Page 63 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Darkness cocked his head. “Imagine if you’d known to pay it the first time. What trouble you might have saved yourself.” He chuckled to himself, the sound like crackling smoke. “But no. You dove down into my house, then asked to simply leave. I wanted to keep you then, lovely, pretty pet. But I was too curious who she might grow up to become.”

He crooked his head, shadows slowly gazing back at me. “The child of the moon.”

My mouth parted, a chill in my blood as I watched them both.

“I let you leave my house in full health,” he said slowly, coldly. The amusement that danced under his billowing vapors had chilled, his voice now measured and quiet. “In an exchange for meeting your child of the moon. A bargain that implies introduction, darling mortal, a bargain that implies a name.”

Cebrinne’s eyes remained locked dispassionately on his slowly rolling shadows. “You didn’t ask for a name. You asked for a meeting.”

“Tricksy, lying, thieving mortal.” Darkness let out a sound like a wet hiss, a flaming iron rod pressed into a bed of ice. His gaze shifted to me. “It does not matter now. I know her name. I own her soul.”

Cebrinne didn’t flinch. “It was not a trick. I followed your terms.”

“Very well,” he replied, shrinking back to himself as the hot whistle of his voice ended. “I’ll accept your toll to allow the child of the moon to cross over to the stone.” He straightened, shadows cooling almost to his visceral form. A man draped under a cloak of smoke. He tilted his head right, then left, then right again, sampling the taste and texture of all the bargains he might offer before they left his tongue.

“Fifty years of your mortal life,” he finally said, shifting close enough to draw the tip of his finger across the lifeline in her palm. “Starting now.” Scarlet bloomed in the center of her hand, and she watched it silently. Resolute.

“No,” I breathed. I don’t know what I’d expected. Something abstract, like the bargain he’d made with me. Passage in trade for a soul after her life had reached an end. A memory, a secret, a promise to fulfill. Not something measurable. Years drifted by, but they still held solid lines. A beginning and an end. Fixed. Definite.

“Done,” Cebrinne said.

28

Maren

Ihardly grasped the word as she spoke it. But a soft light floated from the back of her mouth, a glow no wider than the crystal hanging from my neck, rippling gently into Darkness’s hand. He curled his fingers around it, his body still and restful, the years of her life a balm over an old wound.

“What—what have you done?” My legs hardened to lead, yet they suddenly felt too weak to carry my weight. My breath came too fast, and that raw ache in the back of my throat returned, deep and sharp enough to tear a hole through the base of my neck.

I was five years old, standing in shallow water with an empty net in my hands, confused and shattered as the island women shuffled their children away from me. I was eight, watching my father leave for the fishing boats through the flap of my door as the morning songs of neighboring mothers coasted from their verandas. I was eleven, my Nani was dead, my aunt was intolerant—and I was alone.

Now I’ll never have time.

The thought lifted through my consciousness like a cloud of disturbed dust, and my lungs ached as I pulled in a ragged breath, stumbling a step back. I hadn’t even known that thought had burrowed within me. But I covered my mouth with a hand, staring wildly at her now, and it was all I could hear.

I’ll never have time.

Leihani? Kye’s voice came through, muffled and soft, like a knock at the door.

I’ll be up soon, I replied. He didn’t say anything, but I could feel him linger, holding to the edges of my mind in case I needed him.

Cebrinne didn’t speak at first, though the staunch ridge of her shoulders had softened, her brows tightening with sad surprise at my reaction. She swallowed, blinked. Then closed her eyes and gathered a deep breath into her lungs. When she opened them, a thick shine had brightened the light behind her teal blue irises.

“I was never the one who would end this war,” she said firmly. Quietly. “And as much as I want to watch you do the things I never could, I need to make sure you have the chance to do them first. It’s not perfect. And I’m sorry. I’ve been away all your life when I should have been at your side. And you deserve the time that I’m taking from you again. You deserve time to be angry with me, to push me away, to reject me, because that’s what you’ve known. You deserve time to heal the way your heart wishes to heal, and whether that’s with me or not, you deserve the right to choose.”

I swallowed. Tried to answer her. But the air in my lungs was thick and sharp, choking me from within. I grasped at my own edges as they threatened to come undone, but they fractured anyway, breaking away and leaving me bare.

“I know you think you were a consolation to a bid for freedom. And maybe, years before I met you, maybe—” Her voice hitched, and she paused to slow her breath. “Maybe I once thought that, too. But you were never a mistake. You were never a regret. Life has a way of making us question ourselves again and again, but the day I looked into your eyes, I’d never been more certain.”

I shook my head. I’d been so incensed when she’d landed beside me, riled at the thought of unsolicited help. That had only been minutes ago, but I couldn’t muster that feeling now. I reached for Cebrinne’s hand, and she smoothed her fingers over mine.

“I may never get the chance to be your mother. But you’ll always be…” She glanced down at our hands, as though holding my gaze suddenly burned.

Her words met my ears in fragmented pieces. Stifled and blurred, like she’d spoken to me while I floated underwater. My arms refused to move, yet they wouldn’t stop moving, trembling. The words I’d hurled at the mouth of the cavern echoed through me now. I do not need to be mothered. I’ve lived my entire life without one.

“Cebrinne,” I said, my throat tight.

“Ah,” Darkness said to himself. “The Triad.”