80
Maren
“Your arms, My Queen.”
Aitne’s soft voice rocked me out of the depths. Still holding Kye’s arm across my chest, I opened my eyes, staring numbly at the faint lines that had emerged from my skin. Patterned tallies, crossing, uncrossing, zig-zagging from my fingers to my shoulders.
“Her legs, too,” I heard Olinne say.
“Maren.” Selena knelt in the snow at my head, leaning in to tuck a lock behind my ear. Someone gasped quietly at the reveal of my bare neck, and I thought I caught the wordgillson the wind. I looked up at Selena through a blurred lens, blinking away the haze. “We can’t stay here. We have to leave. You must stand.”
“Give her a minute,” Nori said again, hoarse as though she’d been screaming.
Selena smoothed sweat-licked hair off the back of my neck. “We don’t have time,” she said thickly.
“I don’t understand.” Olinne’s voice cracked. “They were newlycordaed. Her blood should have protected him from darkfates these first few years. In Leihani, we couldn’t touch him when he dove in the water after her. That’s how we knew they were bonded.”
My mouth thinned. I turned my head, delving my face over Kye’s chest, and felt my own slowly caving in. Mouth, throat, lungs tight, oxygen sent me into exile, and for once I didn’t care.
“I don’t understand, either,” I heard Nori say.
“The Fates marked Nikolaos for dead,” Selena murmured.
My eyes cracked. The world swam around me in hues of white and red, but I wiped my cheeks. Wiped the blood trailing from my nose. And pushed myself to sit upright where I, along with the other Naiads, gazed at Selena in aching confusion.
“Thaan forced your hand in revealing your Naiad tail,” Selena said softly. Apologetically. “A human cannot see a Naiad. It is law. Whether or not youcordaedto Nikolaos, your blood came for his.”
A stunned silence followed.
“I did this?” I asked, breathless.
“No,” Selena whispered. “The Fates did. The candle of yourcordae’slife had already been waxed and set. Thaan simply lit the wick with your blood.”
My fingers tightened around Kye’s sleeve, her words falling from strings around my head.Your blood came for his, your blood came for his, your blood came for his.Nori and Olinne had always—always—warned me against bringing a human to meet them. It had been one of their first and sternest rules. And even after I’d left them, intuition had taken the place of their warnings. Instinct voicing the dangers of revealing myself to Kye. Even my own contract had forbidden it, Thaan protecting his assets by ensuring I wouldn’t deviate from my vows.
But I’d fulfilled my oaths. And Thaan had locked me in a glass box. And I’d tried to fight the need for oxygen. But I’d run out.
Their heads turned toward me as the sound of ragged, rippling torture escaped my lungs.
“Stop this.” Olinne sounded on the verge of tears. “We can discuss it later.”
But Nori’s voice had hardened. “When did this happen?”
Selena’s eyes remained on mine. “Thirteen days ago.”
“And you didn’t think to tell us?”
My mentor, my mother’s sister, opened her mouth. Her chin gave a small shake. “I could not. I was the messenger. I couldn’t breathe a word until now.”
Nori growled, “The messenger for who? Thaan?”
Selena shook her head. “Theia. The Triad calls you, Maren. You must stand.”
I swallowed thickly, angling myself just enough to catch the stares of the other Naiads. Because surely those words meant something to them. But they watched her with a doubtfulness equal to mine. My fingers stroked Kye’s soft curls. “What?”
Ocean eyes pulled close, somber and sad. But serious. “The Triad calls you. You’re the third. Remember the story I taught you? Xeno, Corvus, and Androma? The lover, the blood, the warrior?”
A chaotic breath vacillated from my chest, in and out and in again. I smeared ash and dirt and blood across my cheek, dashing tears away to gaze furiously at her, my hand never leaving Kye. “Yes?”
