“Whatever she took clearly made you defective, too,” he adds after a moment, his narrowed gaze assessing me.
Too?
Is he referring to the human side of me? Or does he know it’s something else? The way I can’t speak on land.
“We will have you inspected first thing in the morning to make sure there aren’t any other obvious deficiencies.”
I wish I could say that the words sting, but they’re said in the cold, practical tone that Mother has used all of my life. Not an insult as much as an observation.
I want to ask what plans he has for me, how I can possibly be useful to him, but I suspect he won’t answer. More than that, I suspect he will punish me for asking.
So I stay silent. He does as well until we stop at the end of the corridor, just outside of a round, bronze door.
“This is the entrance to your chambers. I’ll leave you here for the night.”
Unless my sense of time is completely skewed, it’s barely late afternoon, and I’m already being locked away for the night. Another test? Or merely a display of power? My answer is the same, regardless.
“Of course.” I dip my head in assent. “Good evening, King Cepheus.”
“Grandfather,” he corrects again.
Though his tone is mild, his expression isn’t. It tells me his next correction won’t be nearly so gentle.
“Good evening, Grandfather,” I say obediently.
His grin becomes almost feral as he turns to Ari. My heart stops, my limbs weakening with an unexpected wave of panic. Ari doesn’t look my way, but his fingers twitch, like he’s trying to tell me to stay calm. So I force myself to inhale, exhale.
“Commander,” the king says. “As a reward for bringing my granddaughter home unharmed, I give you the honor of being her personal guard. I trust that you will continue to keep her safe.”
Relief that he will be close wars with unease at my grandfather’s slightly-too-pleased expression. Perhaps this is only his magnanimous face, the one he wears when he bestows favors rather than agony upon his subjects.
If Ari is concerned, he gives no sign of it. His shields are more firmly in place than I’ve ever felt them. It leaves me feeling strangely empty, unmoored. He places his fist to his chest, bowing his head in response.
“On my honor,” he says evenly.
“You may have your things brought to your new chambers,” Cepheus says, gesturing to the door next door to mine.
With that, the king shuts the door behind me, closing me into my new prison. There’s no sound of a lock clicking into place, but that doesn’t surprise me. Mother never locked the doors to keep us inside. She kept us there with pure fear.
This must be where she learned it.
For all that I chose to come here, or at least chose to come without a fight, I didn’t consider the permanence of that decision. There was always danger, but it didn’t occur to me until now that I might be trapped here for the rest of my life.
I suppose I can’t complain, though. Even knowing what I do now, I couldn’t have chosen any other way. The visceral part of me that dreams of Ari and feels his pain and needs his touch could not be persuaded to leave him.
Besides, my gilded cage is certainly preferable to the ones outside.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
ARIIHAU
Ishould be relieved.
It would have been markedly harder to keep Kala safe if the king had put me on a different assignment. And not keeping her safe hasn’t been an option from the moment she appeared in my dreams.
For all that she’s made a joke of it, she’s been in danger from the moment Kane pulled her into the sea. I don’t know yet what the king wants from her, but I do know it can’t be good. Nothing about him is good, least of all his intentions.
I do know what the rebels want, however. They want her dead.