as the Juile colony sat under the sea.
“He keeps a few close by,” Pheolix said. “Most of them aren’t fighters. He uses them as spies, though. Every time you leave the palace, he is aware of it. Aware of where you go and when you return.”
I rapped my nails over the tabletop. “His communication with his spies wouldn’t be instant. Not unless he’s speaking mentally to an Oculos.” My voice trailed, waiting for confirmation.
Pheolix gazed at me with his cloudy eyes. “If he can, I’ve never seen it.”
“What are you considering?” Cebrinne asked. There was no trepidation, no hesitance in her tone. She was ready to get her sister back.