I studied him a moment. Then turned away, watching the light dance with the water below us. From my periphery, Aegir left the cavern wall. He squatted beside Cebrinne, forearms bent over his knees, and massaged his thumb into the meat of his opposite hand.
“Hungry?” he asked Cebrinne without really gazing at her.
She sat up slowly, pushing wet hair from her eyes. A flicker of annoyance sparked in my chest that she rose for him and not me. Aegir set a plate in her lap, a small cut of trout we’d fired an hour earlier. She stared at it as though it were invisible.
“I thought about what you said.” Aegir dropped a hip, lowering himself onto the stone beside her. “About Vouri.”
She acknowledged him with a slight tilt of her head, eyes still on her plate.
“You’re right,” he continued. “It’s her choice. I was hoping you’d deliver a message to her. If she wants, I’d send Sindri to meet her where the Venus Sea meets the Juile, just off the banks of the palace.”
I snorted under my breath, knowing how she’d take that. I could almost hear the thoughts inside her head.Would you like me to clap? Praise you for allowing a female to make a decision regarding her body? Well done, you stand-up male. Thank you for giving her your permission.
Ceba laid her hands on either side of her plate, rotating it slowly in place. “When?”
Aegir blew his air out in a single, soft blast. “Whenever she likes. The next full moon, if she wants.”
“And afterward, we’ll pretend wecordaed,” she said, voice devoid of tone. “To lure Thaan into a trap. Without the stones?”
“No.” His brows knotted slightly, watching her plate turn. “No, not as part of a trick. I don’t think that sort of trick would work, anyway. Luring Thaan into a trap by making him think we’d mated. We don’t even have the stones Theia said would kill him, so what kind of trap would we set? And watching you jump down there—” He clamped down on his jaw, twisting his head to the side. “It’s clear there’s something you and Selena aren’t sharing with me.”
Her hands slowly stopped. Aegir propped his knees up, wrists carelessly hanging off them as he watched her.
“Senna and I summoned the lunar eclipse the morning we left for Venusia,” Cebrinne said. “That’s how we were able to reach Theia.”
I stared across the cavern at her, open-mouthed at her confession, though I supposed it shouldn’t surprise me. It’s not as though she’d discussed all the other choices she’d made of late with me prior to making them. And I knew she could see me sitting here, well within earshot.
Aegir stretched his back. I suspected the attempt to appear relaxed cost him a bit more effort than he let on. “And how would you do that?”
“Ursa explained it as she was dying. Here, in this cave. She watched as her colony swore their loyalty to Thaan. All of them, including me. Then they left, and we were the last to go. She stopped us and said the only way to be free of him would be to call Theia.” She hesitated on her words, returningto her plate. Sending it in a slow spin over her thighs. “How to pull the tide so the moon would follow. Where to find a silverspire. What we’d need for a flame that called to the moon.”
Aegir’s chest deflated, his tattoos dark under the shadow of the cave. “So that myDomuswould think you were a lunar sign.”
“No. Thaan came up with that after we caused the eclipse, but that’s not why we did it. We just wanted to ask Theia if I’d ever be free of Thaan. If there was any possible way.”
I glanced at Pheolix, uneasy about allowing him to listen as Cebrinne spilled our secrets to the VenusianVidere. The drone’s gray eyes glinted in the dark, watching the two of them talk with unerring focus. I assumed Thaan had given him the same blood drops he’d offered Cebrinne. Freedom for a day, a handful of days at a time. But if Thaan wanted, he’d only have to call to Pheolix’s blood and then question him.
Aegir finally reached for Ceba’s hand, pinning it softly, halting the rotation of her plate. “And Theia gave you the details of Thaan’s death?”
“No,” Cebrinne murmured. “She gave me the details of mine.”
29
Cebrinne
Selena stood abruptly. We all looked up at her, our attention caught by her sudden movement. She crossed her arms. “I’m heading back to Calder.”
“Tonight?” Aegir’s brows lifted.
She lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“Is that such a good idea?” I asked, straightening my spine.
“I don’t know. Probably not. I thought I’d take a page out of your book and decide not to care. Pheolix is coming with me.”
Halfway to his feet, Pheolix’s eyes raised at the sound of his name. “I was ordered to stay with both of you.”
Selena snorted, though the sound was more growl than anything else. “Do you always do what he expects you to?” She stalked away, ripping her dress off over her head before diving into the water.
