Chapter 60 #2
I glance at the wall in the distance that isn’t quite high enough, and swallow. “I know.”
My fingers tremble, and a searing pain blooms behind my eyes from the pressure of my power. Any longer like this, and I’ll burn out.
I turn my head to Thea, the movement making my vision swim. I brace myself against the wheel. “Are you ready?”
She searches my face and nods.
Inhaling a slow, steady breath, I close my eyes and surround myself in a vortex of power.
My hair lifts from my shoulders and floats around my head.
Pin pricks cover my skin, and my clothes billow in a phantom wind.
The ocean rages, splashing onto the deck with each surge of the ship.
I tune it all out and hone my focus on the mountain of power beneath me.
My eyes bolt open, and I release it.
Nothing happens.
The waves climb higher, grow more frantic. The sails buck in the wind, ripping against their tethers.
“Captain, what’s going on?”
I stare down at my shaking hands—the pressure in my head increasing with every passing second. My breathing rattles. “I—I don’t know. It’s stuck.”
“You have about five seconds to get it unstuck before—”
A grunt severs her words. An arrow protrudes from her chest, and blood pools from the wound. The ship jolts, and she slides toward the stairs at the helm. Her body slams into the wood, motionless.
“Thea!”
A falcon screeches overhead and dips, its feathers brushing the sails. I scramble from the wheel and crouch beside Thea. She lies still, unconscious. Her chest rattles on an inhale, but barely, her braids dipping into the blood pooling beneath her.
The falcon banks and turns around on itself. Red fills my vision and I bare my teeth, straightening. Unsheathing my sword, I sprint to the bow, toward the arrow pointed at my chest.
The ship pitches, and I leap, arcing my blade through the air. It slices through muscle on the falcon’s wing and the beast shrieks, slamming against the rail. The rider loses his grip on the reigns, and they both tumble into the water.
Sheathing the sword, I sprint back to Thea and fall to my knees. Crimson spreads over the planks, and her breathing grows heavier, serrated.
I grab her hand. “Thea. Thea, wake up. I need you.”
She doesn’t stir.
The space between my ribs hollows out. I hang my head over my shoulders, and tears splash onto the wood.
Falcons screech in the distance, mocking.
I rise in one fluid motion. My eyes narrow, face settling into a cool, concentrated calm.
But beneath the facade, a sea rages in my veins and thrashes against my bones.
The planks of the deck singe beneath my footsteps, steam rising as I climb to the bow.
I stand still at the very edge, my hands loose at my sides.
Far below, where I’ve sucked the water dry from the seabed, a flock of falcons take off, each seat filled with a rider. I scan the group and find a pair of icy eyes.
Caelus.
I’ve spent the last decade under his thumb, doing his work. I stood complacent, unable to do anything while he attacks my court, kills my people. Shames my name.
Not anymore.
I channel every last ounce of power into my fingertips, straining against the burnout. Kressa’s power melds with mine, and with anger boiling in my veins, I seize the ocean.
And let it go.
I release an earth-shattering scream and my hold on the waves shatters like glass. The entire world shifts, pitches, and the deck beneath my feet tips down. It gains speed, skimming the waves.
With a tug, I sink the hull into the wave and level out the deck.
Wings fill my vision and arrows arc through the air. I shield the ship with a wave, snapping the arrows in half. A falcon pierces the veil and lands on the deck, beak snapping as the archer pulls back his arm and readies an arrow.
I throw out my hand.
Flames burst from my palm. I gasp, and the falcon and his rider tumble back into the waves.
I stare wide-eyed at my open hand. Turn it over.
Kressa’s power.
I throw back the wave shielding the ship.
The tsunami roils closer to the wall, its lowest reaches swallowing the soldiers on the dock.
Falcons swarm overhead with their beady gazes pinned on me.
I restrain the fire and twist a nearby wave into a swirling vortex.
Before it funnels, I throw it into a tornado.
It grows, towering as it spins across the waves and swallows every falcon in its path.
Then it freezes over and shatters into a million pieces of hail.
I dodge a sheet of ice, and on the back of a falcon, Caelus swoops between the masts. He leaps from his bird, landing on the deck between Thea and me.
A layer of ice coats the wood, the planks groaning under the pressure.
His gaze snakes over me. “Did your mother ever tell you why she promised you to marry?”
“Do not speak of her,” I snarl, but the fire raging in my chest falters.
He stalks closer, smirking as frost freezes Thea’s blood. “She didn’t, did she? She never told you about the deal she made with Terra.” A low chuckle rumbles from his chest. “Your mother—Marina—promised you to marry if Terra made her the ruler of the sea.”
I stagger back, bracing a hand on the rail. “You’re lying.”
His lip curls. “I wish I was. Before you were born, your mother killed the original queen and stole the throne.”
“No, she didn’t.” My fingertips tingle, power begging to be released. “The sea was gifted to her when my grandmother was murdered.”
“A convenient lie constructed with Terra’s help.” He takes a step.
My hold on the ocean nearly collapses, and a breath catches in my throat.
I unravel a hand and stare at my palm. The ocean sings in my veins, calls to my soul. Bends to my will. I shake my head. “You’re a liar.”
“You can ask your mother when I send you to Serinos.”
He snarls and lunges forward, swinging his daggers through the air. One slices a gash through my shoulder, but I dodge the second, and his blade shatters on the rail. Another forms in his hand, and I twist, putting myself between him and Thea.
Warm blood trails down my arm, and I swing my blade. It slices across his forearm, and I slam my foot into his stomach, throwing him to the deck. I shove my boot to his chest and angle my sword to the vein pulsing over his throat.
I tilt my head and smile. “For the last decade, I’ve dreamt of the day I get to take your life.”
An icicle forms in his hand, and he buries it into my calf. I scream, but the fire swirling through my veins melts the ice before it sinks any further. His eyes widen, and ice rises from the boards, forming along the whitecaps of nearby waves. But I melt it with half a thought.
Flames build in my chest, and I welcome it. I let it consume me until my vision clouds over and my bones singe. The water under my skin boils, morphing to steam.
“You—” he stammers.
Pushing my blade deeper into his skin, I draw a bead of blood. I will a wave of heat through my arm and down the blade, heating it to a brand. The very tip burns into his skin.
We rush closer and closer to the wall, and an arrow burrows into the wood at my feet. I don’t flinch. With a flick of my wrist, I throw a shield of water over the ship.
The sea tunnels around us. “I am Briar, Queen of the Sea, captain of this ship. And you, Caelus, are trespassing on my court. I find you guilty of murdering my mother, the former queen. An act punishable by death.”
Raising my blade, I grip it with both hands and spear it through his chest. He coughs blood, and I let it gather on the planks, not bothering to wash it away with a wave.
No. I want the memory of his death to stain this deck.
I sink down to a knee and clench his jaw in my hand, forcing him to look at me.
“You don’t deserve a dignified death,” I snarl.
I drop his face and yank my blade free. Releasing my hold on the shield, water rains down on us. I toss him from the deck on a wave and throw him into the air, higher than the falcons—higher than the wall growing closer, so any onlooker, any person he has wronged, can watch him die.
He floats midair for a moment, and I raise my palm to the sky.
Fire blasts from my hand into the heavens, turning Caelus into nothing but a cloud of ash. The waves carry me forward, and whatever remains of him floats down onto the sea, deep into the depths, where his soul will know no peace.
I don’t spot the wall until we slam into it and the ship splinters into a thousand pieces.