Page 58 of Surfaces
“What’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious about someone else’s opinion for the first time in decades.
“Your grandmother did say you’d take over the world,” Julian gave me a smirk that curled up one side of his mouth in the most delicious way.
I had the sudden urge to lean forward and trace the corner of that mouth with my tongue—but I resisted.
Why?
I had to ask myself that question because I hadn’t resisted my impulses in ages. I trusted my instincts, particularly those that set off alarms.
But Julian wasn’t alarming, he was the exact opposite. Charming.
I realized with a start that I didn’t give into my impulse because the prickles on my fingertips were nervous sensations—I didn’t just lean forward because I wasn’t certain Julian wanted me to.
Somehow, I cared what he wanted.
Another person’s desires were more important than my own.
My heart gave a jagged, uneven set of thumps as I stared at him, wondering why the sarding hell some random stranger under the sea could suddenly rearrange my innards and make me feel all these…things.
He didn’t have magic. He’d already confessed to me that he couldn’t even change the color of his hair.
So it wasn’t that.
He wasn’t enchanting me, unless he’d gone to some hedge witch. But the sarding bastard was so utterly against using magic, that I couldn’t see him doing that. Especially since he had no idea who I really was.
That meant this feeling was something else.
I stared at him long and hard, until his teasing grin turned into an awkward expression and he slid his arm from my shoulders.
No!I wanted to protest, to scream. But again, my lips stayed shut.
Instead, my insides tangled and writhed in agony as Julian withdrew to a more formal distance and said, “Well. Anyway, if you do take over the world, do a better job than that sultan in Cheryn, alright? He bungled it big time.”
My throat closed.
I should have been furious at the insult, raving mad. I should have disintegrated him on the spot, twisted my ring and just ended him with a wish.
Instead, I could only think,He’d hate me if he knew.
And all those soft feelings tumbled down to my toes, replaced by the gut-wrenching agony of the knowledge that Julian would want someone good.
Kind.
I was anything and everything but that.
I looked off into the wavering darkness and nodded emptily at his words as Julian retreated from me and the cold water filled in the space he’d occupied while I tried not to notice the utter shambles and emptiness that defined my life.
18
Avia
I dreamtof milky-eyed witches and a rockfall inside a pitch-black cave where I had to navigate the falling stones based on sound alone—all while the shrill laughter of my birth mother echoed off the walls as she shrieked, “You wanted your birthright! Take it!”
I awoke shaky and feeling like a fool.
Though the tournament didn’t start until noon and I could have slept in, I hadn’t wanted to spend an extra minute in that bed. I’d dragged myself out of the uncomfortably hard bed I’d slept on in Gorgono’s grand house, grumbling, “No wonder I dreamed about rocks, I slept on one.” I stuck my tongue out at the square mattress, which looked like a normal bed but was clearly designed as a torture device. Then I went about basically trying to rouse myself and lift my spirits so that I’d be in the right frame of mind for the tournament.
Meditating on the white marble floor didn’t work because my fins ended up bent against the ground and quickly protested that position. Pacing didn’t work, because this room hadn’t come with its own dressing chamber so my trunks were scattered around the walls, creating a miniature maze. In fact, other than the fact that the red sails that looped through chains hung from the ceiling and decorated the windows, the room itself was rather plain. There were no portraits or tapestries. My dressing table didn’t have a mirror. I’d been put into the “ugly stepsister” of guest rooms.
