Page 101 of Of Serpents and Ruins
"Arrogant king."
"Always my queen." He pressed his forehead to mine.
We held one another. Then though I flailed and screamed inside to stay in his arms, I pulled away. It was time for us to part.
I’d no sooner stepped out of his embrace when I felt the cold and the pain of our separation. One look into his eyes told me he felt it too. I steadied myself, knowing we were both on the verge of breaking as everyone watched.
"I'll take a rain check on that kiss," I said, forcing my voice to be steady. "You'll have to find me later and kiss me then."
He nodded slowly, setting his arms defiantly on his hips. "That seems to be two things I owe you then, Your Majesty."
"So you do. See to it that you honor your word." I dipped my head forward, turned my back, and marched toward the ship. Somehow, we would find a way through.
STELLA
It seemed to take hardly any time at all for the ship to pull away from the dock. I kept my eyes locked on Brandt, and he remained at the edge, flanked by his guard, watching. His tall, powerful form stood motionless as the wind caught in his hair. The charm remained steady, not turning yellow or even flickering in color.
I imagined his arms around me once more. Imagined being held as we celebrated the elimination of the Gola Resh and the saving of Sepeazia. Envisioned that kiss he'd promised me.
He remained there until we were out of sight, and I did not move from my spot as we left the harbor. We would be united again. We would stop the Gola Resh. We would survive. This was not the last time I would see him.
Once we left the harbor, Kine and five other warriors split into two groups. Each one took up a position between two of the rings set in the sides of the ship with a sort of rope harness in hand. They put these harnesses over their chests and then dove into the water, shifting into water serpents as soon as they entered the waves.
The ship glided forward, the warriors pulling us steadily through the current. I stood at the prow, the wind whippingthrough my hair as we picked up speed. The sunlight danced on the waves, sparkling and glistening like millions of diamonds. The salty spray caught me directly in the face. A laugh bubbled up in my chest as memories of play and fun surfaced.
Elias leaned against the railing. "No ship faster than a Sepeazian ship. Especially with Sepeazian water serpent shifters drawing it."
I glanced at him, my eyebrow lifting. Our previous conversation flashed through my mind. "I suppose so."
My curiosity intensified. It was so strange. I still felt no stirrings of recollection when I looked at him. There was an absence about him but also, as I studied him, a comfort. It was easy to pass over him, easy to accept his presence.
Except now I was suspicious, or maybe I was just raw after what had happened between Brandt and myself. His last-minute change of mind still troubled me. Though he had come to the docks to bid us farewell, he had not explained what caused it. Nor had he seemed fully there.
Elias took a sidelong look at me and then reached into his pocket. His fingers fumbled in the dark-red fabric. "I apologize for how I ended our previous conversation. It was unfair." He removed the necklace with the charm he had given me. "Please. Forgive me for my affront, but I beg you to wear this. It’s for your protection." He placed it in my palm, his fingers pressing along the charm and the moonstone.
I stared down at the necklace and the dark stone charm with the metal backing. I had been so overwhelmed with everything that had happened that I hadn’t really considered it much. It weighed little more than a silver dollar in my palm.
"You gave this to me when you found me in Vegas. Why?"
He closed his eyes, scoffing. As he leaned his long arms against the railing, he stared out over the rolling sea. "It’s a protective charm. At least in my people’s tradition it is. Notlikely that it works as well as I hope, but…" He shook his head. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "I know you had to grow up alone on Earth. Away from all of us. Away from everyone who cared about you."
"How exactly do you think this charm helps?" I did not move to put it around my neck, but I didn’t set it aside either. "What makes this so significant?"
He bowed his head. "It’s…it’s just a protective charm. Probably nothing more than old superstition, but sephorite is supposed to help with the restoration of memories and ward against evil."
"And what is it you need to tell me?" My fingers curled over the necklace. That faint cherry scent returned. It was less fruit-like than I’d remembered. More like my favorite ChapStick when I was a teen. Pleasant as that smell was, Elias was not telling me all he should.
He shook his head. His tongue pressed at his lips. Then he turned his gaze back to mine. "You can ask Kine to verify anything I tell you. He won’t be happy about my telling you, but itisthe truth."
"Tell me, and I will verify it with him," I said, not allowing any weakness into my voice.
He stared down at the waves striking against the golden-brown hull. The fine spray coated his face, but he barely blinked. "I realized you were coming back during one of my meditations early on, that you were trapped on Earth. Brandt had mentioned during nearly insane ramblings that perhaps you might come back. He refused to let anyone claim your place as queen, but there was no evidence of it. I saw—I saw in the waters when you were born on Earth, and I set to learning how to get you back. The years passed slow and long. I am not powerful by any metric, but you…" His mouth twisted as he covered it. "You gave me another chance at life. I vowed to protect you, and I failedbecause you had to die. Then when I saw you in those waters, I realized I had a second chance. I saw how lonely you were. How hard life was for you."
"Others had it far worse." I dropped my gaze to the shimmering waters.
"That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard." He remained silent for another beat, his gaze darting up to the cloudless sky above. "I couldn’t be there for you. Couldn’t help you. Couldn’t do anything except look for a way to bring you back." He clenched his jaw. "I wasn’t a member of the court. I convinced Kine to help me, and he agreed, but Brandt refused to let us go fetch you because we didn’t have the cure for the curse. We’d waited fifty years. It was the first time we could get to you, so…we went anyway. We intended to bring you back to Brandt, but…you sort of ran and vanished for weeks."
"And he imprisoned you both?"
