They had. Two guards drifted out from the palace walls a minute later, eyes wide and blank. They halted before me, waiting for their orders.
“Is Prince Nikolaos inside his tower?” I asked.
“He is,” the smaller guard answered. “He’s been waiting for his princess to return from Cynthus Castle with her belongings. His light has been on all night.”
I glanced at Kye’s tower again, impressed he’d designed a cover story for my disappearance. The silhouette of a tall man moved across his balcony, leaning on his forearms against the railing, and I could have sworn he looked down at us.
That answered that. He was safe.
“What about Lady Selena?”
The larger one drifted a foot closer. “I saw her this morning, leaving the advisory.”
“Speaking with Sir Thaan?”
“No,” he said. “Thaan left three days ago, and we have not heard where to.”
“Probably following Diara and Hadrian through Ochire to Pirou,” I mused out loud, smiling to myself. I’d warned her to take the western trail instead, winding through Winterlight and The Mines before landing in her family’s mountain estate. The guards said nothing.
“I won’t keep you,” I sighed, knowing too well the feeling of being trapped inside my own body. “Help me to Lady Selena’s office without anyone seeing us and then I’ll release you.”
I held out a hand for each of them to stretch over their shoulders, but the bigger guard hoisted me into his arms, the smaller one roaming ahead to ensure no one came our way.
He doubled back a few times, signaling for me to sing. We passed myvacousesa moment later, my hand snaking out and touching their shoulders, telling them to sleep.
A sharp corner brought us to a set of winding stairs, the moon and stars bright just outside the glass walls. Across a sky bridge. Down a dark hallway. We stopped at Selena’s apartment. I fished her hidden key from the dancing crane’s mouth through the air, handing it to the smaller guard.
He unlocked the door, and I waited for the sound of lungs nearby.
The soft cadence of Selena’s breath answered.
“Walk me inside,” I whispered, lengthening my index finger in the direction of her office. Myvacousesobeyed, creeping through Selena’s apartment. “Help me up these stairs, please. Set me down here, with my feet in the water.”
Moonlight refracted from the window and through the glass box, blue lines drifting around the room. Placing my leg into thesea water was like standing under a gentle rain after a walk in the parched desert, cooling the searing heat of my broken bone. I shimmied out of my dress, folding and handing it to them. “Set this on the desk right there.” My hand curled around the stone as well, but I left it on my neck. “That is all. Thank you for your help. Leave Selena’s key here but lock her door when you leave. You may resume your posts. I release you.”
Their eyes flickered with the beginnings of awareness, but they followed my instructions, dropping Selena’s key onto my folded dress and ambling out of the room, softly closing the door behind them. I listened, waiting to hear her apartment door close as well. Then straightened, ensuring Thaan and Cain weren’t in the rooms beside me.
But all remained quiet except for Selena’s sleep-filled breathing.
It had been two months since I’d last entered, but shield weed grew in forests along the glass floor, thick as the frothy sea grass in Rivea. It cradled me like a bird’s nest as I floated across the surface. The moon painted the room in pale cerulean, and before I even realized I’d transitioned to Naiad, I fell asleep.
An hour later, the clang of steel against glass jolted my eyes open.
65
Maren
The clash echoed through the water, jarring in my ears, and I searched for the source of the sound through the roving, lacey sea vines. At the top of the stairs, Thaan leaned over the edge of the lid, looping an iron chain through the latch.
I’d drifted to the floor in my sleep, but I dashed to the surface as he climbed down a stair to peer inside. Water splashed violently as I wrenched on the lid, pushing and shoving—but he’d locked it tight. Six inches of air separated the steel casing above from the salty water around my chin, barely enough to keep my head above the surface.
“I thought to forgive you when reports came that you’d been captured by pirates,” Thaan’s voice sounded foggy and distant. He watched me twist and turn the way he might scrutinize at a dead snake in the grass, nothing to be done but leave it for birds to pick at. “But sneaking from the palace in the middle of the night is something that cannot be condoned.”
My palm pointed toward the lid, and I blasted water at it. But my attack was little more than a leak through a clogged pipe, thin and sputtering, and left my body trembling from the effort.The taste of rust flowed from the back of my mouth; a drop of blood streamed from my nose. Strength deserted my bones, and I fell under the surface, unable to paddle back up.
Thaan inhaled with agitation, waving his fingers and calling to the water to pull me toward air. “Whatever you have done to wear yourself—"
“I went to Cynthus Castle to gather the things I left behind,” I spat, the words echoing strangely as I wiped wet hair from my face. My breath caught at the sight of his eyes; the icy-blue center ringed by haggard black. Irises coming apart at the seams. Cracks had formed along the planes of his cheeks, raw gashes where smile lines should have laid instead, his creased forehead and crow’s feet scarlet and deep.
