Chapter 13 River #2
Prince Ario shuddered. “Please don’t say bone.”
“Don’t say . . . bone?” As she said the word again, the prince turned pale. “What is it about that you can’t handle?”
“It’s my power.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Your power is—” Celine started.
“Don’t,” he warned. “I have a hand magic gift of manipulating . . . the b-word. I can break them. Rearrange them. Make them shake.
Whatever, really. It’s foul.”
“Foul? That’s the edgiest thing I’ve heard about you since we met. It might be the most impressive power I’ve ever heard of in general,” River said.
“There’s nothing impressive about making someone’s spine crack.” He shuddered again, visibly upset. “That’s enough on the
topic. I cannot say more. I will be sick.”
“Very well, then,” said Queen Thessia. “Perhaps we should go in?”
Inside the Grotto, there were no lights that River could see, but the foamy, gurgling pool of water that wove all throughout
the winding caverns seemed to glow from within, turning everything a shimmering greenish-blue. There were only a few other
people inside, and they’d waded into the water, letting the harpies sense their magical gift, hoping to be blessed with amplification.
“The harpies are a tough crowd. Nobody’s impressing them today!” Ario said cheerfully. “But you’ll turn it around.” He patted
River on the shoulder.
River gulped. Her fear was an urgent, unfamiliar sensation, causing her limbs to tremble. She did not want to fail this group.
She tried to reason with herself about it, noting that she owed them nothing.
She thought of her parents. They hadn’t trusted River, and they were the ones who’d raised her. They’d known her mind, her
heart, her beliefs, and they’d still turned their backs on her. But this group, a mix of royalty, nobility, and whatever Celine
was—friend from the past, object of her affection, source of all her frustrations—did trust her. They all believed in River’s capability while knowing exactly how dangerous she could be.
This was why she liked to work alone.
“What’s wrong?” Celine asked, whispering in River’s ear.
She hated how Celine could read her like a book. Hated even more that some sick part of her liked it.
“Nothing,” River said, shrugging her off to walk into the pool.
The water was surprisingly warm. River found herself melting into it, her nerves dissipating. She swam out until she could no longer feel the rocks beneath her feet and started treading water, inviting the harpies to sense her presence.
She waited.
And waited.
“Think of your gift,” Prince Ario urged. “Perhaps the harpies’ senses are clouded by all the other people vying for their
attention, and they haven’t yet noticed you.”
River closed her eyes. She found it strange to only think of teleporting, but she attempted it all the same, creating what she hoped to be a convincing mental presentation for the
harpies.
A gurgling began beneath her feet, gentle and encouraging. River’s face relaxed into a smile. Finally, she thought. You’ve noticed me.
A soft breeze blew past River’s head. She opened her eyes, expecting to be greeted by the harpies themselves, ready to bless
her. Instead she found an arrow floating in the water beside her. The source of the breeze.
River looked up to see Gary and Mary, the twin assassins, rushing into the caves. Mary had a crossbow pointed at her face,
with another arrow loaded up. Gary had a crossbow pointed at Galwell.
The Deathrose Guild was here.
“Nice work at the circus the other night,” said Mary with a sickly smile.
“Made it much easier for us to find you,” said Gary. “Which led us straight to him.”
River jerked in the water, scrambling to swim ashore.
“Ah-ah,” said Mary, striding closer. “You know we can’t let a teleporter get near our target. You’ll take him away from us
and ruin all the fun.”
“Run!” she shouted to Galwell.
It was bad enough that River had led the guild here. It was worse that she did not have the time or the resources to stop them.
This is how it all ends, isn’t it? She squeezed her eyes shut once more. What a coward she was. She could not bear to witness this catastrophe.
The silence stretched on, no sounds of arrows whizzing through the air or the agonized cries of death.
River chanced a look. What she found made her gasp—the rest of her group had surrounded Galwell, forming a barricade between
him and the twin assassins.
Gary lowered his crossbow. “We’ll come back with more assassins next time.”
“You’ll run out of friends to hide behind eventually,” Mary said with a sneer.
This was River’s opportunity to take them out or die trying. If she succeeded, her actions would go against the guild’s code,
but did any of that even matter anymore? If she failed, well, at least the Grotto was beautiful.
“Don’t you dare,” Celine said, catching River’s movement out of the corner of her eye. She leapt into the water, throwing her body atop River
as they both plunged into the depths of the pool.
Underwater, they were once again tangled up with each other. Wherever they went, they always found themselves like this in
some way, as if their bodies had been made to be entwined. River wished they could just keep going down, down, down, capable
of living underwater, knotted together as one.
But they shot back up to the surface, gasping and heaving.
Gary and Mary were out of sight.
“Shit,” River said. She started to swim, hoping that Celine’s stunt hadn’t cost her too much time.
The gurgling started again, much stronger than it had been before. River could no longer swim through it. She could hardly move at all. It took all the energy she had just to turn back and check on Celine, scared the swell might pull her under.
Celine was fine. More than fine. All around her, glowing figures floated in the air.
Harpies.
They were dressed in long gowns and emanated a starlike light. They had the face and hair of humans—long and black and wavy—but
their skin was the same bluish-green as the water, and they had wide, feathery wings instead of arms.
Celine had begun to glow, too.
“They’ve chosen her?” questioned Prince Ario, voicing the very confusion River also felt. Celine’s gift for everlasting memory was certainly
impressive, but what was there to amplify?
Only the harpies knew, and they dove back into the pool once their magic was complete, disappearing far beneath the surface.
The gurgling stopped, and River climbed out of the water.
Celine, as if released from a trance, began to shout. She no longer glowed bluish-green, and all the calm that had washed
over her was replaced with frantic tears.
“No!” Celine cried, searching the water for signs of the harpies. “Take it back! Take it back! I don’t want this!”
Everyone gawked at her as she treaded water in her crooked blouse and sopping wet, mussed bun, looking as though she’d fallen
in by accident and had not just summoned powerful, mercurial creatures and wordlessly gotten them to amplify her powers.
“Isn’t her gift everlasting memory?” asked Queen Thessia.
“Yes,” River said, but it came out more like a question.
“And why is that bad?” Queen Thessia inquired.
Celine swam to the edge, silencing everyone’s questions with a single, firm statement. “Once she teleports us out of here, I want to be left alone.”
River had been so busy trying to hide information about the guild from Celine, not to mention hide her own feelings, she’d
missed that Celine had been hiding something in return.
Why was it bad? And how did River not know the answer?