Page 26 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

A memory. One that I’d lost. One I’d never been able to reach while alive.

I shook it away. But it clung to me like wet paper, lying flush with my grooves, threatening to wither and harden into the shape of me. Even as I climbed the fired sand, it hardened like a mold.

Maren standing alone on the beach of Neris Island, surrounded by my father’s navy, staring up at me with pain and confusion and fiery rage. A knife under her chin, a hand holding that knife, an arm that belonged to me.

I gulped down the thick feeling of bile, churning in my gut.

The voice in my head laughed. I wasn’t sure if it laughed at me now, or if it was part of that memory. Part of that day.

A hand slapped against mine, latching on.

Sand tumbled under my feet as Maren pulled. But the surface of the mountain didn’t break under her weight. She lay with arms hanging just over the edge, eyes and mouth tight as she heaved. It was all I needed to snap me out of the trance of the voices.

My feet carved through the falling silver sand, until I was dangling over the ridge. But she’d managed to guide my hands to her level. Enough that I swung to the side, throwing my elbow over, then a knee, hoisting the rest of myself to the top. Like Maren, I rolled away from the edge, staring up at the endless night. The white-hot burn of the mountain subsided, cool wind sweeping the heat away, stroking its apologies into my skin. Flecks of silver lifted into the air, tiny glints.

“You made it,” Maren whispered. She hadn’t let go of my hand, and she rubbed her thumb into the center of my palm. I rotated my head to look at her. Dark skin and rich hair and vibrant black eyes. Fine grain embellished her locks, glittering whenever she moved. I wanted to ask her what she’d heard in those final steps. The same question floated in her eyes as she waited for me.

I couldn’t. I didn’t know why.

That’s not true. I knew exactly fucking why. Because she’d return the question. She’d ask me right back. And then argue with what I told her. Try to convince me not to believe it, that none of it was true, that what happened before didn’t matter now.

Fucking coward, I told myself. Not the voice of the mountain. Me.

Cebrinne’s hand landed next to my head, nails scoring deep into the sand. I pushed onto a hip, grasping Cebrinne’s fingers. Maren took her other hand, and together we pulled her up. She stood for half a moment before dropping to her knees, her entire body quivering against the gentle wind. Tracks of wet silver clung to her cheeks. Her mouth quivered, and she refused to look at either of us. Time stretched in silence, the three of us looming over a sanded edge. Maren dropped her mother’s hand softly, turning away.

The only peak in all of Perpetuum, the Mountain of Truth’s summit only spanned as wide as a single floor in my palace tower. The temple in the center was the size of a modest room, its walls the same liquid fabric Theia had worn, held by a circle of white stone pillars. Sand surrounded the pillars, both inside them and out.

Maren walked to it, already barefoot. It wasn’t far. Merely a few steps from us. She ducked smoothly under the shimmering fabric as it billowed away, placing a single step under the stone.

Cebrinne lifted her head to watch Maren press her toes into the sand. It glowed around her foot. Bright and brilliant. She took another step, and another. Everywhere her skin touched, the sand lit. In the center, she sank down to the sand. It ignited around her, bright enough to illuminate her face and shoulders in stark moonlight. Fingertips in the sand, she began sifting it to one side.

My hand hadn’t left Cebrinne’s. I hauled her gently to her feet, and we followed. Like Maren, she was already barefoot, but I stopped just outside the stone to wrench my boots off, casting them into the silt.

The sand inside the temple cushioned the soles of my feet like fine powder. It lit around Cebrinne in cool tones of silver, not quite as bright as Maren. Warmer, almost verging on gold, around me. We settled into it, digging in silence. Each swipe of my fingers, the sand smoothed away, bright where I touched and dimming as I released.

The deeper I went, the longer it remained lit. Maren’s hollow had widened enough that the powder inside shone like a silver fire. She reached for one more scoop and froze.

The onyx in her eyes, the black of her pupils—it all went white.

I started in surprise, ready to yank her hand back out. But nothing about Maren looked as though she was suffering. Her lips gently parted, the knots of muscle within her loosening as her fingers splayed into the fine grain. In fact, the tips of her nails pushed deeper, reaching.

Below the pads of my own fingers, the sand oozed warmth. Not the blazing heat from the side of the mountain. Gentle, inviting. A soft pulse drummed against my hand, so faint I barely sensed it. I pushed deeper, shrouding my touch with that pulse. It grew, a forceful beat against my palm. Radiating up my arm, thrumming into my heart, a steady throb in my ears.

Somewhere behind me, Cebrinne inhaled a sharp breath.

I tunneled a little deeper. A little deeper. A little deeper.

My eyes closed. The world collapsed. And my vision clouded with white.

13

Maren

Isaw myself first.

A lone woman in a canoe, garbed in hau bark and tapa, dark cynicism in her eyes. But then I seemed to melt. The waves in my hair ironed straight. My eyes blinked, and suddenly they were blue. My mouth tightened, my muscles shrank, my body lengthened. Cebrinne took my place.

I shifted, trying to pull my arm from the hole. But she changed again. A young woman, not unlike Selena, standing in front of a crumbling, white-washed house overlooking the ocean. Images flashed in my mind, slow at first but gaining in speed, pages flicking in a book. Too quick to study, though they were all female, and almost all Naiad. The shape of their bodies morphed little by little. Their skin changed. Their hair changed.