62. Maren
62
Maren
N ori withdrew her fingers from mine.
From the doorway, Olinne’s mouth had thinned to a straight line, her eyes bright, as though she’d revisited her own memories of Alana from years ago.
I couldn’t focus on either of them. My gaze dropped to the space between my knees, and I sat swallowing again and again, gulping away the swollen knot Nori’s memories had summoned to the back of my throat.
They waited for me in silence, watching patiently as I recovered. Of all the things I’d expected when I swam to the island waters, seeing my mother’s face for the first time and watching her die within the same minute had been last. I finally dashed my eyes, a slight tremble to my voice. “You shared your vision with me.”
“I am an Oculos ,” Nori replied, cocking her head as if soothing me with her words.
But Oculoses were the eyes and ears of a Videre. She shouldn’t have been able to show me her memories—unless I was a Prizivac Vode .
Nori’s words from a few minutes before suddenly lurched forward in burning clarity. Our colony needs a Prizivac Vode to lead it.
My heart drummed a frantic rhythm inside my chest as I stood and rammed my silk dress over my head. I looked between them both, and they smiled gently at me, as though I’d finally solved all the riddles they’d ever given me. Their eyes glistened with pride, and Olinne sniffled from the doorway.
“I’m not a Prizivac Vode. I can’t be the leader of this colony,” I said. “I’m not trained for it.”
“You are trained for it,” Olinne’s sweet voice cut through the room. “It was we who trained you.”
“I’m blood-sworn to an enemy of these waters.” I gestured to my blank forearm, where the written words of my oath had shone on my skin the day before, though in the depths of my mind, wonderings gathered like bumblebees floating to a hive. My father was human. If I was a Prizivac Vode, my mother would have been as well. Did Selena know?
“Return to Calder and free yourself,” Olinne said. “Claim Thaan’s life. Free every Naiad in this world from his tyranny.”
The words were stupid enough to summon a snort from my nose. I paced around the edge of my pool. I’d fantasized about killing Thaan once. The same way my mother had done the day she signed her contract, foolishly believing she’d find a way out. “How would I live there, and rule here?”
“I am your eyes and ears,” Nori stepped smoothly out of the way of my stride. “We will come to you in Calder, at the edge of the Juile Sea. You came searching for answers, creature. This is your answer. This is your fate.”
Exhaling, I halted in front of Nori. I closed my eyes, drinking in the warmth from the strange blue light around me.
“What must I do?”
Queen Sidra waited for me under the open doorway of the room where the Naiads dined.
My feet ghosted the floor, halting at the top of the twin staircases.
She met me with piercing silver eyes, knives glinting under the blue light. “There is one way out.”
Through me hung unsaid in the air.
I nodded, feet spread under my body. Water dripped from my hands, ready to be summoned, electricity cracking between my fingertips.
I sized the Queen up from across the room. Though she appeared old, I made no assumption that Sidra was weak. I wished I’d had the chance to ask Selena what my best options were. There were no weapons to be found, only the ability to summon water. I was hesitant to get close enough to heat the blood in Sidra’s body—I’d have to drown her. The air in the colony was humid enough.
Naiads gathered in the passageways to watch, though no one made a move to stop us.
Sidra raised a dripping hand, and from the top of the stairs, I took aim.
And shot.
A blast of warm sea water struck the Queen across the face. She thrust it away with a wave of her arm as if wrenching open a curtain. The water separated, falling to her feet, but she regrouped it into the air, hurling it into my body. It hit me, hard and solid, sharp like a blade in my gut.
Skin stinging, I dropped out of her line of fire. Sidra advanced, arm outstretched. Scrambling to my feet, I wove down the opposite staircase as Sidra sent a rope of water towards me. It cracked over my head, snapping back to chop across my bicep. The skin of my arm split, and drops of blood connected with the pale puddles that lay strewn across the stone.
Gritting my teeth, I called to the water on the floor, lifting it to support my weight as I rose in the air.
Sidra’s eyes followed me. “Foolish.” She widened her fingers to call the water away.
The water tugged as it heeded the Queen, but I held my grip over it, talking to it soothingly in my head as I had when I was young.
Hush.
Hands on her hips, Sidra’s eyes narrowed from below. She walked under my floating chair, studying it at different angles.
“Are you afraid, child?” she said. “You dare to challenge me and then hide?” She hurled bursts overhead, but I absorbed them into my growing mass of water. I balled my fists. I’d summoned lightning once. It had been easy.
But I’d been angry.
I tried to search for it, the anger within myself that had always cushioned my fall. Had always loved me when no one else did. Had always soothed me, stroked me, comforted me into peace.
Where’s that anger I know you hoard away? I need you to be angry.
A shot of white fire flickered across the domed ceiling, igniting the etched tallies in the briefest moment.
Angry, Leihani.
Flicker, flicker, flicker. Tiny lightning strikes across the air, popping and zapping. Slices of fire snapping into existence and back out again, too quick to catch.
She will not give you back, Maren. You will never see any of us again. Me, Diara, Kye.
The Naiads took a step away, withdrawing into the tunnels as they watched, wide-eyed. Sidra stood unfazed, hands still rooted to her hips, the light of my electricity illuminating her face in brief flashes.
There is too much human in your heart.
It built and built, flashing longer, brighter, harder. Static raised the ends of my hair, and a white film covered the corners of my vision, directing all my attention to the Queen below.
I thrust my palm down.
She thrust hers up.
Time slowed.
Pale fire left my fingertips, crackling and spitting, searingly hot. It cut down to her like the jagged line of a vein. Pulsing, thrumming. And completely silent.
A cord of water erupted from Sidra’s hand. Pale green and almost clear, striking up. It opened its mouth, fangs drawn wide, and swallowed my strike down its throat.
The room blasted into light, Sidra’s water devouring my electricity in a single gulp. For a moment, it might have been fire in a torch. A feral boom wobbled the interior of the chamber; rattling my ribcage. The Naiads covered their ears.
My light blasted across the surface of Sidra’s water as though it were caught and desperate for escape—until it shuttered out, leaving the water to fall to the floor.
But it didn’t splash and separate.
A snake made of water slithered across the stone, muscular and calm. Almost half as wide as the open passageway, it raised its watery head in Sidra’s direction, sniffing the air. Tiny droplets rose from its back, ascending to the ceiling.
I coughed, the taste of rusted blood clawing at the back of my throat. A warm trickle ran from my nose, the inside of my nostrils burning like I’d inhaled water.
“You’re stronger than I thought,” Sidra called up to me. “But less controlled.”
I wiped my upper lip with the back of my wrist, flexing my fingers to amp for a second bolt.
Sidra shook her head. “Find another way, child. You’ll run yourself dry before you smite me.”
I coughed again, red splattering my chest. My knees wobbled. She was right, I couldn’t best her through a storm. Find another way—what other way did I have? Her water-calling was stronger than mine. I swallowed the taste of iron, gazing down at her, weighing my options.
She tilted her head. In an instant, the snake coiled. Curling itself higher and higher. I scrambled to move my little watery roost away as it reared back in a silent hiss.
And then it struck.
I had only enough time to divide a sheet of water from my perch, constricting the molecules and flattening them into a shield of ice. The water-snake snapped at the center of it. A labyrinth of fragile lines cracked into view. Another strike. The shield tumbled to the floor. And shattered.
Again and again, the snake attacked while I parried. The stone floor glittered under the blue light, a sea of fractured crystals. As my mass of water dwindled, I cast about for another idea, waiting for the Queen to exhaust herself, but only dry air manifested around her, our fight claiming all the moisture in the room. Dry air, dry air. What could I do with that?
Eyes scanning the floor, I threw up a shield too late. The snake pierced it just before it froze, its eerie triangular head driving through. It connected with my floating pool. A beam of light fractured the air from the snake’s body, starting somewhere outside the room and racing through the fluid serpent toward me. The Queen’s own bolt of lightning.
It was too bright to watch.
The roots of my hair stood, and static bore into me from my neck to toes. The air split with a crack so loud it pierced my ears, and my water abandoned me to fall through the air as it separated into a thousand droplets.
Lightning lit just over my head. Full and bright and hot. Vibrating against my skull as I dropped. For a moment, the room was saturated with white. The walls, the Naiads, the snake. Lost under a blanket of nothing. Then, as fast as it came, it was gone.
I flung about for any water nearby to catch me.
There was none.
I crashed into the stone floor, a sickening crunch reverberating through one of my ankles, though I didn’t hear a sound. A ringing echoed in my ears, throbbing against my skull. My body sent icicles scattering, one of them caught under an arm, sending pain shooting up my elbow.
I cried out, pushing against my injured arm to stand. My ankle gave beneath me; I fell back against the cold floor. Chunks of ice skidded from my kicking feet. The room was dark now, the brief flash of lightning inches from my eyes burned into my pupils.
“I must admit,” Sidra said, stepping through the sharp crystals towards me, “I’m disappointed. I thought this would last longer.”
She spoke the words almost sincerely. I reached for a nearby chunk of ice and Sidra swiped it away with the flick of a hand. My arm ached, and I coughed again, peppering the floor with shining red.
Sidra stopped before me, kneeling to gaze into my eyes. “We would have been awe-inspiring together. I would have taught you all I know, all you would ever need, to be queen. You would have been my daughter. My fate, my future.”
Leaning closer, she tilted her head, her silver eyes shifting over my face. I shuddered, the air suddenly cold.
The water snake wrapped its triangular head around the Queen’s shoulder. It slid across the elderly Naiad, opening its great mouth as it neared. I tried to call to it, but the snake was firmly under Sidra’s grasp. It ignored my summons.
There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape. I wiggled away, my ankle screaming as I scrambled back. The snake’s watery throat stretched before my eyes, wide enough to swallow me whole. My fingers roamed for anything that might help, scraping the soft skin of Sidra’s arm. I grabbed hold and Sidra stiffened, though she didn’t pull away. The Queen’s other hand found mine.
I grasped it. If I were to drown, I’d drown her, too.
The Queen laughed. “You forget that I can breathe in water.” She extracted my hand from hers. “Sleep well, my child.”
The snake plunged over me.
Water invaded. It cut down my nostrils and throat, forcefully wrenching my jaw wide. The room blurred into wavy lines, Sidra’s face hovering just out of reach, the flash of silver eyes bright enough to see through the clear water.
Salt flowed across my palate. Water streamed through my eyelids, though whether it forced in or out, I couldn’t tell. I twisted and thrashed, but the snake calmly advanced, engulfing my head and neck. The icicle rolled out from under my arm, sending numb tingles from my elbow into my shoulder. I wrapped my hand around it.
You forget that I can breathe in water.
The snake slithered over me, trapping me under its weight. But I lifted my opposite hand, fingertips aimed at Sidra’s blurry face. And forced every ounce of remaining moisture away.
Through the water-snake’s head, Sidra’s eyes bugged. The blood vessels in her face shivered into view, threads of scarlet suddenly rising to the surface, deepening with color as her blood capillaries popped. She choked, falling back on her heels beside me, hands clasping the gills at either side of her neck.
But still, the snake didn’t move. And I began to weaken, my lungs filling with the sea. Beside me, Sidra writhed and rolled, pushing to her knees as she tried to escape my bubble of pure, dry air. The skin along her cheeks and between her knuckles cracked open, and she began to crawl toward her snake, face poised to thrust herself inside it.
Mere inches from my face, Sidra pushed into the water, eyes staring into mine. Relief bloomed across her skin as the capillaries faded.
I sputtered, tinting the water red. I had one shot, one chance, before I was lost entirely. Grabbing Sidra’s arm, I yanked the Naiad closer—
And drove the icicle into the Queen.
For a moment, the world stilled. Sidra’s eyes locked with mine, wide and unbelieving. The Naiads gathered in the passageways became so still, they might not have been breathing.
The icicle protruded from Sidra’s throat. A look passed between us, something hidden under the Queen’s gaze. Something akin to pride. Sidra coughed, the sound interrupted by a fierce gurgle that stained her lips and chin in a surge of red.
The snake dissolved into lifeless sea water. But not before my world went black.