His hair was a shade that straddled autumn leaves and fire, almost changing as his long strands caught the sunlight, his half-bun tugged loose from the breeze. Gray eyes glinted at us, cunning humor cutting through them. As though he saw more than he let on.
He loosened the top button of his pants, letting them hang open at his hips, and crossed his arms as we undressed. Though nudity was a daily occurrence among Naiads, those who lived amid humans tended to avert their eyes in the moments between the shield of clothes and the one of water. Pheolix appraised us both as he waited for our skirts to fall.
“It’s rude to stare,” Selena snapped.
“I know,” he said, his smile a fleeting thing. Half mystery, half taunt. Impish and wily, as though he’d tucked tricks and riddles away to use at his leisure. “I’m rude.”
I shed myself down to my underthings, leaving Selena to glare at him across the sand as I waded into the water first. Salt licked my skin, stroking my ire away. Concealed under the waves, I pulled the rest off, molting skin until the deep bronze scales of my tail surfaced, muscles lengthening and firming down to my flukes, the tips of which burned orange.
“She’s touched,” Pheolix said. As though we were too stupid to understand what happened once our bodies connected to the water. “Let’s go.”
Selena’s feet splashed in behind me, ducking to loosen the delicate lace garment that stretched across her hips. “Get undressed, then. You’re the one still in pants.”
“Did you hear that?” Pheolix asked, turning to me. “Another fervid demand that I remove my clothes.” I shot him with a testy glance. He tsked, stepping into the water. “If you’re both so impatient to see me naked, you could have offered to help.”
We dove in, abandoning him in the surf.
He caught up quickly. Below the surface, we sliced through the water, the current rolling under us as waves crashed above. The Venusian Sea was dark this time of year. The rocky floor deep below held only hues of jagged black. Strands of eerie light filtered down, disappearing before they touched the bottom. As though the dark sea stole secrets from the wind and sun above.
In the dim water, Pheolix’s lean frame cut to the lead. Something in the transition from human to Naiad always made males seem twice as long. Scales and fins embellished a male’s arms and back, adding vibrance and bulk the way a male bird’s plumage decorates its body. Selena would spout something about establishing dominance through color display and signaling strength and vigor to females if I mentioned it. I wasn’t interested in discussing Naiad mating theories, so I left such topics alone.
Her eyes shifted over him. Mine did as well. I’m not sure what it was like for ocean-born sirens who grew up in a saltwaterDomus. Like us, most of Thaan’s palace servants were human-born. And though social Naiad laws determined it rude to comment on the shade of a tail, it was impossible not to be curious the first time you observed another Naiad enter the water.
Though the shine of his arm and back scales caught the eye, Pheolix’s tail was the bright color of cooled steel, a flash of blue along his flukes.
Not aPrizivac Vode.
Selena’s gaze flicked away, pretending she hadn’t looked. Her own tail stroked ahead, the iron-gray of it so stark it might have been black if not for the way it shone violet as she turned. Naiads often stared at her tail, though not as much as mine.
Other than my sister’s, I’d never seen anotherPrizivac’stail. And though her coloring was rare, it was close enough to the average Naiad blue that most assumed she was simply unique until they caught sight of my own and learned we were twins.
Rumors from the south had drifted across Thaan’s servants that a coppertail lived in Sidra’sDomus. A young female close to my age. But rumor also told her powers were limited. That she was perhaps strong but unfit as futureVidere. Someone from a broken line of heirs. Skilled atincantation, maybe, like Selena was. Or fluid-mapping. Healing, possibly. The Juile colony was known for their healers.
Whatever the coppertail’s failings were, Sidra hadn’t named her an heir.Videreswould prefer a water-caller to safeguard their colony’s future. Iknew because that’s what I was. A trap wrapped in bronze scales and water-calling blood, laid for aVidereI’d never met.
A pair of eyes cut through dark water in the distance then flitted away. Not before a cold chill laced down myspiculae.Nerves fired down my vertebrae, announcing that I’d just spotted a Naiad. I slowed, searching for eyes in the shadows. Pheolix flashed ahead. Selena sent me a glance that saidhurry up, and we thrust forward.
I caught more eyes, there one moment, blinking out of sight the next. Slinking away into the dark to report to their monarch. We sped ahead. And then the flashes of eyes grew bolder, evolving into glints of tail and fin as we breached the innermost circle of their water.
A male chopped through our path, forcing us right. We ducked under him, racing to escape. Two more met us below, faces hard and unfriendly. Pheolix shoved the nearest one aside, granting us room to flee.
Sudden adrenaline hammered my heart against my chest. Selena hesitated, but I snatched her wrist, yanking her along with me. I glanced back for him, but Pheolix was already returning to take the lead.
The three males floated behind us, faces dazed.
It didn’t matter. We swam into a sudden wall of them, a wave of Naiads waiting ahead. Pheolix breached the surface to leap over them. Selena and I followed.
And then we landed back under. Right in the middle of a circle of sirens.
The Naiads we’d just leapt over closed in on our backs. The ones ahead pressed in. More came up from under us, pushing us to the feral waves above.
They had us surrounded.
Right where we wanted them.
7
Cebrinne
