Chapter Fourteen #3
Then word had come of a fleet in Kasther Harbor, sleek ships outfitted to carry soldiers to the shores of the Sheltered Lands. Einar had not been able to stop the Empire as an infant, or throw back their might from Rahvekya as a man.
But he would not let them take his new home, too.
So the crew of the Kraken had traded in fishing gear for weapons, and Einar had gone to war for the first time.
Agata walked up the three steps to the temple in silence and crossed the mosaic tile to where Einar stood. She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “And now our goddess-touched prince has returned to our shores under the banner of the storm god. And he has brought the goddess with him.”
Unknowingly. Unwittingly. But he had.
Agata smiled and stepped away, coming to face Naia again. She sank gracefully to one knee, and tears shone in her eyes as she lifted her gaze. “The island stirs. I felt it awaken, and I knew it was time for my seclusion to end. I am here to swear my service to you.”
“No, not to me.” Naia caught both of Agata’s hands and drew her to her feet. “You were right before—to the island.”
“To the island,” Agata agreed, smiling through her tears.
Naia’s face was serene, but Einar could tell it was only a fragile mask. She would hold her own feelings tightly in check for the peace of her priestess and her people, but she must be staggering under the weight of all that she had learned.
Well, he was the Kraken, wasn’t he? And the Kraken’s traditional role had been to protect the goddess.
He didn’t know how to be the crown-prince, but he knew how to be a captain.
He knew how to project his voice through storms and over the fire of cannons—reaching the gathered crowd outside was no hardship.
“I think we all can understand that the High Priestess and her wife need some time together now,” he said.
“And the goddess would like to spend some time in quiet reflection in her temple. There will be time to speak to them later, but for now . . .”
Gwynira was more blunt. She gathered up Inga and Arktikos with a single look and issued a command in her chilly voice. “It is time to leave them in peace. Return to your homes and duties.”
The crowd outside seemed willing enough to obey, their chatter audible even as they began to spill down the twisting path. Agata looked more torn, her heart pulling her toward Petya and her duty toward her goddess.
Naia solved her dilemma with a gentle smile. “Soon. Now is the time to be with your wife.”
Finally they were alone, the hilltop empty, the temple silent except from the breeze that stirred the trees and carried the scent of those impossible tropical flowers with it. Naia seemed to wilt, wrapping her arms around herself as her gaze flitted restlessly around the temple.
She looked small and lost and wounded, and Einar’s heart broke as he wrapped his own arms around her and said the only thing he could. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Her tone was unnaturally serious. “None of this is your fault.”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is.” He stroked her hair and looked down at her. “I hate to see you hurting.”
She searched his face as if looking for something—and she must not have found it, because she sank slowly to the temple floor. Aleksi joined her, and after a moment Einar did as well. For a long time, she was silent. Then she shook her head. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”
Aleksi leaned closer. “Like what, love?”
“That I could know so much and so little, all at once,” she explained.
“Before I remembered who I was, I had already seen that the people here still knew the old ways.
The generations that I had watched come and go, their children survive to this day.
So I did not have to worry about that, not for a moment.
“But there were so many things I didn’t know,” she went on. “What happened the day I died. And Theron—” Her voice broke. “I was prepared for whatever I might learn, good or ill. But I never thought the answers would remain beyond my reach.”
She had been handed the good and the ill. To know that the storm god had survived her . . . but to have to suffer not knowing what had become of him. Einar understood the terrible pain of uncertainty, the way your imagination could provide horrifying possibilities in the absence of knowledge.
He reached for her hand, twining their fingers together. “Not knowing can be the hardest part. I know that it haunted Petya for centuries.”
“It shouldn’t matter this much,” Naia insisted. “Not when—” The words cut off abruptly, and she squeezed Einar’s hand tight.
The vague guilt in her eyes made him wonder if his own inner turmoil had been so obvious to her.
Did she think him jealous of her former lover?
Would she be so wrong if she did? A terrible thought, when Naia had never given him any reason to doubt her love.
He stroked his thumb gently over the back of her hand.
“If it matters to you, it matters. I’m sorry, love. ”
“No.” She gripped his hands as she rolled to her knees. “What’s important is here, now. You and Aleksi.”
“Naia.” Aleksi’s voice was gentle but implacable. “This means too much to you. I’ll not let you abandon it, not for my sake.”
Her lips trembled, but she nodded and touched his face. “Understood.”
Einar opened his arms, relieved when she slid into them without hesitation. Aleksi moved closer, until she rested safely between them, sheltered for this moment from painful memories of the past.
Three thousand years ago, she had stood on this spot and sacrificed everything to protect the people of Rahvekya.
Einar had known since he met Naia that it was in her nature to risk herself for others.
She’d been fresh from the Dream, so new to this world that she still glowed with it, when she’d flung herself into the war against the Emperor.
She’d been fierce and fearless in defense, and for all of her gentle nature, she had been unflinching when it came time to attack.
Now Einar knew that it was not just courage and passion. It was an ancient instinct to protect those she loved at the cost of her own life. She would give everything. Every time.
It was his job—and Aleksi’s—not to let her.
Einar stroked her hair, and words rose up from somewhere inside him. He didn’t know from where, but he knew they were the right ones. “All we can do is trust the tides, love. Trust them to bring us back to the people we love and the place we need to be.”
Naia’s hand tightened on his arm, her fingernails digging through his sleeve. She raised her head slowly, eyes wide. “What did you say?”
“I don’t know. It’s something I must have heard once. But it’s always proven true for me.” He stroked one disheveled strand of brown hair back from her forehead. “The tides brought me to you, didn’t they?”
“Yes.” Tears filled her eyes, but she was smiling, a bright and joyful smile that comforted something within him. “They did.”
Einar wiped away the single tear that had slipped free before looking at Aleksi.
The Lover’s dark gaze held a riot of emotions, too—compassion, and love, and surprise, and maybe even speculation.
But when Einar extended his hand, Aleksi took it without thought, weaving their fingers together before lifting Einar’s hand to his lips.
“To the tides, then,” the Lover murmured.
A too-warm breeze stirred in the temple, carrying with it the cry of birds and the scent of the blossoms on the vines, and a peace that settled within Einar as he held his lovers and closed his eyes.
Maybe this was what home felt like.