“For the record – ” Ione stared after her mother and the whispering attendants, feeling Lina creep up beside her.Already she felt calmed, although her heart still flickered like a hummingbird within a cage.“ – that was also why.”She turned to face Lina, taking in the deep brown of her eyes, the way the sun turned her eyelashes into spun gold.“Why I wanted you.As – as an attendant.”
Lina mustered a frail smile.“Why, because I can’t shut up?”
Ione laughed.“Kind of.”She reached, plucking a hydrangea blossom from Lina’s hair.“You were afraid of the warden.You were afraid of my mother.But you spoke up anyway, and I…” She twirled the soft pink flower between her thumb and forefinger.“I admire that.Not even my own seleneschals would have interrupted my mother for my sake.”
“They’re probably smarter than me.”She smiled, although her eyes lowered, sadness shading her features.“I was always quiet.And obedient.And wishing I wasn’t, wishing I was strong enough to…” She shook her head.“Whenever I open my mouth, I bring myself more trouble.But now that I’m here, I don’t know if I can stop.”
Ione smiled back, and just as bleakly.“I’m no stranger to bringing myself trouble as well.It would be nice to have another person at my side for this new trouble the Archpriest has thrown at me.”
“Why?”Lina winced, like she hadn’t meant to ask, but went on anyway: “I mean, why have a warden teach someone…” She gestured at Ione.
Ione wanted to laugh at the implication that Kai Mahina was anywhere near her rank, but as far as Lina knew, she was only a high priestess’s daughter.And regardless of Menon’s infatuation with her new attendant, Ione would keep it that way.
“My great-grandfather was the Great Sage Llyr.”She waited for Lina to react, to be shocked or show at least a little reverence; she did, a moment late, but Ione wasn’t fooled.Lina had said she’d only lived at Caelos for six months – she must not have been a devotee for long before that if she didn’t immediately recognise the name.“As Llyr’s blood,” Ione continued, “I was supposed to inherit his aptitude for hydromancy.In that respect, I am a failure.”
Lina’s mouth twisted.“I know the feeling.”
So Lina considered herself a failure, too.Or perhaps the man she was so afraid of did.Ione studied her, increasingly curious about the life Lina led before she stumbled into hers.
“Saros will get his way,” Ione said.“I’ll suffer the warden until I’m powerful enough to make them all wish I wasn’t.And aside from running errands and sending messages, you will help me fend off filthy dogs.”
“I guess I can talk him into submission.But…” She looked down, pensive.“There are more of us who would want to stay on Oseidos.Aside from me.”Her gaze lifted, intensified.“I would be happy to become your attendant, if I knew they would be safe here, too.”
Ione nodded and held out a hand, pleasantly surprised that Lina was in the mood to bargain.“I will find a place for all I can.”She held out a hand, and every nerve in her body warmed when Lina laid her fingers over hers.
“I will protect you,” Ione whispered, “All of you.”
Chapter Six
Kai
Thank the gods he was out of that room for good.
Desirous of being the warden of Saros’s dreams, Kai had spent these past few weeks cooking himself in the summer heat of Llyr’s quarters, casting and weaving and adding to the protective ward.Building, building, building.Dawn until dusk in that room, taking an hour here or there to attend some meeting or catch just enough fresh air to keep himself sane, frittering away the small amount of snow he’d naively thought would last him a couple months until he saw his brother Hilo again for more.
A necessary sacrifice.It was artificial alertness and agitation, or losing focus at the wrong time and risking the ward self-destructing.Kai wasn’t going to fucking let that happen again.
Hours moved like molasses, the air at times nigh-on unbreathable from the heat of his own magic and the ceaseless sun beating in through the windows.Wardstrings twisted and oscillated beneath his closed eyelids, glimmering, maddening.Even sleep, when he’d factored in time for it, was impossible: between his snow-induced anxiety about the ward and the nightmares that had plagued him on occasion since he was a kid, the last thing he was able for was shut-eye.Instead he walked the edges of his new quarters, storage room turned bedroom; he counted floorboards, memorised cracks in the ceiling; he curled up and pressed against the cool wall, feverish, listening to River play piano next door.Staring at the little hand on his pocket watch, waiting for dawn.
He needed his violin back.A distraction.Anything.
“Ah, good morning!Still here?”Saros, cheerful as ever as he skulked in each morning with a new pot of tea.
“Good afternoon, son.”Saros, squinting disapprovingly at the remnants of white powder Kai had left on the table.More tea.
“Good evening!”A plate of grilled monkfish from another missed dinner, a gentle chide about skipping meals.Kai only had his health, apparently.More tea.
“Working hard, or hardly working?”Blithe laugh.More tea.
If he said that one more time, Kai would kill him.
At least the tea was strong.It tasted rotten, earthy and a little metallic due to the old copper pot Saros brewed it in, but it kept Kai awake well enough after the snow ran out.And had less of a shitty comedown.
“It’s really coming along, now, isn’t it?”Saros had said one afternoon near the end, having startled the daylights out of Kai.“Your mother vastly undersold your worth.”
Kai counted his shaky fingers, one, two, three.He was losing it; he hadn’t even heard Saros come in.“Yeah, she – she does that.”
“Brilliant.Just brilliant.”Saros lifted one hand, his fingertips brushing the traces of Kai’s signature hanging in the air.“Exactly as I’d hoped.”Here he smiled, his eyes on Kai like blue steel.“If only our Ione would apply herself so.”
