Page 169 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

She glanced down instead, meeting my eyes again, and I nodded.

For a moment, fear stole across her face, a flight of frightened birds behind her eyes. But she lifted her chin, pushing off the rocky wall, guiding us back. Then motioned for us to follow.

The well ran deep. Pressure pressed against my skull, prying into my ears, crushing my ribs. We dropped and dropped, and when it seemed we might fall through the opposite end of the world, Selena ducked into a dark alcove, another channel rising away, beckoning us in. Dry air drifted over my nose, musty with the scent of untouched stone and air that had laid still so long it had forgotten it was air. My heart relaxed slightly as the sound of soft gasps trailed behind me, humans conscious again. I clutched my blindfold in my fist, making sure I hadn’t dropped it in case Kye needed to blind the tunnel.

But all remained dark and damp and quiet.

“Where are the drones?” I dared to whisper.

Selena glanced over her shoulder. “Away, for now. There were a few above, and the rest will return by sunrise.”

I grasped her wrist, halting her. “Where’s Thaan?”

She let her gaze wander ahead, down the tunnel.

My hand shifted over the stones in my pocket, the knife at my hip. My breath was fluid, slow. But a tremor rippled through my muscles, chilled from the water’s frigid kiss. I couldn’t wield the stars down here without risking Nahli to collapse over all of us. Hands and steel were my weapons, if any drones took away my water-call.

Selena drifted deeper, her steps slow and silent. She paused as the tunnel twisted and bent, crooking her eye around corners and motioning for us to follow. Her heart raced, and though no one mentioned it, I knew the other Naiads heard it as well. My own sped at the sound of her fear.

A glimmer waited ahead, flicking against the windless air. Selena pressed into the wall, letting me peer around her.

At first, only shining rock and piercing edges emerged, like sheets of jagged black glass laid one over the other. They parted to reveal a small room, a rushlight burning in the center, its dim flame flickering over the walls and sharp grooves as though dancing with the shadows.

But then I saw it, the only thing that didn’t reflect the light. A bird, asleep, its head tucked under its wing. It blended into the obsidian, feathers melting into glass.

I’d almost forgotten that Thaan slept. So long ago were the days I’d sneak to Selena’s rooms, listening for the long, rhythmic pulls of Thaan and Cain, the slow and steady timbre of their hearts. He’d become something mythical in my mind, not human or Naiad but something made of wing and claw and viscous hate, eyes that saw everything and blood that bound the souls of thousands. Something rooted in evil and decay and lies that tangled like snakes in a knot, so snarled and interwoven you couldn’t find where one ended and another began.

Might be, might be, Nori had once chanted. Might be a flower, might be a flame. Might borrow my skin, my face, my name. Might be the sunshine, might be the dark. Might walk on my feet, might stop my heart.

Would Thaan wake as easily as a bird? A shiver lanced down my spine as I stepped through the room, careful not to make a sound. My hand brushed against my pocket, even though I knew the stones were there. Slowly, inch by precious inch, I drew my knife.

It didn’t matter how quiet my feet were, my heart thundered in my chest, banging so hard and fast it nearly hurt. Clean drops of water ghosted my fingertips, winding down the blade and falling at my feet. The weight of fourteen stares bored into my back. Witnesses to the end of Thaan. The end of the Videre without an ocean. Torturer, murderer, enslaver. My hand tightened over the leather-bound grip, lips peeling from my mouth.

He slept so peacefully, tucked away like a little black dove, the firelight painting his feathers iridescent. Almost beautiful.

Almost.

Inches from him, I lowered into a crouch. From the corner of my eye, Diara drew her bowstring over an arrow, primed to shoot in case he woke.

My heart gave a flutter, like a stumble of feet. A last shred of uncertainty.

He was my grandfather. My mother’s father. His blood ran within my veins. He’d been born to the Safiro Sea, the same as my own. He’d walked the same shores, swam in the same ocean, ruled over the same colony, once.

My knees pressed into sharp rock, and the crow stirred.

The sight of it lifting its head sent an electric jolt through my chest, and before I could think, my knife cleaved through its breast, separating wing and ribs. It started in panic. Cawed once, voicelessly, the sound shallow and raspy. I left the knife there and backed away, readying for a fight. But it stretched its opposite wing and fell on its side like it was trying to fly away, dark blood oozing from the blade.

Thaan looked at Selena, eyes beseeching. Begging to know why he had been betrayed. Then his feet curled, his wing drooped. A beady eye blinked at her. Once. Twice. And then went still.

She gazed at it, unflinching, as emotionless as the volcanic glass that surrounded her. But tears ran freely down her cheeks. No one spoke, and Pheolix nudged his way to her, finding her hips with his hands, then pulling her in tight. She burrowed her head into his neck.

“It’s done,” she whimpered against him. “It’s done. It’s done.”

I walked past them, allowing them a moment alone. My breath was still caged in my chest, damned by an ache I didn’t understand. Relief that Thaan was dead? Horror that I had killed him? Or was it the sudden color of liberation, painting the walls in bright, burning hues? That I’d never have to worry about Thaan trailing my steps, casting his plans as though he held my fate within a ball of crystal, warping the glass orb in the pattern he pleased.

At the water’s edge, I padded into the cold, but Cebrinne halted me with a hand, her teeth pressed together. She turned, stepping past Pheolix and Selena, who murmured softly into each other’s ears. My mother picked up the rushlight by its iron stand. Then set the flame against Thaan’s body.

Fire only stroked him at first, like the touch of a shy lover. But gradually, it melted into his small body, growing vivid as it climbed to engulf him. Feathers burned like tufts of fur, smoke and ash falling in a dusty cloud, and when the blaze finally sank its teeth into his flesh, it hissed and spit. Until all that remained was bone, brittle and charred with black.