Page 190 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

My hand reached for it, and his fingers closed. “Unless you’d like to strike another.”

“No, Caecus,” I sighed. “No more bargains. Not for me.”

He chuckled under his breath. “Lies, lies. There is still one more debt to settle between your soul and mine.”

I plucked the glowing kernel from his hand. It dissolved into my skin, warmth oozing over my fingers and through my hand, arm and chest, up to my face and down to my bare feet. A groan rolled from my throat, my toes curling into the grass.

My eyes shifted to meet the God of Darkness, a sly smile curling over my own mouth. “I don’t think there is, Caecus.”

The dark mirth in the god’s eyes faltered. His shadows grew around him, coiling and waving like suspicion growing in the water. I waited for him to demand that I call to my vows as Sidra once had, to force the debts of my blood to the surface of my skin so he could read them in written words.

Perhaps he didn’t need to. Perhaps he could read my blood now, coursing through my veins.

Or it could have been that my night-sea eyes hadn’t sparkled, as he’d once told me they did when I lied.

Or maybe it was all there for him to take, like a page read from my memory.

It was all in the past, after all. His domain.

“Trickster,” he whispered. “Cheater. Liar. Thief.”

“Not a trick,” I said, ignoring the wet hiss of his shadows and stealing my mother’s words. “I followed your terms.”

“How?” he asked, black tendrils snapping loud enough the crickets hushed.

“A Naiad’s vows can be fractured for one full day of freedom by drinking the blood of their oath-master. I bargained my soul to be your wraithling after I died, and you carried me to fight the Abyssi, letting your flesh burn under the glint of the moon. I tried to clean it for you, remember?”

“You stole my blood,” he seethed.

Kye shifted, stepping an inch closer, the light under his skin beginning to rouse.

“Not on purpose,” I said, not bothering to hide the curve of my mouth. “I stuffed that swatch of bloodied silk into my baldric. When I passed under the burning stars, I pulled it off and dumped the seawater over my head. It wasn’t my fault, really, that some of it dribbled over my tongue, but once I tasted it, I knew what it was.”

“It means nothing,” Darkness said. “You still reached Perpetuum within three days. Our deal still stands.”

“She didn’t,” Kye said softly, gazing at me with a kind of awe that melted the bones in my legs. “She missed the last step just as her time ended, and I reached through the veil and caught her. She didn’t reach Perpetuum in time—she drank your blood and then only hours later, let herself fall short.” He barked a breathless laugh. “You failed on purpose.”

Over my shoulder, I locked eyes with Kye, my smile stretched wide. “I knew you’d catch me if I fell.”

Darkness made a sound like steam and fumes and sizzling flesh, turning away and crackling back into the shadows.

Neither of us watched him go.

“Really?” Kye murmured. “Truly? We’ll be together—in this world and the next?”

“Yes,” I laughed, though my throat was suddenly raw and tight, heat smoldering along the rims of my eyes.

Kye ran his fingertips through the roots of my hair, tilting my face up at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I licked my lips, shaking my head against his hands. “The same reason you never told me you were Sola. I didn’t know if it would work. I didn’t want to get your hopes up if it weren’t true. I didn’t know for sure until he gave me that kernel of the sun back, and my body had closed all debts with him.”

Kye kissed my forehead. Then my mouth. A small, soft kiss, pausing to swallow and laugh in disbelief. Then another, long and lingering and indulgently slow.

“You’re mine,” he said. “Mine and no one else’s. Forever.”

“Forever,” I echoed, kissing him again. He tasted like gardens and storms. Like falling stars and promises kept and lies so beautiful they could only be truth.

I reveled in that taste. The decadent burn of forever, like honey on my tongue. For the rest of my mortal life.