Page 131 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

“Is Selena with her?” Pheolix asked, glancing up.

Diara’s gaze jumped to meet Hadrian’s, her mouth pursed in silent, sad frustration. He coughed softly, but no one answered Pheolix. The water beat against the rocks, and every few minutes the wind swept a soft mist over our skin, just enough to keep the overcast sun from warming my hide.

“She’s away,” Aitne finally said, taking Pheolix’s arm. “We’re figuring out how to go find her.”

Pheolix nodded as though he just remembered, motioning for us to continue practicing. I wondered how often he feigned living in the moment alongside the rest of us. How often he pretended.

I’d always been afraid of becoming a king. Of gaining the crown and losing my mind. I’d never considered how much worse it might be to lose my memory. To have moments stripped from me one at a time without warning, like walking along a forest and realizing the trail had somehow abandoned me. That I was lost, and without the people I loved, I might not find my way back.

Hadrian coughed again, turning away from a cloud of mist and blinking tightness from his eyes.

“You all right?” I asked him quietly enough no one might hear, still watching Pheolix for any spark of recognition.

“Fine,” Hadrian answered, his voice thick. He stepped politely away, coughing into his elbow. A deep grating from his lungs, he drew a rattling breath.

I cursed under my breath, moving to him.

“I’m fine,” he said, waving me away. But patches of red bloomed across his face, and his voice came out as a forced whisper.

“Sit, Hade.” A small thrum of panic lodged into my own throat as I realized Maren wasn’t here to help as she had last time. I glanced back at them, searching for Aitne, but she was already at my side, unwinding her leather strips from her hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“He can’t breathe.” I winced at the need to say it out loud. Hadrian had always worked so hard to keep his salt sickness a secret. To expose such a weakness made him, at best, unfit to rule. At worst, it placed a target on his back. I settled in beside him, my knee against his back, and felt the strength ebb from his body, the small slouch in his muscles.

We’d roamed all the way from the mountains in the middle of winter, through cold rivers and an underground labyrinth of tunnels, just to have Hadrian choke on fucking mist here on Evenstar. I’d almost swear the small island was cursed.

Hadrian blinked, staring hard at the uneven rock between his feet. I knew he was avoiding the eyes of everyone else, frustrated they were here to witness one of his spells. They’d followed, hovering just close enough to watch. A curtain of rose-gold hair hung in my periphery, and I forced myself not to glance at Diara.

“How can I help?” Aitne said, crouching against his opposite side.

“His windpipe is blocked—” I reached for her hand, needling it through the gap between Hadrian’s shirt buttons, resting it above his breastbone where Maren had helped him breathe once before.

The other humans crowded around us, Maren’s Naiads watching with apprehension. Dimas lowered himself along my shoulder, waiting for instruction.

“Help me hold him up,” I said, passing Hadrian’s weight over to him. My stomach knotted as Hadrian’s head gave a lethargic roll, his lips a ghostly blue. “Breathe like you’re making fog, Hade.”

His air sounded like a slowly cracking bone, a bright sheen radiating across his brow. Aitne had closed her eyes, her small hand soft and calm as she called to the water inside his body. “There is…a lot in here.”

My nostrils flared, and I had to keep my fingers from biting into Hadrian’s arm. His episodes didn’t just materialize from nothing; he must have been fighting shallow breath and fatigue for weeks. And he hadn’t told me, hadn’t given himself a chance to rest and heal.

Hadrian’s eyes rolled. His lashes fluttered shut.

“Aitne,” I said. Calmly.

I wanted to scream.

“I know,” the Naiad answered so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

I didn’t have time for fucking patience.

“Get back,” Aitne snapped, grasping his collar and pulling him forward. He coughed, pale green mucous and slime landing between his feet. The humans surrounding us scrambled out of the line of fire, and I realized, as Diara released his hand, that she’d been holding it.

“Keep holding him up,” Aitne barked at Dimas like a commander chiding a new recruit, harsh and focused. “I’m getting the rest out. I want it clear.” She spewed it almost like an accusation, like the rest of us had allowed his salt to build out of callous neglect.

Hadrian stole a shaky breath, eyes opening to crawl slowly across our faces. His skin grew hot yet clammy under their weighted gaze, and a surge of guilt knit my brows together. He’d be embarrassed later, and that thought already dragged against me like a slowly caving roof. All these years of carefully monitoring his sickness, keeping it secret from even his closest friends, had collapsed in a moment. And it didn’t matter that I trusted everyone here—at least I trusted the humans.

Hadrian coughed up more muck, and then even more. Aitne pulled it up in waves, and even when he cleared his throat and assured her he felt fine, she forced him to sit down like a wizened old crone, calling the last dregs from him until she was satisfied.