Page 42 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)

Pheolix

T he oil sconces outside the King’s private rooms didn’t flicker like the lit flame of a candle. But the crystal bowl that housed them seemed to waver and shine the way a bubble of soap does, oil mingling against air, marbling in slow iridescence.

How long did it take to seduce a King and steal a stash of letters from his private study?

More than an hour, apparently. Thaan had wanted Emilius drunk, not incanted , and the King had climbed the stairs on sober legs. Selena had a thick task to accomplish using her body as a weapon, and it was that thought that set fires in my head and nausea in my gut.

I’d tucked myself behind the long, sweeping curtains at first. Then climbed halfway up the stairs when I realized the heartbeat of the guard I’d expected outside Emilius’s door was nowhere to be found. As far as I dared.

I’d broken my hand twice in my life. Once on the jaw of a man. Another under the weight of a shifting stone in the mines. But the thought of hearing a soft moan or a rough laugh through the wall made the memories of both fuzzy.

Made me almost wonder what it might feel like to cock my fist and break it a third time.

Outside the window at the end of the hall, the moon floated over the palace. It traveled slowly, every inch of its journey another minute that dragged by. Every minute that dragged by invited images into my head .

His hands on her.

His mouth on her.

His fucking body on her.

I paced to the window, knife flipping in my hand.

Then turned on my heel to cut across the hall again.

It wasn't as though I wanted to stand here and imagine them together. But the way he’d danced with her, hungrily, as though he’d set out to seduce her as much as she had him.

And the way she’d braced that switch so easily, the way her eyes had locked onto his, gone from handling a plaything to handling her prey.

Here I was, burning slowly in the dark, unsure which of the two was worse.

I’m using you to catch the King’s eye. As long as I don’t crawl into your bed, Thaan’s happy to use my body as a means of strategy.

She would have made a skilled drone, so adept at harnessing her emotions.

I glanced at the King’s door, still closed.

Theia above, the entire hallway suddenly elevated in temperature as my body licked the angry kindling in my blood, and everything in this moon-forsaken hall from the glass window to the wooden beams became so punchable I had to walk with my fist cocked and cradled in my hand.

A noise broke the silence.

Quiet and distant, like the mewl of a kitten. But sharp.

Here it came. I’d been waiting for it. The cloying sound of blended voices, of a mattress shifting, the scent of heavy lust and want and need.

I turned into the wall and let my fist connect to the stone hard enough to summon blood. The pain blinded me for an instant, and I sank my back against the wall, knowing later I’d regret it. But the relief was like nectar. Indulgent. A sweet smear across a pallet soured by pathetic jealousy.

She wasn’t even mine .

Even if she wanted to be, I couldn’t have her.

Prizivac Vodes didn’t waste their time on disposable gnats. And even if they did, it was only for a quick tousle between pillows after a true love had come and gone. Something fast and thoughtless to flame out the wick of desire.

I’d let Thaan call me from the mines for my own reasons. But I’d be cheating myself out of truth if I ignored all the nights between that moment ten years ago and now.

The moment I’d looked into those burning sky eyes, any chance I had at a future unbridled by Thaan shattered.

I’d been informed, before landing on Cypria, that the sisters were important.

Valuable. Hive heirs before they’d even seen their tails.

But I hadn’t realized how closely they’d be tethered to Thaan.

I should have, of course. Where would he keep them, train them, hone their abilities, if not close to himself?

But I’d been young and foolish. Reckless. And perhaps a bit angry.

Was it those eyes alone? Or was it the breath we’d shared, the air she’d sent into my blood, that held me prisoner to that memory? Why had I spent years holding onto it? It surfaced without fail, each night in the dark. Taunting and cruel.

This is the siren you stole from her home.

This is the siren you couldn’t save.

This is the siren who probably still hates you.

This is the siren—

That sound again.

Sore fist pressing into my skull, I cursed my sharp Naiad hearing. This time it wasn’t brief. A long pull, high-pitched and feminine. I paused in the servant stairwell, frozen as I hunted for its source, the hair at the back of my neck standing on end.

Nothing else came.

Had it come from outside? Down the stairs? Was my mind playing tricks on me?

I flicked my knife shut, shoving it into my pocket and lighting up the stairs to the King’s door, tapping a split knuckle against the center .

Nothing.

I knocked again. The veins of the oak door twisted and curved, a knot in the wood parallel to my gaze.

It was ancient, as hard as stone, perhaps petrified.

So heavy it didn’t even rattle against my rap, the dull thud under my hand soft and solid even on my side of the door.

I turned the knob. It revolved in my palm, stopping at a quarter turn. But the door wouldn’t budge.

The sound came again, and I pressed my ear to the wood before it ended.

A scream.

It curdled my blood, laying ice between my bones, whipping every muscle in my body taut. I stepped back. Reared my foot. Stomped.

The door didn’t move.

Knife out. Handle in my palm. No keyhole existed on this side of the door, no way to unlock it.

I wedged the blade between door and jamb, working it deep, rocking the handle in search for a bolt.

But the door was too thick, too hard, too old.

The deeper I pushed, the less my knife was willing to wiggle.

With a low growl, I finally yanked it out.

There had to be a backdoor. No one builds a palace and gives the King one exit.

But the servants’ stairwell only led down and away, and as I walked the length of the hall, no other doors appeared. I flung paintings off their hooks, ripped tapestries from the wall.

Nothing.

The moon hung outside the window, silver beams falling to the carpet floor.

Shadows from the iron frame between windowpanes dissected the light.

It shimmered. Almost as though watching me.

I took a step toward it. Then another, storming across the corridor, lifting the window bench and ramming it through the glass.

Shards of moonlight blasted in every direction.

The bench crashed below, an explosion of wood .

Yelps of surprise came from below, masqueraders funneling in and out of the ballroom, people pointing up at me. Even from up here, music trickled in. I should have been able to hear what was going on in Emilius’s room. But the walls swallowed all the sound inside.

The exterior palace walls were made of glass.

I’d never thought about it before. But as I stretched a foot outside, transferring my weight to the shallow lip of the iron framing, the thought broke the surface. Seaward wind scraped my back, sending my cloak flying behind me.

Voices shrieked below; someone calling for the guards. Perfect. Even if I reached Selena and managed to unlock the King’s door, I’d have to find another way out. This floor would be swarmed soon enough.

Inch by inch, I toed the palace wall. Gripping handholds with only fingertips, my hands ached almost immediately. Fucking King and his fucking door. If I broke in to find Selena fully intact, Thaan would probably kill me. If she wasn’t, I’d rip Emilius apart with my bare hands.

Either way, someone was dying tonight.

Something hard and sharp glanced off the window to my left, too fast for me to see before it fell away.

I froze. Another one ripped the air beside me, slicing through the hood of my cloak. An arrow dangled in the fabric beside my neck.

More of them came. I gritted my teeth as one sliced into the side of my calf.

Reeled my hand away just in time as another struck the glass and stayed, its arrowhead embedding into the window.

A spiderweb of cracks rippled from it in an instant.

I grabbed it and yanked, squinting my eyes shut as glass whipped away, flinging down to the dark.

More cries from below as I jabbed it in and out of the broken glass, widening the hole and growing the cracking fractals until the shattered web extended low enough to kick the rest with the toe of my boot.

Arrows followed as I threw myself inside, four of them piercing the ceiling through the broken window.

I rolled once, fingers splayed low over the floor as I landed in a kneel. Listening.

Shouts trailed me from outside. But inside, all was quiet.

Except for the scraping noise of breath rising and falling, the sound somehow like shredding paper.

Theia help me if I walked in to find too much skin and her draped over him, naked and lost amid the depths of pleasure. But the air around me tasted of fear. Sour, not sultry. And everything felt too quiet. Too charged, yet too still.

The main entrance sat to my left, the bolt I’d been searching for firmly locked. To my right, a wide room with long wooden beams and sprawling windows, expensive furniture tucked around shelves and corners. No King.

No Selena.

I stood. Instinct swirled in my head, throwing commands at me. Move slow. Keep quiet. Stay unseen. But my blood ran cold at that acridity in the air, and my body shed any desire to lift an ear at the voice of reason.

I blazed across the room like a tornado, thunderous enough to rattle the oil paintings on his walls, following the scent of fear, throwing doors open like a gust of violent wind. The first door opened to a luxurious study. The second opened to a bedroom.

Every cord of muscle in my body lit with fire.