“Enough, Ilryth,” Fenny interrupts, that smug smile widening slightly. “She is not the woman you think she is. And, now that I am the Duchess of Spears, it is my job to defend the Eversea from evil, wickedness, malice, andlies.”
Fenny turns her eyes to me and the world grows still and cold. I watch, as if on a delay, as Fenny reaches into a pouch at her hip. A similar smile slinks across Ventris’s face. I know what’s coming before it does. It is like watching my ship sink all over again. Hopes pulled under the churning tides of fate.
She holds up a simple gold band. The same I lost in the water five years ago. The same that was in Ilryth’s treasure room… The ring I trusted her to get rid of.
“Did you know that she was married?” Fenny asks Ilryth.
His head whips between her and me, landing back on Fenny. “What is this game, sister?”
“No game, just the truth,finally.” Her attention shifts back to me. Fenny cocks her head to the side, golden hair swirling free of her spiky shell pin like angry serpents. “Will you tell him, or shall I?”
I am spinning, deeper and deeper, back into the Abyss. The sea is going to swallow me whole and this time not spit me back out as a conscious being. I will be nothing more than an amoeba. I will be one of those shadow creatures, waiting to be consumed whole by the monsters of the depths. I am small and pathetic and weak…
My body breaking down isn’t happening fast enough. I’m desperate to have it all be over and yet it’snot. I’m still in place. Very much in one solid piece. The conversation is still happening.Why am I not putting a stop to it? Why am I not saying anything?
“Very well, then,” Fenny continues. “This fell from her, the night you marked her to be our offering.”
“That could be any ring,” he says cautiously.
“Her initials are within it.” Fenny’s words gut me. “It came off her finger when you performed the act. Isn’t that true?”
Ilryth’s head is still whipping between us. The moment he lays eyes on me, though, he knows. His body language shifts at my lack of denial of it being mine. He knows the truth without another word having to be said. “It did, but—”
“What finger was she wearing it on?”
“I…I don’t recall,” Ilryth stammers.
“Come now, of course you do,” Fenny almost purrs.
“Left hand, second finger from the pinky side…”
“Sevin, as the Duke of Scholarship, I came to you inquiring about humans and rings months ago, did I not?”Months ago?If that’s true, then the day I asked Fenny to get rid of the ring, she left…she was nowhere to be seen for a while after that.
“You did,” Sevin admits.
“And what did you tell me?”
“There are records of early humans marking their unions with gilded bands of wood, carved from the trees of their forefathers. To signify their union with each other, and with the world, everlasting,” Sevin says.
“I fail to see how any of these theatrics are relevant,” Remni says curtly, tapping the tip of her spear against the floor. “Get to the point, child.”
“The point is that shelies.” Fenny looks to Ilryth. “Did she ever tell you of a husband?”
Ilryth is silent for a long moment. He looks back to me, searching. What can I say, or do?I was going to tell you, I can’t say fast enough, before Ilryth speaks. “No.”
“She has lied to us, deceived us all. A human was never a fitting offering and we should have known it would be as such.” Fenny rises, pointing in my direction. “She is a scheming villainess who conspired to bring low my brother and turn him against his kin.”
“I did no such thing!” I finally find my voice. It’s thick and clumsy and painful to speak, but I force myself.
“Were you not married? The truth.” Fenny brandishes the spear at me.
“I was, but it ended—Iended it.”
I am shocked when Ilryth, still, moves between us. Positioning himself protectively. I want to hold him. To weep my apologies for how this has unfolded.
“Then you confess to being an oath breaker.” The chorus murmurs, exchanging glances. The word shakes me to my core yet again. It brings back every jape and jeer cast in my direction. Can I never escape my fate? Is this all I am? “Lucia, enter,” Fenny commands.
“Lucia?” Crowl echoes as Lucia swims through the tunnel. “What does she have to do with this?”
