I stood atop the stern deck of the Sirena; my hand wrapped around the wood in a white-knuckle grip as I stared out at the growing white stain that marred the horizon.

Sails. Dorian sails.

Two days had passed since I’d somehow managed to Shadow Walk all five of us out of that bloody tower. Too shocked to even aim right, I’d landed us in the water instead of on the ship. Aurora, her body drained so fully she’d barely been alive, had not even twitched at the cold, wet landing.

Thankfully, Nerina had done her job as my spy well. She’d discovered that this ship trailing us was just one of the fleet ready to sail from Cyron. And worse, it was an improvement on the design of the best ships within my own fleet. It was disturbingly fast, likely even faster than the Sirena, which was the quickest three-masted carrack in the entire Shards.

Meaning Myridia, and the Shardian Alliance, had a rather large problem.

Peleus hovered beside me. Apparently unconcerned with the threat that grew closer with each league we traveled, his sea-green eyes were on my face.

“What.”

His brow lifted at my tone. “What are you going to do?”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant. I knew very well that he wasn’t talking about the Dorians. He was talking about the Korai currently asleep in my cabin. In my bed. Where she’d been since I’d pulled her unconscious body onto the ship.

I shut my eyes tight, fingers digging into the rail as I tried and failed to block out the image of her wet, in nothing but that thin linen dress.

And what I’d done afterward, when the scent of so many males around us had nearly pushed me over the edge.

I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and tried to slow my heart. But the images, the feelings, kept coming. Without thought, I touched the place her magic had pierced me, right through the bloody fucking heart.

I’d thought she’d killed me. I’d expected to feel blood pour from my chest—for that to be the last thing I’d ever felt—but it hadn’t. No. What she’d done was far more life-altering than death.

I shoved those feelings down. I willed my own calming darkness to smoor the flames I was still, days later, struggling to contain. “I can’t think about that right now,” I said tightly.

He shook his head, watching me with something between awe and disapproval. “Mated. She mated herself. To you. I still can’t believe it.” He paused a beat, marveling. “But you can’t run from this, you know. If you don’t deal with it, and soon, the instinct to take her is going to overwhelm you. It’s going to make you stupid. Reactive.”

“Careful, brother, you’re starting to sound like Lux.”

He scoffed. “That stick in the mud? Never.”

I rolled my neck, the chafing need threatening my control. “I can handle it.”

Finally, Peleus’s attention drifted to the ever-nearing sails. “Let’s hope so.”

Steps rattled the planks behind us. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. I’d spent enough years with each of my Seven to have even the cadence of their boot clicks memorized by heart. “What is it, Cadmus?”

He joined us at the rail, brown skin glistening in the sunlight as he glanced towards the Dorian ship. “Cassia wants a heading. She needs to know if we are going north towards the Bastion of the Fallen as planned, or to Myridia.”

I shot a scowl over my shoulder, where Cassia’s caramel-skinned form paced on the main deck. Her voice called over the wind and surf, cursing like the sailor she was as she ordered the crew around on the deck below and the riggings above. The only of my Seven who had not accompanied me into the Celestial City, my half-sister served as Admiral of the Myridian Fleet.

She’d been hounding me for a proper heading since I’d climbed out of the water. I knew what answer she wanted; to head north, to the King. My hands gripped the rail so hard it was a miracle it didn’t warp. “I won’t take her to the King,” I told Cadmus. “Not yet. Not until she decides she’s ready to meet him.”

Cadmus sighed. “You know what this might cost us.”

“Of course, I do.”

“Aidon . . . He could offer her a great deal of protection.”

I turned to Cadmus, my eyes as cold as the death that lived within me. He looked away. “Fine,” he said. “East, it is.”

Then, she was there.

I felt her and my breath caught. Every muscle in my body tensed. This sense . . . it was her scent given feeling: the heat of the sun, the enveloping warm taste of vanilla. Everything faded as a burst of hot light filled my core. Light and flames burned away the cold darkness of my anger, begging for release. Begging to be rejoined with its source. But if I yielded even a step, I knew we would be lost. We would all be lost. I had to stay focused. I had to outrun that ship, gaining on us even now. I had to keep her—my mate—safe.

The word rang through me. Mate mate mate mate mate. My mate. I shut my eyes. I had to breathe. Had to think.

Peleus laid a hand on my shoulder. “Aidon?”

I shook him off. “It’s her.”

They both glanced behind us. “Oh,” Peleus said. His eyes widened. “Oh.” He turned fully then. “M . . . my . . . my lady.”

I would have laughed at his sudden uncertainty around a female, had it not been my female he was looking at.

The thought nearly undid me. But was she even my female? Did she even want to be? The possibility that the bond might be unwanted made me want to rip the gods-damned world apart. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. What I’d told my father was still true: Aurora belonged to herself.

Cadmus and Peleus shared a glance before both of them made some mumbled excuse and left.

Then we were alone. Which was maybe even worse.

I stayed where I was, my back to her, hands tight around the rail.

“Aidon . . .” Her usually warm voice was a sandy rasp. Yet still, a bolt of lightning shot through me at the sound. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

I tried to breathe through it but that only made it worse. Her scent was too much. It grated against my raw nerves in a way that was both pain and absolute euphoria. But then she moved and I knew it intrinsically, could feel it in the very air between us in a way that was strange and disquieting and new. Her hand reached for my back. “Aidon.”

I spun away from her touch, muscles straining with the urge to move toward her and not away. “Don’t.” My voice was too harsh, too biting, but it was hard to be gentle while fighting every God-Blooded instinct the mating had awoken within me.

She stumbled back and for the first time since I’d laid her unconscious form in my bed to recover, I let myself look at her. Her amber eyes shone bright, silvered tears lining her lashes. She shook her head, coppery hair blowing around her face in the sea breeze. “Aidon . . . I’m so sorry.”

I turned my face away, towards the sea, and tried to focus on the salty wind that kissed my face, on the sun beating down on my skin. I took a calming breath, a little easier now that I was reaccustomed to her scent. “Just . . . please don’t touch me. Not yet.”

She was silent for a long moment. Finally, I was in control of myself enough to face her. Her normally rosy skin was pale, still recovering from the use of so much magic. But the pain that etched her face . . . the guilt it sent through me was a sharp agony.

Did she even know? Did she even understand how things had changed between us? That I was the one her power had found?

I knew things were different for females who were newly mated. They didn’t have the same overwhelming need to claim that males had. And generally, they took longer to realize a bond even existed. That made the distance I needed to keep easier to maintain. And yet, the hurt in her eyes twisted my gut into knots.

I met her eyes, trying to promise her through my gaze that I’d go to her when it was safe. I’d allow the bond to cement between us. I’d open every part of myself to her if she wanted me. But not now. Not yet. If I faltered, it could cost the lives of everyone on this ship.

She nodded, and I knew she’d misread the tension in my body and the unspoken words in my eyes as rejection. She turned away.

But I couldn’t let her go. Not like this. “Aurora.” She turned back and a glimmer of hope lit her eyes. “You need to see something.”

I gestured towards the horizon, towards that white smear that had grown close enough for its form to be clear to even a human eye. Her gaze followed, amber eyes widening. A hand lifted to her coral lips and her slim shoulders folded in, shaking. “It’s Varian, isn’t it? He’s coming for me.”

I wanted to close the space between us, to put a steadying arm around her waist and pull her tight against me. Instead, I spoke the words to push her away. “You should go back to my cabin. Get some rest while you can.”

Her eyes shone, a tear welling on her lower lid, but she turned without a word, moving on unsteady legs towards the stairs that led below.

Whatever strange connection came with this bond . . . it was nothing like what I’d ever heard from mated pairs. I could feel the twisting, gut-wrenching guilt and pain that ate at her in my own chest.

I sighed, leaning against the rail. I ran a hand through my wind-tangled hair. I was a bastard. A gods-damned bastard. But I didn’t know another way to get through this. To keep Aurora, the crew, the slaves I’d met in Arachne’s lair, and my Seven alive.

Booted heels rapped across the deck. I glanced up, expecting to find my sister in her famed leather knee-highs. “Looks like you and Cassia are getting along splendidly,” I said.

Parthenia stood before me, her wild red curls pulled back in a braid. She wore a moth-eaten red skirt pulled from one of my sister’s old trunks, ruched up on one side to rest above her knee, showing off the polished brown leather of Cassia’s boots. “Good to see you too, Myridian.”

“What do you want, little spy?”

She shrugged, crossing to stand beside me. She leaned against the rail, matching my stance. “I just overheard the heading Cadmus gave to the Admiral. Care to explain?”

“No.”

A hand rose to her narrow hip. “You’re not taking her to the King.”

My jaw tightened so hard I worried my teeth might break. “Is that a problem?”

Her eyes moved to the trailing Dorian ship. “We have bigger issues at the moment.”

“No shit.”

Her gaze slid to me. She studied me for a moment with those unnervingly cunning eyes of hers. “You hold two secrets from Aurora, Aidon. Both of them are going to change her. Forever. You need to tell her before she finds out on her own.”

Flames and light, death and cold—both threatened to boil over, out of my skin. “She’ll find out about the King . . . about her father soon enough. And when she does, she will be the one to decide if she wants to meet him.”

“And the other secret?”

I scowled down at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Tell her. Tell her before you push her so far away that you cannot pull her back in again.”

She turned to go, braid swaying. Once again, I found myself calling to a female’s retreating back. “Parthenia.”

She glanced over a shoulder.

“I need to know where your loyalty lies.”

She stood very still. Then, her freckled face became unusually earnest. “With my lady,” she said softly. The barest hint of a smile lifted the corner of her wide mouth. “And her lord.”

With her words, the strangest taste filled my mouth—fresh and pure like that of the clearest mountain spring. I stood there, mouth gaping like a fool.

Parthenia laughed. “Truth, Myridian As Aurora would tell you, it’s her curse.”

Truth. Mine now, too. To sense and to give. But what might the giving of it cost me? I looked to the horizon, towards the white sails, and put the truth from my mind.