Page 1 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Part I

The Sea of Stars

1

Maren

All I’ve ever heard, when the light shutters out, is silence. I think that’s what every mortal soul hears. Silence, and the hollow fear that follows. The desperation left in the place of sound. The questions we must answer alone, words tumbling like stones in our heads as we ask what we could have done. What we should have done. And what we could possibly do now.

That’s when we search for answers in the dark.

I stood at the edge of the world and stared into darkness. And darkness stared back.

It reached for my toes, slipping around and between them, cold as I ushered a deep breath into my lungs. My last breath, as far as I knew.

And let the moon stream over my shoulders. My last moonlight.

And listened to creaking in the trees behind me. My last forest sounds.

I wouldn’t need them where I planned to go.

Kolibri’s soft nicker fractured the deadened wind. The Naiads of Juile waited at my back. Nori and Olinne held hands as they watched me gather myself for a long dive followed by eternal nothing. The rest of them clasped their palms and fingers together, heads bowed.

I’m not sure how I knew without turning around to gaze at them. I just did.

Selena stood alone. Separate and fierce.

I’d spent the last six hours interrogating her as we walked to the black lake in the center of snowy mountains. How had Cebrinne managed to finally escape Thaan, her blood bound to his? How had they managed to call to the moon under Thaan’s nose, to light a Morai candle and begin a Triad?

“Sanguis proditionis,” Selena answered, solemn and patient as she offered explanations to my questions more freely than she ever had before. “Blood betrayal drops. A Naiad’s vows can be fractured for one full day of freedom by swallowing the blood of their oath-master.”

Her calm tolerance for my ire only stoked my fires, both within my blood and over my skin.

Lungs raw from inhaling smoke and heat, the burns on my body already fading, I hadn’t even bothered to study the faint white lines that had surfaced along my flesh. The brand of a siren queen coming into her power would have mesmerized me days ago.

But Kye died.

And the only thing that mesmerized me now was the numbing sound of silence that echoed when I reached for him. That silence was a knife in my heart, a blade forged by fury on one side, pain on the other.

Mihauna, the moon shone bright here. Silver across the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes, barring the exit of any further tears, though that didn’t stop them from escaping. They fell whether or not I tried to banish them.

And underneath them, a quiet inferno I had not tasted in weeks. But one I recognized all too well. The smooth burn of poison.

I’ll come for you.

I sheathed Kye’s sword into the baldric strapped to my back, checking that his knife was also strapped to my waist.

And dove.

In the dead of winter, the mountain lake knew nothing but cold, and cold was all it offered me as I pushed into my pale-gold tail and struck for the bottom. Cold that bit and stung, needling over my flesh. Slashing to my bones. I beat it away as I stroked down, flying to the center of the world through a deep tunnel that had never met current or tide.

Light dropped away. The water lay still around me.

But I wasn’t alone.

Creatures lived here in the dark. Too small and shadowed for me to see, but I felt them there, witnessing my descent. Claws, fins, fingers, spines. They stretched, reaching for me, warning me against traveling further. And though the water cradled nothing but silence, I heard their screams as they begged me not to venture to the depths.

But that’s the thing about losing that which you value most. There is little you won’t trade to reclaim it. Even if the merchant you bargain with is Darkness himself.