Usually, I was the one who made us tea. My fingers curled around the clay cup. “Thank you.”
His eyes fixed on the door flap, tied open to invite the morning breeze, and he didn't answer. The scent of sandalwood flowed in, warm and spicy. I wondered how his night had been, how angry he was—I’d destroyed two canoes in less than a week.
“I sent the boy away about an hour ago,” my father said, watching the light flash as my abalone wind chimes turned. “He had to check in with the dockmaster, anyway. He’s been waiting for a letter from home.”
Kye had finally saved up enough for the ships to deliver a message for him. I paused before taking a slow sip. “He stayed here?”
“Not at first. He brought you in unconscious, dropped you, and took off for Akamai’s house.”
Cup poised at my mouth, I let the steam caress my nose and cheeks.
“Akamai came to tend me?”
My father opened his mouth and closed it, his jaw tight. It occurred to me, as he stared out the door, that he avoided looking me in the eyes.
Ah. Kye had called Akamai for help, but she’d left me for dead.
Shame curled around my shoulders, licking heat over my skin. I stared remotely at my father’s feet.
The village doctor, who passionately healed everyone from merchant strangers to pirate cabin boys, had left me for dead.
My head throbbed. The night before had muddled in my memory. Viscid. Slippery. Like trying to see the pattern of stone through spilled blood. Try as I might, I couldn’t wipe it clean. It felt as if I’d floated forever underwater, staring at the individual drops of moisture, but I could hardly remember a thing.
Except silver eyes. I’d thought they’d belonged to Nori. But Nori’s eyes were dark, coppery red. And Olinne’s were blue.
Something else had been with me under the waves.
Someoneelse.
An image flashed in my head—a hoard of Naiads floating together underwater, their faces aimed up at Kye, watching with predatory stillness as he swam down. Like they’d laid a trap, usingmeto bait him. And he’d followed, right into their grasp.
The Naiads took the sailors.
The thought hit me like a bolt of lightning. It flashed through my center and out to my fingertips, roiling under my skin and stealing my breath. I choked on hotkavatea, thrusting the cup away, staring in horror at the dark liquid as it sloshed over the rim.
The Naiads killed the missing sailors. And let me take the blame.
A lump hardened in my stomach like a bite of festered meat.
There was no doubt in my mind, as I recounted the way they gazed up at Kye with wicked smiles, that they’d been the reason sailors had disappeared from Leihaniian shores.
But they’d letmetake the blame. They’d convinced me I was a Steward of the Land while they killed the very sailors I was shunned for killing. They’d arranged my isolation from my own people, had driven a wedge disguised as flowers and birds and herbs between me and Leihani, and then had pretended to be my friends.
And I had fallen for it.
Deep down, had I always known? Had I turned a blind eye, too absorbed in the desire to belong, to see what was right in front of me? How desperate had I become, between the day I’d met them at nine years old and now, that I’d never seen it before?
You wish us to find him? A human man? An ugly, filthy, slimy traitor?
“Maren.” My father heaveda deep sigh, finally looking into my eyes. “What happened? How did myva’aend up underwater?”
I stared at my father. Words evaded me. I could only think of the weight in my center, hard and fetid. The throbbing in my head returned—I was going to be sick.
“You know how to get back in your canoe if you fall in,” my father continued, his voice too soft.
My stomach heaved. It was too hard to focus on what he was saying. I placed my head back in my hands, closing my eyes.
Ano sighed. “Did he push you in?”
