Chapter Thirteen
The goddess has fallen. My heart breaks for those left behind. Especially him.
The lost journal of High Priestess Tona
It was so quiet in his suite without the rest of the High Court in attendance.
Aleksi poured himself another steaming cup of tea. The pots always seemed to be full and hot and prepared to his exact preference—an advantage he enjoyed, no doubt, because of his intimacy with the people’s goddess and their long-lost prince.
He had just retrieved the book he’d set aside when the door swung open and Naia walked in. He gestured her closer with a wry smile. “Come. Save me from my solitary reveries.”
Naia chuckled. “I thought surely Einar would be entertaining you.”
“He has business with his crew,” Aleksi told her. “I am afraid I am the only one here.”
“Good.” Naia’s amusement faded as she sank into the chair nearest the sofa. “I actually wanted to talk to you. Alone.”
Ominous words, perhaps, considering how nervous she seemed. Naia was still sweet and caring and optimistic, but since she’d recovered her memories of her past life, she’d been more considered, more serious. As if whatever she had remembered weighed heavy on her soul.
And how could it not? It weighed on Aleksi, and he had nothing like her excuse.
He had not just recovered many centuries of memories.
He had only this horrible new knowledge that while his brothers had been fighting, across the seas, Naia’s world had been crumbling.
She had been dying in order to protect her people.
It broke Aleksi’s heart. Surely it did hers, as well.
Naia toyed with the music player in the corner, nudging its mechanical switch without pushing it far enough to power on the machine. “Have you heard from Elevia or any of the others?”
“Not as yet,” Aleksi answered. “But they only just left last night.”
Naia’s expression tightened into a troubled frown. “Should we have gone with them?”
“If they need us, they will let us know.”
“As you say.”
His sweet little nymph was stalling.
He set aside his book, for good this time, and moved to the end of the sofa, close to her. “Tell me what’s wrong, love.”
Naia folded her hands in her lap and sat with the kind of stillness that spoke of careful, rigid control. “Aleksi . . . I remember.”
“Yes, of course you do.” He touched her arm and waited for her to continue.
“No, not . . . being her. The goddess.” She caught his hand and held it tightly. “I remember Einar.”
The words made little sense, but Naia spoke them with an urgent sincerity that left Aleksi in no doubt of the gravity of the situation. “I don’t understand.”
“He was my lover, Theron,” she whispered. “The god of storms. The Kraken.”
It was rude to stare, Aleksi knew. But he could do nothing else.
“There were bits and pieces before,” she went on, the words coming fast and hard. “Times when he would look at me or say something, and I could swear we’d been there before, just like that.”
They probably had. Odd, how this revelation managed to be unthinkable .
. . and also make absolute, perfect sense.
Einar had always been drawn to Naia, hungry to know her in ways that went far beyond the physical desires he’d claimed.
And Naia had trusted him, wholly and without reserve, even when she’d known better.
It was as if her very soul had always been open to Einar, and his to her.
It was discomfiting to think of, in a way. Not their connection—Aleksi treasured love in all its forms, and watching them rediscover one another had brought him a joy that he was, only now, able to recognize as the sweet triumph of reunion.
No, it was difficult to think of them as they were now, and also as they had been before. Naia and Einar. The goddess and the Kraken. Here were two people that Aleksi had come to love dearly, and he wanted desperately to know who they had been then, as well. But he could not.
It was a kind of grief, this impossible longing.
“Have you told Einar?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. If she had, she wouldn’t be this nervous. Relieved or shattered, yes, but not nervous.
“How?” She shot off the chair and paced across the rug, wringing her hands. “He doesn’t remember, Aleksi. Even if he thought me sincere, even if he wanted to believe me—how could he? It’s unfathomable.”
And she had some experience with that, didn’t she?
The island locals treating her as their long-dead goddess returned had not made the idea seem more likely to Naia, but far less.
She had been so consumed with not inadvertently strengthening their beliefs that she had not stopped, for even one moment, to consider it as possible.
And this was even more complicated. If Naia whispered this truth to Einar, he would want more than anything to believe it.
He would want it so badly that he might discard it out of hand.
But Aleksi could not bring himself to admit as much, not with Naia this agitated. Instead, he held out his arms. “Come here.”
Naia hesitated, then slid into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Now, listen to me, love.” He nudged her chin to turn her head until her gaze locked with his.
“Einar has never doubted you, and he never will. It might take him some time to really come around to the truth of it, but that won’t be because of you, or how he feels about you.
It will be because of how he feels about himself. ”
“I know.” The words were barely audible. “I just don’t want to hurt him, Aleksi.”
“Nor do I.”
Except that he might do it anyway, just by being there.
He had often thought that Naia and Einar seemed destined to be together—wasn’t that why he had resolved to set them up as one of his last acts on earth? Why he had vowed not to come between them?
It appeared his instincts about that had been quite good, after all.
They were not only destined to love one another, they had already done so.
And, down in Aleksi’s soul, he could feel that their love was as fierce as a storm, as inexorable as the tides.
Deeper than the darkest trench in the far recesses of the ocean.
He did not want to do this. But he needed to, because nothing mattered more to him than what was best for them.
“Naia, you and Einar . . .” He cleared his throat. “You loved each other before, but you were torn apart. Perhaps it would be better if you had fewer complications as you navigate this second chance.”
Naia’s dark eyes sparked with displeasure. “Aleksi.”
“I mean it, little nymph. You just found one another again. Maybe I’m in the way, after all.” Pain rendered his voice hoarse, hard as he tried to quell it. “I could step aside, as I’d planned to do all along. Leave you to it.”
She pulled back a little and stared at Aleksi with eyes that were fathomless. Ancient. She gazed at him with almost preternatural awareness, as if she knew everything in his heart, all that he said and all that could never be articulated.
And, more, as if she understood.
Finally, she smiled and cupped his face between her hands. “No. There might have been a time we could have let you go, but if it ever existed—and that is a very questionable if—it is long past.”
“But—”
“I did not come all this way to live a smaller life.” She brushed her thumbs over his lips. “Look, and tell me that you see the truth of my words.”
Aleksi hesitated, then closed his eyes. When he opened them once more, he opened his heart along with them.
Color. Not static, like the hazy auras that surrounded most people. Every shade imaginable shifted in blazing currents that encompassed not only Naia, but the entire room. There were darker shades woven in, echoes of the Void tangled up in all that light. But there was no deception.
“I see,” he whispered. “All of you, love.”
“Good.” She kissed him slowly, softly, flooding him with all that color. Then she pulled away, and the rainbow settled into soft red, both troubled and protective. “But I need a favor, Aleksi.”
“Anything.” If she asked him for both of the moons, he would find a way to drag them from the sky and place them in her hands.
“Please don’t say that to Einar,” she begged. “Don’t offer to walk away. I know what it means, and what it would cost you. But I’m afraid that Einar would only hear that you could leave. Not that you would do it for us, even if it broke your heart.”
She was right, of course. “Very well. As you said—we’ve no wish to hurt him.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, for I have something to ask of you, as well.”
“What is it?”
“Do not wait too long to tell Einar the truth about his past with you,” he cautioned. “After a while, silence can begin to look like doubt, or even condemnation.”
She seemed to consider that, then nodded. “I promise.”
He tucked her face against his neck. She was a warm, soft weight against him, her silent presence reassuring him in a way that words never could.
But he had more questions. “Naia? What happened to Einar—I mean, Theron? You know . . .” He could not bring himself to say when you died. “After.”
“I don’t know.” Tears glittered on her lashes. “That’s what I had been doing when you found me in Gwynira’s library last night. Looking for answers. But I found nothing.”
“What about the locals?”
She shook her head. “No one could help me.”
She didn’t know, and that hurt her. Aleksi found himself desperate to banish her pain. “We will find out.”
“How? If Einar never remembers—”
“We will find out,” he repeated. “That is a promise, little nymph. And I do not make promises I cannot keep.”
“I know.” She laid her head on his shoulder again.
Aleksi wrapped his arms more tightly around her. “Would you like to tell me about him?”
“Theron?” Her sigh blew against the side of his neck. “He was a mess of contradictions. So set in his ways, he was practically calcified. But if he had good reason to change, he would do it like it was nothing. And he was so funny. But if you think Einar can be grumpy . . .”
“Heavens. Surely Theron could not have been worse?”
“Oh, yes.” Her breathing hitched. “He used to tell me that we had to trust the tides, that they would take us where we needed to be. Unite us with the people we were meant to love.”
Naia spoke with such longing and affection that it was impossible not to think of his own love affair with Alysaia. Though they’d enjoyed only a fleeting time together, Aleksi still cherished every moment. “How long did you have with him?”
“Many, many years. Thousands?”
It did not seem possible, since the stories had painted her as ancient even before the storm god came into her life. “How old are you?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed his upper arm rhythmically, a slow glide down to his elbow followed by a quick stroke back up to his shoulder.
“I never concerned myself with that. I marked time only by the generations that were born, grew, and died in my care. There are probably documents somewhere—the priestesses were always obsessed with recording things—but I never worried about it. The sun and moons rose and set, and every day was new and precious.”
“That’s a lovely way to look at living.”
He felt her smile against the side of his neck. “Perhaps I can teach you a few new things then, Lover.”
“Never doubted that, my sweet goddess. Not for a single heartbeat.”