Page 49 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Are you coming? Maren asked into my thoughts. She watched us from over her shoulder, dark waves spilling down her back. Beside her, Lady Diara Verrata of Pirounesse had also stopped to wait for us, though as Hadrian followed my gaze, she turned abruptly, forging ahead toward the top of the hill.

I’ll just be a minute, I thought back. My fingertips found my gold-dust ring, and I turned it absently, its edge smooth over my knuckle. Maren looked over the five of us with faint curiosity before shifting her hips, guiding Kolibri forward, Aitne following clumsily on her own mount.

Aegir and Sindri traded a few words before splitting apart, the hulking guard aiming for the tall seaside cliffs to the west. Selena and her sister Cebrinne waited for the Venusian monarch to join them, diverting from Maren’s party toward the wing Selena once shared with Thaan.

Dimas observed them in silence, massaging his neck in vague interest. He finally dipped his head. “Are you going to do anything about him?”

Our eyes trailed the tall Naiad, his silver cloak rippling out behind him.

I pursed my mouth. Dimas had fought alongside Leal and me at Winterlight. He was useful in battle, skilled with both a blade and a bow, though despite his broad size, his true assets lay under silent feet and a knack for hiding under shadows. His words often traveled under a cloak of finesse, laying unsaid offers before me.

I tapped my fingers over my thigh, watching the Naiad head toward the palace. We’d decided he would take the apartment Thaan had once shared with Pheolix. I’d agreed, knowing it might be the simplest way to keep my eye on him. A king I hadn’t even known existed. “Nothing. For now.”

I felt them shift, uneasy with that response, and I sighed. “Maren needs someone to teach her shit no one else can.” Over the course of the journey, I’d tried my best to answer their questions. About Maren, about the sirens, about the lightning, the healing, the reason we’d forced them all to eat shield weed every few days—a demand Leal loudly protested until he’d learned his mind was at stake. I’d filled in gaps in the small ways I could.

Yes, my wife has magical abilities.

Yes, she is a queen among her people, with a colony under the sea.

Yes, she can control the water nearby—enough to clot blood or feel her way through the dark.

No, you aren’t allowed to know anything else, so quit fucking asking.

Leal popped a peanut into his mouth, crunched with his teeth, and spat the shell into the frozen grass. “Well. Just let us know when you want us to kill him for you.”

“And start a war with an enemy we don’t understand?” Aren rolled his eyes, glancing at me. “Would have been easier just to marry into Illuskia.”

Hadrian nicked a peanut from the little canvas bag open over Leal’s knee, twisting it in half with his long fingers and popping it between his smile. “If you think he’d have had an easier time with Yrenna Flaneari, you’ve never spent a full day in the Illuskian court. Of course, Kye’s always enjoyed the thought of a woman bullying him a bit too much. He is a glutton for torment. That’s why Maren fits him so well.”

“Have I?” I nocked my head in the direction of the red-haired woman riding beside my wife. “How was your time with Verrata before Rivea caught up to you?”

Hadrian loosed a small cough, clearing his throat and grumbling something about needing to check in with the magistrate of foreign affairs.

“Don’t leave us hanging, Prince,” Leal shouted after him.

My brother simply glanced right and left, then raised a covert middle finger in Leal’s direction.

Maren wasn’t in my tower rooms.

She wasn’t in her rooms either. Aitne was—a fact that sent a spark of guilt through me. “Sorry,” I said, raising my hands in response to the alarm in the shy Naiad’s eyes after I yanked her door wide. “I’m just looking for my wife.”

“Your cordae?” She relaxed, seeing I wasn’t interested in walking past the open door. The honey-haired Naiad had grown a little more familiar around humans in the near month we’d spent together on the road, though when given the option, she preferred Selena or Olinne over anyone born without flukes. “She said to meet her in Selena’s rooms.”

I nodded, closing the door as I strode to the tower steps.

Leihani, are you still with Diara?

We’d learned, when we’d stopped in Ochire so Diara could find her parents, that the Verrata family had been moved to Laurier Palace following the evacuation of mountain towns. The knowledge seemed to tighten all the threads within Diara, binding her so tight with anxiety she barely spoke the remainder of the trip and rode her horse twice as hard.

We just left them, Maren sent back to me. We’re almost to Selena’s door. Nori is meeting me there to hear Aegir explain what I need to learn as Queen.

Halfway down the curving flight of stairs, I paused. Then took them two at a time. I’m on my way.

You don’t have to come.

The Darkness I didn’t.

You could rest if you wanted.