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A squeal leaped from Naia as its glossy wings fluttered to life.
Father laughed. “Wren found me during my travels—landed right on my shoulder. I was often lonely, and Wren never left my side.”
Wren’s wings glided in a slow, mesmerizing motion, wandering down her thumb. The sensation of its tiny legs tickled her arm. “I don’t understand. Why is it a hairpin now?”
“A butterfly’s lifespan is an average of four weeks, therefore naturally, Wren began to fade. I was perturbed by their small frame of life, and I no longer wished to walk my path alone.” He exhaled a long breath. “I turned Wren into a relic to keep forever.”
“You made a relic to sate your loneliness?” Naia giggled.
“Yes, I did.”
Naia studied her father’s face, her smile withering to the visible signs of his sadness—the puddled look in his eyes, the small smile drawn across his mouth.
“Wren is yours now. To protect you when I cannot. You must call out its name if you need help. Do you understand?”
Humiliation had heat branding her cheeks, stiffening the muscles in her shoulders. “You believe I am so incapable of protecting myself that you feel the need to give me a weapon?”
“There is nothing wrong with relying on a little help from those you trust. Nobody, not even High Deities, can do everything alone. Consider Wren your first companion.”
Her heart warmed, his words draining away her self-doubt. She could still be strong, just in a different way than most.
Wren crawled down to the back of her hand, crossing over the mountains of her knuckles.
The hairpin was a piece of her father she could keep with her forever.
She smiled, looking up at him. “Thank you, Father. I’ll cherish Wren always.”
With the flick of his wrist, a dahlia sprouted from behind her ear. She brought her fingers to its velvety-soft petals. “I am not a child anymore, Father. You do not have to?—”
“No matter how old you become, Naia, I will always grow you flowers.” The sunlight feathered around him, and the breeze swept his strands off to the side of his forehead. “I love you, darling, deeper than the earth itself.”
With Wren tucked in the braid of her silver hair, Naia and her father made their way back to the palace.
A minute into eating their dinner and a game of chess in the great hall—a favorite game of theirs—Mira summoned him to the throne room.
It was precisely how Naia ended up sitting across from the triplets while finishing her meal.
The topic of conversation amongst the palace walls was of Solaris’s arrival. The servants scurrying in and out of the hall whispered about it. The few relatives filling the seats several tables over mentioned it. Naia could hardly believe a month had gone by since their unsettling confrontation in her bedchamber.
Astrid clucked her tongue. “It’s been weeks since Lord Solaris was last in the kingdom. Doesn’t make much sense when you think about it. Once properly screwed, all men have a single focus.”
Naia continued eating her buttered sourdough, as if she had not heard Astrid’s lewd comment.
“The servants gossip keeps me entertained, dear sister. They say Solaris enters your bedchamber at night and surfaces in the early morning hours,” Astrid continued in a musing, jeering tone. “Keeping a man satisfied is an arduous task to do. Though I do it extremely well, so I would not know what the silent sting of rejection is like.”
Naia flashed her eyes up onto Astrid, her cheeks burning. “I do not expect him to live in Kaimana to worship my vagina.”
Vex, sitting beside Astrid, spat his wine out from snickering. “It seems you’ve hit a nerve in our dear sister, Astrid.”
A wicked smile stretched across Astrid’s mouth. “Lord Solaris is an attractive man with a young appetite. You do not think he is loyal to only you, do you?”
Naia’s heart stuttered. Imagining him with someone else made her frown. Not because she was jealous, but because it seemed like ages since they’d had a proper conversation. She hated how she missed his company after everything.
Mockery swirled in Vex’s eyes. “Perhaps if you had more practice, you could keep him in your bed.”
“Or maybe it is that she does not know how to properly fuck,” Malik suggested.
Naia’s gaze snapped over to him.
