I’d do it. Cebrinne couldn’t. She couldn’t even string the words together. She had to use alternate versions if she wanted to speak them aloud. Sentences such as,I will see his endandwhen he meets his time. Stabbing him in the heart would stop her own, though I was uncertain that would even kill him. I didn’t even know if he was mortal.
But whatever it was, I’d do it.
Cebrinne glanced over her shoulder at me, blinking moisture from her eyes.
“Thaan of Safiro?” the fire asked. “There is a way.”
I found Cebrinne’s hand and squeezed. She gathered air into her lungs. And refused to exhale. I couldn’t breathe either. We watched the fire, our focus narrowed onto the burning silver.
“You must die first,” it said.
4
Cebrinne
“Never.” Selena opened the balcony door in a violent swing and launched the empty silverspire flowerpot over the railing. “Never, never, never. You willnot.”
My eyes followed the clay missile as it exploded against the western parapet. The distant guards jumped as it collided with the wall. They peered down to the ground, craning their necks to see what might have been hurled in their direction. A few glanced our way, and Selena threw an offensive finger at them before slamming the balcony door.
I hadn’t said a word since Theia’s message. I’d gathered myself as the sun breached the cover of the moon, shedding light over us again, and shuffled back to the palace in silence.
Selena, however, had said plenty.
Back straight, neck stretched, she’d defiantly listed every reason why I could not simply escape south to the islands Thaan avoided just to have a baby and die. I strained for sound between her ramblings, ensuring Thaan and Deimos had already left for morning meetings in the advisory wing. Then opened the partitioned study between our apartments, scanning the shelves of dusty maps.
“Would you even want a husband, Ceba?” Selena asked, hands on her hips. “A human one?”
We both knew I didn’t. Selena was the one with a heart for romance. The one who flung herself deep between pages late into the dark hours.Wasting candles and sleep to read about women swooning like idiots over men, avoiding the nightmares that loomed under her eyelids.
She paused for my response, but I didn’t offer one. My fingers shifted over the old parchment rolls until I withdrew one at random, unraveling it over the desk.
“You don’t even speak their language,” she seethed.
Unnecessary, I thought. I was sure I’d heard somewhere that most of the island people spoke Calderian in addition to their native tongue.
“Not to mention what Sidra would do if she found a servant of Thaan’s in her waters.”
Not the right map. I rolled it back up, selecting another.
“And I don’t have to point out that you have no maternal instincts.” Another map of the north. I needed the south. Selena’s eyes narrowed as I shelved that one, too. “You couldn’t even watch the kitchen maid’s cat for a week when she delivered her baby. Acat. They’re the most self-sufficient creatures alive.”
I pursed my mouth, unwilling to remind her that I’d tended to a rare mountain flower for the last seven years, along with all my other plants. Her words might have stung, were I a different Naiad. Someone who longed for children. Who batted my eyes at males in hopes of being noticed. Beingdesired. But I knew fear drove the acidic words from her mouth, not malice. Besides, she was right. Finding love and family was as meaningless to me as a pebble lost in the tide. I’d never wanted anything other than my sister’s company.
I blew dust from a fresh map and spread it across the desk. My eyes scanned the ink and oil across its surface. It was perhaps a hundred years old, and for all I knew, it hadn’t been opened in that time. But at the southern tip of Calder stood The City of Towers, tall over Juilean shores. A dotted line below indicated the trade route for ships carrying fish and crab. The map’s creator had even opted for a change in color, the cold bluewaters of Calder tilting into hues of aquamarine to surround Leihani. Four islands sat in the center of the map, grouped together like the pads of a paw.
The home of the only group of humans to worship the moon over the sun the way Naiads do.
Selena slammed an open hand over the blue topography. “Look at me.”
“Theia said the other stone is here.” I trailed the line of a volcano on an island labeledNeris.
“Oh, so we’ll just frolic into the mouth of a volcano and find it. Might be a bit hot, but who cares when your face is melting off?”
“Calm down, Senna. I’m just looking at a map.”
A map of the islands where Theia promised I’d die, should I choose to go.
“Yes.” Selena grabbed the corner of the parchment, yanking it out from under my finger and sending it in a slow launch through the air. It wafted aimlessly to the floor with less passion than she probably intended. She fixed me with a hard stare. It wasn’t often that she reminded me so painfully of our mother. But in rare, heated moments such as this one, she did.
