Page 158 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

No, I mouthed. The room was almost black, everything behind her draped in shadow, and she was even beginning to dim. She’d taken my arm in her hands, brushed her fingers across the slice in my skin almost like she was trying to speak to it. When nothing happened, she hauled me closer, pressing her forehead into my temple, her body shaking with sobs.

My golden blood dulled, the pool of light I lay in fading to a dull metallic brown. The knot in my stomach tightened like an anchor behind my navel. Pulling me here, tethering me to this moment with her. Everything smelled like the islands. Like sun and sand and salt in the sea.

“Aegir—” someone across the room said, fear and alarm punctuating the word before a crack exploded in my ears.

My eyes had closed, but it was loud enough to force them back open. It was a crack, not just in sound. A split divided the center of the shell ceiling, coarse and crude and deep like an upside-down chasm.

A scream echoed, far away. It wasn’t her body shaking—it was the walls and floor and very air. A boom rattled through my bones, and the world shifted on its heels, spilling to the side.

“Get her out of here!”

“She’ll bring the walls down!”

“The colony is collapsing!”

“Run!”

The knot twisted tighter, warm and sparkling in my center, melting to my very soul even as I began to slip away.

“Maren,” the man with braids shouted, grabbing her shoulder, jerking her away. “Stop! You’ll kill us all!” Her silver cuffs clanged together as he turned her to face him.

She grasped the white shape in his hand with both of hers.

And plunged it into her own stomach.

69

Maren

Aegir shrieked as the serrated edge of the ancient shark tooth broke my skin. He flung my hands from his. Then shoved me away as dust and shell crumbled from the walls. A spray of vibrant red freckled his arms as the tooth broke loose, dropping to the floor. Fear clung to his eyes, and he turned to flee, falling to a knee instead.

I hadn’t planned to stab myself until the moment was there, the tooth within reach, Kye’s vow hanging in my ears.

Swear Maren will never be hurt by your hand.

Foam gathered in the crook of Aegir’s mouth. His skin marbled red and gold, and he clutched his chest as he gathered a trembling breath, eyes peeling wide as though it scalded his lungs. Blood trickled from his ears, then his nose and mouth, simmering with tiny bubbles.

“You…” he gasped. But what he meant to say next never came. Silver dust sparkled over him so quickly I might have missed it had I not once ran alongside Death. And then his body relaxed with a final exhale and the faint scent of burnt flesh.

The colony floor rolled under my feet like a wave lurching under a ship. I snatched the goblet Aegir had drunk from, still full of silvery wine, a hint of golden luster around the edges. Then swiped a finger through the blood running down Aegir’s chin, swirling it in the glass.

“Kye,” I said, falling to my knees and pulling him back over my thighs.

The glow under his skin had faded into a sickly pale yellow, but his golden eyes fluttered drunkenly at the sound of his name.

My heart hammered, my hands shook. “Drink,” I ordered, tilting the wine to his lips. It spilled from the corners of his mouth, overflowing.

He was cold. But he’d given away his Sola blood—he shouldn’t have been cold to me.

Kye’s throat twitched, the smallest flicker of movement, veiled under gooseflesh and the shadow of dark stubble. Under his skin, a drop of gold gilded the hollow center of his throat, brightening as it grew. Until it rippled wide, disappearing as it reached his hands.

His fingers ticked.

The Naiads in the throne room with us had fled, but Aitne swept in beside me, taking Kye’s arm to find his gold-laced cut. His blood smeared metallic under her thumb, but the cut sealed.

Nori, Olinne, and Cebrinne stood over me, waiting. Every stroke of my heart panged under my flesh. Seconds unfurled like years, but the shaking walls of the colony had settled into stillness.

Kye’s mouth gave the faintest, smallest quirk. “You’re welcome, by the way.”