My heart drummed a frantic rhythm inside my chest as I stood and rammed my silk dress over my head. I looked between them both, and they smiled gently at me, as though I’d finally solved all the riddles they’d ever given me. Their eyes glistened with pride, and Olinne sniffled from the doorway.
“I’m not aPrizivac Vode.I can’t be the leader of this colony,” I said. “I’m not trained for it.”
“You are trained for it,” Olinne’s sweet voice cut through the room. “It waswewho trained you.”
“I’m blood-sworn to an enemy of these waters.” I gestured to my blank forearm, where the written words of my oath had shone on my skin the day before, though in the depths of my mind, wonderings gathered like bumblebees floating to a hive. My father was human. If I was aPrizivac Vode,my mother would have been as well. Did Selena know?
“Return to Calder and free yourself,” Olinne said. “Claim Thaan’s life. Free every Naiad in this world from his tyranny.”
The words were stupid enough to summon a snort from my nose. I paced around the edge of my pool. I’d fantasized about killing Thaan once. The same way my mother had done the day she signed her contract, foolishly believing she’d find a way out. “How would I live there, and rule here?”
“I am your eyes and ears,” Nori stepped smoothly out of the way of my stride. “We will come to you in Calder, at the edge of the Juile Sea. You came searching for answers, creature. This is your answer. This is your fate.”
Exhaling, I halted in front of Nori. I closed my eyes, drinking in the warmth from the strange blue light around me.
“What must I do?”
Queen Sidra waited for me under the open doorway of the room where the Naiads dined.
My feet ghosted the floor, halting at the top of the twin staircases.
She met me with piercing silver eyes, knives glinting under the blue light. “There is one way out.”
Through mehung unsaid in the air.
I nodded, feet spread under my body. Water dripped from my hands, ready to be summoned, electricity cracking between my fingertips.
I sized the Queen up from across the room. Though she appeared old, I made no assumption that Sidra was weak. I wished I’d had the chance to ask Selena what my best options were. There were no weapons to be found, only the ability to summon water. I was hesitant to get close enough to heat the blood in Sidra’s body—I’d have to drown her. The air in the colony was humid enough.
Naiads gathered in the passageways to watch, though no one made a move to stop us.
Sidra raised a dripping hand, and from the top of the stairs, I took aim.
And shot.
A blast of warm sea water struck the Queen across the face. She thrust it away with a wave of her arm as if wrenchingopen a curtain. The water separated, falling to her feet, but she regrouped it into the air, hurling it into my body. It hit me, hard and solid, sharp like a blade in my gut.
Skin stinging, I dropped out of her line of fire. Sidra advanced, arm outstretched. Scrambling to my feet, I wove down the opposite staircase as Sidra sent a rope of water towards me. It cracked over my head, snapping back to chop across my bicep. The skin of my arm split, and drops of blood connected with the pale puddles that lay strewn across the stone.
Gritting my teeth, I called to the water on the floor, lifting it to support my weight as I rose in the air.
Sidra’s eyes followed me. “Foolish.” She widened her fingers to call the water away.
The water tugged as it heeded the Queen, but I held my grip over it, talking to it soothingly in my head as I had when I was young.
Hush.
Hands on her hips, Sidra’s eyes narrowed from below. She walked under my floating chair, studying it at different angles.
“Are you afraid, child?” she said. “You dare to challenge me and then hide?” She hurled bursts overhead, but I absorbed them into my growing mass of water. I balled my fists. I’d summoned lightning once. It had been easy.
But I’d been angry.
I tried to search for it, the anger within myself that had always cushioned my fall. Had always loved me when no one else did. Had always soothed me, stroked me, comforted me into peace.
Where’s that anger I know you hoard away? I need you to be angry.
A shot of white fire flickered across the domed ceiling, igniting the etched tallies in the briefest moment.
