Page 36 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)
Cebrinne
“ H ow do I look?”
I hadn’t realized I’d been staring at the door, still closed after Selena had passed through it, until Vouri roused me from my thoughts. I forced something like a smile over my mouth, though it felt slimy between my lips. “Beautiful.”
“Not that it matters.” Vouri rolled a shoulder forward and turned, offering herself a better view of her back in the mirror. The boning of her vibrant green dress was nearly invisible, the fabric an intricate mess of dips and slants. “I’ll be meeting my brother, not Sindri.”
I motioned for her to turn back around, then nestled a veined leaf mask over her freckled nose. Not a perfect match to her dress, but in the dark, no one would notice. “It doesn’t hurt for your brother to think you’re beautiful.”
She rolled her eyes, though a soft blush dusted her cheek below the edge of her mask. “Are you and Selena all right?”
I swallowed. Pressed my teeth together. Forced myself to step beyond the sting of Selena’s words, each of them still sinking into my skin like spoken barbs.
If you break my heart, you may not have it back. I won’t stay here in Calder and wait to meet her. I won’t help her. I won’t protect her. I won’t give her Theia’s message.
“No,” I finally said .
She nodded slowly, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Siblings can be hard. But they come around.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Nodded back and secured the delicate strings of my swan mask under the twisted knot of my own locks. The dark navy feathers almost matched my blue-black hair, and though things like royal balls were frivolous and unnecessary, I let myself float into the disguise of it.
“Ready?” Vouri asked.
A door closed in Thaan’s rooms.
Our eyes locked in silence. My muscles tightened, each one on high alert at the thought of Thaan opening our door and finding Vouri here. The secretary Naiad who had no ties to us, who had joined his administration only after he’d sent us to Aegir.
But the sound of footfalls pumped leisurely from the other side of the wall, unhurried, and a second door closed within his rooms. I exhaled slowly.
There was nothing unusual about two young, female heartbeats in my apartment.
But it would be foolish to linger here. I gave her a single, quick nod. “Let’s go.”
We took the sky bridge to the east, the route that would have led us to the ballroom, not even bothering to hide in the servants’ passage. We didn’t need to, dressed as we were. Rain drizzled over the large windows, blurring the shine of the moon outside.
Vouri seemed comfortable with our mutual silence. Usually, I would be, too. Usually, I’d prefer it. Demand it. Glower at anyone who interrupted it.
If you do this, I’ll never forgive you.
I’ll never forgive you. I’ll never forgive you. I’ll never forgive you.
“You don’t have to return to Calder, Vouri,” I said, gaze hovering over the dark ocean in the distance. “I’m not staying, so I can’t expect you to.”
Her mouth twisted to the side. “Is that why Selena’s upset?”
You just want to give up .
I sighed. “Among other reasons.”
A couple passed us, their garb a gold embroidery that verged on vulgar, their masks each a pointed beak.
We waited as the click of their heels faded away, drowned under the soft pang of rain against the windows.
Overlapping voices buzzed from below, interlaced with the strings of a harp.
Ambient music. The festivities, the dancing, gambling, and raucous drinking hadn’t yet begun.
Selena loved those things. She was probably fizzling with the itch to start.
“Do you know how my parents died?” Vouri asked.
The question took me by surprise, plucking my thoughts away from imagining Selena laughing somewhere below. I glanced at the Naiad over my shoulder. “No, I don’t.”
“It was similar to how my grandmother was killed. Thaan sent a horde of drones through Venusian waters, undetectable to a Videre . But he also sent a small handful of his other sirens. My grandfather sensed them immediately, but he was along the western edge of our sea. Hours away.
“My mother was close by. She was a Prizivac Vode , a cousin of Ursa’s, born in Paria. She stumbled on two of them, and they pretended to flee. Not knowing they were drones, she followed. And ran into an ambush.”
At the winding crystal staircase, Vouri stopped walking. I stopped, too, turning back to face her. Her gaze had withered, and she focused on the shadows along the far edge of the palace towers outside, where the torchlight draped across giant panes of glass.
“She was no threat against two dozen drones. They would have eclipsed her in mere seconds, incapacitating her the moment they came close. They dragged her on land and killed her. Then—” She made a motion with her chin.
A small jerk; a tiny flinch. “Then tore her body apart and left her strewn across the beach for us to find. He could have just killed her and left. But he wanted to provoke Venusia into a war. He wanted to enrage my father, wanted to lure him from the safety of the colony. ”
My chest deflated quietly. I’d wondered at the distrust she’d harbored for Pheolix. At the way she and Aegir had looked at him at first, the refusal to use Pheolix’s name. How difficult had it been for them, allowing one of Thaan’s drones inside their colony, arranging to work alongside him?
“How long ago was this?”
Vouri offered a short shrug. “Thirty years. I was a baby; Aegir was a child. I don’t remember it.
My father caught them a few days later with our Naiad legion, and only then did he realize Thaan had attacked with drones.
Naiads don’t train to fight the way humans do.
We don’t need our bare hands to kill. But an army of drones fighting an army of Naiads—we were like peasants among soldiers.
My brother was the only survivor. He escaped, made his way back to Venusia.
But my grandfather lost his cordae and his son.
He spent the next three decades dying of a broken heart. ”
She ran her fingers across her cheek and up the bridge of her nose, snaking them under her mask.
I waited to scent the hot metal of anger.
It didn’t come, though I suppose that didn’t shock me.
The loss of my freedom was still fresh enough to burn.
I remembered a life before it. A poor but happy one, on a small, sandstone island built over the sea.
Vouri had grown up with this truth, never really experiencing the loss within it.
And maybe I was projecting my own bottled anger by searching for the scent of her ire. Maybe I was searching for what I would have felt.
But sadness reflected back at me in her green eyes. The ache of something deeper than a white flash of anger. Is that what my rage would someday become once I'd had thirty years of it? When the fire burned out, would simple grief leave a void there instead?
“I have to come back to Calder,” she said.
“Thaan will target Venusia as long as he sits in a castle overlooking Venusian waters. Juile, too. This is the closest we’ve ever come to fighting back.
Even if you leave, I won’t go home. I can’t.
I’ve gained so much here. Even if it takes thirty more years, I’ll stay in the secretaries’ offices, gathering information until the time comes to strike. ”
Thirty more years.
Maybe by then I’d be back. It seemed an impossible number of years to wait for.
“I understand.” I took her hand, ignoring the awkward way it felt in mine, and squeezed.
“I just don’t want you staying here for a plan that I’ve abandoned.
I never intended to deceive you. That's why I told you from the start I didn’t intend to cordae with Aegir.
” She raised a brow under her leafy mask, and I laughed.
Laughed, and something heavy anchored over my heart.
“You know, I’ve never had friends before. Other than my sister.”
It almost made me want to stay.
Vouri squeezed back. “I never have either, other than my brother. And Sindri.”
Speaking her future cordae’s name carved a dimple under the corner of her mouth, a small crinkle in her eyes. She pressed her lips together, fighting a wide smile. Losing.
I snickered, taking the handrail. “Come on.”
We stole down the steps, fourteen flights of them.
Vouri panted behind me as we reached the ground floor, covering our heads under the rain for our dash to the trees outside the ballroom.
I kept my eyes away from the glass, decidedly against searching for any young women in violet gossamer skirts and amethyst masks.
Petrichor hung in the air, damp and warm, the sweet scent of the gardens clinging to it.
Wet grass combed my ankles, sticking to the hem of my skirts.
“This way,” I said, catching her arm before she ducked down a shaded passage.
“But the cliffs are ahead?” She pointed a confused hand. “This isn’t where you and Selena come and go, is it?”
“Selena and I are well-known throughout the palace. No one questions our comings and goings. But you’re new here, and we’re wearing masks far from the party.” I cocked my head to the left. “There’s a blind spot for the guards under the curtain wall. It’s patrolled by only two men, easy to sing to.”
She motioned for me to lead the way.
I cast a few glances behind us as we darted across the grounds.
Rain hid the sounds of anyone loitering nearby, and the further we ventured past the manicured topiaries and weeping willows, the deeper shadows grew.
Only the torches along the wall offered us twisted direction.
Small sparks flamed into flakes of dust, twirling away into the night.