78. Maren
Maren
Dawn broke as we climbed from the cliffs below Laurier Palace, our bodies weighed by wounds and water and something deeper that dragged behind us. It latched to our heels, a chain of weight and gravity that sank down to our bones.
Nori had stayed in the Juile Sea, a bruise bloomed across her throat like a necklace of deep violet, Olinne unwilling to leave her.
Not that I would have asked. Watching Aoede find her daughter’s body had cast a part of me in brittle iron, my chest threatening to fracture and tumble away, leaving me wide and aching.
We’d wrapped Selena and Dimas in sail canvases salvaged from the ocean years before, laying Dimas’s sword over his chest, securing his hands to its hilt.
Diara had helped me gather lobelia flowers along the southern side of Neris island, where the sun tangled with shadows from the trees.
We stood back and watched as Cebrinne arranged Selena’s hair over her shoulder, weaving the white blooms through her shining locks, my mother’s voice hidden under a throat too constricted to speak.
“Mother moon, take my hand,” Hadrian murmured behind me.
Diara joined him softly. “Lead me to the after land.”
Aren and Kazimir lent their voices. Kye stood at my back, hands on my shoulders as he watched. He kissed the back of my head.
Beaches warm and water pure,
My body young with fresh vigor.
Mother moon, take my pain,
Let it be a drop of rain.
Upon the shore where I shall live,
With each wave, let me forgive.
Mother moon, take my soul,
Lay my body in a hole.
Let not my loved ones cry for me.
Tell them I wait by the sea.
We’d checked each other for scrapes and bruises and anything worse, Aoede refusing to let us banish her to grieve with Aitne in private.
Sindri helped carry Selena and Dimas to the coast under the City of Towers. He passed the winegrower’s son to Aren and Ano, standing back to wait for orders from Kye.
“Return to Neris Island,” Kye said. He sounded as drained as I felt, like he’d forgotten the taste of sleep, the embrace of rest. Like he’d spent a hundred years under the burden of spine-breaking labor, leaving him worn to the bone and faced with the equally encumbering problem of respite.
“Neris is close to humans and ships, help the departing Naiads steer clear of both. Thaan’s drones may leave if they choose but take in any refugees who need a place to stay. ”
Sindri started, doubling back like he’d misheard. “Take in drone refugees?”
“Well,” Kye began to amend. Sindri’s shoulders relaxed. “They’ll have to wait for Venusia’s rebuild. But yes.”
The Naiad gazed at him in tones of shock and uncertainty before placing his hands together over his heart and dipping his head. He turned, dropping back to the tide. Kye watched the waves roll over the rock in his place, jaw chewing on a slow thought.
I have no idea what I’m doing, he spoke into my thoughts.
I took his arm, too tired to come up with anything other than a stroke of my thumb over his chin. You will learn.
He and I were the last to amble up the rocks. Hadrian and Diara had already crossed the grounds, seeking a cot to carry Dimas into the Palace. My mother squeezed my arm as she passed, teal eyes bright and thick with shine.
Laurier Palace was rousing, awake with the bustle of early-rising servants, lighting fires and toting silver trays.
Our breakfast was waiting for us inside our tower room, eggs and butter and toast and oatcakes, bowls of berries with cream.
We looked dully over the collection, a small feast waiting to be consumed, and both waded through the door of our bedroom instead.
The sea had cleansed our wounds, its bite of salt a wicked sting where my skin hadn’t yet closed.
Flowers of purple and red still blossomed deep under my skin.
Kye kissed them as he undressed me, sliding the silk of my byssus aside.
We climbed wordlessly into his bed, and my hands explored him under the fur coverlet without any trace of lust or desire other than the simple hunger of feeling him breathe and beat under my fingertips.
Relishing each small heave of his chest against mine, the simple chorus of his heart, the sun-flecked burn of his eyes.
I didn’t realize I was weeping until he stroked a tear from my face.
But once I did, I let myself melt fully into him. Into the raw relief that he was here, alive. Into the ragged grief of those who were not.
I cried until the golden light staining the windows turned pale and clear. Until the walls of wood and glass blurred and unblurred and blurred again. Until my eyelids were so heavy I couldn’t keep them open, and my tears had long since dried.
Then I let his arms rock me to sleep like a ship at sea, cradling me amid the waves of joy and sorrow, rapture and heartache.
My head quieted and my breaths slowed, and all the world fell into the solemn synchrony of time turning on an axis, unaware of the souls it had lost forever.
And the ones it had been fortunate enough to keep a little longer.
Nothing seemed quite right.
Spring banished the clouds of winter, tugging warm winds from the south, the orchards abloom like clouds of pink and white.
Grass blanketing the palace grounds had brightened, and everywhere I walked, birds chirped at each other from the trees.
Sunlight sparkled off the surface of the glass towers, reflecting brightly from every crystal flute in my hand, every polished marble statue, every roll of the distant sea.
When not with my parents or Diara, I spent my time on our balcony, watching the tide rise and collapse.
I’d need to return to Leihani; to the Juile colony.
And eventually, Kye would have to decide what to do with Venusia.
We’d be forced to choose a place to live, either in my sea or his or neither.
But I was in no rush to make such decisions.
Pheolix had asked, the day prior, where I thought he should lay Selena to rest, a question I’d never hoped to ponder, yet deeply understood.
Cypria was where she’d been born, though Thaan had taken her years ago, and she hadn’t visited its shores in decades.
She’d spent most of her life within the walls of Laurier Palace, but somehow, it seemed like a betrayal to bury her here.
In many ways, she’d been like Thaan. A Naiad with no ocean home, locked away in a tower carved by his possession and greed.
Now, finally free of him, I only knew I wished to see her placed anywhere but within these grounds.
So we’d sat around the thick slab of oak that spanned the surface of her table, stirring our tea with spoons that clinked softly against their porcelain cups, hoping to swirl an idea that seemed right through the slowly rising steam.
Kye had taken to playing with the lumen of his hand, warping the sunlight streaming through the windows into small solar flares of green and lavender and pink. I watched them shimmer and burn over his fingers, numb.
“She is welcome in Paria,” Xiane said softly.
My mother shook her head. “That’s a generous offer, but no. Paria held as much anguish for my sister as Laurier Palace.”
“You could give her to the sea,” I offered. “Kye’s or mine.”
Pheolix lifted his head, acknowledging the words. But he didn’t respond. I didn’t blame him. Selena had spent little time in any sea, and for all the closeness she’d lived to each, she’d been tied to neither.
An odd thing, to believe someone belonged somewhere after they had died. That they should be buried in a place where their body had been beholden to the land. In truth, Selena had passed, left us to our mortal lives. Finding a place that felt right mattered very little to her soul now.
But it mattered greatly to ours.
Kazimir let a slow exhale drift from his lungs. “I could take her with me to Rivea. She spent some time there, in the years I was young, visiting Oberon. I remember her smile there. I know she was happy.”
“Rivea.” Pheolix breathed the word from deep in his throat, gritty and rough.
Kazimir leaned into the table, watching the solar lights flicker and weave over Kye’s palm. “Under Polaris.”
Cebrinne’s throat narrowed, her eyes glistening. She nodded.
We drew plans, mapped roadways, marked inns and rest stops along the way. Kazimir asked Pheolix if he would like to come, and Hadrian offered a royal cortege of guards to escort them to the gates that bled into the mountains, his somber brown eyes watching the Rivean with quiet, gentle focus.
I’d almost forgotten that Calder still rested on the precipice of another war. That we were sending Kazimir to rejoin the side against ours. It seemed everyone else remembered then, too, shifting uncomfortably in their seats
“I could use a new emissary,” Hadrian said. “One who might understand that whatever my father wants, it’s peace I hope to achieve.”
Kazimir stared at the heir for a long moment, as if trying to weigh his words against truth and deceit, waiting for a crack to show through. “If that is your aim, I will see to it the prince of Rivea knows it as well. Whatever my King wants aside.”
We drained our cups slowly, but something in the room relaxed at forming a plan for Selena. An anchor that had held me deep below lifted, and I found myself pulling long gusts of air, feeling like they were the first full breaths after a long winter of deadened lungs.
Hadrian trailed us as we filed out of what I suppose was now Pheolix’s apartment, though I would always think of it as Selena’s.
Diara offered me a small wave, as if she didn’t want to interrupt, though she hovered long enough to ask, “Would you like to ride with me tomorrow?”
“Oh yes,” I said, already craving the wind in my face. “I’m sure Kolibri would love that after the short walks the stable hands have been subjecting her to.”
She smiled, her gaze shifting to Hadrian briefly before she drifted away, opting for a palace route that would lead her to the servants’ quarters.