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She shouldn’t have this effect on me—not a human woman with a soft body and a laugh that breaks open like spring—and yet there’s a space in the long, wide part of me that answers to her like a beast obeying its master.
Familiarity, connection, something older than politics or duty. More powerful than magic or greed.
The thought rises unbidden and humiliatingly bright.
Maybe she is the thing the old songs call a true viyella.
Maybe the zareth has braided itself into us.
The idea both terrifies and steadies me.
I need to speak to Alaric first. I need his counsel. And if there is any truth to what I suspect, then I’ll tell Phoebe all of it. She deserves no less from me.
“Kael?”
Her voice pulls me back like the gentle tug of a current.
She’s half turned to the booths, eyes still alight from the whale-feeding, and for a breath I forget caution and simply drink her in.
“How long are we docked here?”
“One night here,” I say, letting my voice be the map she needs. “Seven nights. Each night we anchor at a different shore to make our announcement. Song and food and offerings in every harbor. It is customary in the Tidal lands for the people to celebrate the union of their Lord.”
I watch for the small glow that usually steals across her face when she thinks about something she likes.
It is a map I love reading.
But then the light in her eyes stutters. The joy flickers.
She looks away, small and suddenly distant, and I feel the pull of it in my chest like a snag on a line.
Before I can do the rational thing and give her space, my hand moves. Two fingers under her chin, lift, make her meet my face again.
It’s like I need her to look at me. I can’t bear the distance when she doesn’t.
“Kael, is this—” she starts, words tumbling like the nervous things people say when they want plainness. “Is this really what you want to celebrate across your lands?”
“It’s tradition?—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then, what are you asking me, Telya?”
She steels herself like she’s readying to face something difficult, unpleasant, and all I want is to shield her from it.
But then, I see it. And my heart? It squeezes.
That something difficult is me—and the realization stings.
“What am I doing here? Why bring me from—God, from Earth—to be yourwife, yourmate—what do you even call it? But more important, why?”
So many cages live in her questions.
The wordzarethfeels too heavy to drop in front of her before I’ve weighed it with Alaric.
So I hide it. I keep the truth inside me instead of spilling it.
“Are you not happy, Phoebe? Have I done something to hurt or scare you?”
