Page 89 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

I ignored them both, aiming my attention at Pheolix. “Did the King tell you to send nine naval ships to Leihani?”

Every head swiveled to look at the drone. He blinked into the silence, sitting up as though realizing my question was directed at him and offered a baffled, “No?”

I’d known his answer before he gave it, but a weight in my chest sank anyway, plunging me into cold that had nothing to do with the lack of the sun. “Thaan is in the palace.”

Selena fixed her hands over her hips. “Is that surprising? He can shift to take any body, any identity he pleases. He could be a guard, a lord, a priest. He could take Emilius’s shape if he wanted to…” Her voice dropped as I paced to the edge of the room and turned, arms winding around myself. “Maren,” she said calmly. Firmly. “What happened?”

“I just told you. Emilius is in contact, somehow, with Thaan.”

My feet crossed the floor. They watched me in silence. Halfway through my stride in the opposite direction, and still no one uttered a word. Even Pheolix listened, his head cocked to hear my feet as I scoured Selena’s apartment, his eyes overcast with clouds.

Leihani, sit, Kye said.

I frowned. I was spiraling, and I could feel myself fall, a grain of sand caught in a whirling eddy, around and around and around. Thaan was in the palace. He was here, walking around wearing someone else’s face. I don’t think I’d fully realized it until then, until Emilius had said Thaan’s name as if they’d spoken only yesterday—how close Thaan was to all of us without ever having to reveal himself.

No wonder Kye had been so nervous to let me walk into a room he couldn’t enter and lock the door.

Aegir stood, impatience warring with concern, the cleft between his brows deep enough to cast a shadow. “What happened?”

“I just cut off his hand.”

“You didn’t,” Selena breathed.

“Did you bring it with you?” Pheolix chortled.

“Why didn’t you sing to him?” Aegir asked.

They all spoke at the same time, and I pulled a tired hand down over my eyes. “I did sing to him. It didn’t work. He must be eating shield weed.” It made sense, I suppose. Thaan wouldn’t want the King to be targeted by his enemies—us—while we all lived in the same palace. But even then, it didn’t fit what I knew of Thaan. He controlled the King; Hadrian had even told me as much.

Selena murmured oh in a way that had me lift my hand away, scrutinizing the Naiad.

“Thaan addled Emilius’s mind years ago,” she said softly.

Aegir made a sound of disgust low in his throat. “Pitiful.”

Kye glanced up at her. “What does that mean?”

The elder Naiads all gazed at him in silence. Selena drew a deep, still breath into her chest. “It means Thaan tortured him through incantment and forced wakenings so that Emilius couldn’t be vacoused by any Naiad. But would still blindly follow Thaan’s word. It was Thaan’s last resort. We’d incanted him one too many times, and he’d begun to catch on.”

“And what does that mean for Emilius?” Kye asked slowly. “To have his mind addled?”

The Naiads, even Aegir, gazed at him with varying levels of sympathy, like he was a child who had just asked when their dead dog would come back to play.

Kye’s jaw knit in silence. Red began to rim his eyes, and he finally dropped his gaze to the floor.

I think maybe all kings go mad, he’d once confessed to me, right after explaining how his mother had died. How he believed Emilius had killed her. I don’t think they can help it.

The taste in my mouth grew sour. I swallowed it down. “Emilius is the way he is because of Thaan?”

“What happened in the King’s chambers, Maren?” Selena’s voice was soft against the near silence of the room.

“The King sent ships to Leihani.” I pulled my attention from Kye, back to them. “To my father’s house. Emilius threatened to open fire against his house if I can’t convince one thousand islanders to join his war.”

Aegir’s shoulders relaxed, his expression carefully controlled. “At least there’s an easy solution. Just sing to the humans.”

I frowned. “The entire island population? Losing one thousand islanders would devastate Leihani. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t plan to give him a single one.”

“You’re concerned over humans?” Aegir tilted his head.