Page 138 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Maren

Iwas beginning to hate the little island Evenstar.

Perhaps I was exhausted by the constant cold, the invisible barrier Darkness had placed between the sun’s rays and my skin.

Waves abused the island from every angle, an endless lashing, cruel and hard and cold. Seaspray whipped across my nose and in my mouth, absorbing into the tangle of my hair as I lifted out from the water.

The mood of the island bobbed like shy ice in a bowl—giddy and awkward, hiding smiles behind shoulders and diverting their eyes. I rang out my hair in my hands, physically dispelling water before I used my energy to call it away and left myself even more cold.

I tried to speak to you, I murmured into Kye’s head. Then realized he wasn’t wearing his ring.

He stood beside Aitne, a stupid, guilty grin across his teeth, shirt peppered with red though his face looked clean. His eyes were bloodshot and watery. He sniffed hard, the motion quirking his mouth to one side. “We were sparring,” he said. “Aegir got me in the nose.”

“I see.” I raised a brow, holding up my left hand. Displaying my ring.

“Hadrian’s holding it.”

“Are you all right?” I asked, coming to stand beside Aitne as I looked him over.

“I need to meet with Sindri,” Aegir said, clasping his silver byssus cloak at his throat.

None of them seemed inclined to answer him, so I nodded. “We will see you in a day or two, then.”

His archer gaze shifted over the group quietly before meeting mine and giving me a slow nod. He dove between the waves.

“Thank the bloody sun,” Diara spat.

“Man’s as conceited as he is ugly,” Leal agreed.

“He’s not a man.” Aitne clicked her tongue. “And he isn’t ugly.”

“If his eyes were any further apart, he’d be an herbivore,” Leal countered with a sharp chomp on a rod of cured beef. My stomach curdled looking at the meat, and I turned away before my mind wandered to pirates and dark cabins and squeezing walls of wood.

“Why’d he leave?” I asked, raising a brow.

They all glanced at each other. “I thought Nori called you,” Hadrian prompted.

Cleanly avoiding my question.

“No.” I didn’t miss the faint glare Kye sent Nori, nor the way she raised her sights somewhere over his head with a cat-like smile, as though she’d stolen a mouse from another feline.

Whatever Aegir had said to offend them, I suddenly didn’t want to know. Things were complicated enough where Aegir was concerned. I needed his colony, far more powerful and numerous than Juile, to fight Thaan’s drones, should the time come. But interactions with the Videre felt like walking a tight ledge. One with zealous winds and deep drops.

“Why are you here, then?” Olinne asked curiously. “Why did lightning follow you here?”

I tapped my fingertips over my thigh. Underwater, I hadn’t even noticed the lightning, though I felt it now, an electric song stirring quietly through the air. I waved it off with a slow breath, reining in my uncertainty, and turned to Hadrian.

“The man in the dungeon. I want him freed.”

Diara scoffed. “You must be joking.” Dimas shifted uneasily beside her.

“I’m not. He’s a siren. He knew Oberon.”

“You spoke to him?” Kye blinked, squinting hard under the sun. “Who led you down there?”

“Aren’s father.” My voice faltered, and I pushed on before my stupid face betrayed anything. His teeth pressed together.

“What will you do with him once you’ve freed him?” Hadrian asked. “What’s to stop him from killing us and escaping to Rivea to fill his king’s ears with everything he’s learned since we left the mountains?”