80. Kye
Kye
Imight have had too much to drink the morning of my brother’s coronation.
It was one of those rare days of Gemnaa when Aalto shone thick and bright, his heat like an oven both indoors and out, rainclouds fluffy and round rather than the wide-spread overcast that usually overtook the sky.
Maren sat beside me in the pews of Calder’s Aalton Temple, smiling as the priest set a sunbeam crown over Hadrian’s head.
The crown was perhaps the stupidest thing I’d ever seen, only worn by the King during an ascension. Somehow, though, it suited him, a bright plume of pride swelling in my chest.
King.
I’d have to grow familiar to saying the word without the bite of disgust lingering in the back of my mouth.
A small poke in my ribs, and I glanced down to find Maren with her lips sucked into her mouth, clamping down a smile. Probably at the watery well in my eyes, brought by the dander floating overhead.
There had always been too much dust in this fucking temple.
When we spilled out into the streets, the sun and rain struck at the same time, drenching us to the bone in golden light and clear showers. I gave Maren a spin in it, just to drink in the sound of her laughter.
“I’m going to find Diara,” she said, leaning to the side to slip off her shoes. I’d known the first thing she’d do after the ceremony would be to remove herself from the burden of anything that might shield her feet.
I sighed, feigning irritation as I kneeled to collect the abandoned straps of leather, letting them dangle from my fingers. “Don’t be too long. Pheolix leaves in an hour.”
“I know,” she said. Then wove into the crowd, darting through rain and shine toward the people still emptying the pews.
“Should we wait for Hade?” Aren asked, sliding in beside me. His dog Fox padded alongside him, panting under the bright sun.
I quirked my mouth, raising my brows at my half-brother. “I expect he’ll have a hard time sneaking away. Then again, if he knows a certain someone is coming—” My shoulder rose.
We walked through the cobbled roads of northern Calder City, where streets had been siphoned from traffic for the day.
Music floated from every corner, harps and flutes and fiddles and drums. Couples danced, young and old.
Traders had parked their carts along the alleys, knowing the crowds would have to pass through.
The air sizzled with the scent of roasted turkey legs and berry pastries and almonds toasted in sugar.
Children ran past us, bright streamers behind them, shouting and name-calling.
Aren side-stepped as a little girl almost rammed into him. She didn’t seem to see us, so enraptured in her game that she continued sprinting ahead, a long ribbon of cobalt blue flying behind her.
“Think you’ll ever have one of these?” Aren asked, meeting my smile with his own.
My brows furrowed. Once, I’d thought my answer would be never. “I don’t know,” I mused. “Maybe. You?”
“Eh.” He sucked his teeth. “Have to find the right someone, I guess.”
“It does aid in making the choice. You have your eye on anyone?”
Aren snorted. “We can’t all wake up one day to find a siren had accidentally mated with us for life.”
I grinned.
We made our way outside the heart of the city, the streets adrift with horses instead of swarming people.
At the corner of the road, a small caravan parked to the side.
Three carriages, the center one framed in gold, elegant and open-walled to expose a long, graceful box inside, fat blooms of wisteria hanging from its roof.
A man—a Naiad—with red-black hair stood over the roof of the first coach, tying down shallow crates along the back. Our pace slowed. We watched for a moment as he knotted his rope, then knotted it again.
“Think he’ll sell a few of Calder’s secrets to Rivea?” Aren asked.
I chewed the inside lining of my cheek, ignoring the smart of my molars. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably. Wouldn’t you?”
There were days I forgot a war still loomed in the north over the mountain range Emilius had illicitly purchased from Rivea, and the mines swimming with veins of gold within them. I wondered what other dark affairs the former King had left for my brother.
Aren blew a humored blast of air from his nose. “Yeah, probably.”
“Maren says he’s close with this Cerbin, though.
” I waved as Kazimir spied us. He raised a hand before shaking his dark hair from his eyes and kneeling to wrap rope around a second crate.
“And Hade’s spies have found that name connected to Vladca Skorpio.
Either Kazimir will return home to help our cause or he’ll harm it.
Either way, Maren only asked him to stay until Thaan was dead. ”
Pheolix leaned out of the door of the carriage, his hair bound back in a sloppy bun.
He’d stripped his town clothes down to a thin cotton shirt that stretched under the muscles across his shoulders and arms. Looking at him, I’d never guess he had the memory of someone twice his age.
He moved jovially, his steps like springs as he bounced in and out of the coach.
I’d learned to decipher whether Pheolix remembered what had happened by how lively he was.
Somber, distant, quiet, and I knew he was somewhere else.
Exiled in an endless land of what if, aimless and wandering, searching for answers or anchors or a small sense of peace. Whatever doomed dreams might offer.
The same place I would be if I’d lost Maren.
“Mornin’!” Pheolix called happily at us, wiping a gleam of moisture from his forehead with the back of his arm. A stitch tightened in my chest.
He often recognized our voices and scents, knowing instinctively that he knew us.
But if someone prompted him with the question of who we were, he’d drop into despondent silence.
The clouds in his eyes would darken with frustration and he’d finally turn away, embarrassed he couldn’t recall our names.
So we pretended he did.
“Good morning,” I called back. “Looks like you’re almost ready to go.”
“Just a few more things to secure,” Kazimir said, slicking back rain-wet hair with his hand.
He offered me a tight smile, which I returned.
We owed each other our lives, I suppose.
But we could have just as easily taken them, had things happened any differently.
The Rivean turned away, hopping off his coach to grab another crate from the opposite side of the road, leaving us to talk to Pheolix in privacy.
“There’s something happening in the city today.” Pheolix crossed his arms, leaning against the wide tire of the royal carriage. “It’s been loud for hours.”
I nodded. “The new king was coronated.”
“Was he?” Pheolix smiled, somewhat darkly. “Hope he is better than the old one. Almost killed him, once.”
“King Emilius?” Aren asked, surprised. “Why?”
Pheolix chuckled, gray eyes veering to somewhere below our feet. His smile faltered, eyebrows twitching as he tried to remember.
“Where are you heading?” I quickly cut in.
“To take Selena to see the Polaris Lights,” Pheolix beamed. “She’s wanted to see them all her life, but we couldn’t until now. She’ll be here any minute. I’ve been waiting for her all morning.”
Kazimir leaned out from behind the long carriage in the back, mouth parted as if he meant to correct him. But he closed it, gliding back behind the Calderian coat of arms embossed in gold over bright white doors.
“I’m sure she’ll be along soon,” Aren said, avoiding my gaze.
“I came to see your cordae before I left,” a sharp voice said over my shoulder. Xiane stood behind me, her attention on the gilded hearse. Her voice softened. “I see she isn’t here yet.”
“Give her a few minutes. She’s on her way.” I stepped back, widening our circle so she could join. She watched me, though her feet didn’t move. “Will you be returning to Paria, then?” I asked.
“Yes. I should have been back already, but…” She hesitated, then stepped alongside me.
Not a full step; only a few inches. “It’s been too long since Paria has held any allies with other colonies.
Suddenly I found myself in the company of two Videres and”—her mouth twitched in what was possibly the closest thing to a smile she could achieve—“rather appreciative.”
The other Naiads had rarely referred to me as such.
Naiads held odd notions over their titles.
Like that of a beehive, queens existed, but kings did not.
A Videre was a term for a mortal with royal siren blood: a Prizivac Vode ascended.
No one knew what to call me, so most of them called me monarch or Sola or lumenblood, though I’d also heard human-born and once, from a mutter behind my back, gnat.
Nori had been next to me and heard it too, whispered among the members of the counsel I’d inherited.
I’d named Nori one of my Oculoses, an easy choice if Maren and I ever needed a go-between.
Doing so made her my general, and she’d growled at the offending council-siren, banishing him from his post.
“It’s a slur,” she’d said after they’d all filed out with their tails between their legs. “For a Naiad with no powers and no perceived value. You are neither of those things.” Then she’d stalked away, a proud line between her shoulders, before she’d had the chance to see the shock in my eyes.
If Xiane knew the word Videre was awkward for a human—and I assumed she did—she didn’t show it. “You are both young, you and your cordae. Young, but not untested. You will make fair monarchs.”
I gnawed at my lip, unsure what to say. My whole life, I’d avoided the idea of holding a crown, thankful Hadrian would inherit it instead.
Only to find myself seated on the dais of an even more intimidating kind of throne.
It felt like someone had emptied a fucking jar of moths in my belly whenever I thought too deeply about it, something Maren promised would fade with time.