Page 175 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

He was also a prize.

Thaan tilted his head. “Did Selena ever tell you the story of her first transition?”

“Yes.” My mouth thinned, mind ablur with possible rationales for the question. “You stole her and my mother at night and forced the change over them.”

“Did she tell you who changed her?”

My mouth twitched. But words fell short. She had not.

Thaan’s talons joined together, curling over each other as he walked around me in a wide circle. “She was my favorite almost immediately. Your mother hated me, of course, but Selena was patient and kind and bright. So bright. I used to play games with the two of them along the boardwalk, drawing circles of chalk and skipping through the pattern. She was so like…” His sentence melted into the night air.

Across the grass and fern, Selena watched us, expressionless as her hair danced with the wind.

“She was like Leibra,” I said. “Your first daughter.”

The name snapped Thaan from whatever reverie had stolen his words. His jaw hardened. “When my drones took them, they both fought. Your mother only snarled and scratched. But Selena was the one who turned back to face me. The one willing to defy me, to tell me no. I knew then, she would be my heir.” He leaned in, careful not to come too close under Kye’s watchful eye, the small feathers along the back of his neck lifting in the breeze. “Can you imagine what little bastard got in my way?”

I frowned, thinking. But there was truly only one answer. My mouth shaped the name in silence, and Thaan gave a low rumble of dissonance.

“He pulled her below the surface, a worthless gnat, and breathed his hollow air into my daughter. Whatever she could have been was stolen. Stunted by the oxygen of a powerless drone.” Thaan’s talons curled into a sharp fist. His hawk-like eyes narrowed back to mine. “But here before me lies the pathway to reclaiming that power for her, humming in your veins. There is no winning, Granddaughter. I won’t offer you consolation. I’ll offer you truth. Everyone you see before you is already dead. Vow yourself to me if you wish. If you do not, well—” He paused before stepping away, eyes trailing over the crimson streak that had dried under my nose. “Your blood is mine either way.”

Despite his words, he never gave me the chance to give him an answer. Thaan turned to his hoard of drones, motioning vaguely at me. “Kill her.”

76

Maren

The blood of my blood will give me life. The blood of my enemy will grant me death.

As I watched the swarm of Naiads cut through the long blades of pili grass like a searing knife through butter, Selena’s words from long ago rose through my mind. The blood of the Domus, of any colony member, is a gift. But the blood of an enemy isn’t. It’s taken by force, granting more power than they would’ve inherited from the colony or lunar absorption.

I wondered if, even then, she knew my power might rival Thaan’s.

I wondered if she’d chosen that lesson on purpose. If, even then, she knew Thaan might try to take my blood.

She’d seen the hate I’d harbored for him, his very name like poison in my mouth.

I wondered if she knew we’d become enemies, opposing Videres. The way she’d tried to stop me from leaving for Sidra’s colony, begging me not to go. She’d known of the Triad, she knew my life wouldn’t end at Sidra’s feet.

But the power of a queen might’ve been tempting enough for Thaan to end my life at his.

A chasm ripped through my chest, each beat of my heart tearing it deeper, shredding me alive.

It had been a warning all along, and I’d never even seen it.

The drones moved like sharks, straight and precise as they crossed the foliage, swift and eerily soundless. Forty of them, aimed at me. It was like standing on the beach and watching a tidal wave as it grew, climbing higher and higher, a monster I could not outrun.

No. I couldn’t escape this monster. And I refused to try—to leave the souls I loved shackled to dirt and trees, grass and mud.

My mother cried out as I launched forward, meeting the nearest drone as the female stretched for me. She burst into a cloud of dust. A soft explosion, sparkling in the night.

Another came, then another, and another. All crumbling to ash before they could touch me.

That didn’t stop them from surrounding me, tightening their circle with intimate accuracy. They drew near, passing some imagined boundary, blowing away like thoughtless sand. Until one of them drew close enough to grasp my wrist, yanking me into their tide.

Flames spewed from their hand, tearing up their arm. A roar pierced the silence, desperate and bright with agony.

It didn’t matter if I tried to fight. Kye scorched their bodies before they could touch me. I turned toward him then, a living light, vivid and charged. I could barely see him through the solar flood of his aura, but I forced my feet to move, ignoring that the drones stood in my way. That they reached for me across the deadened air, and that their hands and arms evaporated to motes of dust. I walked through a land of invisible fire, the air around me stirring as flesh became wind.