Ione winced.Unfortunately Etan and Nalu had received glowing invitations from Saros.“Will your mother be here as well?”
He shook his head, though he still smiled, resigned.“Tobacco will be cured and ready to ship out to her buyers, and it’s the height of tuna season.Far be it from me to distract her from making an easy handful of coins.”Kai rooted through his pocket and produced a piece of parchment.“She replied to my letter, anyhow.”
Ione squinted at the spidery handwriting.“‘I’m under no illusions that you are writing to suddenly profess your undying affections for the poor girl,’ – Oh, thank you, Admiral – ‘but your father married me for money and I married him for adventure, and somehow even we found love.’”
Kai snorted.“That’s as close to a blessing as we could hope for.She’s a tender woman, her.”
A twinge of sadness coursed through her.“At least one of our mothers has offered any blessing.”She ran her fingers across the silky parchment; at the bottom, Admiral Malia had written,Enclosed is the gift you requested.
Kai opened his hand, let a delicate silver chain dangle from his fingertips.A small grey pendant hung at its end – not just grey, Ione realised, pulling it closer to her: an iridescent swirl of grey and blue, pink and green.She smiled, and he did, too.Relieved.
“Abalone,” he said, fastening it about her throat.“Da used to dive for it, carve the shells into jewellery for Mam.I asked if she wouldn’t mind parting with one.”
Ione touched the pendant, warm against her chilled skin, the only spot of colour on her.She’d chosen her dress on her own, delicate lace designed to look like hoarfrost clinging to her form, a high slit and plunging neckline as daring as it was queenly.It was not at all the virginal confection of tulleher mother had envisioned her wearing – a fact that Penina was very vocal about – but at least Ione had selected it herself.
She was forever a disappointment, but her decisions were hers and hers alone.
Kai brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.Lingered, drawing his thumb over her pearl earring, the curve of her jaw.“For what it’s worth,” he murmured, “you look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Ione whispered, although she felt more like a ghost than a bride.
She liked Kai.Trusted him, somehow.But he wasn’t who she wanted, and she knew well enough that she wasn’t what he’d wanted, either.If we can, he had said once, early on during Saros’s near-painful wedding planning,I’d like us to be friends.
She’d like that too, she had said.And she’d meant it, even after he felt compelled to add,You know, with, uh, benefits.
He escorted her downstairs to Oseidos’s stateroom, a cavernous hall usually reserved for ceremonies.It swelled with music and people and noise, everything dappled with light cast from a thousand lanterns shaped like moons and stars hanging overhead.Ione felt herself shrinking back, overwhelmed, until Kai directed her towards an acolyte bearing a tray.
“I’d say we’ll both need it,” he said, thrusting a glass of sparkling wine into her hands before taking one for himself and necking it.
The wine both buoyed and muddled her, making the noise bearable, the countless smiles and greetings and pecks on her cheek tolerable.By contrast Kai was brought to life after a couple of glasses, skilfully taking over conversations when Ione grew tired, his hand steady on her back as he chatted and joked and made connections with swooning high priests.
Dozens of voices approached, congratulated them; some familiar, some not.River’s parents, stiff and brusque and all but confirming their inner hopes that their son would court Menon; Mikau, with Ami on their arm, both offering polite if confused well-wishes.Saros’s sycophants and distant relatives and visitors from other shrines filtered through in an endless stream, all allowed through the ward for the evening to celebrate the happy couple.
“The mainlanders can’t stop talking about it,” one of River’s cousins chattered, grasping Ione’s hand while, behind her, Kai acted like he already captained his own fleet to a couple of investors from Polaros.
“So much for Caelos’s grand refurbishment being the talk of the season,” a youngCaelosiacolyte practically gushed.“You must visit us, Lady Ione – perhaps for your honeymoon?”
Ione hadn’t even thought that far, but Kai, hearing them, wrapped an arm around her shoulder.“We’ll go south first,” he announced, an empty wineglass dangling precariously between his fingers.“I’ve some men to recruit.”
“With your shiny new wife,” Ione said, although without much bite.She was exhausted.
“Oh, aye.”He pressed a sticky kiss to her temple.“Menon’s blessing is instrumental.”
River’s cousin and theCaelosirestrained a dreamy sigh, delighted and enchanted and utterly clueless.House Artem’s only daughter, marrying the infamous Mahina clan’s youngest son!As scandalous as it was romantic.
She felt alone, even surrounded by people, even with Kai’s hand on her shoulder, her back, lower.River was nowhere in sight, an act of boycott; her parents remained at the edges of the room, not seen but sensed, their disapproval palpable.Even Saros disappeared after a greeting and congratulations towards Kai and Kai only, so quick and uncomfortable that Kai had muttered to Ione after, “What the hell’s his problem with you, again?”
With the introductions and first few rounds of drinks over, Ione was whisked to the place of honour, a loveseat carved to look like an enormous fan of coral that skidded back when Kai all but fell into it beside her.The officiant’s words buzzed in and out of Ione’s ears, and the hundreds of eyes around them felt like spider’s legs on her skin, expectant, smiling, nauseating.
Ione breathed, tuned it all out, narrowed her awareness down to the weight of Kai’s hand, the prick of an ice needle into her finger, the slick press of Kai’s fingertip against hers.Iron and salt, sea and blood,she felt rather than heard herself say.Take what is mine, and give what is yours.
When it was time, she slipped a silver wedding ring onto Kai’s finger, considered the night over.There was her end of the bargain.But Kai fished into his breast pocket for her ring, held it up for her to see.
“Your seleneschals gave you your other ring and I didn’t want to ask you to discard it.”He waited, and when Ione nodded, he slid the thin band right up against her pearl ring.“One of Hilo’s men is a jeweller, so I ordered this from him.”
She peered at the delicate piece, a silver band crowned with three tiny diamonds and shaped to curve around the silhouette of her pearl ring as though they were a matching set.“River will be placated,” she said, smiling, equal parts touched and guilty.
Kai laughed, although something sad flashed across his features.“If this doesn’t shut him up,” he said, recovering, “I’ll shut him up with my fist.”
