Page 65 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)

Selena

T he drones stepped back as soon as Pheolix fell.

Someone else emerged.

I sensed him hovering in my periphery as I tugged Pheolix’s shirt away from the arrow in his side. Blood leaked from its entry point; the arrowhead was buried deep. Black blood.

I reached for the water in his body, desperate to pull the poison shield weed out of him. But ice crusted over my lips. My fingers shivered in the frost of the drones' eclipse. And blood continued to churn, darker with each breath Pheolix took.

“Go,” he said, shoving me away. “Run, heiress.”

“No,” I snarled, throwing the hood back over my shoulders. I’d come all this way. I’d planned for months. Had fantasized for a year. Had left the only other thing I loved in this world just to find him.

A flash of feathers cut through the stars in my periphery.

I sensed Thaan leaning over me to gaze at Pheolix, but I ignored him.

Around the arrow, his flesh began to peel and curl like paper eaten by a flame.

Pheolix grabbed me by the edges of my cloak, yanking me toward him.

Away from Thaan. He grimaced at the motion, his teeth bright even in the dark, and I realized there was no surprise in his eyes.

“You knew,” I whispered.

Pheolix opened his mouth .

Thaan laughed, cold and mocking. “Honestly, Selena. You are like your sister. So predictable. Only one of my drones could lead you in. They were stationed at each exit, waiting for you to come out.”

We’d traveled by night. By dark. We’d watched for signs of life—signs of Naiads. Listened, smelled. We’d walked over rock, leaving no tracks, and the rain had hidden our presence.

I suppose the rain had hidden their presence, too.

“I thought, once I dropped the boulder down, that we might be safe,” Pheolix said.

I wanted to ask why he didn’t tell me, but I realized he had. Leaving the horse, making me run through the mines, dropping that boulder. He’d known I’d walked us into a trap by breaking him out.

I guess I'd known it, too. But I'd come anyway.

Thaan lowered himself into a crouch, staring into my eyes. “What better way to ensure you’d mate with Pheolix than to tell you never to see him again?”

Mate with him? Had Pheolix known that, too?

I dared a quick glance at Pheolix, but shock washed the color from his face.

Do you always do what he expects you to?

“Yes, I planned that.” Thaan’s fingertips joined.

He smiled at the necrotic skin that grew at the edges of the arrowhead.

“There’s little in your life that I don’t plan, Selena.

The boy who defied orders to save you stared across the ship at you the next morning, and you stopped to stare back.

Then reports came in the following years.

He stayed awake at night, every night for years, talking to a girl.

And you . You, I sent mission after mission, robbing nobles and royalty of their memories by seducing their minds, waiting to see if you’d fall for one I could use.

But you didn’t. So, I brought Pheolix in on a hunch.

When you turned around to stare at him the morning I sent you to Venusia, I knew I’d hit my mark. ”

The ice in his blue eyes glimmered. “I never imagined it might take you over a year to finally mate with him. To give up the cordae you’d always wanted.

I thought perhaps sending you on a mission together might lead to it.

Setting the king as a target, banishing you to that room with one bed—even I questioned whether my instinct was right. ”

“Why not order me to mate with him, then?” I spat.

Thaan leaned in, looming over my face. “Because I could sense Cebrinne was growing restless, and she’s impulsive enough that I don’t trust her.

She’s not like you. She’s not loyal. I knew if I lost track of her, I’d lose track of you.

And because I do not own you, Selena.” He smiled, his gaze sliding to Pheolix. “But now I do.”

He stood abruptly, and I had to lean into Pheolix to avoid colliding with his head. Pheolix’s body went rigid, hands and arms wrapping around me by reflex, almost as though he knew something I didn’t.

Four Naiads descended upon him, wresting his arms behind his back, and two more dragged me away. Across rocks and pine needles, Pheolix’s breath guttered. His shoulders arched forward, trying to control the agony of shield weed through the slow release of his air, the tension in his muscles.

“Don’t touch her,” Pheolix panted. Wild pain coiled in the planes of his face, but his eyes and mouth twisted with violence, and the scent of sudden fury blasted across the mountain air.

Thaan pointed at him. One of the drones approached.

“Wait!” I gasped out, shoving the Naiads who held me away.

“Get that out of him before he’s worthless to me,” Thaan commanded.

The drone struck a boot in Pheolix’s side, ripping the arrow out.

Pheolix fell to the ground, and one of the Naiads holding him forced him back up.

He wavered on his knees, his hair wind-blown, his skin pale.

But his eyes cut to Thaan like steel knives, murder lurking in the twist of his mouth.

Smoke curled from somewhere behind me. One of them had started a fire .

I yanked again. But my body was cold from the grip of their combined eclipse, my limbs numb, my movements delayed.

Thaan nodded his head once, a silent command they reacted to without question, tearing Pheolix's cloak and shirt from his body.

Blood smeared across his abdomen, the veins in his side like black bolts of lightning.

“What do you want me to do, Thaan?” I asked, watching the poison leach further into him. The two drones hauled me to my feet, forcing me to back a step away.

But Thaan wasn’t looking at me.

“I’d burn every bone in my body to keep you warm,” Thaan drawled, staring at the loathing in Pheolix’s gaze. “I’d sacrifice every drop of my blood to keep you safe.”

Suddenly, I understood what was happening.

“Vow nothing,” I ordered. “He won’t hurt me.

He’s bluffing.” My voice cut off as one of the Naiads pushed me into the other.

Legs and feet dulled with cold, I stumbled into the drone, and he pushed me back.

I fell before I could catch myself. Anger curled my lips from my teeth, the air in front of my mouth so cold it blew white.

I unclasped the strap of my knife, throwing myself into the chest of the drone that had tossed me down, burying the blade in his heart.

He coughed blood in my face, crumpling away. One of them grabbed me from behind, flinging me back down to the stone. The knife flew from my hand, skittering across pine needles and rock.

“Bind his mouth,” Thaan said.

I wrenched myself upright, flexing the sting out of my palms, unable to separate fear from the anger swirling in my chest. The nearest drone snatched my hand, hurling me back to the ground as one of the drones holding Pheolix jerked his head back with a fistful of hair.

Another tied a wide leather strap over his mouth.

“Since you think I’m not serious,” Thaan said, pulling his hands behind his back, “let’s hold a demonstration. ”

He clicked his tongue.

Something moved at my right.

A shadow so fast I didn’t even have time to turn my head.

Everything snapped out.

I woke to the sound of muffled screaming.

The screams came from one person. But they pierced me from every direction.

I thought they were mine at first. But as moonlight filtered through my lashes, as I rocked my head from one direction to the other, stirring myself awake, I realized they weren’t. They were too deep. Too masculine. Too desperate to belong to my voice.

The taste of iron bloomed across my tongue. I couldn’t see out of my right eye. Couldn’t straighten my left leg. A horn inside my head blared with every pulse, and my jaw clicked when I tried to open it, sending a sharp needle into the base of my ear.

I rolled drunkenly onto a shoulder, propping my elbow beneath me and lifting my head.

Pheolix had moved. He lay on a hip, slowly crawling to me. Black veins stretched from the gaping hole in his side, a pulpy web that now canvased his chest and stomach, slowly creeping into his shoulder and throat. His fingers laced into mine, and he tucked his head over my neck .

The rest of them had stepped back. One wiped fresh blood from his mouth, another sported a gash across his cheek that hadn’t been there before.

“Swear it on your blood,” Thaan said, his voice hanging somewhere I couldn’t see.

Pheolix’s fingers tightened over mine. Regret swam in the gray. “I’m sorry, heiress,” he whispered.

“Swear it.”

My breath sent the strands of Pheolix’s russet hair swaying. Swear what?

Swear what, swear what, swear what?

Pheolix closed his eyes. “I swear on my blood.”

Light burned into a slice across the back of his hand. They’d already cut him for the vow. Already stated the terms.

“What did you do?” I gasped, my voice breathless. “What did you vow?”

He swallowed, shaking his head as though he couldn’t bring himself to tell me.

My hands began to shake. A burn lashed at the back of my eyes. “What about everything you wanted?" I demanded. "What about Rivea? What about your escape?”

Knuckles bloodied, Pheolix tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Do you not understand, Selena? You are my escape.”

My mouth opened and closed as his lashes fluttered shut. His thumb coasted to a stop on the ridge of my ear. A black vein threaded into the side of his jaw, reaching toward his mouth.

“Bring him here,” Thaan said.

Pheolix didn’t move as they grabbed him by the legs, pulling him to Thaan, letting his bare chest and face drag over hard rock.

I climbed upright, fire suddenly roaring in my ears. Every shift in my body burned. “Flush him,” I demanded. “Flush his blood.”

“Lay him flat. Face-down,” Thaan said, ignoring me .

The drones obeyed, two of them stretching Pheolix’s arms out from his sides, pinning his shoulders with a knee.

A third stepped forward, an iron rod in his hands. The end of it glowed orange, vibrant against the night sky. He pressed it between Pheolix’s shoulder blades. Flesh sizzled, breaking the silence suspended around us. Pheolix’s eyes shot open, but he didn’t say a word.

I bared my teeth. “Flush his blood."

“Get him to his feet,” Thaan ordered the drones.

“THAAN,” I thundered.

He finally turned to me as the drones hoisted Pheolix up, guiding him away through the mountain trees. "He'll live."

“If you want to control me so much, why even use Pheolix?” I snarled. “Why not just demand my blood? Command me ?”

Thaan crouched in front of me. Even with the salt and pepper in his hair, he almost looked young in the moonlight. “That would disrupt our little game, wouldn’t it? Besides, we both know you’d refuse to vow yourself to me.” He tilted his head. “Where’s Cebrinne?”

“I’ll kill you,” I murmured. “I swear it on my blood.”

Cuts across the pads of my fingers. Tiny lacerations along the side of my face. A hard knot over my eye, an open stitch in my lip. A crack of light, and they all burned smoothly, locking my vow into my body.

Surprise raised his brows, but Thaan’s mouth twitched, a rare spark of humor twinkling in his eye.

“If you someday manage that feat, my dear, nothing would make me more proud. But we both know you won’t.

We both know you’ve had the chance for over a decade, sleeping in the rooms beside mine.

We both know you’re a coward, too afraid of what would happen if you failed. Where’s your sister?”

Suddenly, a twitch tugged at my mouth, too.

A calm wave of madness rolled over me like a gush of wind.

“Pheolix doesn’t know where she is. And I swore on my blood I’d never tell.

" I leaned in, glaring into his eyes. " You’ll never find her. She has three years of life, of freedom far from you, and you’ll never take that from her.

I will be the one who grants you death.”

He didn't even blink. I held up my hand, letting him see the embers of my promise as they faded into my skin. “When the day comes that you finally die, it will be this hand that kills you.”