Page 7

“I’m well aware of when Rakan’s wedding is,” I tell my mother. “I’ll be attending. I won’t be attending with Maren.”

Solveig’s expression hardens. She lifts the cane and brings it down against the steel desk. The impact leaves a deep crease in the metal.

I look at the new dent beside the one I nearly made myself. Apparently, concern for the furniture has limits.

“You don’t have a choice,” she says. “Unless you acquired a mate while I was busy stopping a war, you will escort the siren. You’re the head of surface operations. Act like it.”

It isn’t a suggestion or even an argument. My mother has already decided what I’m going to do and expects the rest of the world to catch up.

I lean one hand against the desk. “You can command the tides, Móðir. You don’t command who sits at my table.”

Her glowing eyes narrow. “This isn’t about your table. It’s about the clans.”

“They don’t get a vote either.” I hold her stare, and for a moment neither of us moves.

Solveig grips the cane between both hands. “You will obey me before the weekend arrives.” She turns toward the doors before I can tell her otherwise.

The hem of her black gown sweeps over the rug as she leaves. A moment later, the doors close behind her, and I cross to the sideboard for the aquavit.

I pour a measure into a tumbler and add one cube of ice. Then I take the glass with me as I turn toward the darkened windows.

Lotan wants territory. My mother wants compliance, and the abyssal courts want reassurance that we haven’t abandoned the merfolk for a leviathan. None of those demands makes the others any easier to satisfy.

If I arrive at Rakan’s wedding alone, the clans will read it as another slight. If I arrive with Maren, I give my mother exactly the public display she wants.

Neither option appeals to me, so I take a drink instead. The sharp botanical burn settles on my tongue as the ice shifts against the glass.

The small clink pulls an older memory to the surface. Three centuries ago, Maren and I stood at a diplomatic gala, surrounded by marble, chandeliers, and people pretending not to listen to us argue.

She had finally run out of patience with my refusal to perform our relationship for an audience. I can still remember the look on her face when she turned on me.

“You are nothing but ice and transaction, Sigurd. I spent three centuries trying to find a heartbeat in there, but you just calculate. You’re a vault, not a man.”

At the time, I’d thought the accusation was unfair. Looking back, I’m not sure either of us understood why we stayed together as long as we did.

Maren wanted a partner who would smile for cameras, attend every gala, and make the abyssal papers jealous. I wanted someone who could sit beside me without turning every private moment into a public performance.

Neither of us got what we wanted, and the endless years didn’t make us any more compatible. Staying longer only gave us more opportunities to prove it.

I finish the aquavit and set the empty glass on the sideboard. Three centuries later, the courts are still trying to make Maren useful to me, as though the relationship failed because we needed a larger audience.

For once, I’d like someone to walk into this office who doesn’t want my money, my ships, my name, or a piece of the ocean. The office doors slam open before I can decide whether that qualifies as tempting fate.

I turn toward the sound, and my tentacles flare from the openings in my jacket before I’ve identified the threat. The intruder isn’t an assassin or a territorial rival.

She’s human, soaked from the rain, and marching straight into my office as though she had every right to be here. A wet cardigan clings to her shoulders above faded jeans.

A canvas overnight bag hangs from one shoulder, and she grips a damp manila folder against her ribs. Rainwater darkens the edges of the cardboard.

Brighid rushes in behind her, flushed and breathing hard. “Mr. Eiriksson, I’m so sorry. She came out of the elevator and slipped past the guards before anyone could stop her.”

I barely hear the explanation. The woman has already crossed the antique rug and stopped several feet from my desk.

She looks straight at me. “Sigurd Eiriksson.” My name sounds less like a question than an accusation.

“Your front desk is a bureaucratic nightmare, and I’m out of patience,” she continues. “You’re going to call off your eviction crew.”

I set my empty tumbler on the sideboard. Of everything anyone has said to me today, that is the first opening I didn’t anticipate.