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As long as he was focused on me, we might as well talk. The water roared so that I had to raise my voice when I spoke. “Jessamine seemed extremely familiar with you.”
Sai hesitated a moment as he clambered over a fallen pillar that had broken into half a dozen pieces. He waited for me to climb over as well and we both ducked under vines. “You don’t have to worry about anything with Jessamine,” he finally answered. “That was in the past.”
“Who said I was worried?” My feelings were mixed up, but I didn’t want Sai getting false ideas. I didn’t know what we were to each other besides a massive prophetical entanglement. We stepped through a doorway and into an even larger room. Sunlight poured in through high windows and past slivers of the broken ceiling in ivory shafts of light that cut through the cool blue of the shadows. Stone pillars arced in a circle around the room. In the center stood a massive statue of a woman, her hands raised, water rushing down her form and flowing into the pond at her feet. Moss grew along her cheeks and over her legs.
Sai’s gaze remained on the statue. “I just mean I haven’t seen Jessamine in years. There’s no reason to feel jealous or—”
“That’s a big assumption to think I’m jealous.” I whirled on him, and my head spun until the room was a blur of navy and Sai turned into a dark smudge against it all. He had become my center, the force that pulled me. Which was annoying. I’d trusted him once, believed he saw something different in me, that he was the most honest person I’d ever met. Then he’d lied to me. “This marriage is fake, and it’s not my business who you’ve shared your bed with in the past.”
He sighed and dragged a hand back through his hair. His form came back into focus, and I wanted desperately to touch him, to trust him again, for that to feel safe. “I’m sorry, Lira. I made the wrong call, and I wish I could go back and undo it.”
I stepped towards him, and the room swirled again. Clamminess erupted over my skin and my stomach ascended into my throat. My muscles gave out, like they couldn’t hold me anymore. I stumbled and fell. The ceiling arced above me as I dropped, the statue of the woman watching me with depthless eyes.
Sai dropped to his knees and grabbed me before I hit the stone floor. He pressed his hand to my forehead and the warmth of him was so comforting, his rich, burnt, sweet smell swirled around me, and for a moment I didn’t care about our past or how I felt about him. I wanted to stay by his side, regardless.
“You’re cold to the touch,” he said, his voice sharp. I struggled to hear the individual words. Everything in my head buzzed and magic hissed through me like an angry cat. Sai’s lips parted with a snap. “You’re a siren.”
“Sorry to surprise you.”
“No, I mean, you’re the head of a siren group now.”
I clenched my eyes closed and my body seemed to float away from me, turn to jelly, dissolve into the water that flowed through the temple and drift out into the sea. “Yes.”
“Your magic works through compelling. If you aren’t using it, you’ll weaken and grow sick, especially because so many other beings rely on you for their powers.”
I opened my eyes and Sai’s face was close to mine, the stubble along his jaw glimmering in the low light. “I have to compel others?”
“Yes. It’s how siren magic works. Your band is likely feeling as unwell as you presently.”
I thought of Mother suffering because she forced her magic on me. That was comforting, at least.
“Compel me, Lira.”
I sat up, and the room smudged into a whirl of silvers and blues. “What?”
He braced his hands against my shoulders to help me stay upright. “I’ll let my wards down and you can compel me so you can regain your energy and fuel your magic.”
The running water hushed between us as I stared at him. “You understand that I could make you do anything?”
His zevar slipped forward, and it glowed, green light rippling over his skin. “Yes.”
“I could do horrible things to you.”
“You could.”
He stared at me like he trusted me fully, as though he’d unleash his soul for me. If my thoughts didn’t tumble so much, I might understand him. I could piece it together and figure out what it meant.
He eased me up to sitting on the ground. “We need to, Lira. We can’t get the map with you ill like this.”
Oh. The map.
Of course it was about the fucking map.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He sat cross-legged before me, his arms outstretched like he was prepared to catch me if I fell again. “My wards are down. If you get a zevar one day, you’ll be able to perceive wards better… especially with practice.”
I couldn’t think about that for now. My head ached and sweat had broken out across my face, a droplet dripping down my nose. I parted my lips and a single note spilled past them, rich and resonant as it hummed against the curved ceilings.
