Chapter Eleven #3
Not too far away, Aleksi leaned down to whisper something to Zanya, who covered her mouth to hide a smile.
There was an ease between them that had surprised Einar in the beginning, for there seemed to be little common ground between the manifestation of Love and the primordial force of Destruction.
Now Einar understood why Zanya adored Aleksi—and why the Lover had been the Dragon’s oldest and dearest friend.
Aleksi had a way of seeing straight to the raw, terrified heart of monsters—and loving them, even when they couldn’t love themselves.
Then Aleksi’s gaze found Einar’s, and for a dizzying heartbeat the ballroom vanished as Aleksi smiled at him. Einar’s heart beat faster, and heat spread through him in a languid wave. Was it possible to seduce someone across the room with just the curve of your lips?
Perhaps so, if you were the Lover. It was a reminder that Einar had only known the man’s touch while his power was tenuous. What would it be like to bed Aleksi at the height of his strength?
Einar probably shouldn’t be thinking about it too deeply. Not until they could escape this ball for somewhere passably private, at least.
He broke eye contact with difficulty and scanned the room again. Jaspar still had not made an appearance. Einar wished him a miserable evening, sulking in his room and nursing his bruised ego—and if there was any justice in the world, his equally bruised body.
The rest of the court seemed to be on their best behavior, even the more annoying members. Even without Aleksi and Naia to form a protective wall around him, he felt none of the claustrophobia and desperate need to leave that he had last time.
In fact, he was almost enjoying himself.
There might have been only seven members of the High Court—nine, he supposed, including Sachi and Zanya—but it was as if they had changed the entire gravity of Gwynira’s court.
It didn’t even feel like her party tonight, but more as if the High Court had done Gwynira the favor of holding their own celebration in the midst of her castle and court.
The bravest—or drunkest—of the nobles had even begun to approach the less intimidating members.
An older man with silver hair chatted amiably with Nyx, eyes alight with fascination at whatever story they’d decided to tell.
Elevia’s group of older women had doubled already, and Inga had attracted a cluster of the more rebellious younger members of the court.
She was currently dazzling them by filling their empty mugs with sparkling liquid that appeared from nowhere and would undoubtedly get them delightfully drunk.
It was little surprise that Sachi had the largest group, having no doubt charmed plenty of people on her last visit.
He was surprised to see that there seemed to be some competition for who would claim Ulric’s next dance, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been.
He, of all people, knew that plenty of reckless souls craved the danger of a man with an inner monster.
The last member of the High Court was not faring as well.
Dianthe stood in her shimmering blue gown, face fixed in the polite lines that indicated she was pondering escorting someone to the highest bluff behind her castle and letting them risk the dizzying dive into the churning surf beneath.
Einar nearly groaned when he saw who had cornered her.
Guildmaster Klement. Of course.
The Siren turned as Einar bore down on them, as if she sensed his approach. Klement kept chattering on until Einar cleared his throat, causing the man to start and wheel around hard enough to send his heavy golden medallion bouncing off his chest. “Captain Einar!”
“Guildmaster,” he replied mildly. “I see you have met the Siren.”
“Yes, yes.” Klement beamed at Dianthe, proving that he truly had no survival instincts to speak of. “I was just explaining the history of this island’s goddess figure to her.”
As if Dianthe couldn’t ask Naia anything she wanted to know about such a thing. “I see.”
“Yes. It’s an interesting comparison, you must admit. My recent research into the High Court—”
“I’m sure it is interesting,” Einar interrupted. He held out an arm to Dianthe. “However, I’m afraid I have to steal the Siren away. Urgent . . . ocean business.”
Dianthe pressed her lips together as if she was struggling not to smile, and slipped her hand through Einar’s arm.
Klement, undeterred, kept talking even as Einar began to lead her away.
“Do not worry, Lady Dianthe! I am sure we will have time later for me to tell you all about the storm god’s mythology! ”
The swirl of dancers and the ripple of music finally drowned out his voice. Einar lifted his free hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if it could drive back the headache that was beginning to threaten every time he had to be polite to the man.
“Urgent ocean business?” Dianthe murmured, laughter dancing under the words.
“You sent Aleksi here to be the diplomat,” he grumbled. “I’m just the muscle.”
Instead of replying, Dianthe stopped walking and turned to face him, her dark eyes searching.
Abruptly, he remembered that she knew. Aleksi had told her everything—about his parents, about their death at the hands of the Emperor.
What this island truly meant to him. All things he should have told her on the day she’d tasked him with this mission . . . if not decades—centuries—ago.
It might have been easy to stand in his defiance if there had been anger in her ancient eyes. But there was only sadness, and compassion as vast as the sea itself. “You should have told me, Einar.”
“I know.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t think it would matter.”
Now she frowned, disbelief evident in her eyes. “How could it not matter?”
He groped for the words to explain, to make her understand.
“You have seen what the Empire does. Every land they’ve conquered, they’ve destroyed.
They strip away its history. They kill its myths, its stories.
They destroy what came before, and build on the bones.
” Even now, the rage of it made his heart race.
“They shouldn’t have remembered me. It shouldn’t have mattered. ”
“Oh, Einar.” She lifted one hand to cup his cheek, and in the soft light of the chandeliers, he thought he caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “They could erase the memories from the people, perhaps. But that would not have erased them from your heart.”
“My heart?” he echoed.
“Do you think I would so easily send you to a place that represents such grief and loss for you?” she demanded softly. “That I would care only for the success of the mission, and not what it would cost you?”
No, of course she would not have. Some mistook the dispassionate stillness of the Siren’s demeanor as coldness.
Sorin certainly had—it was the reason he had pulled Gwynira from the Dream when he’d made his terrifying copies of the family he had lost. This entire palace was a frozen monument to how Sorin had viewed Dianthe—a frigid ice queen, aloof and alone.
Einar knew the truth. When the turmoil in your heart roiled the sea and whipped up deadly winds, you could not afford to let the daily aggravations of life stir your temper.
But Dianthe had always felt as deeply and as vastly as the ocean herself .
. . and she had always protected those she considered hers.
“I know you wouldn’t have,” he allowed.
“So why did you not tell me?”
The truth spilled out of him in a damning rush. “Because if I’d told you, you would not have let me come.”
The words sat between them in abrupt, awkward silence.
Dianthe parted her lips. Closed them. Einar looked away, his gaze instinctively seeking out Aleksi and Naia.
Aleksi had taken to the dance floor, leading Inga through the paces of a graceful dance.
Sachi and Naia had joined Zanya, Naia’s joyful laughter like the music he heard when she twined with the waves.
“You were sending them,” he said, feeling his heart leap as Naia caught his gaze and smiled.
“I wasn’t going to let them go into danger without me.
Especially here. To this island.” He forced himself to look back to Dianthe, to face whatever judgment he found in her eyes.
“I won’t let the Empire take anything else from me here. ”
“Ahh.” Finally, she smiled, her thumb sweeping out to stroke his cheek. “So the Kraken has finally found someone to hold him past the dawn.”
“I simply learned the truth,” he countered.
“And that was?”
“That my heart was never gone.” There might have been times he would have wished it so, but not now. Not with everything he had to gain. “It was simply frozen.”
“The cold feels safer, doesn’t it? I admit, there are times when the demands of the world are too much for me, and I descend to the darkest depths of the ocean.
” Her fingers found the hair at his temple and brushed it back, a maternal gesture that reminded him of how Petya had stroked his forehead as a child.
“But we can’t stay there, Einar. It’s good that you’ve come back to the world. It is good to love, and to be loved.”
The warm approval in her voice eased some tension he’d barely understood was there until it vanished.
Perhaps he had been braced for more of the blustering warnings that Inga had issued, dire proclamations of what she would do if he broke Naia’s heart.
“I thought you might be angry with me,” he admitted.
She frowned her confusion. “Whatever for?”
“I thought you might be worried that I’d hurt your protégée.”