Page 79 of Of Songs and Silence

Beneath you,I warn him of the two nobles trying to sneak up from the trench. He dodges out of the way just in time.

On your left.

Three more waiting near the reef.

King Cepheus turns his glare on me, studying my expression, the way I’m holding my ribcage after Ari takes another blow.

“I know what you’re doing,” he says, but I don’t falter.

It hardly matters now. Noa shifts at my side, her fingers flexing around the staff of her trident. The move itself is innocuous enough, but I know what she’s doing, what she’s preparing for. And I know she will lose if she tries.

“Don’t worry,” Cepheus says. “Danica will get her punishment as well, as soon as we have taken care of yours.”

He’s trying to distract me, and it almost works. But Danica isn’t coming back. She’s safer than we are right now.

I throw a private warning out to Ari. Another beat of silence passes before the king tries his tactics again.

“Will you cry the way she did?” This question finally breaks my concentration, if only for the random nature of it. “It was pathetic, really.”

The way who did?

Disgust coats his expression. His violet eyes go distant as if in memory, and I belatedly realize he’s referring to my mother, not Danica.

“Why?” I force the question out through my mental shields. “She was your child—”

“She was weak.”

It’s baffling that anyone would use that word to describe Mother. Madame. The terror of Corentin, the waking nightmare that haunts Delphine. Yet she is nothing more than a shadow of his cruelty.

Screwing my eyes shut, I try to think of some appropriate response, something that might stir any dormant residual benevolence he has left.

Or perhaps I just want to hurt him half as much as he has hurt everyone.

“Did you show weakness when you hurt your mate?” I force the image of Natia in the cage toward him. I focus on her missing hand, the bruises and the cold, lifeless stare of her eyes. Didn’t he feel her pain? Can he still? “How could you bear—”

My question is cut off by a growl rippling through my mind.

Cepheus stands, stretching to his full height, and I can’t help but scramble from my chair in panic. Napo releases my leg, alarm stretching his inky eyes into saucers as the king glides toward me in a lightning fast move.

My grandfather’s grin stretches wide, and I know he’s heard my thoughts. Then, his hand is around my neck as he slowly pushes me against the wall.

It’s a power move I have seen Mother make too many times. And I have seen what follows as well. Watched as her grip tightens, as faces turn blue from the lack of oxygen. Watched her slowly bring them to the brink of death, before snapping their necks entirely.

Then a tentacle wraps around his face, followed by another and another. Napo is trying to wrench the king away from me, using half of his tentacles to blind him or tug at him, and the other half crash against Cepheus’ face and shoulders and chest.

My vision begins to swim, tears stinging my eyes.

“Napo,” I force the panicked word out through my shields. “Stop.”

The octopus won’t listen though and keeps hitting and biting my grandfather—who looks more annoyed than anything else. Without letting go of my neck, he reaches behind him and crushes Napo’s body in a punishing grip. Napo’s tentacles slacken and slide off of the king, who tosses him to the side like garbage.

“You will learn, child,” he says, interrupting my raging thoughts. “That I will go to great lengths to get what I want. And right now, what I want are two things. Your silence. And your obedience. Am I understood?”

I test the walls of my mind, making sure that they are even more secure than before and dip my head into a slow nod. I don’t let him hear the next thought, the one that echoes through me like a promise.

I hate you. I hate you. And I will find a way to end you.

He glides backward, the water rippling around him as a satisfied expression settles over his mouth. As soon as I can move, I’m at Napo’s side, pulling his limp body into my arms. The skin around his eyes expands and contracts for a moment, before they’re wide open again.

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