Page 48 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

“I promised I’d help you,” Aegir said softly, ignoring everyone but me. His grip on my reins loosened. “But it was the second time I’d made such a promise. The first was years and years ago, before your heart ever began to beat. Did I go about fulfilling that oath the right way?” A small plume of fog laced his mouth as he exhaled. “No. I thought if Thaan couldn’t immediately trace your disappearance to me, we’d pass under his radar.”

I tilted my chin slowly, aiming my attention at him from the side. “Why send him a taunting letter, then?”

Aegir’s mouth twitched between pride and chagrin. He finally lifted a shoulder, adopting an expression like he’d been caught eating pie after swearing off sweets. “I’ll admit, it was near-sighted,” he said. “Maybe you would have taken the opportunity to gloat as well, once you’d verified the pirate ship had left Calderian waters. Would throwing a small victory in Thaan’s face not have tempted you, had Thaan killed your entire family? If he’d stolen everyone you ever cared for?”

He hired Kriska? Kye asked, hot anger soaking through my thoughts.

The creases in my forehead deepened. Aegir swallowed silently, jaw twisting side to side as he finally leaned back in his saddle, the air deflating from his chest. He tossed my bridle away. “Sidra told me you would have been her heir,” he said softly. “She would have taught you everything a new queen needs to know. How to heal, how to attack. How to wield water and starlight, how to use such things to lead a colony.”

The bright sun glinted from every snowy angle, a dull ache vibrating from the top of my skull. I’d once mockingly informed Thaan that as a princess of Calder, I outranked him. After months of finding myself wedged under his thumb, after realizing Kye had been a vacous for most of my time in the palace, I’d snatched the opportunity to revel in a weak point in his plans.

Aegir’s eyes closed. His lips pursed tight, then unraveled slowly as he reopened his eyes. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness, though I am sorry. You don’t have to be my ally. But I am yours. If you decide you want to learn the things Sidra didn’t have time to teach you, well”—he opened his empty hands, holding them out in the air—“you’ll know where to find me.”

He dashed a final glance in Cebrinne’s direction before angling his head at Sindri. “I believe we’ve outstayed our welcome,” he said, pressing the heel of his hand into Sindri’s arm, lowering the siren’s knives. Kye didn’t lower his sword, still held to the side over his hip, but the Videre continued to ignore him.

The two Venusians ventured south under long limbs of pine needles, dripping from the winter sun. I mashed my lips together, feeling the steady pull of everyone’s attention; each pair of eyes tugged at my strings.

Kye’s voice stroked the edge of my thoughts. Leihani.

I shoved my air out in a short, hard blow. I’d asked Selena to teach me water-healing before I left to take the Breath of Safiro. My fingers found the crystal now, hanging from my neck. She’d answered that the only Naiad who knew how to heal was Cain—Thaan.

That was before I’d met Aitne. Before I’d become Queen.

You’re stronger than I thought, Sidra had called to me when I’d tried to attack her with electricity. But less controlled. Find another way, child. You’ll run yourself dry before you smite me.

She’d let me win. Had orchestrated it from the moment I’d set foot in her water, relinquishing her throne and freeing me from my vows in the same day.

Thaan wouldn’t grant me the same courtesy.

My fingers found the bridge of my nose. I pinched down, searching for relief from the pounding in my head. “Aegir.” I didn’t glance up right away, though I knew the Venusian stopped ahead. Knew that he turned at the sound of his name to look back at me.

Only a few feet away, beneath the shadow of his curly hair, Kye’s eyes found mine, a gentle betrayal in his golden hues I hadn’t seen since the morning I’d found myself locked in a foreign tower built over the edge of the sea.

21

Kye

There did not exist a time in my history when I hadn’t returned to Laurier Palace, the castle in which I’d been born and raised, and not fantasized setting flames to the towers.

Each time I left, it was like shedding heavy armor. I could move, I could breathe. I could fly. To go home was to don plates of iron and mail. To protect myself from a possible attack from every angle, slowly suffocating as I did.

Hadrian was the only one who had ever understood, though he bore the weight of it easier than I did. Or at least, more gracefully. There was little about me to consider fucking graceful.

I rocked back in my saddle at the sight of the towers rising from behind the tree-encrusted hill ahead, and my brother offered a benign, knowing clap against the back of my shoulder. “I can send you back to war, if you prefer,” he teased patiently, though I knew the offer was serious if I wanted it. He’d ordered that I escort his party back to the City of Towers, and when General Senan had tried to argue, my brother had locked eyes with the man and calmly asked if the general was defying the orders of his future king.

My gaze slid to Maren, sandwiched between Diara and Aitne on that hostile fucking mongrel she called a horse. Then to Aegir, only a brief distance away. “No.”

Hadrian’s hand found the crest of my shoulder and squeezed. The bruises along his face had mottled to green during the fortnight we’d spent traveling. Now they stained his cheek and jaw a dingy yellow. He smiled in his placating yet proud sort of way, smoothing his straight hair from his eyes and fixing the collar of his shirt.

Leal halted beside me, grinning. “Getting pretty for the palace ladies,” he said, crossing his arms as he watched Hadrian primp. Head down, Hadrian offered him a small wink as he rolled his sleeves, though we both knew it was his father, King Emilius, he was tidying himself for.

Aren and Dimas slowed their horses as well. With the palace in sight, Fox gave an impatient yawn. “It’s a blessing you don’t stop to do the same, Leal. We’d be stuck here for hours,” Aren said, snapping his fingers for Fox to heel.

Leal buffed his nails against his coat. “Don’t need to with this face. Court doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Not while their eyeballs are in their head,” Aren mused. “The palace nobles go mad for medium-ugly people.”

Leal paused his buffing to raise a brow. “How medium are we talking?”