26. Chapter 26 #3
The retreating clansmen shouted as the water crashed on either side of them, but their path to safety remained clear.
“Keep going!” I shouted through gritted teeth, barely able to be heard over the howling of the wind and the crashing of the water around us. But I did hear the terrified roar of a man and a woman’s scream cut through the cacophony.
Daiti jerked under me, breaking stride as he narrowly avoided stepping on a retreating woman who had fallen in her haste. She tried to rise but was sucked down by the unforgiving surface of the wet sand. I slowed, trying to reach back for her, but the water was coming on too fast.
“No!” I grit out in frustration, trying to intensify the wind to give me enough time to rescue the woman. But still, the wave advanced, ready to wash her away to a horrible death in the crushing depths.
A figure darted past me, catching the woman and lifting her up toward Daiti.
I managed to grab her with one arm and hoist her onto the stallion’s back as I looked down at Nathaira.
The unstoppable onslaught of the wave was just behind her as she looked up at me, and as our eyes met, we both knew there would be no retreat for her.
“I will never bow,” she grit out, her voice just audible over the screaming of wind and waves. Then she was swallowed by the dark water.
Cold shock doused me, as if I too had been taken by the wave.
But Daiti accelerated, herding the other retreating clansmen toward safety.
In my numb surprise, I almost lost hold of the power that allowed me to split the wave, but golden fibers in my mind tightened—Erix helped me hold on to it as we all scrabbled up the dunes to safety.
Finally, the surf crashed down around us in harmless froth, and I let the magic drop.
It seemed almost eerily silent, despite the roar of the ocean as the wall of water crashed to the ground where the encampment had been.
Abandoned tents and less important supplies were crushed beneath its force, but the people and horses were safe.
I stared at the carnage, still sitting backward on Daiti’s back with the woman held before me.
We had saved everybody.
Almost everybody.
Before I could ponder, Clan Padra’s warlord appeared at my side. I thought he was going to challenge me—accuse me of losing Nathaira to the waves intentionally. Instead, though, he reached up and helped the woman before me slither to the ground and pulled her into his arms.
I watched as he put his face in her hair and breathed a deep sigh of relief. He mumbled something to her that sounded like “My love” and some of the icy cold in my chest melted.
Erix also appeared at my side, and I dismounted from Daiti. We stood side by side, and I interlaced our fingers as we looked out at the churning water where the encampment had been. Everybody gathered was strangely quiet, silenced by the awe of nature’s fury.
We watched for long minutes as the water receded, revealing the crushed debris of things left behind on the beach. Not far from the edge of the water, I saw something glimmer in the starlight, a flash of deep red catching my attention.
Pulling my hand from Erix’s I walked toward it, although he followed me closely, as if alert for any return of the crisis we had just narrowly avoided. The air felt calmer though, and somehow I knew the worst was past.
Still, an odd hollow feeling filled my chest as I bent to pick up the object that had caught my attention.
Lord Nathaira’s saber.
I held it up, examining the small piece of blood glass in the hilt. The way it glimmered had taunted me when we dueled, but now it seemed almost dull. I wondered if it knew its owner was gone.
“She made her choice,” Erix observed.
“Nathaira was more afraid to lose her power than her own people,” I observed.
A small knot in my chest relaxed at the realization: She never would have accepted that I was more powerful than her, and so her refusal to kneel to me truly didn’t matter.
But something about it made me sad—the fleeting thought that if her stubbornness had pointed in the same direction as mine, we might have accomplished something great.
Footsteps crunched on the wet sand, and I looked away from Nathaira’s sword to see Warrick approaching.
“Thank you for the warning,” I said earnestly. I still itched to dislike him, but after facing down the might of the ocean, I was sincerely grateful that he had been honest in his desire to save us from destruction, when he so often resorted to political maneuvering.
He shook his head as he looked out at the carnage. “No wonder I can never predict what is going to happen in these lands,” he mused. “It seems that you have angered the middle goddess as well as the youngest.”
I wrinkled my nose, trying to parse out his words. “The youngest goddess?”
Warrick stared. “You devote your life to the desert, but you do not know the origin of your own land?”
Erix and I exchanged a glance, but he did not speak either.
“Well,” Warrick huffed. “It seems that we have much to discuss. Perhaps I can convince you of my usefulness after all.”