Page 67 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)
Cebrinne
“ W itch,” Palunu muttered under her breath.
My gaze lifted to lock eyes with my husband’s sister only for a moment before she darted them away. Her husband Naheso followed behind her, an apologetic grimace across his friendly mouth.
Ano’s anger seeped from him, metallic and hot as he watched them pass us in their canoe. We sat on the docks, our feet in the water, watching as the missing sailor’s ship drifted out of the harbor.
More islanders passed, paddling in their va’as . Each one a failed attempt at finding the lost man. They slowed to sneer at me. Ano made to stand, and I pulled him back with a hand over his thigh.
Our corda-cruor stifled Theia’s curse for him. I’d taught him that a year ago. But whenever one of the islanders hurled a vulgar word my way, he suddenly forgot. Forgot that fear steered the island's distrust like a rudder under a ship, unseen yet controlling all the same. Fear from Theia's curse.
I didn't forget. Though sometimes, I’d have really loved to hurl venomous words back at his sister.
Ano stirred the calm surf with a long reed, waiting until the islanders disappeared onto the banks. The anger from him receded once they were gone, playfulness tinting his voice instead. “Is that what you are? A witch?”
I crooked a smile at him. Lifted a brow. In the past year, he’d asked a number of questions, probing the edges of my history with something that mingled curiosity with warm wariness. I’d never shied from answering them. Except one—where I’d come from .
He’d tried to figure it out, of course. He’d sit with me over the port as we were now, pointing to the different flags. Calder, Rivea, Krava, Illuskia. My mouth would hover open whenever a Cyprian flag appeared, though they were rare. But I never answered.
“Do you know where the missing sailor is?” he asked.
I pointed to the water.
He cocked his head reproachfully. “Did you put him there?”
Most men would be unnerved by having to ask such a question. I suppose that was the power of a cordae , though I’m unsure whether Ano realized it.
That the island called me a seductress. That I knew where a dead man lay.
Yet somehow, that he knew I hadn’t betrayed him.
Ano had seen the way the eyes of sailors and traders trailed my steps as I walked through the island.
And he knew that if I wanted, I could kill every man in this port with the simple swell of the tide.
Still, I shrugged. I hadn’t killed the man, though I was sure I knew who had. I glanced down at the sea, where I was almost certain Sidra’s two Naiads were watching.
“Is that what she is?” His dark eyes fell to the baby in my lap. "What she will become?"
I looked down at her, too. A witch might be the simplest way to describe to a human what we were. I didn’t nod. I didn’t shake my head. I simply looked back up at him and smiled proudly.
Ano leaned to drop a kiss onto the top of her forehead as she yawned. He swirled his finger around a long curl. “No moon tonight. It’s going to be dark soon.”
We walked back to our little house. Ano glared at anyone who looked at us, though he was calmer than the first time a sailor disappeared and an islander blamed me, knocking the man unconscious outside our front steps.
Progress .
“Coming?” he asked under the door flap, one foot already inside.
I glanced up at the stars. Smiled at him, though I didn’t move.
Ano brushed a thumb across my chin, nodding to indicate the surrounding houses beyond our garden. “If anyone comes looking for you, come and get me.” He held out his arms to take our daughter, but I shrugged him off, hiking her sleeping body against my shoulder.
“All right, then,” he murmured. “Don’t stay out too late.”
The door flap rustled softly behind him.
Call my name in the night, pet, when the sun is abed and the moon is new and the night is dark.
With a glance back at the door, I stole from the steps, down the little hill to the black sea. The water glittered quietly in the dark. I took a breath and held it in my chest.
Of everything I’d done, every choice I’d questioned, every instinct I’d doubted, every act I’d performed, this was the one that consumed me.
I’d traveled to an island to find my death, yet this was the decision that already haunted my mind.
Darkness , I said.
The word didn’t make a sound as it left my mouth. But black mist lifted at my heels, rippling around me like cool, liquid smoke.
A shadow leaned over the infant sleeping in my arms, stroking her cheek with a sifting tendril.
Apprehension curled within my stomach. I pulled her away.
The shadow didn’t seem offended. Hello, darling, it cooed, the sound like dripping water. With a start, I realized I heard him inside my mind. How kind of you to introduce me to your little wonder. What is her name?
I shook my head. You asked to see her. You never said I had to give you her name.
Darkness smiled. It looked back down at her, running its shadowed fingers through her hair. Then let the wind sweep itself away, whispering its last words into my mind.
Clever girl.