Page 13 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)

Cebrinne

“ W e’re dead.”

“You’re not dead,” I snapped at Selena.

She tossed her luminous dark hair over a shoulder, blue eyes flaming with undoused anger. “If Thaan suspects for even a moment that we’ve double-crossed him, we’re dead.”

“There’s no we ,” I tossed back. The carriage wheel dropped into a hole in the rock, and we each jounced. “You’re free, Senna. You can go. At any moment, you can just leave .”

She stared me down, the cut of betrayal deep in her gaze. As though I were someone she suddenly didn’t recognize.

I rocked my skull against the cushioned backrest, searching the ceiling of our coach for an answer for her.

“I can’t do it anymore, Senna. I see my life stretched before me, and death suddenly feels like a salve to a wound that will only fester.

The last two weeks, taking these sanguis proditionis, having free rein over my voice, my clothes, my very thoughts…

” I closed my eyes. “I’ve come up for air when I didn’t realize I was drowning.

Returning to Calder now feels like preparing to fill my lungs with water.

I signed Thaan’s contract so he wouldn’t kill us, but I never cared about what happened to me. You can escape. You can go .”

She said nothing. Across from us, Pheolix slept with his temple tucked against the glass, eyes hidden under the hem of his hood.

We’d spent a fortnight discussing everything we knew about Thaan with Aegir and Vouri.

When Thaan woke. When he slept. His daily schedule.

Monthly. Yearly. Who he kept close. Who he kept distant.

His methods of recruitment. His role in the Calderian court.

The layout of the palace. Selena and I supplied most of the information.

Pheolix’s lips had pulled flat with dislike when Deimos’s name surfaced.

He’d sat beside us, ankle crossed over his knee, only offering pieces of information that aided our knowledge of Thaan’s drones or the Sylus Mountains, of which Aegir needed little.

By then, Selena had explained to me how she’d met him.

I vaguely remembered the young Naiad whom Deimos attacked the night of our first transition, but she recalled it clearly.

Our time and my stash of blood drops spent, Aegir decided to send Vouri to Calder City with her own pouch of wax-sealed blood to be hired in the administrative offices as a rogue Naiad, feeding information through Aegir’s own channels at port, a decision he’d been determined to avoid until the last minute.

“Are you still thinking about Leihani?” Selena asked, cutting into my thoughts.

“No,” I lied.

In the corner of my eye, she sat up straight, the focus of her gaze demanding I look at her. But I continued to watch the ceiling.

“Good,” she finally said. “Because I’ll help you do this. I’ll help you spy on Thaan, and I’ll help you give him to his enemies. But I won’t help you abandon me. I won’t help you escape to an island to find a husband, have a daughter, and then abandon them.”

“All right, then,” I said.

“I mean it. I won’t protect her. I won’t train her. I won’t help her find her mate just to lead them to their own deaths. I won’t, Ceba, and you can just tread water with that knowledge whenever you think of seeking some relief from drowning .”

I blew a slow breath from my nose. We’d asked if there was a way to kill Thaan. And Theia, Goddess of the Moon, Keeper of the Future, had answered. My death started the prophecy. The Blood . Then my daughter’s cordae . The Lover. Then, finally, my daughter herself. The Warrior.

Theia had explained where to find the stones. The Breath of Safiro, in a volcano. The Scale of Safiro, in an underwater cavern. That we’d need both, but we wouldn’t be the ones to reach them. The warrior would.

Theia had explained that a human boy would find her. Selena would mentor her. Aid her. Deliver the final message for her.

At no point in her prophecy had Theia said, Aegir will help you kill Thaan.

Faced with Aegir’s Naiads, I’d broken from our plan to ask for his help out of desperation. Not for myself.

For Selena.

Thaan glanced up from a scrawled parchment over his desk as Deimos closed the door of his private office behind us.

He was in his smaller form, Cain, but he pulled his spectacles off by the frame, depositing them carelessly on the table, then pressed his fingertips together as he looked over the three of us.

His limbs lengthened, chest broadening as he shifted to his true self, though the cut of his eyes remained cold. The Videre of a colony of land-Naiads.

Pheolix leaned against the back wall, only his mouth and sharp jaw visible under the drape of his wide hood. Selena stood at my side before the desk .

“You didn’t corda-cruor ,” Thaan finally said, though he didn’t sound surprised.

“No,” I replied. “Not yet.”

“You entered his colony?”

“Yes.”

Thaan indicated a finger at Deimos, who leaned over Thaan’s desk to clear it of paperwork, his silver chain glinting as he did. The Oculos unrolled a map of the Venusian Sea onto the bare wood. Thaan lifted a brow at me.

“Here,” I said, pointing to the home of the Venusia.

“In an old conch shell. A giant one.” We’d agreed against supplying false information on hard facts.

Things that could be verified. Thaan was a thousand years old.

I don’t know how deep the well of his knowledge ran, but I was confident he’d test mine.

“A prehistoric ammonite,” Selena corrected under her breath.

I shrugged.

“Did he question whether you truly came from Garieh Kon?”

“Not quite.” Standing, I crossed my legs, then forced myself to still over my feet.

“He questioned whether you turned me down as a cordae . He thought we were sniffing for the chance at a better offer by passing through their water.” I wasn’t an adept liar.

I’d never cared to craft the skill of keeping other people happy, whether through deception or otherwise.

Thaan leaned backward in his seat. He tossed his fountain pen aside. “What did you think of him?”

I paused. Thaan had never asked me such a question before. I wasn’t even certain I’d heard him correctly. What did I think of Aegir? What was there to even think of?

“He’s very serious,” Selena answered for me. “He loves his colony.”

“Did you like him?” Thaan asked, ignoring her. I felt her tense beside me. Thaan usually directed questions to Selena. I was the link between them. The weight that kept her close. My opinion was invalid. But Thaan watched me now, patient for an answer .

“Why would it matter?” I finally said. “You plan to kill him.”

Thaan’s lips twitched. “Would you invite him to your bed?”

The tone of my voice dropped. “I believe I don’t have a choice.”

“You don’t.” Thaan snapped his fingers, and Deimos served me a thin notebook. I took it from him slowly, gaze narrowed and determined to avoid his lupine eyes.

It wasn’t that I blamed Deimos for my transition. Thaan owned him just as he owned me. But that didn’t stop the need to flex my shoulders and neck whenever he loomed nearby. The same shudder you loosed when you realized a spider sat over your shoulder or when your mind saw shapes in the dark.

“I’ve identified the intelligence we need in the margins,” Thaan drawled, watching me turn the leather-bound book in my hands.

Much the same information Aegir had asked for.

“Fill it in tonight. I expect it will take you several hours. Give it to the new secretary assistant. Freisa hired her yesterday.”

The new secretary. Selena’s eyes met mine, and we quickly glanced away. Freisa was the human seneschal in charge of hiring for the palace offices. Easily incanted —which was how so many Naiads worked within Thaan’s administration.

Vouri had made it in.

Thaan connected his fingertips again. “When will he expect you back?”

“Tomorrow,” Selena supplied. “He thinks we’re sending word to Garieh Kon.”

“Is he… intrigued by your offer?” Thaan asked, glancing back at me.

Their gazes followed, and the room settled into silence.

I lifted my chin, sending ice through the air as I answered him. “Yes.”