Chapter 54
The Tidelands was a wasteland above the sea.
The narrow strip of shoreline looked less like land than something the ocean had reluctantly surrendered.
White sand gave way to jagged shelves of black stone veined with salt, while shattered coral jutted from the shoreline in bleached, skeletal fingers.
At our backs, stagnant marshes stretched toward the horizon, choked with twisted mangroves whose roots disappeared into dark, brackish pools.
The air hummed with insects hidden among the reeds, their maddening drone ever-present beneath the rhythmic hush of the waves.
I took shelter beneath the meagre shade of a bent palm while Rìan perched atop a boulder at the water's edge, fully exposed to the blazing sun, dragging his whetstone down the edge of a dagger for what had to be the hundredth time.
As though it could possibly grow any sharper.
There was something almost meditative about the ritual, as if honing his blades steadied something deeper within him.
He hadn't spoken to me since we'd left Pelaga.
I'd returned his shirt before we skelded from Thalassis's guest apartments, but within minutes of arriving on the shoreline, he'd peeled it off again.
The heat didn't seem to bother him. While my own skin would have blistered beneath the midday sun, he simply sat there, drinking in the light as he worked.
A sheen of sweat glimmered over the muscles of his chest and shoulders, and the damp at his nape had begun to curl the dark strands of his hair.
His complexion, so unnaturally pale when I'd first met him, seemed to darken by the minute, warm color blooming across his skin.
Time crawled in the oppressive heat.
The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon, the tide retreating farther with each passing wave. We were waiting for the waters to recede.
Rìan had searched every cave he could reach along the cliff face. This one had remained submerged, but he hadn't needed to see inside. The wrongness radiating from its depths had told him enough. I could feel it even from here.
Shielding my eyes, I peered upward. The rock was painted chalk-white with bird droppings, cormorants packed shoulder to shoulder across the higher ledges where their crude nests lay.
My magic stirred beneath my skin, a warning prickling at the back of my neck.
I glanced behind me to the marshes. Nothing there.
I joined him at the boulder and slipped off my boots. Rolling my trousers to just below my knees, I glanced sideways at him.
“I don't like it here.”
He didn't answer.
I waited, foolishly hoping for something—a glance, a sigh, even the smallest acknowledgment—but his expression remained carved from stone as he bent over his work. He might as well have been alone.
Biting my tongue, I turned away and stepped into the water.
Cool waves curled around my ankles, taking the cruel edge off the heat.
Wet sand shifted beneath my feet, squeezing between my toes with every step.
Sunlight shattered across the surface, scattering into a thousand dancing fragments that glittered so brightly I had to squint.
The sea was crystal blue, impossibly clear beside the stagnant marshes scarcely a stone’s throw behind me. It was as though the Tidelands had surrendered every ounce of its beauty to these waters, leaving the land barren in exchange.
I hissed as something sharp bit into my foot. I winced and bent to retrieve it from the water.
A shell.
I rinsed away the clinging sand, rubbing my thumb over its surface. The outside was a soft, chalky white, delicate ridges fanning outward from the hinge like the rays of a rising sun. Curious, I turned it over.
I couldn’t stop my delighted grin.
The inside shimmered with iridescence, pale rose melting into blush pink and pearly ivory. The colors were as soft as dawn breaking over the horizon.
There seemed to be no end to the beautiful things in the Fae realm.
Little treasures lay scattered everywhere, so commonplace that no one seemed to notice them.
A few months ago, I wouldn't have stopped to admire it.
I would've been calculating what it might fetch in Midland instead.
A little meat. A length of wool. Another day or two of survival.
Now… I simply wanted to hold it.
And I could.
Turning back toward shore, I waded through the shallows until I reached the boulder once more. Rìan still hadn't moved. It was as though the sea, the sun, and I were all equally unworthy of his attention.
I climbed onto the rock and held out the shell. “It’s pretty, don’t you think?”
He glanced at it briefly, but said nothing.
Something inside me wilted beneath his silence, at the way he'd walled himself off again. Clearing my throat against the tightness gathering there, I set the shell on the sun-warmed boulder between us, leaving it to dry in the late afternoon light.
He tested the edge of his blade with his thumb.
A thin line of crimson welled across the pad of his finger.
He sheathed the knife and selected another.
I watched in silence, his hair falling into his eyes as his forearms flexed with each measured pass of the whetstone.
Whatever thoughts occupied him, he seemed intent on grinding them into the steel.
"Did I do something wrong?"
His hands stilled. A long sigh escaped him. "No, Eidra. You didn't."
"Then what is it?"
He opened his mouth, the answer seeming to catch in his throat. For a heartbeat, I thought he might actually tell me. Instead, he looked toward the marsh.
"There are Brinnekin in the reeds."
I frowned. "What?"
"Brinnekin. That's why you're uneasy." His attention moved back to his blade. "They've been watching us since we arrived."
I glanced nervously toward the swamp, searching for some sign of movement. Nothing.
"How do you know?"
"I sense them."
I looked back at him blankly. He rested an arm across his knee, the knife dangling loosely from his fingers.
"I send my magic outward," he explained. "Wherever there’s a mind, I feel it."
I gaped, startled by another side of his magic I'd never imagined.
"How many?"
"Fifty or so."
"Fifty!"
One corner of his mouth twitched, and my heart galloped at the sight.
"Does that impress you, Eidra?"
"How?" I forced my gaze from him, sweeping the reeds fringing the marsh, half-expecting something to emerge from their murky depths. He didn't appear concerned, but I couldn't shake Thalassis's warning that the creatures had a taste for flesh. "How do you have such control over your magic?"
He dragged a forearm across his brow to wipe away the sweat.
"Centuries of practice."
"How did you learn?"
One dark brow lifted. "Are you asking me to tell an Eidra how to master her magic?"
"Yes."
"When this bond is broken, you'll stand against me. Surely you don't expect me to tell you how to fight me."
"Why? Are you afraid?"
His grin spread slowly. "You'll have to do better than that, Eidra."
My eyes found his mouth of their own accord, lingering there a heartbeat too long before I dragged them away.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to gather my thoughts. "I don't know what’s wrong with it."
He set his knife aside but said nothing, waiting patiently.
I sighed. "I can't always touch it. Not every time. It's always... just beyond my grasp. And sometimes it acts on its own." I hesitated. "Like there's another person living inside me."
"There is."
He wasn't mocking me.
"What does that mean?"
"The Eidrae weren't born without emotion by chance. They were created to carry magic—the perfect vessel."
I frowned. "I don't understand."
He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, fingers laced.
"Emotion creates hesitation. Fear. Desire. Grief. Love.” His eyes touched mine. “Every feeling shapes the choices you make. The Eidrae had none of that. Nothing to interfere. Nothing for their magic to fight against."
The realization came slowly. "My magic..."
"... found itself inside a body unlike any it’s ever known," he finished. "Someone with thoughts. Wants. A will of her own."
A chill crept over my skin despite the heat.
"For thousands of years, it never had to share." He paused. "And I don't think it likes sharing."
"So what does that mean for me?" I asked, almost breathless.
"You're something entirely new, Eidra. Nothing like you has ever existed before." He reached for the shirt from where he'd left it in a heap beside him and shook the sand free. "What that means, you'll have to discover for yourself."
"What do you think?"
He studied me for a long moment. "Why do you care what I think?"
I gestured around us. "Because look at everything you can do." I shook my head, awed. "You can hold dozens of minds all at once—"
"Hundreds."
I gaped. "Hundreds?!"
He grinned, the dimple deepening in his cheek. Heat unfurled low in my belly at the sight.
"Are you impressed now?" he asked.
"Maybe a little terrified."
He winked—winked. My mind went completely blank.
He pulled the shirt over his head, the broad planes of his chest disappearing beneath the fabric, then leaned back on one hand. A bead of sweat slid slowly down his throat and vanished beneath his collar.
My mouth watered.
"Tell me what happened with your magic," he said. "That night in Illyra."
The words doused every heated thought in an instant. How could I possibly explain the storm that had consumed me after he'd disappeared into the alcove with Elyndra? And after what I'd done in front of him... how could I possibly speak of that?
He watched me expectantly, a fierce, almost feverish intensity in his gaze.
"I… I was angry with you."
"Why?"
I ground my teeth together. "Because you dismissed me. Like I was your servant."
"Was that truly all?"
The question lodged beneath my ribs like a fishhook.
No. "Yes."
He regarded me for another long moment, and I found myself shifting under that unwavering stare. "What else?"
"Please, Rìan." I couldn't stop the plea from slipping into my voice. I was humiliated enough already. Putting it into words would only make it worse.
He held my gaze for a long moment, something unreadable passing through his eyes. Then he relented, his expression shuttering as cool detachment settled once more over his features. Something in me dimmed.
"What happens when it comes?"
I drew in a slow breath.
"It..." I searched for the words. "It feeds on whatever I'm feeling. The more it consumes, the larger it becomes, until it fills me completely. Then I can reach it. Shape it. Wield it. But…"
"But?"
“It doesn't feel like mine.” I picked at the seam of my trousers. “It feels like... something looking through my eyes. Something wearing my body. It strips everything away, and... and I want it to. I want it to take over, Rìan. I used to fear it, but now—now I just want to be... numb.”
The understanding in his eyes was almost unbearable.
"That night in Illyra," I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat, "you brought me back. When you said… when you said—"
He stiffened. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," I said quickly. "I know why you said it. And I'm very grateful you did."
His lips pressed together.
“It wants to take over. It wants me to mate—so it can be passed on. Because I feel too much, all the time. It knows I’m weak.”
He shook his head. "Your heart isn't a weakness, Eidra. It's your greatest strength."
I snorted, but he remained unmoved.
"Why else would your magic fight so desperately to consume it?" he continued. "Why else would it swell to such impossible power after feeding from it?"
His eyes lifted to mine, and my heart stumbled at what I saw there. He looked… destroyed. “It's an irony, isn't it?” His voice was low, ragged. “It despises you... and yet it wants you all the same.”
As though on cue, the sea changed its song.
The surf crashed one final time before the tide began to ebb, the sea drawing back over the smooth sand in a long, whispering sigh, like fine silk slipping between gentle fingers.
Inch by inch, the seabed emerged from the shallows, broken only by wave-smoothed rocks and strings of seaweed.
It drew back, further and further from the base of the cliff, unveiling the narrow, shadowed mouth of a cave that, only moments earlier, had belonged to the ocean.
Rìan rose slowly to his feet, but made no move toward it. He stood staring at the dark opening for a long moment, something almost pained passing over his face before he lowered his gaze.
Then his expression hardened, the cold, unreadable mask of the Dark Prince settling back into place. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and tugged on my boots without a word. We set off together, but the sand seemed heavier beneath my feet than it had before, pulling at my boots as though I were wading through mud.
I told myself that was why every step toward the cave seemed harder than the last.