Page 40 of Stars Above the Never Sea (The Last Faeyte #1)

Chapter twenty-eight

Selene

C allan fights for breath. His hand grabs for mine as Rio whoops and Esme throws her arms around me in an indecipherable jumble of thanks and shock.

I did… something.

It doesn’t matter right now—because Callan is breathing and staring at me, even as Rio almost tackles him with a yell of relief, before being wrestled off by a livid Sol and a grinning Esme.

But it’s another piece to a puzzle that seems to have no end.

I don’t know what to do with the look on Callan’s face. I avoid it by seeking out someone else instead, my eyes lifting, sweeping across the night sky that surrounds us and landing elsewhere.

Merrick stands back from the rest. A smile plays about his lips.

But he doesn’t look concerned. Or shocked, or scared, or off-balance. Or even relieved.

His gaze feels as though he’s not seeing me at all. The smile grows as he lifts his fingers, touching his thumb and finger to his forehead.

“Help me up.” The gravelly demand comes from below me. “Rio, get your damned elbow out of my ribs. Give us a minute, all of you.”

Callan’s hand appears in front of me a few seconds later. Unflinching, covered in dried blood. He closes his fingers around mine, steady and strong once more. “You’re shaking.”

He pulls me up, not letting go of my hand. His grip tightens instead as he quietens his voice to a rough murmur. “Will you not look at me?”

My stomach swoops, low and deep. “I can’t explain it, before you ask. I didn't even know it was possible to do that. Whatever that was.”

To bring him back from the edge of death.

This is not Hala’s maegis.

His other hand brushes my cheek. I wonder if he can feel the heat, as I can. “You seem to be rather good at impossible things, Selene.”

Hardly. I feel like a stumbling fawn, na?ve and lost in territory I do not know how to navigate. Uncertainty has my feet shifting, but my eyes pin on his chest. Tracking its rise and fall.

“Look at me,” Callan whispers. “Please.”

“The pretium—,”

“Gone.” My eyes jerk up. There is no trace of the night sky I just saw in his gaze. Only those eyes that threaten to burn my skin with their warmth. “My maegis—it’s full. As if I haven’t touched a single thread for months.”

Gods, his eyes changed. I’d think I’d imagined it, were it not for Sol’s shock. Even now, I can sense him assessing us silently.

My fingers rise of their own accord to touch a scarlet stain against the rough skin of his cheek. My thundering heart settles. “The bleeding has stopped.”

He doesn’t respond. Callan’s eyes trace my face, as though he’s learning every inch. And my breath leaves my body when he tugs on my hand, stepping closer until we collide. My face finds his neck, my lips against his pulse as I inhale sharply and he squeezes me.

Callan’s heart still beats. But it matches mine, both of us in perfect synchronicity.

I let a little of my fear out, murmuring the words against his skin.

It’s easier to speak the truth like this.

“I don’t know what this means, Callan. It’s not possible.

And if it is , I don’t understand why my sisters would have kept this ability hidden from me. ”

It hurts to think that they held so much back.

But at my words, he stiffens. “Selene—do not tell anyone in Asteria about this.”

Callan cups my cheeks, his voice hardening. “Promise me. You must not tell them. They’ll use it. Use you , if they think you can stop the pretium. They’ll try to use you as it is. Don’t give them a single thing more than you need to.”

“He’s right.” We turn, Callan’s hands slipping from my face.

Esme glances between us. Uncertain. “We’re getting closer.

But Callan is right. Petyr will use you if he thinks you can halt the effects.

None of us will say anything, but we’ll need to explain your sudden recovery, Cal.

I don’t think Petyr will accept a blessing from the gods. ”

Callan looks over my shoulder, and then down at me. “I think we can make a good enough show, with Matthias’s help.”

When he steps away from me, he takes every bit of warmth with him, leaving me cold.

A hand envelops mine. Callan says nothing, even as he tugs, towing me along with him as we walk past everyone’s staring faces.

Callan strides up the steps toward the upper deck, and I’m manoeuvred into the small space between the rudder and the railings.

I suck in the cool air, watching as he scans the night sky around us, before looking back at me.

“I need you to stay here,” he says crisply to my obvious confusion. “Right here, where I can keep an eye on you. Please.”

I don’t understand this male. “Why?”

His hands grip the spokes of the rudder as he inhales.

“I keep nearly losing you. And if I’m to have any hope of landing us, I need to know you’re not going to throw yourself from the ship while my back is turned, or almost get yourself killed by a wraith.

Given our odds so far, I’d prefer to keep you close. At least while I need to concentrate.”

His breathing warms my ear as he leans forward. “So stay here, beside me, for these last few minutes. Please.”

“You’re not responsible for my actions.” I frown. “But if it helps.”

The look he gives me makes me wonder if I’ve missed something. “Yes. It helps .”

My heart trips over a beat before correcting itself as his jaw tightens. Perhaps it’s the maegis. I can almost understand his confusion, the warmth that was chased away returning as soon as he took my hand.

I tap my finger against my lips, staring at him. Then at my hand. Back to his face.

His brow furrows as he stares ahead. “Selene.”

“Yes?”

“Stop looking at me like that.” He taps his hand against the rudder. His lips twist upward, as if sharing a joke with himself. “Or I might have to do something about it.”

I have met so many males. And yet he confuses me with every word, every action. “I can’t help my face. What exactly would you do about it?”

He mutters something beneath his breath, before straightening. “A conversation for another time. We’re reaching the end.”

Oh, gods. My hands grip the railing instinctively. “Will it be as challenging as the other side?”

“Normally, yes.” He shakes his head, bemused. “But not with my maegis at its strongest. It’ll be the easiest landing we’ve ever had. I could leave immediately for another trip, when it usually takes weeks to recover.”

Grip tightening on the ship that carries us, I look to where he’s concentrating in an attempt to see anything beyond the endless darkness.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” Callan pulls a sleek, shining instrument from his pocket, flicking it open and studying whatever is inside. The rudder creaks beneath his hands as he turns it a little to the right. “Something is bothering you.”

He’s not even looking at me.

When my hand slips down, my nails reaching for my healed wrists, his own hand whips out. “ Don’t .”

I suck in a breath. “It’s a habit.”

I wouldn’t even know how to stop. Most of the time, it’s done without thinking.

Boralas had tried, over and over, incensed at the marks he thought marred his precious oddity.

He had shouted and punished and bribed and nothing had changed.

In the end, he stopped caring altogether, since none of the men he sent to me had noticed it at all. Some had added to them.

Callan squeezes my wrist softly before letting go. “I’ll make sure your accommodation has a tub. And more of that salve.”

He turns back to his work, adjusting the rudder once more. My hand slips away after little more than a single scratch of my nails. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” His voice lowers. “This is your home. We’re just…,”

Invaders. Conquerors. Murderers.

But the words don’t seem to fit. Not as I might have imagined. For the first time, with Asteria so close, I allow myself to think about what happens next. “What should I expect?”

“Don’t be afraid.” He pauses to look at me. “They won’t hurt you.”

I don’t particularly care about that. You cannot break something that broke a long time ago. “I didn’t think they would. Your king needs me to fix the Never. It makes no sense to torture me if they want my help.”

Petyr . I try to conjure up an image of this male, this Caelumnai who sits on a throne in my goddess’s temple, bought with the blood of my sisters. But Callan says nothing. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

His nod is barely perceptible.

The sky broke apart on the day the faeytes fell. It’s not difficult to follow. “You know I can’t fix this, Callan. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“I would have agreed with you.” His eyes meet mine. “It’s too much to sit on one pair of shoulders, particularly when the Caelumnai are the reason you are alone. But you have a habit of doing the impossible. Who is to say what you can or cannot do?”

He leaves it at that, giving me space to think as he steers the ship into the darkness, checking his compass again.

I came to avenge my sisters. To avenge them, and then to join them. The thought makes me feel impossibly small. But this …. This feels like an impossibility far beyond my reckoning.

Not to destroy… but to save.

The words collect in the back of my mouth. The need to share this with him. “I was reckless when I tried to get on board.”

“How so?” Callan steps back from the rudder. I turn as he crosses to stand beside me.

And then past me. Callan climbs over the railing beside and settles himself on the ledge. His boots dangle into nothing but air. I can’t keep the hysterical edge out of my voice. “Get down .”

“I have better balance than Leo, thankfully.” He nods to the space beside him. “And you have wings, although I won’t let you fall. Won’t you join me? Just a few minutes, before we land.”

Callan breathes deeply as I settle beside him, shaking out my wings. Our fingertips brush as they settle on the railing beneath us.

“I despise this view,” Callan says quietly, staring out into the void. “And yet it still takes my breath away, every time I look at it.”