76. Maren
Maren
The blood of my blood will give me life. The blood of my enemy will grant me death.
As I watched the swarm of Naiads cut through the long blades of pili grass like a searing knife through butter, Selena’s words from long ago rose through my mind.
The blood of the Domus, of any colony member, is a gift.
But the blood of an enemy isn’t. It’s taken by force, granting more power than they would’ve inherited from the colony or lunar absorption.
I wondered if, even then, she knew my power might rival Thaan’s.
I wondered if she’d chosen that lesson on purpose. If, even then, she knew Thaan might try to take my blood.
She’d seen the hate I’d harbored for him, his very name like poison in my mouth.
I wondered if she knew we’d become enemies, opposing Videres. The way she’d tried to stop me from leaving for Sidra’s colony, begging me not to go. She’d known of the Triad, she knew my life wouldn’t end at Sidra’s feet.
But the power of a queen might’ve been tempting enough for Thaan to end my life at his.
A chasm ripped through my chest, each beat of my heart tearing it deeper, shredding me alive.
It had been a warning all along, and I’d never even seen it.
The drones moved like sharks, straight and precise as they crossed the foliage, swift and eerily soundless. Forty of them, aimed at me. It was like standing on the beach and watching a tidal wave as it grew, climbing higher and higher, a monster I could not outrun.
No. I couldn’t escape this monster. And I refused to try—to leave the souls I loved shackled to dirt and trees, grass and mud.
My mother cried out as I launched forward, meeting the nearest drone as the female stretched for me. She burst into a cloud of dust. A soft explosion, sparkling in the night.
Another came, then another, and another. All crumbling to ash before they could touch me.
That didn’t stop them from surrounding me, tightening their circle with intimate accuracy. They drew near, passing some imagined boundary, blowing away like thoughtless sand. Until one of them drew close enough to grasp my wrist, yanking me into their tide.
Flames spewed from their hand, tearing up their arm. A roar pierced the silence, desperate and bright with agony.
It didn’t matter if I tried to fight. Kye scorched their bodies before they could touch me.
I turned toward him then, a living light, vivid and charged.
I could barely see him through the solar flood of his aura, but I forced my feet to move, ignoring that the drones stood in my way.
That they reached for me across the deadened air, and that their hands and arms evaporated to motes of dust. I walked through a land of invisible fire, the air around me stirring as flesh became wind.
But if the world was on fire, I’d walk through it to find him.
If I had to burn, I’d burn in his arms.
They pressed in closer, their fingers gripping me, pulling at my hair and dress before floating away. I began to trip over them, crawling on hands and knees. Flames from their bodies licked my skin, heatless and soft to my touch.
And then, finally, one of the drones managed to strike.
They hit the back of my head with sharp bone. A knee, maybe. An elbow. I rocked forward, the sweet scent of island grass thick in my nose and mouth, a crack of pain flaring across my skull. One of them grabbed my leg, dragging me back into their midst. Another raised their foot over my head.
Golden light illuminated the underside of his toes, an arched bridge and a rounded heel, brightening like a growing fire—
Every drone near me erupted, a searing blaze of every color, burning to stardust.
I stared up at it, the twinkling remains of mortals like me, the reflection of their faces crushed into glass and thrown to the sky.
And I understood. Thaan didn’t intend for them to kill me. He was whittling Kye’s reserves, draining Kye from the inside out.
“Hold,” Thaan’s voice said somewhere behind me.
Diara was softly weeping, Hadrian pushing through his glass water beads, fighting to reach her. A deep gash lay across my father’s temple, his eyes open yet unaware. Beside him, Cebrinne watched Thaan with a gaze as murderous as the untamed sea.
I rolled onto my hip, finding my feet and closing the distance between Kye and myself.
My arms flung over his neck, my nose buried into the feeling of him, solid and steady and safe.
He smelled of the stars, the same inferno I’d sensed when I’d crossed the sea to Perpetuum, burning rain over ancient stone, secrets and smoke and eons upon eons of endless flame.
I might not have cried, if I hadn’t had him.
In fact, I knew I wouldn’t have. I would have lifted my chin, stepping through my hate as though it were a dais, as though everyone was beneath me whether I lived or died. My eyes would have been dry and my breath would have been calm and my heart would have been full of black and vicious poison.
Maybe that’s why we fall in love, whether human or Naiad or a flame plucked from the stars.
Not because love makes us strong. Because it allows us to be soft.
I once might have greeted Death like a challenge, an opponent to be conquered.
But I’d run with Death across the sky, and I knew he was a friend.
Life was made of finite single seconds strung together, each precious from the first to the last. And if these were my last, I’d waste them in his arms, unafraid to fall apart in the safety of his body.
His muscles relaxed the moment we touched, and he sank to his knees. The tendrils of Darkness’s shadows loosened, and Kye’s hands wrapped fully around my back, pulling me in deep. Kye shook softly, trembling against me.
“Take it,” he whispered. “Take his offer.”
“I won’t.” I pulled back to gaze at him, now dim and dark, almost his natural hue.
Around us, they pressed in, assassins from every angle.
I’d fight them when they came too close, and I knew that eventually, they would.
But shield weed had torn away my power, and I knew the fight wouldn’t last long.
“Please.” Tears streaked his own cheeks, tracks of dirt and ash and dust. “I can’t imagine a world without you in it,” he said. “I can’t imagine the sun rising tomorrow while you lay still. I can’t imagine time leaving you here, the days dragging on without you. Please.”
“No, lout.” I swallowed, thick. “If time stops for you, it stops for me. Besides—”
A clawed hand wrapped around my throat. Tore me from his arms. Slammed me into the nearest palm.
Talons bit into the sides of my neck. I coughed, struggling for breath, scratching at feathers and scales.
A roar shook the wide fan leaves above, but Thaan ignored it.
“Selena,” he called. “Come to me. Bring your knife.”
I choked under his grasp, sight flagging. I hoped it was fast. I hoped he killed me first, so that I wouldn’t ignite Nahli, bringing the volcano over all of Leihani. I hoped Death was as kind the second time.
Just beyond me, a voice snarled with rage.
Selena floated through the grass like a paper crane over calm waters, weightlessly drifting through soft blades, her hand sweeping under the waistband of her skirt for the small blade she’d concealed here.
Movement blurred, or perhaps it only seemed to blur. Dark red hair, almost black, the glint of steel. Thaan’s talons spasmed, and then the weight of their hold vanished.
A feathered arm dropped to my feet. Thaan relinquished a step as Kazimir pointed a sword at his chest, reaching for my arm and pulling me into Kye’s side as he stood before us both.
Naiads poured in, winding through the palms and boulders. Nori and Olinne, Sindri and Pheolix. Juile Naiads, Venusian Naiads. My heart skipped as I recognized Xiane from Paria, standing among them.
“Ah,” Thaan said, gaze lifting from the bloodless trunk of his arm to scan the hundreds of faces edging through the leaves. “So it’s war you want.”
His drones rocked forward on a silent order, surging toward the Naiads. Countless more crawled from the corners of the island, sweeping over the rocks and branches.
Our Naiads flew to meet them.
A storm rose on its heels, sweeping arms of chaos through Neris Island. Not only wind and rain and beams of light. Mortal souls, crashing into one another like titans made of steel and flesh and water born from blood.
Death danced between our bodies, glimmers of silver bottling breath and heart, collecting souls to send over the sea in the night sky.
I pulled Kye to his feet under the screeching cyclone, reaching for his twin blades, fitting one into his fist. He sagged against me, and I pulled his arm over my head.
Thaan stretched a hand toward Kazimir’s chest. The Rivean gave a soft grunt. Then crumpled to the island floor. Thaan sent him away with an angry wave, Kazimir’s body rolling through ardent undergrowth and out of sight.
Screams, shouts, feral words, pleas for mercy.
Wind cut through my hair, rain burned in my eyes. The world was thick with muted color, and I was left dizzy within it. Thrown to the depths, unaware of which direction might mean escape.
Someone ripped Kye from me. He was there one moment, gone the next, devoured by a tempest beyond my control.
Kye! I screamed. If he answered, it was too loud to hear, even in my own head.
Sharp eyes of ice and bone leaned into mine.
Every drop of my blood silenced into stillness. Weight dropped over my chest, a heaviness I couldn’t breathe against. My arms and legs went limp, and I fell numbly to the grass, staring into the face that would snuff life from my bones.
“Selena,” Thaan’s voice said. Talons dug into my chest. His hold over my heart pulsed, granting me a beat before he stopped it again. My right arm lost feeling, the world blending into shifting mud. “Now.”
And she came. Emerged from the wind like she’d been borne from mist, knife ready in her hand.
“Do it,” Thaan sneered through his teeth. My heart lurched, my pulse small yet agonizing. Like I was being ripped in two.
I couldn’t breathe. But I held my breath.
Her eyes were thick, swimming with tears and regret and voiceless apology.
“It’s okay,” I mouthed, my lungs empty. I knew what it was like, having him inside my head. I knew she answered to his every whim, whether it was in her heart or not.
“DO IT,” Thaan bellowed against his own screaming rain.
And she obeyed. She slid her knife between ribs, piercing heart and body and mortal life.
But she didn’t pierce mine.