23. 23
twenty-three
Sarah
Idon’t know this finling, Defymin, but I watch him.
His stance is broader than mine, tail bent and arms held wide, but it’s unsteady.
He lacks the natural counterbalance of a larger tail.
I can see it in the way his core shifts with every adjustment, how he keeps having to correct himself with his fins.
My tail curls behind me, steady and alert. I can feel it twitching slightly from my nerves, along with the tiniest tremble in my wrists and fingertips. I try to still myself with a breath, but it’s not air I’m breathing. The ocean around me thickens with tension.
Across from me, Defymin shifts his grip. Daggers held downward, like mine, but his wrists are too stiff. Why does he hold them like that? It’s too rigid, too formal. Like he’s copying me, but copying without understanding.
It’s going to slow him down.
A shimmer of light breaks my focus. From the corner of my eye Nyxalene glides into the chamber, her silhouette unmistakable. Her sword, Virethane, shining on her back. She doesn’t look at me. She swims straight to the dais, where Orion rests on the throne.
I force my eyes to return to my opponent, and the water hums with stillness. Neither of us has moved, but Nyxalene’s movements catch my eye again. She bends toward Orion, speaking low and fast. His head snaps toward her, and his eyes go wide like he’s been given some bad news.
A sharp pain cuts through the lower half of my tail, and I suck a breath in through my teeth. Defymin struck me, a small graze, but enough to burn. Enough to grasp everyone’s attention back to us. Enough to make me angry.
My tail reacts before I do. It coils, then lashes out. The collision is quick and brutal, as my tail slams into his with enough force to send him reeling. His body twists, and for a moment, he drifts weightless, scrambling as his smaller tail fails to steady him.
I ground myself, and I refuse to allow anymore distractions.
We continue this dance for a few minutes longer. He strikes, I dodge. I strike, he retreats. Back and forth, blades flashing through the water like silver streaks of thought.
Time slows. Or maybe I do.
The fight feels stretched thin, like everything is moving at half-speed. I see more. Feel more. The currents, the tension, even the weight behind his movements.
With my focus sharper now, I notice the small hesitations in his form. The slight lift of his elbow before each attack. The way his tail curves just before he pulls away. He’s quick, but he’s readable.
So I change the rhythm. Instead of meeting his next strike head-on, I dive low and coil my body tight.
My tail arches, and I twist upward, spinning in a tight underwater somersault above him.
As I come around, one of my daggers slices clean across his back.
He jerks. But before he can turn, I land behind him and bring the second blade across in the opposite direction.
An X. Carved deep.
One of his dorsal fins splits clean right across the middle. The water shudders with his panic. He tries to correct his balance, but the damage throws him off entirely. His strokes become uneven, and his tail fights against its own design.
Blood clouds the water from his fin, trailing in slow, spiraling threads. He reaches for the wound, but his hands can’t extend that far behind him, and when he turns to face me, his expression shifts, lethal and burning.
If we were on dry land, I imagine steam would be pouring from his ears. I didn’t mean to strike his fin. It’s just where my blades landed.
I feel awful. The injury is serious, and I can already see how it’s affecting him.
His balance continues to shift. His tail flicks unevenly, and the strain bleeds into his form.
He moves with more aggression now, less precision.
He lets his frustration lead, and it makes him predictable.
I know what he’s going to do before he even gets halfway to me.
I landed near the edge of the sparring circle after that flip, and it takes no effort to dodge his next attack. His momentum carries him too far, nearly sending him over the line. But I move first.
I grab his wrist and yank him back toward me, blade at his throat, before he can even react.
“Yield!” I say, my voice firm but raspy with adrenaline. “Either yield or fall outside the ring, and we’ll have to do this all over again.”
I hate this feeling. Being the one who brings another to the edge like this . . . It’s startling. And knowing I’ll have to do it again, in different ways, possibly more brutal ways, is deafening.
The finling drops his daggers. They fall with a muffled thud against the stone, echoing his silent defeat. I release him, but don’t relax my stance. Not yet. Not until I’m certain he won’t retaliate.
Zevrin’s voice raises over my thoughts. “This concludes the challenge for Current One. Congratulations, land-dweller, Sarah. You have passed. Your ceremonial proceeding for the daggers will commence after supper.”
Defymin approaches, blood still trailing from the ragged tear in his fin. “Great move,” he says, defeat lingering in his voice. “I didn’t see that coming.”
I motion toward his wound. “Are you going to be okay?”
He nods. “It’ll heal. I’ll head to the healing springs in Coravaluné, and they can tell me the depth of the injury. But it should patch up fine.”
Heading toward the doorway, following after Zevrin, Defymin leaves without saying another word. The moment he turns is when I see the full extent of his injury.
He has two fins on his back, each running along either side of his spine with a narrow space between them.
They’re thin and nearly transparent, like the wings of a bat, delicate enough to reveal the web of veins coursing through them.
Streaks of red and blue thread up and down the top fin.
But the second fin is split diagonally, clean through.
The veins along the torn edge leak faintly, leaving a pale, pulsing trail of blood that follows him through the water and out of the doorway.
The sight is going to give me nightmares.
My shoulders slump, and a knot forms deep in my stomach.
Does it always feel like this? When you’re the one who causes pain?
My heart aches for the discomfort he must be enduring right now, and yet he still managed to speak to me without anger.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline still in my blood, but this moment carries a weight I wasn't prepared for.
I feel Orion behind me before I see him. His presence is a heat in the water, something that doesn’t belong, but anchors me all the same. It clings to me, calls to me. My magic stirs in response, a ripple shifting the water behind my back.
I turn, tilting my head up, and find Orion super close. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me, but something in his gaze says he understands.
The panic rises again, tightening in my chest. I don’t know what else to do. So I bring my arms in and lean into him, needing the quiet that only he seems to give me.
Before I can stop it, the tears come. I start bawling, every ounce of adrenaline releasing in one big, appalling cry.
He wraps one arm around me, a gesture of light comfort.
I feel his other arm moving, but I’m too lost in the overwhelming flood of emotion, too consumed by the ache of having harmed another living creature to lift my head and see what he's doing.
I pull away, and he wraps both arms around me fully, and we sink to the chamber’s stone floor. The cool bottom contrasts sharply with the heat that still radiates from his body.
I don’t know why I placed myself in his arms. I don’t even fully know why I’m crying.
But the feeling of hurting someone has taken hold of me completely.
It makes me feel useless. Lousy. And I didn’t want anyone else to see me cry, so I buried my face in the nearest thing I could.
Which just happened to be him. The same person who always seems to be near when I need him most.
As if on cue, his voice covers the sound of my tears. “I know this is probably not what you want to hear,” he says quietly, “but it does get easier.”
Right. As if hurting someone is the worst thing that’ll ever happen.
I laugh in his arms, ugly and manic. Snot leaks from my nose and onto his chest. I flinch and pull back slightly, letting the water wash it away.
“Will he actually be okay?” I ask. Defymin’s wound still hangs heavy in my mind—the image of blood trailing from his fin, spiraling endlessly in the water like it’s wrapped around my throat, choking me.
Orion hesitates. “He will live, yes. But he probably will not be able to swim long distances again. Not without help.”
His eyes dart away from mine, regret flickering across his features, as if lying might have been the kinder thing.
Guilt tears through my chest all over again. I didn’t think my blades would strike him that hard. I didn’t even think they’d land at all.
I keep doubting my abilities, and I still can’t decide if that’s a strength or a flaw.
Even though I’m required to attend the ceremony later tonight, for my daggers, I skip dinner. After how close Orion and I got earlier, I needed to escape. I keep myself locked in my room until I’ve had time to process everything that happened today.
I finally resurface and make my way down to the dining hall.
I pass several Neravyn guards posted along the corridors.
They continue their duties without even glancing my way, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking.
I inspect every single one of them as I pass.
And I see things I hadn’t noticed before.