Page 56 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

I swore again, though I didn’t repeat myself.

Aegir sighed. “You passed me on the sky bridge, but you were so focused you didn’t notice me. I called after you, but you were already to the door. You’re faster than you look.”

“I thought you might have returned to Venusia.”

“I had. I waited a few days at first, to see if you’d come to me for the lessons I’d promised. But when you didn’t, I decided to give you some time.”

“And you just happened to come ashore today?” I didn’t ask how he’d managed to slip past the guards. That I knew.

“I’ve been checking in every now and then. With Thaan away, it’s…” He paused, considering his thoughts. “Nice to finally catch up.”

I blinked at that, but before I could ask any further, the door opened. Kye blew in, shirt already halfway over his head, his bare stomach growing inch by inch as the hem climbed his abdomen. He tossed it away, finding me as it left his body, dark gold curls bouncing. “I thought you’d already be in the stables,” he began. His words cut short as he noticed Aegir.

The friendly air around Aegir extinguished, a cloud of ash and smoke. He lifted his head, letting his gaze coast down Kye, and the cozy armchair in which the Venusian occupied suddenly seemed more like a throne made of marble.

“Aegir knows where to find the Scale,” I said, remembering the last time Kye had entered a room to find me alone with a Videre. The memory of Thaan forcing his way into my head sent a cold shudder through my bones.

We’d run out of the shield weed I’d kept on-hand, and though I imagined traces of it lingered in Kye’s blood, I didn’t enjoy the idea of needing to depend on it. With the look Aegir wore, the thought also crossed his mind.

“The humans are not accompanying you to find the stone, I’m sure?” the Naiad asked coolly.

Kye canted his head, more challenge than question. He seemed to have forgotten his chest was bare, the sunlight shifting across his shoulders, illuminating the molten flecks in his eyes.

“They are,” I answered, pointing to the black riding shirt I’d already laid out for Kye.

Aegir watched us in silence for half a breath. “You’d endanger them.”

Kye matched his cold tone. “I’m unsure why that bothers you, as you clearly find yourself to be above me.”

Aegir slowly rose from the chair, silver cloak rippling behind him. The sun stole through the gleaming strands of silk, revealing the tattooed whorls and swirls of his bare skin below it. “The rivers are still like ice this time of year. We’ll have to make frequent stops to warm ourselves,” he said to me, turning his back on Kye like a house guest ignoring a stain in the carpet. “Carrying humans will slow us further. They’d need air every two minutes, and Naiad air in their lungs would render them low-conscious. Helpless. As vulnerable as a vacous.”

The longer he spoke, the harder Kye’s teeth ground.

“More than that, it would prove unwise to put them in a position where they might accidentally see us.”

My exhale tugged at the strands of my hair. “We’ll be careful. We’ll turn before we surface. They’ll never see our tails.”

“They?” Aegir’s voice hit a note of disbelief.

I straightened. I’m a queen, I reminded myself. I am a queen, and he will not make me doubt my choices. “They know we are sirens,” I said, injecting confidence into the words.

Aegir didn’t reply, though the flash of his eyes said plenty. You fool.

“I hope you know what you are doing,” he finally murmured. “When humans began multiplying faster than Naiads, when their existence began to threaten ours, Theia bartered with Truth. She traded a shred of her light to the Fate as a feeble defense against those who walked the land. If they were to see a Naiad’s scales, their days would be numbered. Theia was once full and round every night. She lives in waxes and wanes now to protect us. You’re playing with fate, entangling yourself so tightly with humans.”

His words sent strands of worry into my chest, burrowing like roots in dark soil. I tucked them away, tapping my fingertips over my chin. “Theia chose Kye as part of the Triad. She would not have tied his fate with mine, were I not meant to keep him at my side.”

Finally, Aegir’s attention shifted to where my husband stood. The muscles in Kye’s shoulders flexed as his hands curled, his Leihaniian tattoo hardening like rock.

The Videre of Venusia crooked a brow. “If you insist.”

25

Maren

The Scale of Safiro waited, Aegir explained, in the deepest tunnels under abandoned Paria in the distant east, a domus Selena had only ever glossed over in my studies. She’d referred to it as a ghost colony, a dead community. Hearing this fractured the valley between Aegir’s brows. He looked curiously at me, and I realized that, once again, Selena had lied. Diluted my curiosity with the smallest of false truths.

He noticed, I think. The way my lips lengthened, the uptick in my blood.