Chapter 12 #2
“But you didn’t know that. You couldn’t have known that. No one could. There’s no need to punish yourself with guilt over it.”
“Guilt,” he echoed with a sorrowful smile. “The gods know I’ve felt more of it on any given day in the past century than in my whole life prior.”
My gaze drifted to the giant portrait on the wall across from us. It survived last night’s devastation, the string of pearls under it remained untouched too.
I studied the image of the happy family playing in the ocean waves, the face of the little boy erased with the canvas shredded into rugs.
“Is that boy you?” I asked.
He followed my gaze to the picture, then quickly turned his head away.
“Yes.”
I waited for him to say more, but he remained quiet.
“What happened to the picture?” I asked, breaking the grim silence.
“I destroyed it.” He shrugged, lifting his chin to pretend it didn’t bother him.
He was a good actor, I had to give it to him. Only it was too late for acting between us. I’d been learning to read his true emotions better and better every day.
“Unfortunately, I’d broken all the furniture in here first,” he said. “There was nothing left for me to climb to reach the canvas. So I just tossed a few pieces of glass at it.”
“You must’ve had quite a fit,” I said evenly.
He folded his arms across his chest, leaning a shoulder against the wall. “You have no idea my dear Maren, what this temper can do when it’s set loose.”
“I think I’m getting a pretty good idea now,” I assured him.
That said, he’d clearly made some progress since those early days. Kye was capable of compassion and regret. I’d seen him contemplative, restrained, and caring of others. I didn’t think I would’ve tolerated him as well as I did now had I met him one hundred years ago.
“Why didn’t you touch the pearls then? They’re lower than the portrait.” I pointed at the long string of giant pearls draped below the picture.
He inhaled deeply, leaning his head back against the wall too. His gaze shifted higher, above the pearls, to the happy, smiling faces of his parents.
“I don’t know,” he exhaled. “Pearls are delicate, beautiful things. They call them ‘drops of the ocean.’ The ancient stories of the deep are stored between their layers. Magic binds to them. This particular string was my father’s wedding present to my mother.
I guess even in the frenzy of madness, I retained enough good sense to stop myself from ruining them.
They are my one remaining treasure here now.
And the only reminder of everything that has been lost.”
Once again I wished to hug him, or at least to reach out and take his hand. And once again, I just curled my fingers into a fist to fight that urge.
“They’re beautiful,” I said. “I’ve never seen pearls that perfect. I still can’t believe they’re real.”
He gave me an incredulous look. “Aren’t all pearls real? Why fake them? What for?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised if you ever go over to my world.”
“It’s a good thing I’ll never do then. Who needs a world with fake pearls? What other abominations does it harbor?” He lifted a hand before I had a chance to open my mouth in reply. “No need to list them, darling. Trust me, I don’t want to know.”
He shifted a foot on the floor and winced, stepping on an errant shard of glass that the servants had missed when cleaning.
“Oh no,” I gasped. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I am. What can possibly hurt me?” He kicked the shard off the ledge. It splashed into the water.
I noticed the red film of fresh crystalized blood on the glass floor.
“You’re not invincible, Kye.”
The fact disturbed me more than I ever thought it could. The metal blade of Leslo’s knife was thin enough to break when turned to glass. But a thick enough weapon, even if made of glass, could wound Kye greatly.
“A cut from a piece of glass won’t kill a fae,” Kye dismissed, rinsing his foot in the water.
When he stepped back on the glass with it, there was no more blood. The wound must’ve closed up already, beginning to heal.
“Okay, but what if a pane of glass sliced through your neck and severed your head?” I asked.
“You have quite an imagination, my dear,” Kye chuckled, shaking his head. “That would need to be a pretty thick pane, and it would have to come at a certain angle. It’s not easy to slice a person’s head off.”
“But it’s not impossible,” I argued. “And what then? Would you heal? Would you grow a new head?”
“No,” he admitted.
I felt no triumph at winning the argument, just worry. I didn’t want him harmed. I certainly didn’t want him dead.
We stood in silence for a few moments. I watched the water ripple in the middle of the hall.
The dead darkness under its surface seemed especially threatening after last night when a whole army of Abyss dwellers came to the surface.
The creatures were so determined, so coordinated, following the same purpose. To get me?
Why? What did I have that they wanted?
“Kye,” I said quietly. “I think the monsters spoke to me when they attacked.”
It sounded ridiculous even to my own ears. But Kye didn’t laugh. He frowned.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Did you not hear them?”
“No. What did they say?”
“The first night, it was whispers that kept calling me. I thought they weren’t real, just an effect of white noise from the waves.
Then, last night...” I rubbed my chest, wincing at the memory of the glowing blue appendage hovering over me, its unblinking black eyes staring.
“It’s just one voice, actually. One whisper.
It said it had been searching for me. What does it want, Kye? ”
I turned to face him. He stepped closer to me, much closer than an arm’s reach.
“If it wants you, it sure as fuck is not going to get you,” he growled through clenched teeth.
His fingers flexed, then balled into fists.
“You can’t stay here tonight,” he said resolutely.
“What? Why?” My heart tripped in alarm. “But where else can I go?”
I didn’t stop to analyze the fact that as much as I wished to leave this place, spending a night anywhere else, away from Kye, seemed unthinkable.
He saw my distress and gentled his voice. “Maren, sweetheart, you and I will have a wonderful day together. We’ll have lunch. You said you liked scallops?”
I’d never actually voiced that. But he must’ve noticed that I always ate them all at dinner.
“I’ll get you a whole pile of them,” he promised. “We’ll go swimming, just as you wanted. You’ll teach me how to tread water.”
I exhaled a humorless laugh. “You’re way past that stage of learning, Kye.”
“Oh, but we can always tread it again, together.” He grinned, clearly trying to sweeten the bitter pill he was about to deliver. “Then you’ll leave to spend the night at Arnon’s palace.”
And there it was. The bitter pill.
“I’m not leaving,” I protested, acutely aware of the fact that escaping the glass palace was supposed to be my goal.
The thought of spending the night elsewhere filled me with anxiety I couldn’t explain. Was it because I didn’t really know Arnon and had never been to his palace before? Or was it because of the darkness that I feared to brace on my own, without Kye’s voice to comfort me.
The last notion was true, I realized, as much as it was disturbing. Where did this fervent dependence on him come from? How did I let it happen? How had I allowed my jailer to become my one source of solace and safety?
“Arnon was right when he said you should stay with him,” Kye admitted with a grim expression.
“It’s not safe for you here. Never was. I’m selfish enough as it is to keep you here with me.
But at least I’m in control of my own touch.
Sadly, I’ve no control over those beasts.
By keeping you here now, I’m subjecting you to danger, the full extent of which I can’t even name. ”
“But we moved to the tower,” I argued. “It’s high from the water. Higher than anything.”
He shook his head, determinedly.
“What if they slither up the stairs?” he asked. “What if they break the tower? What if they make the wave rise high enough to reach you? No. I can’t risk it.” He raised his hands in protest, refusing to allow even the idea of something like that happening to me.
“How can they make a wave rise that high?” I wondered.
He stepped away from me, tossing his hands up in the air.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to know. But they have enough strength to break things, enough mind to organize.”
So, he had noticed too how coordinated the monsters’ attack was last night.
“How did they do it? They’re just animals, aren’t they? They’re not intelligent species,” I said before I remembered the voice again. At least one of those monsters could speak.
“The ocean is filled with wisdom, magic, and intelligence, my dear. There are wonders in its depths beyond our comprehension. The ocean is where all Olathana’s Ancient Ones live. It’s also home to its mother, Goddess Nanami.”
“Are you saying some ancient gods sent the monsters after me?”
The reasonable, practical part of me rejected any possibility of gods existing, let alone being concerned about me in any way.
But a part of me that had been learning from all the magical, unbelievable things I’d witnessed in this world was open to allow for anything to happen.
Nothing seemed too crazy or impossible anymore.
He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. I’ll need to talk to Arnon about it again. I hope he’ll find an explanation soon, with all his hags and the full royal library at his disposal. It’s not like he or his court would come to my palace to investigate it with me.”
“But I’m here,” I offered. “I’ll ask for more books to be brought here from the library. There must be some records from the times when those monsters rose to the surface before. We can read them together.”
He rested his gaze on me. His broad chest expanded with a deep sigh.
“You, my darling, are the best thing that has happened to me in a hundred years and possibly in my entire life. How can I allow you to sleep on a salvaged bed in an empty tower with murderous monsters lurking below when there is a safe, quiet bedroom fit for a princess waiting for you tonight?”
“Will you come with me to Arnon’s palace?” I hated how small my voice sounded, but the idea of going to bed without his lullaby disturbed me more than I could express or would ever admit to anyone.
“No, dearest.” He leaned closer, hiding his hands under his arms to keep them from touching me.
“I’ll stay here, waiting for you. And in the morning, you’ll come back, well-rested, fresh like a flower, agile like a butterfly, and we’ll have another beautiful day together.
It’s just one night apart. One very short night.
I won’t even have breakfast without you. ”
“Promise?”
“Do you want a formal promise from me?” He grinned.
“You mean the one that will kill you if you break it?” I gave him the I-don’t-think-so look. “No, thank you. But I would much prefer to have breakfast with you instead of Arnon.”
“All you have to do is spend the darkest hours of the night at his palace, and I will come for you at sunrise.”
Everything inside me rebelled at the prospect of parting from Kye for an entire night. The strength of my reaction shocked me. Kye was not supposed to mean anything to me.
Yet I couldn’t fight the feeling. All I could hope for was that putting some physical distance between us would lessen this inconvenient, inappropriate attraction.
This frightened, anxious, fervently dependent woman wasn’t me. I didn’t know what turned me into her—this world, the monsters, or Kye—but I didn’t want to lose sight of the strong, independent, capable Maren I’d always been. I needed her strength, her rational thinking, and her determination.
Of course, Maren from my old world never had to face creepy tentacles with eyes on them or have a rope of slime trying to drag her into the ocean by her ankle. But I had dealt with my share of creeps as well as some slimy characters in my past.
I could do it. I could spend a night away from the man I didn’t even know existed just a week ago. A man who still technically kept me here as a hostage.
I puffed out a determined breath and nodded firmly.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
Propping a hand against the wall, Kye leaned over me. The breeze floating through the palace blew a strand of his hair over my cheek in the only caress I could have from him.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said in that melodious, soothing tone of voice he used when singing to me. “You’ll have dinner with me tonight, then I’ll walk you to Arnon’s palace myself.”
He delivered the offer casually, as if it was a regular thing for him to stroll across the reef in the evening.
“You haven’t left this palace for decades,” I reminded him.
Was he really going to step outside for the first time in so many years?
For me?
He drew in a deep breath. “Well, it’s about time to take a walk then, don’t you think?”