Page 29 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)
Cebrinne
D rip…drip…drip…
I’d hit water first.
I’d meant to swim to the other side. Climb out and scale the wall to the opposite end, if nothing else, to prove it couldn’t be done.
I knew I’d fail before I even leapt. I knew the water would spit me out somewhere.
I knew Selena would pace and rage. She’d yell and throw things to watch them explode.
Her hands always gravitated toward objects that shattered.
She’d never throw a rock unless it were aimed at a crystal vase.
The strangest curse might be the one where you learn the time and place of your own death.
It makes you careless in all other moments.
And it was true that I’d always been impatient.
My thoughts often ran as rash and wild as a current, predictable only in that it was unpredictable.
Rational ideas and slow consideration couldn’t sway a river’s moods or an ocean’s temper because a river and an ocean have no need for sensible, sober thought.
It was too easy to cast the threat of danger off my shoulders. To think, I won’t die today , because I already know that I’ll die on an island laden with tall palms and turquoise waters.
So, I jumped. I fell. I hit water.
And then I dropped.
It rose around me as though I were a stake in the ground, driving it out and away, the force of it misting my toes.
But there was nothing to reach for, nothing to hold onto to stop my descent.
I free-fell, the quiet glow above shrinking as it grew distant and dim, the flying wind a scream in my ears.
And then I stopped.
The place I landed felt more liquid than solid, though it wasn’t wet , and I didn’t sink into its surface.
I tumbled over the top of it, shadows rippling out from under me like I’d disturbed the stillness of a lake, and when I finished rolling, I lay with arms and legs spread, staring up into the throes of nothing.
Water dripped. I listened as I caught my breath. Its rhythm echoed, and something about it thrummed inside me, playing my breastbone like a drum.
Ice dragged across the inner side of my arm.
I flinched, jerking my gaze to the side.
But nothing was there. Ice dragged down my opposite arm, and I shoved myself upright, gaining my feet and backing away, a frozen chill sliding down my spine.
There was nothing to hide behind, no shield or veil.
Just dark. It grew and spilled over itself, whispering tendrils that dissolved and rejoined like liquid smoke.
I had a sudden, terrible urge to stroke it.
It wrapped around my arm again, fingers like the filaments in a stray cloud, and struck a shudder through my skin.
“What is this?” it said. “A mortal come to strike a deal?” The wisp slid its cold grasp across my shoulder and down my neck. “Which one are you, darling? Lonely, angry, or in love?”
I tensed, refusing to pull away again.
“None of them.”
“ Angry ,” it cooed. “And which do you seek? Distance from your anger? Relief from it? A resolution? Or do you simply desire calm, complete control?”
I let it sweep into my hair and out the other side, washing down my front and dropping at my feet in a way that seemed both heavy and weightless. “Am I dreaming? ”
“A dream? I’ve never been called such a lovely thing.”
“Fine.” I glanced up, squinting my eyes in the dark. “How do I get out of here?”
“Payment.”
It rolled off my chin, the edges of it sticking like fingertips, and I wrenched myself slowly out of its grasp. “What kind of payment?”
“Control, I think. Control is what this pet craves. What she is willing to do for it—” The smoky tentacles wrapped around my leg, shifting through my dress to climb my waist.
“You’re Darkness,” I said flatly.
I swear the shadow smiled.
“I didn’t come for a bargain.” I took a step away, but it merely followed, wrapped around me like a rope of dark, cold steam. “My life is complicated enough with the involvement of one god. I don’t need to owe any favors to another.”
Darkness laughed, the sound like dripping water. “And which of the gods have guided your misfortune? The three Fates? The pompous sun? The high-strung moon?”
I hesitated. “Theia.”
“Theia,” it echoed, shadows pulsing slowly. “What did the silver fortune teller ask of you, and what did she take?”
Something ticked inside my head. A mental stumble, a reach for better footing. “Nothing.”
Darkness skimmed the edge of my mouth. “Your lies taste sweet.” I opened my mouth to protest any evidence of lies, and the shadows whisked away, sifting like sand over the floor.
What did Theia take?
Nothing yet. Nothing except the last stitches of patience from my head, the last threads of caution from my heart. She’d taken the unknown from me, and only now that it was gone did I realize the unknown is a refuge. A sanctuary for change .
“She said to light a candle under a blood moon, and when the wax was liquid, to open my vein and vow myself as the first in a Triad.”
The shadow halted. It hovered as though it had forgotten how to wave and spill.
“The Triad,” it said softly. “The lover, the blood, the warrior.” Something deep in my belly twisted at the way Darkness said those words.
Intimately. As though they were the names of friends.
As though he’d said them many times before, a longing woven between each of them.
“For what purpose would you give the lives of those you love?”
“I don’t love them. They barely exist.”
“You will. The cruelest gift is always the discovery of love.”
I glared at it, unwilling to discuss the participants of my Triad. I barely wanted to think of them. The boy was still a toddler. I saw him sometimes, following his older brother and their mother across the palace grounds, his hair a bouquet of shining sandy curls, his eyes bright and intelligent.
And the girl—I couldn’t think about the girl. Thinking led to imagining. To wondering. To pretending. To wishing and dreaming and searching for any possible way to change the course of fate.
You must die first.
Darkness wavered softly, waiting for my answer. High above, something big skittered in the dark, but when I glanced up, I saw nothing. “Theia explained how to kill my master with the stones,” I said, eyes locked above me.
“The stones.” Darkness laughed again. “That is why you are here. How you fell into my house. My little pet, the stones won’t kill Thaan of Safiro. They will only take his power. Theia placed the stones. Only a child of the moon can retrieve them. Even I could not—”
“My daughter will be a child of the moon,” I cut in. I suddenly had my fill of this place. Of Darkness’s silky voice, its wispy shadows. I glanced up again, ready to leave. “Tell me what you want, so I can get out of here.”
Darkness watched me in silence. I had the strangest feeling I had surprised it .
Drip…drip…drip…
“Darling mortal,” it finally said. “I will help you escape my home if you will grant me a simple request.”
I stiffened, crossing my arms, my frown deepening. “Which is?”
“When she is born, this child of the moon, you will introduce me to her.”
My mouth thinned. I shifted slightly. “Why? Will you try to strike a bargain with her?”
Darkness shivered. “The moon sees the future and grows round and bright with hope. The sun rises and sets over his ever-present castle in the clouds, watching his achievements unfold before his eyes. The Fates rule the stars: Time, Truth, and Love. What do I have, precious?”
My mouth parted, and I struggled to find any words other than the dark.
The shadow smiled. “I am regulated to the deep, the lost, the forgotten. Aalto creates, Theia heals, and what do I do? I collect the broken pieces left behind. The monsters searching for salvation. Call my name in the night, pet, when the sun is abed and the moon is new and the night is dark. Let me meet her, this child of the moon.”
I stared at it. The wispy shadows; the coiling tendrils. “And what will happen if I refuse?”
Drip…drip…drip…
“Refuse? Then you will be one of my creatures. A little wraithling to sit upon my shelves with my trinkets and bobbles. But do not worry, darling.” It slid across the floor to my feet, stroking up my leg and waist, then swirled once across my chest, vanishing from sight. “You will not refuse.”