14. Maren
Maren
I’d taken Kye’s sword from his body to Perpetuum, and we’d never switched it back to his.
The Naiads of Juile whipped their heads as I flew past them, pausing in alarm. Ahead, they spun on their heels, changing direction at the sight of me charging down. The ones behind me did the same, the crush of pounding feet against crisp snow.
Flashes of red below the trees, Rivean soldiers realizing they’d been spotted while storming toward the mountain.
Unarmed, Kye braced for them, sinking his weight into his heels. Holding an invisible line at the very bottom. He only faltered for a moment, a half-stumble forward, his recovery swifter than mine. His soul had met his body.
Climb the mountain, I shrieked at him. Come to me!
But his gaze was set forward on the men now only feet from him.
My breath fogged, thick from the wild pant of my lungs. I didn’t hear it. The Naiad’s steps had also faded away, lost under the brutal throb of blood in my ears. Water dripped from my fingertips, freezing to ice before it hit the ground. Kye was so close. I was so close.
Not close enough.
He twirled away from the first man’s blade. Ducked under the second, kicking the ankle of the third with the heel of his boot.
But the fourth man.
The Rivean guard from the market slashed. Kye fell.
The world rocked under my feet. Cracked. Exploded.
Not again. Notagainnotagainnotagain.
Ice wove from my fingers, laying myself a trail directly to Kye. I leapt on, sliding down the mountain as lightning illuminated the darkening sky. Heat tumbled after me in a vicious wave, ash and rock and sulfur bursting from behind my shoulders.
Kye rolled. Rolled and pushed to his feet, already dodging the guard’s second blow.
Another man rushed him, but I was close enough to call to the water in this one’s body, his heart a fragile bird in my fist. The guard—Kazimir, if I remembered right—raised his sword toward Kye again, and I dropped to my knees.
Leaned back. Slid straight under the Rivean blade.
And smiled as I felt the jounce of Kye’s sword leaving its sheath.
A torrent of black-swathed sirens followed. Behind my back, steel met steel. Thunder roared, the boom vibrating through my collarbone. Water sputtered from my hands, begging for my call. I answered. And the three closest men choked on their final breath.
“?arodejnica!” they called around me. “Zo?eň ?arodejnicu!”
Get the witch.
Leihani, Kye warned inside my head. But I was already prepared.
That fire that lived inside my chest still hadn’t cooled.
Even after bartering with the Fates, crossing the stars, completing Theia’s errand, it screamed through me, a molten flame in my heart that ruptured every artery, every bone, every drop of blood.
I opened my mouth, the only way to set that scream loose, and it nearly drowned me under its volume.
The Riveans surrounding me froze in shock.
I must have looked feral. I hoped I did.
The markings down my arms glowed bright, ancient lines and tallies gleaming through my skin.
My black dress beat behind me, flagging under the wind.
Kye swept into my side, blade ready. He charged at the first man who stepped in my direction, the wide arc of his arm like the sun glinting from behind the horizon.
All around me, water came. I pulled some of it to me, but most seemed to trickle in on its own. Snow melted, clouds rained. I held my hands, and it pooled above my head, an angry churning bubble large enough to drown a horse.
Or six men.
I lifted my arm. Pointed at the first man in sight, the one directly in front of me.
I wondered if I would think of him later when the anger left my bones. I did not know if it ever would.
The pool of water above my head lengthened into a gliding stream.
I stepped forward, and it trailed above me as if it were lighter than air.
Dipping, winding, undulating. Its mouth opened, swallowing the Rivean’s face just as he turned to run.
He tried to escape, tried to claw his way out.
But my call just pulled him back in, sucking him to the center and down, down, down.
To the very end of the stream’s tail. By then he was merely a corpse.
And I stepped toward the next one.
They outnumbered us, thousands to our hundred.
The Naiads didn’t possess the same level of power that I did. They let their victims come close enough to swipe, calling to their blood in small ways. A human body is nothing if not an ever-flowing river. But a river can be dammed. And even a tiny clot is fatal when placed just right.
From the threshold of our assembly, someone sang. Feminine and high-pitched, lyrical and haunting. Most of the Riveans ignored it. But some dropped their arms, turning to the song.
“Fight your comrades,” Olinne’s voice rang out.
In the short distance, coats of red turned. Someone out of view shrieked.
To my right, Kye drove his sword through a man’s chest. Spun in close to the Rivean as he whipped it back out in time to thrust it through the armor of another one.
Evaded the blade of a third, leaning back to slice the man square on the chin.
Then turned back, boot aligned with his victim’s shoulder as he yanked his sword from the dead man’s chest.
I simply walked.
The water above me followed. Coiling, striking, slithering. Devouring men before they even reached me. The lives lost should have doused my anger. But each one only fed it, sending that hissing stream to strike harder, faster, crueler.
Even through their fear, the Riveans didn’t stop coming. A line of them attacked, and I turned my water-serpent on its side and sent it barreling into them in a deathroll. Focused on my attack, I didn’t see the smear of red as a soldier shot to an opening on my left. But Kye did.
He weaved between the man and me, meeting the Rivean’s raised blade with a crack of his own, the jolt rippling through his hair and the silver-tipped fur over his shoulders.
I held my position, trained on the drowning men within my grasp, ready to pull the water back to kill this one as well.
But Kye ended him with a burst of steel that scattered crimson flecks across his chest and face, a constellation of death.
Another man approached from my right, and Kye lunged for him as well.
But not before pulling me in for a quick kiss.
Everywhere I looked, we were fighting—winning—beating them back.
But there were so many.
And as angry as I was, I knew I hadn’t reached the depths I had before—when I’d brought this mountainside to its burning knees. But that hadn’t been rage. I’m not sure I knew what to even call that fall into the void.
From the corner of my eye, a man fell at Aitne’s feet. The healer Naiad strained, eyes wide and palm thrust down as she watched him choke and sputter in the dry air, a slow, smooth puff of fog streaming from her pretty mouth.
Olinne fluttered between trees, a lethal weapon masked in airy beauty, golden curls bouncing with every flick of her fingers.
She sang as she went, collecting human minds for her bidding.
Nori followed her, a poison dart tipped with wine-red hair, launched from one target to the next, extinguishing the soldiers who resisted Olinne’s song.
Selena led a small troupe of Naiads not far from them. Rather than dealing critical blows, she disarmed soldiers as she passed. They grabbed their own wrists, dropping their swords in the muddy snow, rubbing their palms as though working numbness from their blood.
And the sirens that followed attacked.
Any injuries? I asked Nori through our Oculos bond.
None, my Queen, she answered.
I sent back a mental nod. A small sputter grated somewhere deep in my arms. The first ache of muscles against the power I’d pulled from them.
My water-serpent had grown in the minutes since I’d created it, lashing at anyone who drew near.
But they came anyway, first in small groups and then in larger numbers.
Six from the front. Nine from the side. Twelve at my rear.
Static fizzled between my hands, brief bolts of light shooting behind the clouds.
If Kye was growing tired, I couldn’t see it.
He fought with as much force as he had in the first few minutes, swiping, twisting, diving.
Flying. I realized I’d never watched him fight without the threat of danger looming over us.
When we returned to Calder, I’d make a point to do so.
I’d trod out a chair and watch him practice all day—
Sharp. Hot. Deep.
It wasn’t even pain at first. Something slammed into my back, small and hard, restricting movement and flexibility.
Before my mind could catch up with my body, I turned to analyze the sensation.
And collapsed to my knees instead. Gasped into the snow, my blood splattering across the white.
I inhaled, and raw fire crawled up my lungs.
A man stood over me, silhouetted against the dying sun. He fixed a boot along my spine, ripping a short blade from my back. I hadn’t felt it slide in, but I felt it come out. It rocked my body as he tore it loose, my fingers twitching in the wet snow.
My water-serpent folded in on itself. Water flooded, tumbling over me in a smooth wave.
I turned my head to avoid it invading my nose and mouth, releasing a silent shriek of pain.
They descended on me like a pack of wolves, teeth bared and eyes wild.
The one who stood over me readied to stab again.
But he dropped his knife, hands clawing at his throat in sudden, silent horror.
Patches of violet bloomed across his cheeks.
His eyes bugged. He fell to a knee, and in the distance, Cebrinne watched, her arm thrust straight at him.
A flash of bright silver. And the man’s body suddenly didn’t have a head.