I snorted.
It’s a small favor to ask when you remember that you tied me up while wearing night clothes, giving me an appetite for unsavory things, and then left me hungry for three days.
I closed the window, suppressing a shiver at the cold, and sat on the edge of the tub to heat the water. “I have plenty of things I can throw in your face if we’re playing this game.”
The smugness melted from his expression.Let’s not focus on the past.
Fine. When I meet Nori tomorrow, I’ll pass along the details of where you’ll be. Wherewe’llbe.
Kye blew an reproving breath from his mouth, slow and deep.
I turned around, pulling my braid aside so he could help me with my corset. “Between the two of us, we both know I can do more damage with my water than you can with a sword.” He shot me a look of impatience with his mind. “No offense.”
“You’re not experienced in war, Leihani. You don’t know formations or defensive maneuvers. No one’s taught you war strategy. I’mmorethan a man with a sharp object in my hand.”
“That doesn’t make melessthan a woman with water at her call.” I pulled a strap off my bare shoulder, letting the garment slide to the floor, and leveled him with a willful stare.
“You can’t win an argument by getting naked.”
Mihaunabathe and burn me. “I wasn’t trying to.”
“I’m being serious, Leihani. I’m glad your siren army is meeting us there. I have no idea how to explain a hundred women in black silk to the generals tomorrow, but I’m glad regardless. I’m glad you came. I’m glad Aitne worked so hard on your leg and Selena’s here to do whatever the fuck Selena does. I’m glad you haven’t complained about Leal and Dimas. I’m glad I got to keep you with me, rather than leave you behind. But I won’t be glad to enter battle with you.”
The water steamed invitingly, but I crossed my arms. “What are you going to do when it’smywar?”
“What do you mean?”
“Thaan’s plan is to wage war. His colony versus the Venusian Sea, then his colony versus Juile. My sea.”
“Thaan doesn’t have a colony.”
I almost barked out a laugh. “How do you know?”
“Don’t they have to be in the sea?”
“I was part of his colony, Kye. Did you once see me in the sea?”
His eyes narrowed in thought, gaze bouncing across the floor. “How many does he have?”
“Selena doesn’t know for sure. She estimated several thousand. He takes nomadic sirens in their youth, before they know they’re Naiad. The way he did with me.”
“Several thousand? How many do you have, for comparison?”
One of my shoulders drooped. The chilled air raised my skin, and I finally gave up and let a foot drop into the hot water, sliding all the way in so only my chin and the tips of my knees broke the surface. Kye occupied my seat on the edge of the tub, leaning his forearms lazily on his thighs as he watched me from over his shoulder. “I’m not sure,” I said quietly. “Maybe several hundred. They’re not all fighters. Most of them tend the ocean.”
He said nothing, but I heard his thoughts in my head, shifting around uncomfortably the way I did when Selena laced my corset too tight, grasping for a way to breathe.
“The Juile Sea Naiads are a dying colony,” I murmured, reaching for the leather strip holding my braid. “They used to be thriving, but now they’re small in oceanic terms. The size you’d be more likely to find in a lake.”
Kye leaned toward me, taking the rope of my hair and separating the strands of my braid with his fingers as he considered my words. “So, the Venusian colony is larger?”
“I believe so.”
You took your first breath as a Naiad in their waters.
The memory of Selena’s words flitted into my head on near-silent feet and without warning. I quickly stashed it away, though I wasn’t sure why. My gaze snapped to Kye’s.
“What was that?” he asked, freeing the remainder of my hair.
