Chapter Twenty

RAZIEL

Each day spent in Laos was more oppressive than the last.

Duke Keventin was playing games with him.

He’d taken great pains to show Mer his fleet of fishing vessels, his orchards, and the fancy part of his province.

What he had neglected to show the queen were the slums and poverty that clung to his province like a disease.

The Mirror Plague ran rampant among those living in the shanty worker towns.

Raziel kicked off his boots and left them in the sand as he picked his way through the beach littered with porous black rocks.

He rounded the bluff and spotted his wife standing in a tidepool at the edge of the jetty.

He pushed his trousers up his calves and clambered up the slippery rock, avoiding the green patches of algae.

The farther out he moved, the higher the waves became, crashing around them. Sweat dotted his brow, and his hands trembled. He forced them into fists, trying to control his fear of the water.

He edged around a cluster of sharp mussels, the thunder of waves in his ears. He paused, watching Mer as she stood in the crux of the rocks, the ocean on either side. The water lapped around her knees, her dress floating in the water, salt in her short wild hair.

A sea goddess.

It looked as though if she only lifted her hands, the ocean would obey her commands.

Every morning, she visited this spot.

Each day, he joined her.

The first day, he hung back, wary of the Lure.

The second day, she ignored him completely as he crept closer.

The third, she’d stared at him as if willing Raziel to leave.

The fourth day, the queen had sighed and silently accepted his presence when he’d gotten close enough to experience the Lure but not enough to overwhelm him.

Raz didn’t know why he kept coming back. They weren’t friends. He hated the ocean.

And yet, here he was again.

Hoping maybe she’d speak to him.

Like a bloody fool.

Her words a fortnight ago haunted him.

Raziel had reached out to Samuel Ramses, the Spymaster of Aermia, about his new queen. The information he’d received had been surprisingly vague, and it seemed Samuel would be visiting quite soon.

Mer Thalassan had indeed been married before.

Her husband, Ream, had been a healer, but there wasn’t much on his death, only that he’d died during the Warlord’s War.

What confounded Raz was the fact that the Sirenidae had been their allies.

He didn’t understand how he could be responsible for her husband’s death.

When Raz took a life, it tended to haunt him at night.

No Sirenidae faces visited him during his nightmares.

That’s not true.

He gritted his teeth.

Mer visited him in his dreams. Ones where skin slid against skin, and she sighed softly in his ears.

Raziel shook the image from his mind and focused on important matters. Like communicating with his queen so they could move forward in harmony.

She hadn’t brought her husband’s death up again, and he didn’t know how to broach the subject without incurring her considerable wrath.

He’d wed a feral little bride.

Like calls to like.

Wading into the cool water, he tiptoed past sea anemones, starfish, and tiny crabs watching him with large eyes. His toes became buried in the sand as he stopped, standing beside the Sirenidae. Her eyes were closed, lips slightly apart.

Once again, she was only half dressed.

Raz shook his head and soaked in the salty air, breathing through the Lure that perfumed the air. His mouth watered at her tantalizing scent, and his hands trembled with the need to run them across her skin.

Maybe this was a bad idea. His dreams of the night were too fresh in his mind.

He eyed the ocean, a small smile lifting his lips as dolphins played in the water. They sped through the side of waves and leapt out of the sea in arcs like they weighed nothing. It was incredible.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not opening her eyes.

“Meditation, my queen.”

Mer snorted, her nose wrinkling with the movement. “Your custom.” A pause. “Don’t you think we’re past honorifics in private? I did try to kill you.”

Her blunt words pulled a booming laugh from Raz. Tears sprouted at the corners of his eyes, and he bent in half, bracing his hands on his knees. Stars, she was brash.

“Are you done yet?” she drawled.

Raziel glanced at his wife, who scowled down at him. He laughed harder. Swiping the tears away, he straightened, shaking his head. “Only you would say such a thing... Mer.”

“And only you would laugh at a death threat, Raziel.”

They stared at each other for a beat before she cracked a smile and snickered.

Something inside his chest loosened at the sound. She really was lovely.

That’s the Lure talking.

She caught the look on his face, and her laughter was gone as soon as it came. Mer regained her composure, all traces of mirth wiped from her face.

His smile disappeared and he sighed. For a moment, they’d both forgotten what each had done, or at least they could laugh about it.

He turned his attention back to the rolling sea, unease rising as the waves did. What if one got too big and swept them away?

Breathe. Calm your mind.

Instead, he started babbling, distracting himself from the fear and her scent.

“Why do you come here each day? There are better views elsewhere.” Silence. “Why don’t you swim?” Silence. “Do you miss home?” Silence. “Why is the Lure not as strong as it was that first day?” Silence. “Do you want to be miserable for the rest of your life?”

Mer twisted to look at him, something haunting in her gaze that he’d seen in his own eyes after visiting a funeral pyre. He longed to reach for her, to soothe the pain from her face.

It’s the Lure.

“What is misery but penance?”

That struck a chord. “What do you have to pay for?”

She stayed silent, her mesmerizing magenta eyes holding a wealth of pain before she shuttered them and looked away. A broken soul if he’d ever seen one.

“And yes, I do miss home.”

He gestured to the water. “Then go. No one is stopping you.”

A hollow laugh fell from her lips. “If only that were the case.”

The Sirenidae dropped to her knees in the tidepool, the water rising to her waist. She hissed out a breath but bowed her head and closed her eyes.

Conversation over.

Raziel stared down at her short silver hair, and his fingers twitched at his sides. Her Lure swelled, and he almost dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her body, maybe to even taste the skin of her neck right by her gills...

Warning bells went off in his head, and Raziel forced himself to take one step at a time back from the deadly alluring female he’d married.

He finally pried his eyes from the Sirenidae and turned his back to her, striding down the jetty.

“When do we leave?” Mer called.

Raz peered over his shoulder. “As soon as I settle matters with Keventin.”

Mer bared her teeth, her incisors slightly longer than his own. “Be quick about it, or I might kill him.”

He grinned back at her. “So bloodthirsty.”

“You have no idea.”

Turning back around, he clambered down from the rocks, the smile slipping from his face.

Raziel didn’t know if he should take that as a warning or not.

Even though she hadn’t tackled him into the ocean and drowned Raz.

.. or fed him to her pet beasties he’d seen swimming around the jetty at night. .. it meant nothing.

She rarely showed him her true self.

Raziel snorted.

They really were quite the pair.

When was the last time he’d been honest with anyone about what he wanted? Or who he was?