Page 39 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Between here and the stars, the sky rumbled.

I walked, muffled steps through shallow snow, and the Rivean saw me. Kazimir held out his hand like an invitation to dance, but I waited for Diara and Hadrian to disappear behind me before I took it. I didn’t look back, didn’t want to meet Kye’s burning stare, though the heat of his anger billowed around him as Kazimir led me deep into the lines of his men, sharp and metallic in my nose. The Rivean tossed a wink over his shoulder.

I curled my fingers into a fist. One. By. One.

The men around me laughed.

They were already celebrating, even as they pressed me into a nearby rockface and yanked my hands behind my back. The cold stone grated. The frozen air nipped.

My blood boiled.

A little further from my Naiads. From Diara and Hadrian. From Kye.

A little further, and I’d smash this scrap of mountain along with everything standing over it.

I don’t see you. Kye’s voice penetrated my thoughts like a spade thrust through hot sand. Where are you?

I didn’t know precisely where I was.

They had pulled me into their midst, past the epidermis of thousands, straight down to the heart and flesh of their army. They were before me, behind me, edged up along my sides. They didn’t leer at me like pirates once had. They passed me along like soldiers circulating a long-handled weapon: carefully, precisely, and as far from their own bodies as they could stretch.

I’d lost count of how many hands pulled me through their ranks. I couldn’t see Kazimir anymore. He’d stayed near the front, where metal once more clashed and throats choked in watery gasps.

Fall back, I warned him. I’m going to raze this mountain. I don’t want you near me.

But the noise only grew louder, even as I was carried away from it.

The man who held onto me now was young, though most of them were. Rivea had sacrificed an entire generation for this war. He paused as another soldier handed something metal to him, pulling my hands to meet over my waist.

Cold metal clamped around my wrists, biting into my skin. My molars ground into each other as he turned me around.

Into the face of another Naiad.

I thought he was Thaan at first, until I remembered the Thaan I’d always known was Pheolix. This Naiad was tall and broad, flashes of silver throughout the silky black braids of his hair, though his eyes were the same as Cain’s had been. Cool and pressing. The prickle down my back stung, spiculae firing in icy warning, as sharp as the bandolier of knives he wore around his chest.

“Silver is the most efficient conductor of electricity,” the Naiad mused. “Call lightning again, and you will fry yourself like a fish in a pan.”

The Riveans dispersed, breaking forward to fight, and there was no one to hold me in place as I took a wide step away from him. “There’s more than one way to kill thousands of men.”

“There are, yes.” His gaze fell to the stone hanging from my neck. He waited until the last of the soldiers fell away, until it was just him and me and the cold face of the mountain above. “But then you’d never hear that I have my own Naiad army waiting to help you fight.”

“Help us fight.” I paused, lowering my brows. “Fight Rivea?”

The Naiad’s mouth stretched, though it didn’t fit him. It broadened like a stiff muscle. One that has become tense and sore after disuse. “Seems like the necessary next step,” he said, “since we hope you’ll help us kill Thaan in return.”

Kye, cut back to the main trail. South and east—as if you’re heading to Pirou. My eyes flicked to the Naiad beside me in a Rivean Commander’s coat. Watch for a possible trap.

Towards Pirou, he echoed. Thoughts flew around in his head like hornets trapped in a jar. Where are you?

I’ll meet you at the back of the mountain.

“Once we turn around this bend, I’ll remove the silver,” the Naiad said. He’d helped me into the saddle of a sable mare that seemed to squeeze my thighs and send an ache into my low back. Either the shackles made my riding clunky and off-balance, or I wasn’t as used to her gait as I was Kolibri’s, whose body had always moved like an extension of my own. Either way, directing this horse in the dark while mentally calling to Kye fettered all my attention.

“What’s a Naiad doing with the Rivean army?” I asked. “Your accent isn’t Northern.”

Selena had once shown me the major colonies of the world. At least, the ones large enough to be ruled by a Videre. The closest one now would have been located in Illuskia. But his voice didn’t hold the proud, heavy timbre that I’d come to recognize from Illuskian visitors in Laurier Palace. He sounded, if anything, Calderian.

He waited as a soldier rode through our rear and towards the front. The Rivean army had stayed behind to fight. Six of them accompanied us now, but I’d heard the Naiad command his regiment to follow our trail once my fighters were dead—right before he dropped his voice and murmured that he’d instructed Hadrian and Diara to lead our army away. “I wasn’t born in Rivea. But I’ve been here for twenty years.”