One of the Naiads standing in the background shifted over her feet. The glint of metal caught my eye, a knife belted to each of their waists. They’d surrounded us while we weren’t looking. Somewhere behind me, water dripped. Impatience tingled, igniting the need to fidget and move, but I forced myself to stand still.
“Research,” Aegir said slowly.
“Research.” Xiane’s chin lowered. “What research are you conducting in the forgotten colony of Paria?”
Aegir’s mouth opened.
“We’re here to find a stone,” I said.
“Ceba,” Selena hissed.
Aegir’s eyes darted to meet mine, unsurprised.
“She lasted longer than I thought she would,” Pheolix said, arm wrapped around his side. He pushed to his feet, and we all stepped away, offering him room. He stole a small step toward Selena. “All right there, heiress?”
Selena turned her head, nose and cheeks still rosy. Blue eyes cut the air at him, glaring and thick with shine. She bared her teeth, fists clenching into tight balls. “Why would you do that? Stick out your arm like a fool, straight into its mouth?”
Pheolix coughed a soft laugh. “Call me a thrill seeker.”
Anger blared, a heated metallic scent washing the cave, and for the first time in my life, I wondered if my sister might succumb to violence. “Enough jokes,” she seethed. “If I hear another joke leave your tongue, so help me, I’ll rip it out.”
Pheolix smiled. “That would please Cebrinne, I'm sure.”
She inhaled so hard that tendons sprang from her slender neck. Then turned on her heel, marching into the tunnels.
Sicia watched her leave. “Does she know where she’s going?”
I sent Pheolix a glare as venomous as the black we’d leached from his body. “No.”
“If you’re seeking the sacred stone,” Xiane said, turning every head toward her. “I know where to find it.”
25
Cebrinne
“You could become lost in these tunnels. Time has forgotten them.” Xiane kept her voice low as she led us down one of the dark passages. It broke and separated, a tangled network of unmarked tunnels, and at times, I found myself convinced we’d crossed the same rock corner before. That we were going in circles. But it steered only down, as though a massive corkscrew had hollowed these walls.
Selena walked beside me in silence. She hadn’t said a word since we’d caught up to her. Pheolix hadn’t, either. Unwilling to heed Sicia’s suggestion that he stay behind, he watched Selena without a word as she walked ahead.
“How far is it?” I asked.
Xiane paused to study the rock’s formation. Striations scarred the stone, the layers denser with lines as we descended. “Not far.”
I nodded. We’d been climbing down for what seemed like hours. The air felt wrong down here. Almost choking, the way smoke catches in your lungs. But the only thing to choke on here was the dark and the cold. Currents of it filtered above our heads, wind with no beginning and no end, shifting as easily as the tide. It swept low enough to scrape my hair with long talons, as if something unseen passed above.
The walls wept. Water trickled down them like tears. I had the strangest urge to wipe them, but when I tried, Xiane caught my hand.
“Don’t touch the walls,” she said.
I nodded, unsure which stopped me from asking why: the look in her eyes or that I didn’t want to know the answer.
We walked in silence, listening to the steady wind, the drip of cold water. “You’re Ursa’s daughter,” I finally said.
Xiane shook her head. “I’m her niece.”
Aegir glanced sideways at her, though his expression lay masked behind his green eyes.
I nodded. “Were you not here when Paria fell?”
