As one, they knelt.“If there is to be war,” Etan vowed, “then we’re yours to command.”
Glory to the Mahina clan.River imagined them infiltrating Oseidos’s tenuous peace, poisoning everything they touched, bringing with them more and more death.More and more guilt onto Ione’s shoulders.River swallowed his rising nausea.
Kai squeezed his eyes shut, pained, but said nothing.
“Wait until I make contact with a few of my supporters.”Saros rubbed his temples.“We’ll see what money we can scrounge up.You’ll deliver it to Lodestone’s council with your apology, and then you are to meet with me to discuss our next move.”
Etan bowed his head once before he and Nalu stood.
“The Moths have their own plans,” Saros finished, pivoting with a sweep of his robes.“But we have Menon.The tides will rise, and not even Archpriest Rigel or this Castor fellow can burn away the sea itself.”
With that, Saros stepped off the pavilion, Etan and Nalu tailing him like hounds after their new master.Kai watched them go, momentarily looking lost, until he caught River’s eye and averted his gaze, something like shame shadowing his features.He too followed them, leaving River alone.
For once River had spoken up during a meeting, and it didn’t even make a difference.
Finally, Saros had what he’d always wanted.What River couldn’t give him.Powerful spellcasters, ruthless fleets; Etan and Nalu as his attack dogs, Kai to shield them all.
River reached over the balustrade and plucked a camellia blossom from its branch, twirling it between his fingertips.As perfect as Kai was in Saros’s eyes, River thanked the gods Ione couldn’t stand him.No one could command her to marry him.Not even the Archpriest.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the flower’s scent, remembering meeting Ione for the first time, she, eight; he, ten.He had been so proud to come here, to bring such glory to his family as Menon’s seleneschal.And then so deeply, viscerally ashamed to realise he wasn’t at all what Saros had wanted.
But Ione, already so lofty and regal despite her young age, only beamed when she met him.“Welcome to Oseidos,” she had said, taking his hand and kissing his fingers.She wore a coronet of cream camellias and pink roses, the huge blossoms tangled in her hair.
“Come,” she had said, tugging him conspiratorially away from the adults, towards the lunarium.“Come, meet Cynthia.We’re making flower crowns.”
To Ione, he had never been less than.
How could his sword, his two hands, protect his friend against those who would use and harm her?
Chapter Nine
Kai
The smell was the same as always.Stale breath locked in an airless space; herbs and wilting flowers and rot.The stench of illness, a sickbed, an acrid burning somewhere in the back of his throat.
Memory was an amazing thing.
“Mei vich,” the voice rasped in the dark, “Come,voirneen, let me look at you.”
Kai counted his fingers, checked his pocket watch, although seeing his father was indication enough that he was dreaming.
The room rocked, an incoming storm.Kai rubbed his eyes and pivoted, searching for a door, an old escape trick; his legs crashed into something and he cursed.Da smiled up at him from the warped coffin, his chest rising shallowly beneath the blanket.Moonglows bobbed overhead, making his face appear sunken, ghastly.
“Try it,” Da whispered.“I’ve seen you do amazing things, Kai.”
His eyes burned.Kai wiped roughly at them, trying in vain to remember where he had fallen asleep.“I wish you hadn’t encouraged me,” he muttered, striding, tumbling, into the darkness.“I’ve had to carry that ever since.”
Da followed.He always followed."The healers have all given up, Kai.But I know you can do it."His smile widened, bisecting his bloodless face."You've done it before."
"That was arat, and – " Kai dug his palms into his closed eyelids and whirled, stalking away in the opposite direction.There was no point in arguing, no point in trying to save his father, in trying to undo the finishing knot in a healing ward of shaky, misguided threads.
The darkness thickened, ice-cold mud dragging each step.He would walk until he woke.He slowed his breaths, counted his fingers, checked the time.The pocket watch melted in his hands; he flung it, gelatinous, into the rising muck at his feet.
You're safe, he chanted.This is a dream.
"Have you prayed?"Saros asked, helpful as ever.Behind him, Da steered the Leviathos on choppy black waters, huge and hale and sun-browned as he was before he got sick.The Archpriest lifted both hands to the moonless night sky."Menon will save you.Menon will save us all."
"I wouldn't count on it," Da said, his dark curls whipping in the wind."Not with this storm coming."
