Page 156 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

“Leihani,” he said again, a drop of anguish under his voice. “Look at me.”

“Don’t do this,” I whispered. “Please. Go home, Kye.”

A drop fell to the water, then another, ripples expanding over my legs. I watched them, knowing they were mine. So close to me, Kye’s throat gave a soft swish. Please.

“If you do this,” I said, “I’m afraid I’ll hate you. I will live the rest of my life hating you. Hating the memory of you. Hating that I met you, that I loved you.”

His knees crashed slowly to the pool floor, resting between my legs. His hands cradled my face, tilting me up at him. I expected him to reason with me, to lay out the logic of such an idiotic moon-damned decision. But there was no sense of debate in his eyes. He looked at me like I was a song he wanted to sing forever, yet only had a moment to memorize.

“You said I’d never be alone,” I whispered.

“You won’t be. You have them,” he said, head tilting just enough to indicate the four Naiads standing behind his shoulder. “You have your father, and Hadrian and Diara, and Pheolix and Selena, once you find her. You have everyone you need, and you brought them to yourself, made them love you all on your own.”

My throat welled, because that wasn’t true. That wasn’t everyone I needed. “I hate you,” I said, like a damned child. Part of me even almost meant it. After everything I’d done to bring Kye back safe, alive, he was leaving me again. This time I couldn’t follow. I’d be here and he’d be there, a sea of stars between us.

“Hate me then.” His thumb crested my cheek, brushing a pearl off its track. “Hate me dawn and day and dusk. Hate me so much the earth bleeds with your scorn and the ocean burns with your fire. Hate me more than anyone has ever hated anything, and then hate me further beyond that, until your cup overflows with the depth of your anger.” He pulled closer, his lips a stroke from mine. “Hate me, Maren. And live.”

Our breath tangled. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. His thumb stroked my cheek again, a longing in his gold-dusted eyes so deep I could have climbed inside them. He leaned forward, and my eyes closed, my mouth parting despite what I’d said, calling desperately for him.

Footsteps echoed off the walls of the throne room. Kye pulled away. Suddenly we had only seconds, moments left, and there was so much I needed to say.

“I was with you every step,” he said. “I know you bargained with Darkness. Sold your soul to him after your mortal life ends. But if there’s a chance he’d ever free you, I’ll wait for it. I’ll wait for you in Perpetuum. I won’t give myself to the sand—I never want to forget.”

“Kye—” I breathed. This was goodbye. A true goodbye, one as everlasting as a sea of stars.

But he’d already stood, already turned to face Aegir, his arm angled behind him to block me from the Videre’s view like a human shield.

The footsteps halted.

“Human.” Aegir’s voice reverberated over the pearl walls. My heart froze, my breaths locked in time as I waited to hear the rest.

68

Kye

“Afresh scroll, if you please,” Aegir asked. One of his council females withdrew a rolled parchment and a pot of ink, offering it to him. His gaze traveled down my clothes in haughty silence, perhaps at the notion that a human stood before him on his own dais, dressed in animal hide and coarse linen. But whatever summoned the expression, he let it wash away before approaching the platform, unraveling the creamy scroll.

“For complex blood vows, terms are always written. Agreed by both parties,” he explained, dipping a needle-thin pink shell into his ink pot. “You will write them, as the oath-bearer. Then I will read them aloud and sign, and my blood will be bound to uphold my end of the bargain.”

I followed him to the bottom of the stairs where he unraveled the parchment over the dais’s edge, nodding to the ink pot by my hand. “Maren will write them,” I said. I knew just enough about Naiad laws to understand he’d be freed from his vows to me the moment I died. “You can swear your oaths to her.”

By the way his fingers flexed against the parchment, it had crossed his mind as well. “Maren. Join us down here.”

“Please,” I snapped.

He pressed his lips together, then patiently glanced in her direction. “Please,” he amended.

I looked up at her, too. Over the dais, she had risen at his command, walking toward us with slow, bracing steps as if her legs had caught fire. Her swollen eyes burned like two black rivers set aflame, the subtle silver of her tattoos ignited like dripping ink, their shape bright and clear even under the silver Venusian silk he’d dressed her in.

She lifted her chin, contempt warping her mouth. “You’d have me write the terms for your death?” she hurled at me, the words raw against the quiet of the room.

“No,” Aegir answered. “I would. Take the ink pot. Human? Your terms?”

I repeated them, softly, watching as she scribed them into existence, a record of ink and parchment and tears. They rolled in silence down her cheeks, her knuckles white as she wrote, as if every flourish sent waves of pain through her fingers. I wanted to pull her into my arms. To sink to my knees and beg her forgiveness. She stood beside me, but she already felt so far away, separated by only a few inches of air and eons of years. Her pen made the final stroke, and she flung it down to the parchment, ink splattering over the dais.

Cold fury rolled from her body in scorching waves. I was too ashamed to meet her eyes.

Though he’d listened to my words, Aegir slid the parchment toward himself to read in silence. He gave a nod and Sindri handed him something white and angular, glinting in the lustrous blue of the room. A shark tooth. Aegir pressed its tip into the pad of his thumb until scarlet beaded along the center. Then, letting the tooth drop into the nearby pool, laid his thumb along the bottom parchment. “I swear it in my blood.”