Page 150 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

My foot struck something firm but soft. Dense.

Like a body.

I dropped to my knees, feeling for the rest of it. A torso, a face, a pulse. It was male, too wide and heavy to be Maren.

But then it coughed, weakly, and I grabbed under a pair of shoulders, hauling the body to sit upright against the wall.

He groaned, air flashing through his clenched teeth, a voice too deep to be Leal’s.

“Laurier,” he muttered, recognizing me in the dark. Probably by my scent.

“Where is she?” It sounded more desperate than I meant it to, though I didn’t fucking care. He started to collapse forward, and I nudged closer, my hand anchoring him to the wall just as Diara returned, lamplight flooding the wreckage of the room.

Kazimir’s face was pale, white foam dried in the corners of his mouth. He gazed at me with eyes half-open like he’d spent the day bathing at the bottom of a liquor bottle. But I recognized that look from men across fields of broken grass and blood. My hands found the edge of his shirt, and I barely had to lift it to find the flat hole in his waist, a lethargic ooze of blood seeping from its mouth.

“Come here, Diara,” I said, wrenching my coat off and balling it tight. Kazimir gave a pained gasp as I pushed it against his wound, eyes flaring wide and rolling to the back of his head. I shook him awake with a patient growl. “Where is she?”

“Naiads,” the Rivean slurred.

Drones. The bones of my knuckles bled through my skin, ghost-white.

“Where’s Leal?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who took her? Where?”

“I don’t know.”

I swore under my breath, the sound ragged. “What do you remember?”

His fingers felt along my arm, crusted with blood, and he grasped the hand that burrowed into his stomach. “He called to her blood. He wants her power.”

I glanced over my shoulder to the faces pushing through the doorway, searching for rationality among Kazimir’s response. Thaan couldn’t call to Maren’s blood, not anymore. She’d freed herself by becoming Queen.

But I didn’t know the laws of Naiads, the scale of duty and servanthood their bodies abided by. Naiad laws were like a river that ran backward, a current that defied sense, one I could drink but not understand.

“She owes someone a debt,” Nori guessed—then inhaled sharply, her eyes igniting with the answer. Olinne gasped as well, as did Aitne, who had kneeled beside me to look at Kazimir’s wound.

“What?” I demanded, dread climbing again at the fear in the healer’s honeymead eyes.

“Maren didn’t first transition in Juile waters,” Aitne said. “She was in Calder during that time. Sidra would have felt her enter the sea if she had.”

My brows tightened. “Where did she transition?” And then it dawned like a sheet of stinging rain and ice.

Maren owed Aegir a debt, and he’d come to collect.

Already beside the door, Nori dashed back into the hall. I handed my balled jacket to Aitne, hot on her heels, the rest of them dodging to the side as I barreled through. “Nori!” I called ahead, leaping down the stairs. I caught her halfway down. “Take me with you.”

“To Venusia?” she spat in mockery. Her eyes flashed with anger. It rose in her like a scalding pot, a second away from bursting. “No. She isn’t answering my thoughts, which means she doesn’t have control of her body. They hate humans, you’d be killed in a second. Stay here.”

“We’ll bring Pheolix. Force them to fight with their hands. I can kill them that way.” I balled my fists, trying to avoid sounding anything but fucking desperate. “You know I can.”

She stared at me in disbelief. In disgust. Then shoved me away. “You can’t just turn a Naiad into a human to fight them your way. I can’t offer you my protection, and you have nothing to offer them.”

“I do. Nori—Nori.” She turned again, and I grabbed her arm, spinning her to face me. “Wait. Fuck, wait—please. I do.” My breaths lengthened, my heart slowing with resignation. With finality. With making a choice I’d never be able to take back. “I have something to offer them.”

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