Page 98 of I Summon the Sea

“Hm…” He clucks his tongue, the sound like stone cracking. “No, you weren’t born mute, were you?”

He’s bluffing. He can’t know the truth. The spell is well hidden, and his magic is of the earth and air, not water.

“You weren’t always mute, and you have a mark on your back.” He nods thoughtfully. “I have long waited for you.”

Shock holds me immobile. He can’t know anything about me, so how does he know this?

Then he stands up, and damned holy gods above, he’s tall. Maybe taller even than Jai, and that’s saying something, because Jai seems to be close to seven feet in height, a giant next to me.

I look up and up as the fae king unfolds, his silver hair falling over his shoulders like a mantle. He looks even more alien from below, his face narrower, his mouth sterner.

“Walk with me.” He brushes past me, and after a long, stunned moment, I whirl about and fall into step beside him. “Welcome to theparadejaof the palace. Every palace has one—an enclosed garden to remind us of the world we left behind, the world we had before the last Reversal, now lost to the waters.”

Just as I thought. A miniature replica of the fae home world.

I look around as we exit the pavilion from the back. It’s a clearing, roses climbing the tree trunks at its periphery, infusing the air with their perfume. The trunks are twisted and misshapen, though. It’s almost as if you can see screaming faces among the gnarled knots, and a shiver racks me.

The king frowns at them, making a gesture that almost looks like a greeting, and keeps walking.

At the center of the clearing lies a pond on which water lilies float. Red and orange fish swim inside. A stone bench stands beside another statue of the Eosphor woman, this one smaller and older-looking, half-covered in moss and lichen patches.

He leads the way around the pond, his steps unhurried, his long blue robes trailing on the ground. “In my home world, the water was benign and safe. This world is different.”

I frown at the grass around the pond. Why is he telling me this?

“We had to leave our homeland behind.” He stops and clasps his hands behind his back, the posture almost military in its severity. “The last Reversal flooded our lands, drowned our animals, our forests, and the spirits living in them. Rot set in. We had to leave or die out, and we couldn’t allow that to happen. So my father took our people and slipped through the worlds to find one where we could thrive.”

I huff, the sound barely audible. As if that excuses their bloody invasion.

“I know we killed plenty of humanfolk and merfolk.” He stops, frowns at the pond. “It was a conquest. It couldn’t be helped. The inhabitants of this world didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms. The human kings, with their long beards full of bird nests, didn’t want to talk and negotiate. Lying, crafty, without pity, sly as foxes, overly proud, falsely humble, miserly, and greedy; living on garlic, onions, and leeks, and drinking filthy bath water!”

The venom in his voice startles me. I swallow down my anger.

“Who are you, really?” His scrutiny only fans it. “You seem familiar. Where have I seen you before?”

We have never met. When his men came for my family, he wasn’t with them, and now I fight the memories unrolling inside my mind, the blood, the screams, the swinging blades, and crashing bodies.

I will kill you, I think.I will end you.

I’ve fed on death. My head is full of it. My memories overflowing with it. Yet I have never killed someone like this, never planned on doing it. It’s a weird, unpleasant feeling, an oily roil in my stomach.

But he starts moving again, robes trailing, pale hair fluttering, gaze intent as he leads us to the stone bench.

When I pause in front of the statue, he waves a negligent hand at it. “A statue of venerable Persephona who is said to have brought about the last Reversal. We share many myths. The stories about the last Reversal made their way through the Nine Worlds. We are more similar, humans and fae, than it might appear on the surface.” He sinks down on the bench. “We didn’t look like this before crossing. This… different from you.”

I look at him, trying to read his face. Is he saying they looked like humans before?

“Some fae are born, some are made. Which, as far as I know, is true of all creatures.” He lifts a hand to rub at his brow as if his head hurts. “Some magic is inherited, some acquired. Take Athdara, for instance.”

My eyes narrow.

“He speaks to dragons and controls shadows. But he wasn’t born that way. And not all that power is his.”

What is he saying?

“Legends say that the Eosphors were the original dragon speakers. The great Eosphors, their leaders, were dragonkings, controlling the serpents of death, controlling the gates between the worlds. Athdara… isn’t in full control of that power, not yet, but he must acquire it soon, because this world is tainted. It’s rotting, drowning, like ours was when we abandoned it. Our journey hasn’t ended. We must forge on.”

Good gods. Forge on?

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