Page 124 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Theia rotated her head, eyeing Cebrinne at a slant, awaiting whatever she might ask.

My mother’s hand twitched. She clasped them behind her back as if they had a mind of their own. “Where is my sister?”

For a moment, I might have thought Theia was surprised that Cebrinne hadn’t asked where to find Thaan—the more obvious question, in my mind. But the right to choose her own question belonged to Cebrinne, even if the wording made me grind my molars together.

The seer of the moon barely moved her mouth when she spoke. “She is at the divide.”

Cool air fanned from the waves below, shifting the ends of my hair. I waited for more. For a goddess who had laid such a clear path for my life, Theia seemed content to let us flounder near the very end of everything. The silence following her nonsense answer trickled across me, reckless heat rising through my blood. My patience with the goddess worn to a thin and nearly broken wire.

“A riddle?” My mouth hung open with contempt.

Theia’s eyes didn’t leave Cebrinne. “I see what is to come. Like you, I cannot see what is happening now unless it’s unfolding before me. I only know where Thaan of Safiro meant to take your sister. But the future is not a tunnel, weaving in one direction. It is the wind, ever shifting, changing its mind on the slightest whim. Forcing the future to obey is like catching a breeze in a bottle.”

With that, she dismissed Cebrinne and leveled Kye with dark eyes, the luminous outline of her silk dress like a floating specter among shadows.

He pushed himself away from the rock with a low cough, making a soft fist with one hand and popping his knuckles with the other as he took his time considering his question. Finally, he peered up at her, a small strike of trepidation between his brows.

“How can I reopen the door?”

The door? Impatient wings brushed against my fingertips like a small tic as I waited for the question to make sense, though perhaps Kye’s method of presenting a mystery to a riddler worked. Theia’s stern mouth expanded into a slow, knowing smile. “The door never closed. The then was then, and the coming is coming. But the now is now. A transfer of power is all you need.”

His face cracked with frustration, finite frown lines and tightened lips like he wanted her to clarify. But Theia’s gaze shifted to me, and everything else became a still and silent blur in the background.

I let the impulse to cross my arms burn against my limbs, ignoring the desire to shield myself from her penetrating stare. Kye’s words from Perpetuum sparkled in my mind like the sun dancing over the surface of water.

We’re nothing more than cards in their hands, Leihani. Face down on the table. Which card are you?

A queen.

My eyes hardened as I aimed them up at her. “What do you gain by using us?”

I could almost feel the collective breath of the others, the tick of nervous hearts, the eyes meeting behind my back, recoiled necks and tight shoulders and grimaced mouths. A shudder rippled down my spine, some survival instinct that begged me to rescind the accusation within my own words and ask something else.

Theia, Mihauna, Goddess of the sea, the moon, the very future, locked onto me like an archer drawing back a bowstring.

“When the world ends, eons beyond your time. When I seek my final rest, my final waning light, a new blood will walk the shores and seas and skies. And I can finally sleep.”

“A new moon?” I asked.

But she was thinning, darkening. As if she’d stepped behind a shadow, dissolving into air.

My feet felt numb below me, the world a colorless drift of dust and earth.

“So much for making a plan,” Aegir sighed. “Or seeking the help of a god, for that matter.”

“Theia was never going to help us,” I said, angling my gaze toward the patch of black that lay curled behind Kye along the rocky cliff. It snaked along the jagged stone, pouring itself into the shape of a man, tall and glimmering with mischief.

“Suns alive,” Hadrian swore softly. Olinne hissed, batting at the air with a gasp, sending flecks of ocean spray to hit Darkness across the cheek. The drops turned inky, sliding off him like oil over water.

“Calm yourselves,” I snapped at them. Turning toward Darkness, I let myself finally cross my arms. “A deal is a deal. I asked Theia your question. Now explain her answer.”

“Sweet wraithling,” he cooed, stroking a long, glittering shadow under my chin. He almost looked gleeful at hearing Theia’s words. “The moon is devising her own replacement. Designing a bloodline fit for a future goddess.”

“How would that have anything to do with Thaan?”

Darkness gave an icy laugh. “How should I know? I cannot see the future.”

“Fine,” I answered through my teeth. Aegir’s gaze pressed like a needle in my back. “What of the other answers?”