Page 44 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)

Selena

T he guards stormed after us, swarming the balcony. Watching us drop.

The rope snapped tight like a whip. A lash at my spine. Pheolix spun as we fell against the night sky, turning toward the palace.

We swung, a pendulum of two bodies.

His arm tightened over me as we crashed into the window below.

It exploded around us. We rolled across the floor of a dark room. Shouts followed us in with the shards of moon and glass, the tide of boots thudding across the floor above.

Pheolix grabbed me, hoisting me up against him. “Do you know where we are?”

The floor below the King? “The Queen’s private chambers.”

He didn’t respond. Maybe my words were too quiet for him to hear. But he opened the Queen’s door into a hallway much like the King’s, and when the guard stationed there spun to look at us in surprise, Pheolix punched him in the throat.

The man went down wide-eyed, mouth agape in a silent howl.

Pheolix strode past him, yanking open the servants’ stairwell and taking the steps down three at a time.

He swung over the railing when we heard a door crash open somewhere above, feet echoing off the walls and stairs, landing in a crouch and gripping me tight to his chest.

White spots had appeared in the edges of my vision. My arms and legs had stopped moving, and I’d stopped trying to make them .

“Heiress,” I heard Pheolix say. But his voice was far away, and although I knew he held me, his warmth and touch were far away as well. “Almost there.” He turned to shove a door open with his shoulder, and then we were outside in the rain.

My body began to slip. I was mist over a ledge. Thin, quiet tendrils of vapor falling one at a time. I knew he was running, somehow. I could feel it. Could hear it.

And then I couldn’t.

I was standing on the ledge. Not mist. Me.

Pheolix was nowhere to be found.

Behind me lay the world.

Before me lay the stars.

An entire sea of them. They rolled softly like the sea as well.

Some dim, some bright. Waves of them lapped just past my toes, glittering, twinkling.

There was no air to breathe. Yet I could feel myself breathing anyway.

Could taste it, smell it. A scent older than time, the fired embers of the stars.

They tasted of ash and hidden truth. Dust and forgotten memories.

Cinders and all the words ever left unsaid.

The mist that had fallen away regrouped, folding and sifting, burning softly until it became silver dust. It wound away from me, across the starlit sea, stretching to an island not far from where I stood.

An island with silver beaches under the gently crashing waves.

Lit and glowing by something within itself.

Something like home. Something like love.

I stared at it, knowing if I simply left the ledge, if I simply took a step, I couldn’t come back.

A small nudge pressed against my fingers.

A black and silver creature made of the same dust stared up at me. Its edges morphed and sharpened, as though it couldn’t quite retain its shape. It was soft. Not quite solid but not liquid or gas either. Like a sandcastle left baking under the sun, only to disintegrate the moment you touched it .

The creature leaned toward me with long legs and a slender snout, a shaggy coat of sparkling dust. It nudged me again, black eyes gleaming.

Go back.

I glanced back at the island. At the waves and waves of endless stars. At the way it hummed with warmth.

The creature nudged me a third time, forcing me to take a step away from the stars. His dust broke through my fingertips, but he lowered his head and pressed a gruff shoulder into me.

I stumbled backwards and fell.

My eyes opened to Thaan’s ceiling. Plaster and stone and fine wood grain across wide beams. The scent of burned skin tinged my nose. My fingers twitched where they lay across his table.

“Selena.”

I tried to shift, and someone held my leg down.

“Don’t let her move.” Thaan’s voice. “I’m closing her wound.”

A voice beside my neck. “Hold still, heiress.”

Across the room, Ceba stood, watching with red-rimmed eyes.

Someone pounded at the door. Thaan glanced up. “Wait, Deimos. Don’t answer it yet.”

“That will be the King’s men,” Pheolix said. “Reporting Emilius’s attack to his advisor.”

Thaan harrumphed . “Cebrinne, go to your apartment and lock all doors. If a human enters, sing to them and leave them for me. Deimos, clean this mess.” He wiped his hands on a cloth, staining it bright red, then leaned the flat of his fists against the table, gazing across my body at Pheolix.

“Find the key in my top drawer and take Selena to the lowest level of the servants’ quarters, down to the last door.

Do not leave. Wait until I come for you.

After tonight, you’re relieved of your post. ”

“No—”

The word was out of me before I could catch it. It was small. Quiet. But it was enough to make Thaan rock on his heels. Pheolix’s jaw hardened. He turned, leaving me. From another room, a drawer opened and closed.

Thaan looked coldly down at me. “It’s not up for discussion.”

I caught his hand before he passed, waiting for him to gaze fully at me. “He knows.” Each breath burned, as though the air in my lungs had turned acidic and stale in the moments I’d stopped breathing. “Emilius knows .”

Thaan’s eyes flashed. His mouth thinned. He pushed my hand away, footsteps leaving the room.

Cebrinne had already turned back through the study. Deimos waited for me to move, a sudsy bucket in his hand. Pheolix gathered me up, tucking my legs and shoulders against his chest, lifting me away. He followed Cebrinne into our apartment, waiting for her to lock the door behind her.

“I need a clean dress for her,” he said.

For the first time, I thought to look down at myself.

My skin had been wiped clean, but my dress was destroyed.

It had been cut down the center, all the way to my navel, any modesty I might have hoped for shredded along with the fabric.

A pale pink line garnished my stomach where Emilius had planted his knife, freshly sewn shut by Thaan’s water calling.

One more in my forearm, three along my thighs.

They’d almost claimed my life. Two days from now, they’d disappear.

Cebrinne dug an old garment from my wardrobe.

Soft cotton, long-sleeved and warm. A dress I saved for cold evenings spent indoors.

Eyes bloodshot, she laid it next to a woolen cloak on my bed then closed the door behind her, as though she couldn’t stand the sight of me.

Pheolix peeled my ruined gown off, refusing to meet my eyes.

I remembered that first day on the Venusian beach, right before we’d dived in to find Aegir’s colony, when he’d openly stared at my body and teased.

“Pheolix,” I murmured. He hesitated then guided my arm through a sleeve. His throat worked once, silent as he leaned me against his shoulder, pulling the dress down over my hips .

My anger washed the room in sudden red at the thought of him ignoring my voice.

“Pheolix,” I hissed. He still didn’t respond, hoisting me back up.

I shoved him away, swinging my legs down.

“I’ll walk.” The first step sent me spinning.

He caught my arm before I hit the floor, but I shoved him away again.

“I don’t want your help if you can’t even speak to me. ”

“Selena.”

I glared up at him. He gazed back, a small notch between his brows. Then tugged my arm over his head, wrapping it around his neck as he picked me back up.

Cebrinne waited at the open door to lock us out, heavy reluctance in her eyes. We didn’t say a word as he carried me down the hall. When a rush of guards passed us, he folded us behind a nearby curtain, waiting for them to pass. His eyes remained locked onto the floor.

We descended a tower’s worth of steps. Every single one. Down the servants’ quarters, to the heart of the palace, under stone and wood and glass. Pheolix finally set me down to dig out Thaan’s key, swinging the door open to a tiny, cold room, barely larger than my wardrobe.

A single bed waited, pressed against the wall.