We hover over the edge of his estate. Beneath us, sirens go about their business. In the distance, a group arrives at the main pillars that seem to delineate his duchy. But he is as still as a statue. Poised.
I stare at his broad back—the markings that swirl and dip into the grooves cut by water into the muscles under his skin. Touching him now, taking his shoulders, feels like so much more than merely accepting some help in this moment. My fingertips on his skin are an unspoken promise. A forbidden connection beyond sacrifices and anointing.
What are you doing, Victoria?a tiny voice whispers from the far recesses of my mind.
My fingers press into his muscle and I whisper, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He begins swimming.
Keeping my elbows bent and locked against my sides, I ride atop his back, acutely aware of the ripple of powerful muscle beneath me. His rear bumps against my groin now and again, sending a jolt straight into my body. While I cannot feel the water pressing against my face as sharply as I would’ve otherwise expected, I can certainly feelthat.
Charles was my first. My only. Even when he thought me dead, I did not seek the arms of another. Not just because I didn’t know if a man would want a woman who was running from her oaths and former love…but because I was still married. Even if I did not wear a ring, even if I didn’t live under his roof. He was still marked upon my soul. Seeking out the arms of another didn’t feel right at best, and, at worst, promised to be something that would knot my insides with turmoil I didn’t have time for.
Maybe, if I’d had more time…
Bump. Bump. Bump.
I press my eyes closed and swallow thickly. Trying to focus on anything but the unexpected pressure of Ilryth against me is futile. The strength of his muscles presses into me. His body moves like music. The siren is as tempting in form as he is in song and power.
All of him, so much, so close, is overwhelming. For the first time in years, I feel like the girl who ran off with Charles. So hot between the legs. So eager to explore. Believing anything would be good just for an opportunity to have the tiniest of tastes. Luckily, I now have experience to help keep my wits about me.
We leave the edge of the estate. The buildings connected by archways and coral end. A barren land of sand and rock stretches toward a series of small homes in the distance.
The homes are modest versions of his estate—constructed of coral and shell. Ilryth tips downward, and as we pass, the people pause what they’re doing to bow their heads before resuming their daily activities.
Sheel is perched outside of a home carved into a massive mound of brain coral, polishing a bone blade with a rock. But the second he sees Ilryth and me, he’s at attention. “My Lord, Your Holiness, I thought you were hosting court; to what do I owe this unexpected honor?”
Ilryth ignores the mention of “hosting” and says, “I was thinking about what you were telling me the other night about Yenni’s condition and it occurred to me that, perhaps, Victoria might be able to assist.”
Sheel blubbers, opening and closing his mouth, looking between Ilryth and me. The shock and, dare I say, admiration on his face is such a different emotion than he showed me when he thought I was escaping my prison. “Your Holiness…I am not worthy.”
“Just Victoria is fine.” I allow a calm demeanor to hide my unease at his about-face in perception toward me. It’s surprisingly easy, given that I know the type of man Sheel is. I’ve met his type across the years—the order-following general. He is happy so long as everyone has a place and occupies it. I can sympathize, and understand how I’ve been a disruption in his tidy order.
“Please, come in.” Sheel ushers us through the curtain of braided rope, weighted by polished rocks, hanging from the top of the archway that leads into his home.
Inside is an odd dwelling—odd to me, at least, as a human. There is a glowing orange pool situated in a basin of rocks. More rope and kelp are draped from the ceiling, looped and braided like swings. At the center of the home, where I might have expected a hearth to be, is a small, ghostly twig, spiraling up around a pale shard of wood that’s been stabbed into a crack in the stone floor.
The moment I lay eyes on it, I am drawn over, as if pulled by an invisible tether. The leaves of the ghost tree glisten like silver, emitting a faint, cool light. They sway as they’re pushed by unfelt breezes. Or, perhaps, swaying to the music I hear whispering in the back of my mind.
“What is it?” I murmur.
“It’s formally called an anamnesis—it is a memory of the Lifetree, stored in the cutting our spears are made from.” Ilryth is at my side. “It offers protection, and the blessings of Lady Lellia, warding against the grip of death.” He glances over at Sheel. “Has it been helping?”
“It has. Thank you for allowing us a shard of the Lifetree to bring Lady Lellia’s blessing into this humble home.”
“It is the least I can do.” Ilryth sounds like he means it. The sentiment is riddled with guilt.
I resist the urge to touch him. Ilryth must’ve had the same need, because his little finger hooks mine. Briefly. So briefly that I almost wonder if it was just a curl of current rather than a conscious touch.
“This way.” Ilryth leads me to the right of the two archways in the back of the room, Sheel right behind us.
We’re in a coral tunnel. Kelp hangs from the ceiling between strands of silken thread that are adorned with crystal beads and opalescent shells. Carvings similar to the shapes drawn on me are etched into the coral walls—similar to what was etched into the whale bones.
“When the roots in the trench died off, Lady Lellia’s blessings could no longer reach this distant domain,” Ilryth says softly. I get the impression he is speaking for me alone. “We were at the mercy of the rot until I managed to use the sacred spear of my family, Dawnpoint, to make an anamnesis strong enough to hold off the tides that brought the rot into our homes. Since then, all the duchies followed. But it’s a temporary stay on a worsening problem and the rot gets more and more of a foothold each year.”
A spear… I think back to how Sheel mentioned Ilryth going into the trench without his spear. Was he sacrificing his own safety for that of his people in yet another way? Another tendril of admiration for this man worms its way into me. But I don’t linger on it; I’m too distracted the moment we pass through another rope curtain and the full extent of the rot’s consequences are instantly brought into clarity.
The farthest room in the house is dim, save for some pale lilac flowers that glow across the ceiling. But their light struggles against the reddish-brown rot that floats through the water in clumps.
