Sensing a fight, Selah interjected again. “The faithhasbeen weak for generations, Miles. The Obé’s been without a sizable portion of her power for a long time. If she’s installed this new queen in Ixia, that’s why. And she hasn’t been in place long enough to make a difference.”
“So then if it doesn’t work? If she fails, if you lose her, what then?”
“If you don’t think I know what I’m doing, then why aren’tyouout there?” Nova’s tone was bolder than she’d intended, the words tumbling and crisp behind the aggravated snapping of her teeth. “That’s right, youretired.Which makes all of this barely any of your business. It’s starting to feel like really bad opsec talking to you anyway, on top of being annoying as fu—”
“Enough,” Selah said quickly. Nova let the gleam in her eye finish the sentence for her. “General, perhaps now isn’t the best time for a debrief? We’ll pick it up from the beginning in the morning anddisregard everything from tonight. A backup plan might be useful, but we’re not going to hatch it now.”
Cutter had more to say, but appeared to swallow it and let out a deep breath instead before backing out of the doorway and disappearing down the hall.
“Night,” Nova called after him. She was annoyed with herself now for allowing the creeping sense of guilt rising in her stomach to upend what was supposed to be the best sleep of her life. Selah gave her a sympathetic look, but Nova was in no mood for mothering, either, and grabbed a red throw from the pile near her bed and pushed past her to head outside for fresh air.
It was colder here at night, the air drier, the wind louder as it ricocheted off the rocks. She peered out at the city between a pair of cypress trees on the other side of a low cobblestone wall. When Selah joined her, she braced for the lecture or parable to come, confident that once it was out of the old witch’s system, she’d be free to sleep.
“I had someone once, you know,” Selah started. “Awfully similar situation, though she was like you and I was like Yemaya, driving our destinies. Taking advantage of her devotion, in a way.”
Nova side-eyed her.
“I don’t mean that in a condescending way. Her dreams for us were… smaller. Quieter. Between the two of us, I sacrificed my dreams the least. We lived in a time of—on the cusp of great evil, and I was determined to fight it. And she was determined to see me happy.”
Silence then, but the witch didn’t leave her side. “So what happened?” Nova prompted.
“We fought, my friends and I, a bunch of rebels. Young and stupid. One night, a plan went badly, and I had to leave her. No time to even say goodbye.”
“You abandoned her.”
“No,” Selah said patiently. “I was exiled.”
“Exile is just themeansof abandonment.”
“Perhaps.”
“So where is she now?”
Selah shook her head for a long time, her expression despondent. “Where I left her. In what state? Who can know. I regret the failure of my mission, but only half as much as my failure to protect her. We were one another’s rescue from our own separate destinies. Mine changed for the worse. I worry hers did, too.”
Feeling in no way better, Nova asked, “Was this a pep talk?”
Selah laughed suddenly. “Why? Do you feel inspired?” She turned to Nova to hold her gaze. “Listen: You are right and she is right. But fate tosses us all like rag dolls anyway. I would rather be the person who would do anythingforlove rather than in spite of it.”
She gave Nova a meaningful look and squeezed her arm with something like kindness before heading back inside, her boots crunching on the gravel.
Nova drew a hand over her face and instinctively checked the glittering water beyond the city’s edge for signs that perhaps Yemi had appeared. Oddly, she did feel comforted.
“Huh,” she chuckled, surprisingly satisfied, and welcomed the droop in her eyelids that told her this day was finally over.
• YEMI •
Yemi dreamed of a queen asleep in her mother’s bed, in a mask made to look like Ursla’s face framed by a mane of thick braids textured with scales. The sleeping queen wore Nova’s uniform. Yemi approached at a glide, any footsteps inaudible in a world that may have been made of water. She hovered over the bed and kissed the mask on its lips.
Then Nova’s eyes popped open just as a horrifying, delicious squelch and the dampened crunch of crushing bones filled Yemi’s ears. Nova’s hands fluttered in panic against Yemi’s arms, begging something of her with silent urgency.
As the first tendrils of blood snaked their way into Yemi’s nose and grinning mouth, she looked down to see her forearm sunk to theelbow in Nova’s chest, reaching up from beneath her ribs to close a fist around her still-beating heart.
The scent was divine, all fear and lovely blood. She couldn’t breathe in enough of it. She felt ravenous. Rapturous. Invincible. In fevered, frenzied love with Nova, her very cells screaming passionately about how they’d never been so close. Her mouth watered as she plucked her heart from its gaping cavity, and she smiled as she put it to her lips—
She awoke in a coughing fit, heart racing, choking on the water around her. Her hands were clean and Nova was nowhere to be found.
Her skin still vibrated. Her head throbbed between her hands as she made her way to the window instinctively for fresh air.
