Chapter 58
The serpent slams into me and throws me to the sand. Its weight slithers across my middle, razor sharp fins ripping through my shirt and slicing into flesh. I scream and thrash, beating my fists against its scales.
Its body lifts, and I jump to my feet, blood streaming down my shirt. The serpent slides along the sand and turns, blinking open the film coating its eyes. It hisses and arches its front half from the sand, like a whip ready to strike.
I back up, my legs trembling. Without a blade and nowhere to run, I don’t stand a chance.
Its eyes glaze over, and a forked tongue samples the air.
Then it strikes.
I throw myself to the side as its fangs sink into the sand. Its gaze lands on me, and the pupils dilate. His head dislodges, and he rears back, hissing as poison drips from his fangs and burns holes into the sand.
I back up, the waves inches from my heels.
Its yellow eyes widen, and its breath coats my skin in a thick wave. A screech shakes the sand at my feet.
It attacks.
A roar comes from the ocean, and tentacle shoots from the water, slamming into the serpent and knocking it into the sea. I stumble forward, away from the rising tide, and fall to my hands. My vision swims.
Hello, princess.
The air in my lungs wheezes out, and I nearly sink to the scalding sand. A guttural laugh rasps out of me. It’s Queen now, kraken.
His clubbed head breaks the surface, and deep-set eyes crinkle at the edges. A tentacle extends from the sandbar, its tip poised to the dock. A bridge.
I eye him. You won’t drown me?
A life for a life. He blinks, as if considering his words. The sea needs you, Your Majesty.
Despite the sand biting my wounds, my lips tilt. Aw, it does have a heart.
I can go if you’d rather take your chances with the oversized worm.
Waves rise. I have minutes before the ocean swallows the sandbar. I double check the bag tied to my waist and risk a step onto his outstretched tentacle. Holding out my arms, I test the grip of my boots on the smooth grey skin. I take another step. And another.
Then I sprint. Wind whips through my hair, and the waves sing to me, crashing against the rounded edges of the kraken’s tentacle.
As I reach the dock, his tentacle rises, and he delivers me to the planks on the dock. Behind me, the kraken fans his tentacles high into the air and sways them back and forth. A threat.
I bite back a smirk. Thank you.
Screams come from the harbor as people retreat, some scrambling for safety. The figures on the dock step back, eyes wide at the sea creature. But Kressa—Kressa stares at me, jaw slack, mouth parted.
“You’re incredible,” she whispers.
I pin Caelus with a cold, hard stare and untie the pouch from my waist. I shove it into his chest. “You can keep this.”
I shoulder my way to Kressa. Bruises from the past day stand stark against her skin and blood trickles down her chin from a fresh cut. I reach up and gingerly wipe it away.
The rhodium hinders our connection, but I push through and say, Do they suspect who you are?
She shakes her head.
The knot in my chest unravels, and I look over my shoulder. “Get these cuffs off her. It’s not illegal to have power.”
“You know,” Caelus says, coming up behind me, “you look just like your mother.”
My mouth goes dry.
“The look of terror on your face when Kressa stepped into that trap—I saw that look before. When I sank my blade into your mother’s chest.”
He killed my mother.
My hands ball into fists, but I loosen them and cast my gaze away from Kressa. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His breath is hot on my neck. “You don’t? What about that aunt and uncle you were so fond of? What were their names again?” He makes a low humming noise and glances at Isolde.
“Lydia and Malcolm Lockett,” she says.
Caelus nods. “Ah, that’s right. Both of which do not exist. And your name—Briar Rielle—also fake.”
My chest heaves, and I try to swallow around the growing lump in my throat, but it only widens and traps the air in my lungs.
“There has always been something peculiar about you, and this trial proved that,” he continues.
“This trial proved nothing,” I snarl.
“Ah, but the item you retrieved was charged with power. The light that speared the sky would only flare if touched by someone with Terra’s original power running through their veins.”
A tempest swells in my stomach and roars in my chest, clawing against my skin, unable to escape.
Kressa brushes her fingers against mine. “What is he talking about?”
Caelus chuckles and turns to her. “Have you ever wondered why Briar can’t touch the sea? Why she has sea court power she can’t wield?”
“Stop,” I plead.
“She’s told you she once captained a ship, I presume? Did she ever share its name?”
Kressa flicks her gaze to me.
“And I assume she never shared anything about the marriage she refused a decade ago?”
The world sharpens to a pinprick, and the bond between Kressa and I snaps taut as she stares at me and whispers my name.
Tears sting my eyes. “I was going to tell you.”
Caelus smirks. “Tell her what? That your real name is Briar Calisdana? Otherwise known as the forgotten Princess of the Sea.”
Kressa’s jaw slackens, and she stumbles back a step.
My heart pounds in my throat, and I stretch over the bond, reaching for a hint of the heat between us. Anything to anchor myself to her. But she throws up a wall and locks me out. A mask slips over her face, and I hardly recognize the look in her eyes.
Her head tilts. “Is this true?”
A single tear trails down my cheek, but I knuckle it away and square my shoulders. “Yes.”
Her face smooths into cool indifference. She nods to Caelus. “Then I believe these cuffs belong on her.”
I gasp. A cord of wind wraps around my body and pins my arms down.
“You promised!” I cry. “You promised nothing could change how you feel.”
Kressa doesn’t acknowledge me.
“You promised,” I whisper on a sob.
Caelus steps around Kressa and unlocks the rhodium cuffs. I don’t struggle as his wind drags me closer, and he clamps the shackles tight around my wrists.
He dips his mouth to my ear. “It’s fair to say you have indeed broken the law, but I have no plan to execute you. No, binding a princess will be the greatest pleasure of my life.”
“Queen,” I snarl.
Kressa rubs at her wrists and lifts her head, but nothing shines for me behind her eyes.
Our bond stretches and thins out to a weak, fragile strand. The dregs of power swirling through me deflate, and the world beneath me seems to divide into two.
“Kressa,” I breathe.
She turns her back to me. “Let’s get this over with.”
The group gathers at the edge of the dock. Caelus grabs my upper arm and shoves me forward, stopping in front of a row of guards.
He hands the keys to the guard behind me. “After the judgement, take her to the mirror.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
My mouth sours, and I thrash against the cuffs, but they only burn into my skin. Yet this is nothing compared to the torture of a lifetime in that rhodium cell.
I focus on Kressa. I know pain—endured it when I lost my crew. My power. My mother. But this sort of soul shredding agony is gnawing, unbearable.
I would do anything to reach out and brush her hand, say anything to feel her touch. I swallow a choked sob. I need her more than I need salt air in my lungs, more than I need the deck of a ship beneath my feet.
Clenching my jaw, I shed every ounce of pride and expose every raw and unfamiliar vulnerability. I shove myself against her mental barrier and show her the things I don’t like about myself, the guilt I’ve carried for the past decade, the feelings for her I’ve kept so carefully buried.
If she sees me like this—emotions laid bare—and still refuses our bond, there’s nothing more I can do.
I hold my breath.
A muscle tics in her jaw, and she blinks. But she doesn’t turn, doesn’t respond.
My chest hollows, Kressa’s power slowly pulsing like a beating heart. The only piece I’ll keep of her.
At the edge of the dock, a shimmering cloud manifests, and Terra steps out. Porcelain skin blinds me, and lavender fills the air. Her polychromatic gaze sweeps to me, and she arches a brow at the shackles behind my back. A smirk tips her lip, and she dismisses me.
Life blooms beneath her feet as she saunters to Kressa and Eric.
“Only two remain,” she drawls, voice warm as a summer breeze. “And only one of you will receive a wish. You have my regards, Caelus.”
Venom tips her tone, and she spares a serpentine smile at the king, one that promises she can remove his power as swiftly as she granted it.
“It’s an honor,” Caelus says.
Beside him, Isolde’s hands clench into fists.
Terra rakes her gaze over me, and her nostrils flare ever so slightly. “Now, to choose the victor.” She shakes out her hair and tilts her head to the heavens. The waves pause their lapping against the wooden posts, ships stilling at the dock. The breeze ceases, and time comes to a halt.
The sky explodes into a rainbow of color, and the moon passes by, followed by a flurry of shooting stars, dizzying me.
It disappears, and the sky returns.
Her head jerks down, eyes glowing shades of blue and black and green.
“Kressa.”