“Boreas, Delia, your eyes. And yeesh, your scent. I noticed it shifted. Twice. You smell like him, you smell like you, and you smell like you and him. You bound yourselves, didn’t you? I told you you were made for each other.”
“Well, you seemed to be right about many things. Even those you kept from me.”
Marshen scratched his crown. “Yeah, about that, I’m sorry for not telling you. You must hate me for it. But I was afraid that if I told you, you would—”
“I would what!?” I snapped at him. “I would stay behind, remain hidden with them like some coward. You thought that I wouldn’t have tried to get them found anyway? That I would have let you go to Silch on your own? Is that how little you thought of me?” His face became the definition of shame. “I don’t hate you for not telling me, Marshen, I hate the reason that kept you from doing so.”
His eyes shunned mine, but then he looked at me and said, “There were so many times when I wanted to tell you—Boreas, so many when I almost told you. Things would have ended differently if I had, I know that now. But I always found some excuse not to. The voice inside my head betrayed my bettersense. ‘What if she decides to remain with her people?’or, ‘It’s way too late now, what if she gets pissed off and runs away? She left her prince, what makes you think that she would stay for you?’or, ‘What if she thinks that I’m feeding her lies so that the king would accept her as a Hydran?’I cannot go back in time to change things, but know that I will carry this shame and regret for the rest of my life. Which is until Sunday, by the way.”
I imagined the different ways the cell I was standing in could be utilised to efficiently execute someone. It was well equipped for a tormenting journey of excruciating pain and suffering, the last of feelings before life was bittersweetly taken away.
My alone time with Marshen was limited, and I didn’t want to waste a second of it, so with a firm tone, I said, “Tell me this, and no more bullshit, no more half-truths, no more lies. What happened with Blanca? Why are you here?” I clenched my hands around two metal bars and made him look me in the eye.
“When Blanca was ten years old”—Thalassa drown me, I didn’t expect him to gothatfar—“her grandfather heard her say that when she grew up, she wanted to become an Ice Priestess. He took those words to heart, so much so that his dying wish was for her to enrol as an acolyte. She was seventeen then. Her parents arranged for her to come to Nivaria, to spend some time at the Ice Castle before entering the Ice Temple. We met a few months before her initiation and were instantly drawn to each other, like two magnets, pulled closer together by unseen forces. She opened up to me, told me that she was being forced into all of it. Blanca told her parents that she didn’t feel Boreas’s calling, but they ignored her pleas. She begged them not to send her away, but they would rather fulfil the wishes of a dead man than their own daughter’s desires. King Ryvar became her custodian while she lived under his roof, promised her mother that she would be well taken care of and that he would see to it personally. But our bond tugged at us both, drew us to eachother with such compulsion—you know what I mean. But some asshole whispered in the king’s ears, making him aware of our frequent encounters. Ryvar ordered me—or more accurately, threatened me—to stay the hell away from her. I—I simply couldn’t, my soul wouldn’t let me.
“We used to sneak into the abandoned houses behind the old district and watch the moon and the stars from their rooftops, the aurora borealis on clear nights. We always got ourselves lost in long conversations—for hours we talked, planning and devising our future together. She said she wanted to live a simple and content life. Her dream was for us to live in a small cottage surrounded by trees and flowers close to a riverbank, and I was very happy with just that. We both wanted more from each other. But I wished to respect her virtue, and she didn’t want me to face any legal implications; she had just turned eighteen for Boreas’s sake, and I was what? An old centenarian. So we decided to wait for another year, until she reached her age of majority.
“On the eve of her initiation, we met at our usual spot. My heart ached—the thought of spending months apart made me weak and irrational. I just couldn’t keep my hands off her. At some point, we were both half naked, tangled in each other’s arms, my mouth at her neck. I was so lost in her that I didn’t even scent his approach. If Ryvar hadn’t stopped us, I don’t think I would have been able to do so myself. I lost all shred of control. He had me arrested and sentenced to execution, dragged Blanca all the way to the Ice Temple. Boreas, the way she screamed my name that night as they hauled us apart. Every night I hear those same cries. She probably doesn’t even know I’m alive, not that it matters now anyway. I would have done anything just to be with her and I fucked it all up.”
Marshen looked at me with pleading eyes. “When the king executes me, will you go to the Ice Temple for me? Tell herthat I’m sorry I failed her, tell her that in the next life, I will have a cottage ready for her and that—” I watched a tear slowly streaming down his cheek. I impulsively reached for it, then jerked at the sound of the door behind me being thrown open. My thumb went to my mouth. King Ryvar entered the basement, Aegir at his side.
“He made us open the door,” Left said as he stumbled inside the room of torture.
“He threatened us,” Right stammered behind him.
“You are both fired and stripped of your duties,” Ryvar said flatly. “Now get out of my face.”
Aegir’s next words had Ryvar giving him a dead, piercing glare. “You are now guards serving the Vanguard of Ice. Go find Joel and tell him that you’ve been assigned.”
Left and Right both gawked. I suspected that what Aegir offered them felt more daunting than redundancy.
“But we—”
“That’s an order,” Aegir growled.
They nodded and rushed away.
“Why did you make me come down seventeen flights of stairs?” King Ryvar all but spat as he scanned me from toe to head. He stiffened the instant he met my stare.
“His end of the bargain entailed him returning to Silch with a Nymph or a Water Wielder.”
The king nodded. “So we’ve been through this.”
“His end of the bargain was fairly met. He did not lie earlier; I am indeed a Water Wielder.”
“It’s true, brother, I’ve seen it.”
“Wield, then,” King Ryvar dared, offering me his waterskin. I gave him a piercing look and he scoffed at me. “Hmm. Just what I thought.”
“Come on, brother, you can see her eyes.” Aegir’s words were spoken low, tinted with persuasion.
Ryvar’s brow lifted. “Did you put Amani up to this?”
I squared my shoulders and spoke, drawing King Ryvar’s attention. “It was a spell that masked my true identity, but now, I’m free of it. I remember who I am now.”
I also remembered the spell by heart. A once-thought lullaby that had been swirling in my head, over and over for the past month.
“I’m a Hydran. A Water Wielder. So you can set him free now.” My tone didn’t sound as persuasive as Aegir’s, yet my soulbound still looked at me with pride in his eyes—it warmed my heart.
