Page 120 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Thaan watched them as well, cold triumph in his eyes. “I knew you loved me, daughter.” He pulled a small blade from the detritus amongst the grass—Leal’s boot knife. Thaan nicked the pad of his thumb with the tip, smearing crimson between his fingers. “Pheolix is free. I swear it on my blood.”

A spark flashed, illuminating his ugly fucking face. He held the knife out to her.

My stomach roiled as her slender fingers wrapped around it. As I imagined what I might say to Maren, how I might explain Selena had left us for him.

“Please,” Pheolix sobbed. His hand latched onto my arm like a hinge, an anchor as he reached for her. “Please.”

The wind lashed over our backs and under our clothes, flaying at our skin. But it didn’t seem to touch her as she wove through the center of it. Like she was already a ghost, her life sworn to something that called her beyond the living. She drew into Pheolix, taking him from me and letting her temple graze his jaw, and in an instant, he wound himself around her.

“Please,” he begged. “You can’t join him.”

She pressed her lips into his ear. “In the office, hidden from view—don’t stop looking until it’s in your hands.”

He went very still. Then his mouth twisted with anger. “No, heiress. I won't do that without you. Thaan doesn't love you. He doesn't know what love is.”

She tried to pull away, and he clung tighter. “Find him,” she whispered, stroking her fingers down his cheek. “Find him. And don’t forget me.”

Over the water, close enough to see the tiny veins of light, a spool of chaos unraveled in a jagged line. Clouds shredded apart, the resounding boom rattling inside my head.

Maren.

“Heiress—”

“Selena,” Thaan called, impatient.

“Tell her—tell her I’m sorry,” she said to me. Then cast her gaze across us to Cebrinne. “Until the ocean dries up.”

Pheolix’s hands curled into her dress, into her hair, his breath guttering.

“Are you stalling on purpose?” Thaan eyed the water as if it might strike him where he stood, a hand raised and ready to command our blood over the edge. “Now, Selena.”

Pheolix burrowed his head into Selena's neck, arms wrapped right around her, bounding her to the grass and cliffs. “He can kill me,” I heard him whisper, “before I give you to him.”

“I love you,” she murmured into Pheolix’s ear, sliding her fingers against his heart. He flinched, muscles locking in a deep spasm, and then he fell to her feet.

The blade slid across Selena’s hand. “I’m yours, Thaan of Safiro. I swear on my blood.”

Light effervesced over Selena’s slashed palm just as Maren rose from the water.

Water dripped from her body, silk clinging like a second skin, hair a rushing river. The symbols etched into her skin crackled like someone had poured magma into her veins, her eyes entirely black.

For a moment, the world slowed, time grinding to a screaming, unearthly halt as she looked over all of us.

Through the haze, Thaan’s voice shook. “I should have killed you first,” he seethed at me.

Grass, dirt, rock—shredding my side. Night cut through my hair, the ground shrinking sideways, spiraling away. My stomach shot into my throat as Thaan threw me over the cliff edge.

53

Maren

Astep behind me, I felt Aegir’s muscles tighten as Thaan took to the air.

Thaan’s arms unfolded, black and thick with feathers, and he entered the sky in the same moment I dove, flying over Selena with open talons. Screams fired like trebuchets behind me, the hard break of wings against air.

I didn’t see the rest. I ran and jumped, pulling the waves under my feet to catch Kye like a cradle. Catch him. Keep him.

Anger lay within the tide, roused and poised for violence. It drank him in a bubbling-white gulp, pulling him deep. The sea dragged away from the cliffs, rocks emerging from the froth like shoes under the lace of a lifted skirt. Fear tangled with focus, the world narrowing to the point where Kye hit the sea, and I loosed myself toward it like an arrow at a target.