Immortal Reign (Falling Kingdoms #6)(65)

He’s trying to protect you, she thought.

“I’m not a simpleminded child who needs to be kept away from steep cliffs,” she muttered.

Anya cleared her throat nervously, her smile remaining fixed upon her pretty face. “Of course you aren’t, princess.”

How Cleo longed for the company of Nerissa again. She needed her friend’s guidance and straightforward way of looking at the world, especially when it seemed to be completely falling apart.

Nerissa had told her only that she was going on an important journey with Felix and that she would return as soon as she could. When Cleo had pressed for more information, Nerissa simply shook her head.

“Please trust that I am doing only what I need to do,” she’d said.

Cleo trusted Nerissa because Nerissa had more than earned that trust in the past.

Yet it still seemed as if everyone had left her all alone with her thoughts, her worries, and her fears.

“I heard the most beautiful song last night at the Beast,” Anya said as she pinned Cleo’s hair back from the left side of her face. Cleo had requested that it remain down on the right to hide the lines.

The Beast was a popular tavern in the city, frequented by nobles and servants alike.

“Did you?” she asked absently. “What was it about?”

“It was about the goddess Cleiona’s final fight against Valoria,” Anya said. “And that it was not one of vengeance and anger, but painful necessity. That, in their truest hearts, they loved each other like sisters.”

“What a tragic song,” Cleo said. “And how fantastical. I’ve read nothing about them that would lead me to believe their battle was anything but two enemies who had finally declared war upon each other.”

“Perhaps. But it was very pretty.”

“Very pretty, just like you, my dear. Such a pretty vessel—I can see why you would fight so hard to keep it.”

Cleo’s breath caught as she stared at her reflection, Anya busily tending to her hair.

Who said that?

“You must give in to the waves,” the voice continued. Cleo couldn’t discern if it was a male or female voice; it could easily have been either. “Let them take you under. Don’t resist. Resisting is what makes it hurt the most.”

The water Kindred.

Cleo’s fingertips flew to her throat, to the lines that had crept up higher yesterday.

“Leave me,” she said suddenly to Anya, far more harshly than she’d meant to.

Anya didn’t argue, didn’t say that she wasn’t finished with Cleo’s hair yet, she simply bowed her head and left the room without a word.

“I need you to leave me too,” Cleo said, staring fiercely into her reflected eyes. “Immediately.”

“That won’t happen,” the voice replied. “I chose you, I’m keeping you. It’s as simple as that.”

“There is nothing simple about this.”

“The fact that I’m even able to communicate with you now means that I am close to taking full control. I’ve never taken mortal form before. I think it will be wonderful to finally live on that plane of existence. To see all this world has to offer, to taste it, smell it, touch it. It is something that has been denied me for far too long. Won’t you help me?”

“Help you?” Cleo shook her head, her heart pounding hard in her chest. “Help you to kill me?”

“A mortal life is fleeting. Seventy, eighty years, if one is lucky. I will be eternal.” As Cleo watched her reflection, her eyes began to glow with an otherworldly blue light. “You must go to Kyan. He will help you to make this transition as painless as possible. My brother does not possess a great deal of patience, and his anger can be quick and unpredictable, so you would be doing yourself a great favor, along with so many others who might come to harm, to do as I say.”

Cleo learned forward, studying her now strange and foreign gaze. It was like looking at someone else entirely.

“Never,” she snarled. “I will fight against you until my very last breath!”

She picked up the silver-handled brush that Anya had left behind and threw it at the mirror, shattering the glass on contact.

The water Kindred didn’t say another word.

Cleo burst out of her chambers, knowing that if she stayed a moment longer in there all by herself she would go mad.

She slammed into something solid and warm. And very tall.

“Cleo . . .” Magnus took hold of her shoulders gently. “What’s wrong? Another drowning spell?”

“No,” she managed, breathless. It would worry him so much if she told him what had happened. She wasn’t ready for that, not yet. “I . . . I just wanted to leave. I wanted to find you. Where have you been? Were you with Ashur and Taran?”

He nodded, his expression grim. “I want you to come with me.”

Panic gripped her heart. Had something horrible happened to Taran? Had he been taken over completely by the air Kindred?

“What is it?”

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

He took her hand in his and led her out of the room and through the hallways of the palace to the throne room.

“Who?”

“Someone I hope very much might have the power to help you.”

Afternoon light streamed into the throne room through the stained glass windows and bounced off the gold veining on the marble columns, making them glitter.