“I’m sorry,” Tharion burst out. “I am sorry that I misled you, and slept with you, and realized too late that I had gone too far. I’m sorry I strung you along for years—I didn’t know how to talk to you, or be an adult, and I’m sorry. It wasn’t right of me, and it was immature, and I hate that I did that to you, to anyone.”
She glowered at him, sniffling.
Tharion said, “And I married Sathia to bail her out of a shitty situation. King Morven of Avallen was forcing her into marriage with a Fae brute, and the only options were face the Asteri’s wrath and die, or wed. I offered her a way out. Marriage to me. I owed it to my sister to help a female in trouble. Our marriage isn’t a comment on how I feel about you or her.”
“And the fact that she is a Fae beauty held no sway over you?” sneered the River Queen’s daughter.
“No,” Tharion said honestly. “I …” He looked toward his wife, who was indeed pretty. Beautiful. But that hadn’t entered into his decision to offer his aid. “She was a person in trouble, who needed help.”
The River Queen’s daughter seethed.
Tharion said, voice breaking, “But if you take in the people of this city, if you shelter them against whatever storm the Asteri might bring … when this is over, if I am alive …” He held her stare. “I will divorce my wife and marry you.”
Sathia whirled to him, but he couldn’t face her, couldn’t bear to see her reaction to how he’d abandon her, too—
The River Queen’s daughter sniffed, a child calming from a tantrum. “I accept. I shall marry you once you’re rid of her.”
“You shall not.” The River Queen’s voice shook the room, the river. “My daughter does not accept this offer. Nor do I.”
Tharion’s chest crumpled. “Please,” he begged. “If you could just—”
“I am not done speaking,” she said, and held up a hand. Tharion obeyed. “I no longer wish my daughter to be tied to the likes of you, in truth or in promise. As far as marriage between you is concerned, it shall never happen.”
“Mother—”
“You are your wife’s problem now,” the River Queen said to Tharion.
Tharion shut his eyes against the stinging in them, hating this, hating that he’d lost this opportunity, this safe haven for the people of Crescent City, due to his own bullshit.
“But your willingness to sacrifice your freedom to live Above is no small thing,” the River Queen went on. She tilted her head to the side, and one of the shells in her hair sprouted legs and skittered under the tresses. A hermit crab. “You never asked me why I sent you to look for Sofie Renast’s body, and to find her brother.”
Tharion opened his eyes and found her staring curiously at him. Not with kindness, but with something like respect. “It … it wasn’t my place to question,” he said.
“You are frightened of me, as all wise beings are,” she said a shade smugly. “But I have fears, too. Of this world, at the mercy of the Asteri.”
Tharion tried not to gape.
“Our people are ancient,” the River Queen said. “My sisters and I remember a world before the Asteri arrived and caused the land’s magic to wither. Entire islands vanished into the sea, our civilizations with them. And though we were limited in our power to stop them … we have tried, each in our own way.”
Her daughter was staring at her like she didn’t know her.
But the River Queen went on, “We remember the power the thunderbirds wielded. How the Asteri hunted them down. Because they feared them. And when I learned one had been killed, her thunderbird brother on the loose … I knew those were assets the Asteri would seek to recover at any cost. I might not have known why, but I had no intention of letting them attain either Sofie or her brother.”
Tharion blinked. “You … you wanted them in order to stop the Asteri?”
A shallow nod. “It might not have made a difference in the greater sense, but keeping them safe was my attempt, however small, at thwarting the Asteri’s plans.”
Tharion had no idea what to do other than bow his head and admit, “Emile wasn’t a thunderbird. Only a human. He’s in hiding now.”
“And yet you kept this from me.” The river shuddered at her displeasure.
“I thought it would be best for the boy to disappear from the world completely.”
The ruler scanned his face again for a long, long moment.