Cara infused us with her energy, too. And finally, there was a faint response.
You do not need me.Stated deadpan, without emotion.
I hadn’t been sure that Riggs would hear Caliel, but his answer was immediate.If she didn’t need you, we wouldn’t be calling for you.
You have her. You have the sword. Leave me alone.A hint of anger now.
My heart ached, and I didn’t know what to say. He clearly didn’t want to be part of this. Yet he’d encouraged me to go to Riggs…
Did he truly want to be left alone? I’d never wanted to force him, not even in the early days. Didn’t he have the right to lie quietly within me?
He sounds difficult,Riggs noted.Do we need him if we have the sword?
My answer was immediate.I need him.I wasn’t sure if I only meant I required him to help me with the monster, or—what?
Riggs picked up on my uncertainty.Let’s try with the sword. Maybe we can encourage Caliel to join us.
I swallowed my disappointment, but it made sense. Riggs took one hand off the sword hilt, and I placed mine there. Then he extended the other to the water, and I sensed the ground beneath us vibrate. Grains of sand lifted, even as the water rose.
I was hooked into what he was doing, and it seemed effortless. With a sense of wonder, I saw the waves rise skyward instead of rolling toward us.
Cara still had her hand on my arm, and I heard her inhale. “Now freeze it,” she said.
I took a deep breath, and called upon the Ice Drake. The wall holding it back crumbled, and it came in a rush, eager to be set free. Buoyed by the combined effort of the sword’s power and the Watcher, I extended my free hand, and sent the ice to do my bidding.
It spread from beneath our feet out toward the suspended water, and then chased along the waves into the very air itself. When the Drake tried to push its way to the surface, and change my form along with it, Riggs used the sword’s energy to push it back.
It screeched in rage, a sound that echoed through my soul and emerged from my lips as the merest shadow of that cry. But Riggs would not yield. And then, from deep inside, Caliel spoke.
You serve her. Not the other way around.
My gut twisted at the anger in his mindvoice, but the Drake hissed, before it caved. I pulled back on the power, and the ice glistened as it began to melt. Faster and faster as the Drake coiled deep within me, retreating from the combined power that had defeated it.
For now.
I took a deep breath as Caliel rebuilt the wall.
Thanks, Caliel,I said. But there was no reply.
In a single, smooth motion, Riggs sheathed the sword in the scabbard over my shoulder.Well done, Breana.His admiration warmed my troubled soul.
“Well done,” Cara unconsciously echoed him.
“Yeah, so long as we have a convenient lake or stream,” I said, “I’ll be useful. Otherwise, I’m just another body. At least Riggs can throw dirt.”
Cara actually laughed. I stared at her and raised a brow.
“You are forgetting something important,” she pointed out. “Nettie told me about the thugs you killed in Drosfi.”
I thought back to the frozen bodies. “I still don’t know how I did that.”
Cara shook her head. “Honestly? We are all made up of flesh and blood,” she said. “They all containwater, Bree.”
Riggs’s eyes widened. “If she can freeze the water in a lake?—”
“Exactly,” Cara glanced up at him. “Victor commands fire. Marcus calls wind and lightning out of the sky. But Bree is perhaps the most powerful of them all.”
She patted me on the arm. “You have the ability to literally freeze the blood within our veins, and much more.” Then she glanced at the hilt of the sword. “And that sword can feed you the power of the lodestones to do it. You, my dear, are one very dangerous young lady.”
