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A cynical sound scoffed out of her. “Let us not fool ourselves into thinking we are in love. Until our eight-hundredth birthday, let us live our own lives.”
Solaris studied her, and she knew he was trying to search past her spitefulness to figure out if she’d meant what she’d said.
Tears stung the back of Naia’s nose, but she kept her mouth set in a tight line.
He’d always worn a softness each time his eyes fell upon her, but that familiar softness slowly disappeared as his lips thinned.
“Very well, love.” His tone was stiff, cutting. “If that is what you truly wish, then so be it.”
He whipped around and stormed out of her bedchamber.
The following month, Marina left Kaimana.
To become the next High Goddess of Night, Naia had overheard the servants whispering in the hall that morning.
Naia sought solace in an abandoned cove with her father. A place they’d snuck off to for centuries to watch the lanterns stream across the sky, set free in the sea by the mortals every year during the Summer Solstice Festival.
Naia stepped off the cobblestone road barefoot and into the grass. There was a path paved by her and her father’s footsteps alone.
She found him lying on his back beneath a breadfruit tree, his arms lazily propped behind his head as he peered up at the sea. Large bull sharks filled the sky, a bed of slick, pearl-gray bellies. This time of year, hundreds of the magnificent creatures migrated to prepare for mating season.
Naia took the spot beside him, shifting around in the sand until she was comfortable. Salt water and her father’s floral fragrance hung in the air.
She peeked over at him. Today, tiny pink fringed petal blossoms lay throughout his dark strands. They were one of his favorites he referred to as dianthus. A type of flower he’d often grown in Marina’s hair when she was a child. Too prideful to ask, she’d always pluck one from his locks and admire it. Father would smile and with a small flutter of his wrist, dozens of them bloomed throughout Marina’s updo.
Naia bit at the inside of her cheek, wondering where her little sister had gone off to. How did one become strong enough to win against a High Deity?
“Do you happen to know where Marina went?” she asked.
Her father’s eyes remained closed with his expression arranged peacefully. “Becoming a High Goddess will require intelligence, strength, and worshipers. I am sure she traveled to the Mortal Land to spread word of her name.”
Naia wormed the tip of her fingers into the cool granules of sand, her eyes tracking a smaller bull shark wading through the mass of larger ones. “Do you miss it?”
She had heard the stories of her father from the gossip of servants and guards. Vale, the High God of Nature—how his tears sprouted trees, his laughter painted fields with wildflowers. He roamed the Mortal Land, decorated islands and mountains in groves and tails of golden grass.
Supposedly, it was his generosity to mortals that imprisoned him in Kaimana—for turning rotten soil rich, making it capable of harvest; for splitting apart a mountain to divide villages at war. As the humble word of his name spread, the more infuriated the gods became, their names gradually becoming forgotten.
Despite his fame, Naia never had the courage to request hearing the stories from him directly. Occasionally, a look of dissonance surfaced in his eyes. Some things were better laid to rest.
“I miss freedom,” he answered. “I’ve never much enjoyed remaining in one place.”
How maddening it must’ve been for him to stay put for so long. If he ever had a chance to leave, she wanted him to take it, but she had a feeling he would never do so when she could barely protect herself.
“Father,” she said in a low voice. “I’m deeply sorry I cannot stand up for myself.”
“You need to say no such thing. It is me, darling, who is sorry.” He sat up and reached inside the pocket of his trousers beneath his emerald cloak.
She sat up along with him, intrigued.
He handed her a hairpin with a golden butterfly on its end.
She gaped at it, shaking her head. “What is this for?”
“A gift for you.” He stuck his arm out further, gesturing for her to take it. “Wren is its name.”
Naia accepted the delicate ornament, running its ornate chained tassels delicately through her fingers. “Why did you name your hairpin?”
“Because Wren is a special hairpin.” Her father leaned closer and breathed on the butterfly, the warm air moistening the skin of her hands.
