Page 36 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Nori.

Nothing.

Nori, I burst, banging at her walls. I sensed her there, acutely aware of my presence. Don’t make me call to your blood.

I’d never thought I’d make such a threat. Thaan had stolen my body once. Locked me inside my mind so he could use me as an instrument, taunting me with a vacoused Kye. Unwittingly, my fingers spread across the back of Kye’s hand.

He squeezed my thigh in return. “She’s not responding?”

“No.”

“Bring her to me if you want your prisoners.”

The voice came from north and west, somewhere above the mountainside we’d fought along. It resounded through the nearby trees, the menace slicing through the words a stark contrast to the gentle wind that carried them.

The whites of Kye’s eyes widened. His hand clamped down on my leg.

“Rivea has part of my colony,” I said with perhaps too much force. “I can’t leave them.”

“Let’s make a plan,” he shot back. I was already sliding from the saddle. Water clung to my fingertips, brushing my nailbeds blue with cold. But my body cast away the chill, heat gathering along my core, flaring along the center of my chest. My lungs still burned with every breath, but each exhale left me with less vapor and more smoke. Fire and ash and claws ripping against the base of my windpipe.

Rivea had part of my colony.

My. Colony.

Clouds shifted, blotting out the dying sun. Ahead, torchlight flickered through bare branches, outlining a small ridge in the rock. Static nipped around my hands and face, crackling in my ears. It danced in the air, a nymph of white fire, insultingly beyond my control. But I’d never needed to control lightning in order to wield it.

I’d only ever needed to be angry.

From behind, Kye grabbed my shoulder. “I’m not trading you for a bunch of sirens,” he growled.

Electricity snapped from fingertip to fingertip as I held my hand up for him to see. And I wasn’t sure if it was my voice or the rage within me that answered, “I do not plan to barter.”

I’d killed an entire army before, in another life. I could do it again. But I didn’t want Kye or any of my sirens nearby when I did.

Kye’s eyes narrowed. “That’s your plan? Hand yourself over and then wipe them out?”

All I needed to do was level him with a look that answered for me. Kye swore under his breath.

I didn’t let him see my power was flagging. That it hissed and spit like the last drops of water in a pot boiled dry. That I knew my words were just that, words, and though the sky had deepened and the air was charged, I harbored an astonishingly small amount of command.

Kye drew his sword before we crested the incline that divided us from my colony. Rows of Naiads stood just beyond, their byssus silk dresses catching the wind as they stood locked in a fighting stance. Mist swirled gently around their feet, palms waiting and ready at their sides, water sliding off their fingers in small drips.

Across from them, the Rivean army. Thousands of crimson-coated men stacked behind each other, disappearing into the dark.

And in the center, Kazimir, the tip of his blade held at the neck of a figure kneeling in the snow. Not one of my sirens. A young woman with a riot of golden-red curls.

And beside her, the future King of Calder.

17

Maren

Somehow, in the deep pockets of war, I’d forgotten that I’d sent Hadrian with Diara to Pirou to protect him from Thaan.

How had the Riveans found them?

Beside me, Kye froze. His hand still held my arm, as though he’d expected me to sprint ahead, and his grip didn’t loosen. But his attention had fully diverted to where Diara and Hadrian stooped over the snow.