Page 24

The hawk shifted, slowed, beating its wings as Arden had seen hawks do countless times from shore. Landing, though there was scarcely enough room for it to do so on the scant, pebbly beach where water met rock.

Arden hugged its neck—gently, having no idea what kind of pressure would be uncomfortable to it—thanked it again, and climbed easily off.

Her knees nearly buckled—how long had they been flying?

—but she steadied herself with a hand on the cliff that towered at her side as the hawk wasted no time in flapping upward again, clearly not interested in the other humans swarming their way.

“Arden!” Storm was upon her in half a second, pulling her into a fierce embrace that didn’t care a bit what kind of pressure she could take. “Praise the Triada. I thought we’d lost you too.”

Her first attempt at reassurance was nothing but a choked gasp, given the vise-like grip he had her in. She elbowed her way free, laughing, so she could say, “I’m fine. Better than fine.”

His furrowed brow said he was about to fire a question or ten at her, but other footsteps pounded their way.

Even in the low silver light of their sconces, there was no mistaking the king.

He, too, pulled her tightly to his chest, as if he’d known her for more than twelve hours.

As if it would have mattered had she never come back.

It took her half a second to register that said chest was muscled and bare, cool, with salt water clinging to it and dripping from his hair. Intellectually, she recalled that skin-to-water contact made it easier for one with magic to communicate with the sea.

Intellect had nothing to do with the confusion of reactions vying for a place inside her.

He drew back before two seconds could pass, gripping her shoulders in strong hands. Even in the semi-darkness, the blue of his eyes cut through her. “Thank the skies. I didn’t relish telling Jericho I’d lost his daughter.”

Geysers, her smile felt embarrassingly tremulous on her lips. “I’m fine. The hawk…it took me scouting. I think it wants to help us find Jade.”

“Scouting.” His hands dropped from her shoulders, and the breeze chilled her skin where his water had soaked through the silky sleeves of her gown. “Explain. No—wait. Come inside, sit, have something to eat. Then explain.”

She would have said she wasn’t hungry, but the moment he mentioned food, she knew she was.

And cold. And exhausted. She nodded, making no argument when Storm slipped a strong arm around her waist and all but forced her to put some of her weight on him.

She didn’t need that much help…but he was warm and familiar and felt like home.

And dry. How was he dry when the king was still dripping wet? “How long was I gone?”

“Two hours.” Storm’s voice was barely a whisper in her ear.

“You should have seen him, Ar—it was crazy. He’s been in the water the whole time, only surfacing to breathe once or twice.

And the water looked like it was boiling around him as he did…

whatever he was doing.” Awe saturated his tone.

He shook his head. “I thought Uncle Rico exaggerated his stories of the king’s power. If anything, he undersold it.”

“Or it’s grown.” That’s what Papa always said—that with each year, Seidon grew stronger.

The light increased as they passed behind the waterfall and into the cave.

It was furnished with chairs and couches and tables, a galley kitchen, sealed boxes of what must be provisions, and sconces glowing blue-white on the walls.

This space was about the size of their living room at home, but it went deeper into the mountain—a rocky corridor, also lit, angled off the back.

Blue-uniformed Guardians and brown-frocked friars filled the space, sitting, cooking, kneeling in prayer. Her ridiculous gown felt more out of place than ever, and when Seidon draped a blanket over her shoulders, she was ready to dub him a friend for life.

The priest who had been with the king that morning, the one he’d called Enoch, pressed a mug of something hot into her hands. She accepted it but drew away from his smile. It didn’t look friendly anymore, somehow. It looked intent. Purposeful. Protective—and not of her.

She sank to a seat on the sofa—hard, more like a bench—and studied the tea he’d given her instead of his face. Questions would come any second, she knew. As for how she’d answer any of them when she knew none of the whys or hows herself…

Another friar slid a bowl of some kind of soup onto the table beside her.

The king stood in front of her, his bare feet planted shoulder-width apart.

He still wore the blue trousers from the ball, but at first she’d mistaken them for those of the Guardian uniform.

They looked darker because they were wet.

He’d rolled up the bottom cuffs above his knee.

His hands were planted on his hips, and he slowly shook his head as he studied her. “Who in the seas are you, Arden Bleu?”

Her gaze flew up to tangle with his at the question. He’d just answered it himself—why bother asking? “I’m …me. Jericho’s daughter. Jade’s sister. That’s the only reason the hawk—”

“And what of your mother?” Father Enoch resituated his spectacles on his nose—the better to scrutinize her, of course. What had happened to the friendly, smile-creased face of that morning?

She went stiff, her chin rising of its own accord. How many times had she heard that question over the years? It brought long-dormant defenses rearing to life. “How am I to know? I wasn’t yet a year old when she died. Ask the king—he actually knew her.”

Seidon’s expression didn’t shift from its lines of contemplation. “Not exactly. I met her—twice.”

“And he advised your father against marrying her,” Enoch added.

Seidon shot him a glare.

Arden shot Seidon a glare. “You what?”

The king held up his hands, palms out. “Put yourself in my position. My most trusted Guard retires to the most important guardianship position in the kingdom, and a month later, a mysterious woman appears and convinces him to marry her within days. What was I supposed to think?”

She’d heard all the speculation before. She just hadn’t expected it to have originated with the king.

“She wasn’t a spy.” She had no proof of that, of course.

How could she? Nothing but the bone-deep need to believe it.

“If she’d had mer blood, she would have sought the sea, but Papa said she rarely even waded into the shallows. ”

“There are more people than the mer interested in Daryatla.” Now Seidon’s voice was low, even. “The desert-dwellers to the west. The ice-wielders of the north. The warrior clans with their machines. The star-riders from above.”

Machine warriors? Star-riders? She’d never even heard of them.

She shook her head. “She wasn’t a spy. My father has proven that time and again over the years.

She never left the main island, never accessed his files—you know very well the security on them would have prohibited her from doing so, or reported it to you if she’d bypassed that somehow. ”

He granted it with a tilt of his head. “Yet her daughter just spent two hours on the back of a sea hawk.”

“Looking for Jade—who my mother never even met. Jade is the one this all revolves around, so if you’re going to be looking at anyone’s parentage—” She cut herself off with a wince.

Deflecting the attention and shoving her sister into their scrutiny was unthinkable. “Pretend I didn’t start to say that.”

Seidon chuckled. And sat beside her. “You have a good point. If the mer kidnapped Jade thinking she has magic they need, then it would have come from the mixing of her parents’ blood. Which we can look into easily enough. Both their families lived in the Banks for generations, didn’t they?”

The implications resounded through her. It meant they were known quantities. Mostly.

But an inordinate amount of Awakened people came from theirs and other islands. Because that was where the worlds of land and sea collided. Where people fell in love who shouldn’t. Where mer came to shore or land-dwellers spent months at a time on ships with only the sea-dwellers for company.

More than one marriage ended every five years when a child was Awakened, with magic strong enough to prove they were halflings, not showing a recessive, residual power from a past generation. But Mama wouldn’t have betrayed her first husband. She wouldn’t have. Right?

Then she remembered some of the last words Jade had spoken to her. She’s afraid to dream . Afraid, Jade had said, of what either success or failure meant in terms of her art.

But what if it was more than that? What if Mama had other secrets she was protecting?

Secrets that would risk exposure if she gained any fame?

If she were recognized? What if there’d been someone before her first husband?

Hadn’t Jade whispered once that Mama had already been pregnant with Jade when she and Liam married?

Feeling like she was betraying Mama by even asking the question, Arden shook it away. “I still don’t understand why they’d take Jade. Are they so in need of one more magical person?”

“The most important question—and the one whose answer is even more evasive.” Seidon combed his wet hair back from his face with his fingers, eyes focused on nothing. “But I am nearly certain that every member of the force that attacked us tonight was Awakened.”

“All of them?” Her words came out more breath than voice. She’d seen their numbers. The horror of those black tails. The power sparking between the tines of their tridents.

Then a new thought, one that made something part admiration, part pride, and part boundless fear clench in her chest. “And you repelled them all? Yourself?”