Page 77

T he sun hadn’t yet brightened the sky from night-dark to dawn-bright.

The fleet, anchored a few clicks off the shore of the island where they’d met Kiyana, wouldn’t yet be stirring, unfurling their solar sails.

By his count, Seidon had another thirty minutes, perhaps forty, before he had to be awake.

Before he had to wade into the shallows.

Before he had to turn his pant-legs into a tail.

Before he had to leave Arden to face a hurricane alone while he crashed the coronation of a genocidal tyrant-in-the-making without tipping the scales toward the back-stabbing Black Tail warriors.

His hand rested on her ribs, soaking up her warmth while she slept. Drawing in her presence. Pulling as much of her, of this, of them inside before he had to walk away while she took to the skies.

He should let her sleep. She needed all the rest she could get…and they hadn’t exactly gone to sleep early last night, in this tent they’d pitched under the palm trees.

One night on their own little private island. A few hours to forget what was coming and just be newlyweds. To kiss and talk and make love and hold each other close and memorize again everything they could about each other.

He should let her sleep. Let her rest. But instead he let his fingers draw circles down her ribs, over her hip, around her navel. He smiled at the lazy hum of pleasure that came from her throat and let his hand settle against her stomach so he could lean down and capture her lips.

How many I-love-yous could he squeeze into the next thirty or forty minutes? Not enough. Never enough.

He believed they’d both make it out of this. He couldn’t accept any other possibility, couldn’t believe the Triada would put them together like this only to tear them apart.

But that could be pride. Hubris. Willful ignorance, even. Who was he, to know the mind of the Triada?

He would take nothing for granted. The same lesson he’d learned about the Mercy of Waters held true here too.

The Triada could just as easily raise another.

He could spare Arden, this new creation he’d made, but take Seidon.

He could take them both, but use them for some purpose of his own today that they were needed for.

There were no guarantees of success. No promises of living beyond the next moment. Not for any of them.

So he kissed her, and he thanked the Triada for the two months he’d known her, for the weeks she’d been his wife, for granting him a life long enough to find this perfect complement to his soul.

For every day, every person, every pain that had shaped him into who he was now—the man ready to love her.

The man who, if the Triada was willing, could work with her to save countless lives today.

When they broke apart for a breath, she grinned sleepily up at him. “Look at you, waking up before me for once, King Lazybones.”

“I needed time for a few extra kisses.” He’d awoken with a tight chest and a churning stomach and a burning need to lay his heart, their goals, their hopes before the Triada. But she’d know that.

Her fingers brushed through his hair, lingered there, at his face. “Whatever today brings, I love you. In no world would I not have chosen to be your wife. To have this time with you.”

He turned his face enough to brush his lips over her fingers. “I waited centuries for you. Finding you has been the single greatest joy of my existence.”

Silence pulsed in time with his heart. But hers was where he wanted all his focus to be, so he pushed aside that and focused on her instead.

Let himself not just feel her skin with his fingers, but sense the movement of her blood in her veins.

Settled into the familiar beauty of what had become one of his favorite feelings—the awareness of the life thrumming within her. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum.

Ba-da-dum-ba-da-dum-ba-da-dum.

He frowned, not sure at first what he was hearing. It wasn’t that her pulse had picked up—he still felt its steady beat in that place inside him where his water-sense lived. It was something…else.

His breath caught. His chest went even tighter than it had already been. His eyes dragged slowly up from where his gaze had moved to his hand on her stomach, back to her face. Her eyes.

She was frowning too. “What?”

The words wouldn’t come. No words would. How could they? How could he say aloud what had only been a dream, one he’d thought would only come years from now? Was it even real, or his imagination?

Because if it was a someone else he was sensing, how could he even feel it so soon? They’d only been married a matter of weeks.

“Seidon?” She pushed up onto her elbows, concern turning her beautiful eyes to a muted liquid gold in the soft, growing light of pre-dawn. “What is it?”

“You’re…I…” He looked to his hand again. To her abdomen, flat and taut from her training with Storm, from the posture required to stay astride Ora, from youth and health and a life of daily swimming. He closed his eyes, concentrating solely on that other sense.

Not his imagination. He couldn’t just hear the beating of a tiny, thrumming, impossibly-quick heartbeat, he could feel the blood that heart was pumping, moving out and around and back, contained within a form so tiny…but there.

Tears clogged his throat, making him gasp for his next breath.

Arden’s fingers covered his. “You don’t mean…? It’s too soon, isn’t it? To sense such a thing, even if it happened right away? And everyone said it would take years .”

Of course she would know what had him in beautiful, hopeful, terrified knots.

A child. The child he’d wanted for centuries. The child Daryatla needed for continued security. The child he’d despaired of ever having, until he met her—and then because he met her. The child he’d thought would have to be a miracle from the Triada.

The child who was a miracle from the Triada, clearly. How else could it have happened so quickly, when all evidence, all science, all experience said that two powerful Awakened took years to conceive?

But…now? When they were about to walk—well, swim and fly—into the most dangerous situations either of them had ever faced, and to do those things separately?

It was one thing to trust her to the Triada’s hand and believe she would be strong enough to carry his child to term.

Somehow, it was altogether different to trust in this .

He forced his eyes open, met her gaze again. He didn’t know what expression was on his face, but it must have shown every joy, every terror. Because he saw the mirror of it come over hers, felt the tremor in the hands she cupped around his face.

She didn’t offer any words. But the tears that gathered in her eyes spoke eloquently.

His own surged, burned. The Triada gave. The Triada could take away, if he so chose. Blessed be his name.

He repeated the words silently, until the ones that wanted to spring up retreated.

The ones that would demand they call a halt to their plan, that they leave the mer to their own devices, that they find someone else to rescue her sister.

To insist they couldn’t risk it now, not when suddenly so much more was at stake.

A child. Their child . The little one’s heartbeat was too faint for him to sense when he removed his hand from her stomach and lifted it to settle over hers against his cheek, but he knew he’d be feeling the echo of it all day.

Until, Triada willing, they were together again.

Safe. Well. Whole. Ready for a future as bright as their baby would deserve.

That’s what he had to focus on. Making this world safe for that tiny, miraculous life.

Because if he did the selfish thing now, they’d all pay for it.

He knew they would. Whoever won the war beneath the waves, they would bring that war to him.

To them. And who knew what death, what danger, what cost would come later?

He wrapped his arms around Arden, pulled her close. Needing to feel as much of her as he could.

Her arms held him just as tightly. “The Triada’s promises are no less true now,” she whispered into his ear. “He knew, when he guided us into this plan. He knew. Nothing surprises him. We are in his hands as surely now as we were before you sensed whatever you sensed.”

“A heartbeat. I felt…I felt the heartbeat of our child, Arden. The blood pumping through a tiny little body.”

A shiver coursed through her, and her arms went tighter still. “Our strength, then, not our weakness. Our reason. Our faith, borne fruit.”

There would be so much more to say, when they were safely home again. So much to ask and to think about and to do. So many dreams to dream and wonders to wander through. So much joy to bask in and old fears to quell with fresh faith.

It wouldn’t be like that first time, not with Arden. This child wouldn’t be the death of her.

This child would be life. Life for them all. Life worth fighting for.

They held each other close as the sun painted its colors across the sky, then they shared a long kiss as it poked its blazing crown above the horizon of the sea.

They wiped each other’s faces free of the tears, and they dressed for their respective days, took down their tent, and then stopped with their feet in the sand while they waited for Ora and the fleet to arrive.

Seidon reached for Arden’s hand as he’d done so many times already—as he’d made it a point to do, from those first days, because something in him had known even then that she was the one who would hold his heart for the rest of his life.

She was the one the Triada had made him for.

He had loved before, with his full heart, with all he had to give.

But he’d grown since then. There was more of him now. More heart, more soul, more strength—all hers.

Ora’s cry pierced the air from the other side of the island, and Arden pointed to the west, where the fleet was anchored in deeper water, no doubt because she spotted the first of the solar sails. All signals of the same thing.

Time to go.

He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “I love you. Both of you. You can do this.”

“The Triada can do it through me.” She pulled their joined hands toward her and kissed his knuckles in return. “As he can and will work through you. This is just a day. One day apart.”

“One day. Then we’ll be going home—with your sister.”

“And leaving peace behind us.”

Their gazes held for a moment more. Then Ora landed on the beach beside them, and Seidon forced himself to let go of Arden’s fingers. To keep their parting kiss sweet, brief, light.

Because he would see her back here soon.

One day. It was only one day. One day to save her sister, the mer, and by extension all of Daryatla.

She took a few steps toward Ora but then paused, turning back with that smirk he loved, the challenging lift to her brows. “Well? Don’t I get to see you turn into a merman, Sea King?”

He glanced down at the trousers he wore, ready to be transformed into a tail. Doing so in the shallows would be awkward at best, but he triggered the switch anyway, so he could watch her face. The way she smiled, the gleam in her eyes.

The love there. For him, whatever form he took. Whether he succeeded or failed. Whether he was king in a palace or merman swimming alone through the vast seas or just plain Seidon, lounging on a beach with her.

When she still stood watching, that heart-tugging smile on her face, he waded out into the shallows, to the shelf where the water deepened, and dove—making sure to flash that gleaming tail above the surface so she could see it.

He swore he heard her laughter, even above the rush of water into his ears. A moment later, he watched the flash of shadow as Ora soared overhead.

For a moment their courses and speed matched. For a moment he swam in the shadow of those great wings. Then hawk and queen veered off, leaving him to his own path.

Fear felt like a rock in his stomach, like hands around his throat. That was his wife, flying off to meet a hurricane. And what might be more dangerous still—whatever mer would be taking Jade to the surface for an Awakening.

Triada…this is probably already in motion. And I have laid it before you so many times already. But please, not Librus. Please, lead him to Margarita Civitas instead. Please. Don’t make her face him alone.

He called up a current to speed him on, adjusted his depth so that the fleet would be able to track him.

And felt in his spirit the assurance that his wife was not alone.

Storm would be beside her on the island.

Ships would be waiting out of sight, ready to come the moment the Guardian signaled for help.

She herself was well trained in close-quarters combat, first by her father and then by Storm.

Rico would be on one of those ships nearby with Master Lee, waiting to help however he was needed.

But more, she had the Triada. She had Ora. She had the power given to her by heaven itself—power no one else on earth could either boast or fight.

Who could grasp the wind, to tame it? Who could tell it not to blow? Who could withstand its force when it did?

No one. No land-walker, and no sea-dweller either—not when they came to the surface, and that’s where they would be when they met her.

As long as she didn’t get dragged beneath the waves.

As long as they came where they were supposed to.

As long as she could wrestle the hurricane as they hoped she would.

It was too big, that fear. Too big for his mind, his heart, his hands. So he set it deliberately, again, in the Triada’s.

And propelled himself faster through the water.