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As if someone heard her plea, the jet stream of wine gave way and splashed over her onto the floor.
She heaved for air and fell forward, catching herself with her palms on the wet floor. Her arms shook against her weight. Tingles crawled across her cheeks. Blood, mixed with mucus and spit, oozed in long dribbles down her chin. The harsh copper taste infected her tongue, and she fought not to gag.
Father sank down on his knees beside her. He pushed away the soaked strands sticking to her face. “Naia, are you okay?”
She attempted to speak, but an excruciating pain flared in her throat, like gravel scraping against exposed flesh.
“She is fine, Vale,” Mira said somewhere nearby. “She is not made of sea glass.”
“Naia?” he asked again, disregarding Mira.
Naia blinked to clear the sludge from her eyes.
Father’s grip wrapped around her arms.
“We will replace the gift which was wrongfully stolen from you,” Mira told Solaris—apathetic and without a trace of remorse.
As if nothing happened, Mira retook her seat at the table. “Carry on with your feast,” she said to those filling her hall.
Shame, rage, humiliation—all of it burned through Naia.
She doesn’t love you.
Naia pursed her lips into a thin line to keep from bursting into tears. It was no use, though. They pooled in her eyes.
Father lifted her up on wobbling legs. “Let me help you to your bedchambers, darling.”
Naia lifted her head and met Marina’s eyes. They were lethal and sharp, as dark as the night always sweltering around her.
The longing Naia had towards her was painful. To have her as a sister rather than a mere acquaintance, and for a brief moment, with their eyes boring into one another’s, hope flourished in her like a seed. Because not once had Marina ever given Naia this much of her attention.
Marina’s cat-like gaze cut from Naia to their father, and tension flickered across her face. It was barely noticeable, and had Naia not been forced to learn all the twitches of Mira’s subtle expressions, she would have missed it.
Marina’s glare twisted straight through Naia, withering her small breath of hope.
She kept her head down as she walked, clinging to her father’s strong forearm.
He supported her weight fully, murmuring apologies over and over. “I am sorry I couldn’t do more. I am sorry she caused you pain. Regrettably, I can’t do any more than this.”
The whispers of contempt fled the hall.
Ignore them all.
“Lord Solaris deserves far better,” someone murmured.
It coaxed her to look up and find him watching her. Brow furrowed, eyes pulling away and returning. All of it was salt to her wound.
A chasmic disappointment carved in her chest. It was proof her hesitation in him had not been a figment of her fear, but something legitimate she could sense. Something she could not put her finger on—until now.
He is a coward.
Solaris remained seated as she passed by. The clattering of silverware and voices revived in the room. One of his attendants said something to him. He regarded the god with a look, readjusting in his chair—turning his back to Naia.
She loathed him at that moment for ruining what they had. With certainty, she knew if the roles had been reversed, she could not have endured watching him being tortured, let alone so publicly, by his own mother. The High Goddess of Lightning could’ve struck Naia down, but it wouldn’t have stopped Naia from standing up for him.
Regardless of their fate, she refused to give herself to someone who could sit back and watch her drown.
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