Page 42 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

She says it depends on what he’s offering and what he’s requesting in return. She says it’s been a long time since she’s—

I don’t have time for a full breakdown of motives. I huffed a silent exhale. Did Sidra trust Aegir?

Nori was silent for a beat. Yes.

I suppose that was enough.

I straightened, fighting the caution that nipped at my edges. “I’ll accept your help creating a diversion.” Fighting the Rivean forces might have been the better option. Might have solidified more safety for Kye if war called him back in the coming weeks. But there were too many unknowns in what Aegir offered. Too many lives to lose—and find myself in Aegir’s debt because of it.

Something glimmered behind Aegir’s sharp gaze, as though my decision was a puzzle piece to tuck alongside other details he’d keep to himself. He raised his head in a sharp nod to his Naiads, and a group of them cut into the night, silver cloaks flashing through the dark. “Come with me,” he said, climbing into Sindri’s mount and pushing in the opposite direction.

Kye murmured into my thoughts. What’s happening?

I’m fine.

His heart pulsed through his mind, ticking loudly. If anything changes, tell me.

I stole a slanted view of Aegir. His rough cheeks, the braids thrown over one side of his head, the other side sheared so low that his black tattooed whorls peeked through. The short, sharp angle of his beard, grown just past his chin. He squinted into the shadowed trail ahead, a near-scowl I had once run from.

I will, I murmured back.

Aegir spent the next ten minutes canvasing the low incline in silence before he said softly, “You’ve changed.”

“I suppose so.” I shook the mountain chill from my spine, drawing my own Byssus silk across my shoulders to stream out behind me. “Playing hostage for pirates tends to have that effect.”

The impulse to watch his expression as I said it almost overpowered me, but I kept my back straight, eyes fused on the road. From the corner of my eye, Aegir rolled his jaw left and right in thought.

“We had a plan,” he finally said, turning to look at me. “It went awry.”

I refused to look at him. “Indeed.”

“Did they hurt you?”

I opened my mouth to say no. To do what I would have done as a child, hiding any weakness or shame. suffocating the thought that anyone had enough power to hurt me, burying it deep instead. So deep it remained unseen and unnoticed. So deep the truth became a lie.

Once upon a time I’d thought concealing my own weaknesses protected me. Now I realized, it only protected everyone else.

I aimed my attention directly at the Videre. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not shying from my hard stare. But I wasn’t finished.

“They attacked us on the beach. Held me underwater. Forced me to turn. Struck my head against the side of a boat. Lifted me into their ship by the fins of my tail. Chained me in a tiny cabin. Poisoned me. Prevented me from seeing the moon. Threatened to kill me.” The words thickened, venom in my mouth, each one the lethal edge of a knife. “And that is nothing—nothing—compared to what they did to my cordae.”

“Your cordae,” he breathed. But I wasn’t done.

“We escaped to find ourselves in Western Rivea. In Brána Do Podsvetia. The Gateway to Dark—”

“I know the channel,” he said. His naturally rough voice was gentle. Too gentle. It only stoked the sudden burn in my lungs.

“We were so weak and starved I searched for food in that channel. Fought a monster to escape and then fought decompression at the surface. The Riveans almost hanged Kye. The pirates flayed my back. We ran from an avalanche, lost a horse, and made it to Calder to find Thaan waiting at the gate. And he told me”—my jaw grew hard, releasing each syllable like stones thrown from my tongue—“that you wrote to him after we’d been taken. That you called me a weapon.”

My hands shook against my thighs. I curled them into fists. Mountain air breathed as cold as ice, but I no longer noticed. My blood pounded inside my ears, my heart thudding with the sudden desire to thrash and fight.

At the corners of my mind, I sensed Kye, lured not by invitation but my own spewing emotions. He didn’t say a word, though he hovered within me. Waiting in case he was needed. I didn’t acknowledge him, though I looked down to find myself spinning my ring around my finger.

Hooves clomped against rock and compact dirt. Stars blazed overhead. The Venusian Naiads walked quietly behind us, almost silent, though I could feel them there, watching us.

“I didn’t know you were cordaed. I thought he was your human husband,” he finally said, and though he didn’t apologize again, soft remorse clung to his voice.