Aegir sent his call over the two of us, lifting the water out of our hair and clothes. Brows softly drawn, Pheolix watched, a strange expression in his eyes. “I’m going to Cypria to find more driftwood.”
“Why?” Selena glanced up at him. “We have plenty.”
The drone ran his fingers through his saturated scalp, corralling wild strands from his face. He gave a short sniff from the cold, a noise we’d all taken on since that first night. “It burns fast. We’ll run out before the morning.”
“It’s fine, Pheolix,” Selena said, but he waved her off, turning to wander out to the sharp rocks. Her eyes dropped to the thick lines of his tattoo, the firm muscle of his back rippling softly with each step he took.
He dove in, disappearing from the tide.
Aegir sank to his knee at our makeshift fire pit, rolling a fresh log of driftwood into the ash bed. “We can make a plan to search the underwater reef for a way in, but it will have to wait. You need to head back to Thaan tomorrow.”
My stomach squeezed. A daily dose of freedom wrapped in beeswax left me cursed as much as blessed. The thought of returning to Thaan rooted something within me I didn't quite trust. Deeper than the flex of my fingers or the clench in my teeth that pulsed whenever he floated into the corners of my mind. Something corrosive that scoured the lining of my chest, a gnaw and rot that ate at me like rust eats away iron when buried under the sea. A cancer in my thoughts, a violent attack of slow-spun torture, stealing my strength and leaving me brittle, robbing me of one precious iron flake at a time.
Selena stood quietly, walking to the edge of the cave, her gaze cast far over the water. Even from here, the moon reflected off its surface, twisting itself into the distant sea.
“She doesn’t like it here,” Aegir observed quietly.
I loosed a long exhale through my nose. “Neither of us do.”
“Because of Paria?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the dark interior of the cavern, driving away a sudden shudder. “Yes. And no. We were taken from our home as teenagers. We didn’t say goodbye to our mother. Thaan forced us underwater to transition before we knew we were Naiad. I thought they weregoing to drown me, then suddenly I had a tail. Half my body felt like someone had set it on fire. Paria is where they brought us. I hated Paria, but there were some Naiads who understood. Some who were kind.”
“There’s always some who are kind,” Aegir said. “That doesn’t mean they’re also right.”
“They paid for us.” I watched my sister’s hair blow in the wind. “They just wanted their colony to survive.”
He studied me long enough that I finally turned, tilting my head as I waited for whatever it was he hesitated to say.
His mouth worked for a moment. “You carry it better than she does.”
I barked a quiet laugh. “No, I don’t. I just conceal it better.”
“I’m not sure you conceal anything.”
“Fine,” I said. “I bury it better, then.”
“What were their plans for you?” Aegir asked.
“I don’t know.” I sighed, shoulders dropping. “I was too busy hating everything. Once I understood what my bronze tail meant, I hated them for it. Hated them for myPrizivacbloodline. Hated my skin, my body. Hated that I was a siren, that that was the reason I’d been taken. Hated that Paria fell before they had the chance to answer for what they did to us. Then Thaan killed half of them and took the other half for himself. And there was nothing left to quiet that hate. It might have been put out if they’d had the chance to acknowledge what they did. But they perished first.”
I paused, watching the way Selena’sbyssussilk dress rippled around her calves. “Have you ever hated something and then watched it die?”
Aegir shifted slightly, pulling his knees close enough to settle his arms over them. “I’m not sure that I have.” His braids fell over the side of his face as he angled his head to look at me. I hadn’t been this close to him before. Beads wove through his braids, the texture of pale chalk. I couldn’t decide if they were shell or bone.
“Thaan told us he planned to attack right before it happened. Selena was terrified. She wanted to run. She wanted to help. If we did either, Thaan said we’d be killed. So I pulled her under the water in one of the little pools and we huddled together until it was over. I thought I’d feel guilt.”
I leaned my head to the side, gathering my hair over a shoulder. “When something you hate dies, the strange thing is that when the guilt follows, it's not from the death itself. It’s from the numbness instead. You should care, but you don’t. You realize your soul is probably broken and worthless. You realize you watched an entire colony fall and you walked away without an ounce of compassion. You think the guilt might come days, weeks, months later. Then one night you look up at the stars and realize it never will.”
My muscles released a small shake, and I leaned against the rock to hide it. That numbness had never left me. It sat on my shoulders like a shadow, and I’d never grown skilled enough to see through it. It stole the vibrancy of the world, every color and hue, everything that should have made me laugh or cry or shudder in fear. Those things echoed around me, mocking me beyond my reach, under the veil of the shadow. At times, it suffocated me. Hung like a cloak from my shoulders for someone to yank, a sudden chokehold I couldn’t escape.
“You weren’t scared?”
“No. Selena has always had enough common sense to hold fear for the both of us.”
Hand in a soft fist, Aegir dropped his temple against his knuckles. “Is it that, or do you not hold enough room to fear for yourself because you’re always calming hers?”
The thought made my mouth twitch. “Maybe it’s that. It doesn’t matter. Or change anything. The only time I feel afraid is when I think something might happen to her.”
