“You didn’tcorda-cruor.”
My eyes met Selena’s, bright and inquiring as she watched me close the door to her apartment. My jaw ticked. “No.”
She nodded, a trace of sympathy in her voice. “I wondered whether you would.”
I crossed my arms, wary. “How did you know I haven’t?”
She sighed, leading me into the shared office where my glass box waited. “NewlycordaedNaiads have a powerful scent. Humans can’t detect it, unless it’s a human you’vecordaedto, though they wouldn’t know what the scent was. It usually fades after a month for everyone else. It remains there between mates.”
I followed, my fingers already working the stays of my dress loose. “Naiads can smell it on themselves?”
Selena pulled the iron lid open, its hinges scratching, lightly encrusted with salt from evaporated water. “Yes and no. It smells like energy, life, spirit. It’s a pleasant scent for us. It activates the oxytocin in our brains, fills us with feelings of loveand companionship. But it’s more than that. It’scorda-cruor. Bycordaeingwith another, you alter your blood to be with someone for the rest of your life.”
My dress folded over the back of her desk chair, I climbed in, letting the salt kiss my skin. It should have been a relief, the feeling of weightlessness in the water. But it wasn’t. My eyes flickered to Selena’s with mounting distrust at the conversation I’d heard between herself and Thaan the day before, and at what had occurred earlier that morning. Any hint of warmth from this morning had left me as I’d watched Kye ride away from the balcony, vulnerable without shield weed to protect him.
Selena watched me, taking in my guarded expression. “We are born in blood, and in blood we often pass, and it is only with the blood in our hearts that we can properly bind to another. We smell the vitality of acordaethe simple way we would smell a spice or a flower. But newlycordaedNaiadsbreathethe scent of the other, their bond’s specific smell, and they breathe it everywhere they go, across long distances, for the years of their lives, until they pass on to walk with Theia in Perpetuum.”
I was thoroughly finished with the subject ofcordaeing. “You didn’t tell me Nikolaos wasincantedwhen he’d agreed to marry me.”
She gazed at me coolly. “You figured it out. That’s why you didn’tcordaehim.”
My hands clenched the top of the glass wall between us. “Among other reasons. Hard tocordaewith someone who doesn’t like you.”
I didn’t attempt to hide my anger. I could even scent it, hot and metallic, leaking slowly into the space around us. A muscle twitched between her brows, and she tilted her head.
“You think he doesn’t like you?”
“I know he doesn’t.”
I couldn’t decipher the expression on her face. Humor, perhaps, though that wasn’t quite it. Irony?
“Did you not see him at your wedding yesterday?” she asked cautiously. “Do you not see the way he looks at you? The man is in love with you.”
Oh,Mihauna, the jolt her words sent to my heart. I tamped it down, baring my teeth at her. “He hates me.”
She sighed, shaking her head, a small smile shadowing her mouth.
Steeling myself, I listened hard for the presence of any hearts beating from the other side of Thaan’s door. Nothing. He’d left with Kye and sixteen other riders. I’d counted.
“Who is the man in Thaan’s room?” I asked, satisfied as the humor immediately vanished from her face.
Selena’s eyes darted to Thaan’s door and back as her mouth snapped open. The color vanished from her skin. She drew her head back as though I’d slapped her. “What man?”
I waited, unwilling to offer anything other than the question.
Eyebrows raised, lips parted, Selena’s body went rigid, her composure from the moment before evaporated in the cool morning air. “What man?” she asked again, the whites of her eyes stark under her long lashes.
I digested her reaction with slow consideration. Always so calm, I hadn’t expected Selena to respond with anything other than a demure voice and controlled features. Was it anger or fear?
Selena swallowed, eyelids closing softly and then squeezing shut. She angled her face away, a hand over her stomach. “Who did you see?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“Then why do you believe there is a man in Thaan’s rooms?” she asked, her voice sharp and low, an accusing whisper. Eyes closed, she sucked in a breath, steadying her palm againsther middle. I watched her with growing revelation—my true question answered.
Whether Selena admitted any knowledge of the mystery voice became irrelevant. Whoever it was, Selena knew he was there. Sheknewthere was a person locked in Thaan’s quarters.
I faced my mentor with the same calmness Selena often used for me, though without any of the patience Selena offered, and watched as the Naiad vibrated with the fervor of a caged animal. Unable to stand still, she walked to the office chair, gripping the backrest, knuckles white. She swallowed again, the muscles in her throat contracting.
