No. Surely thesoundof a kiss is not what incites such emotions.
Something collides with the back of my head and I let out a shriek. But it’s just a chair, bobbing beside me in the water. I push it away. The darkened room is filling up fast. Soon it will be entirely submerged.
I think back to what Spinner said about the Ventalla Heirs toppling from their stone pedestals in the first trial, how King Balen had intervened and manipulated the densityof the air to slow their fall. So maybe I should just give up? Float on my back until Queen Hydra stops the water, until I’m whisked out of here, no longer an Heir, disqualified but alive.
But then I think of Grandmother and the way she looked at me the morning of the eclipse. I think of River – his kindness, his patience, his willingness to help me in spite of who I am. And I think of my mother. Would she have just cried off? Admitted defeat? Gone down without a fight? I already know the answer.
The water persists in rising. Time is running out.
I remember what the Earth Cleaver said to me that night in the library.
You had all but decided to give up. But then you didn’t. You decided towin.
All that sadness, pain and fury – it didn’t break me. I didn’t let it. Using it – that was how I fought back. That was how Iwon.
Memories surge. Rain-soaked scales. Ice-frosted flesh. And the names, spat out like broken teeth.
Murderer.
Changeling.
Freak.
They will always be with me. They always have, since the day I was born. Names are curious creatures, so much more than words. I have so many already. Those that hurt me, humiliate me. Those that make my skin crawl. Names have lived with me these past seventeen years. I know them well. I can’t imagine anyone knowing them better.
Or maybe I can.
I picture him in my head. Crooked teeth, his voice a rough scrape on the eardrum, a wooden staff that cannot be broken, not by strength or steel.
The Riftkeeper.
Gold will not grant you safe passage over the toll bridge. He requires something far more valuable than that. I wonder how many names he has collected over the years. I wonder if mine is his greatest prize.
My head knocks against the ceiling. I take one last desperate gulp of air before the water claims me completely.
The whispering grows louder. Lungs burning, I squeeze my eyes shut and wait. To be rescued, to drown – whichever comes first.
And then I hear something, something other than the water. The image of the Riftkeeper still swims across my vision, and this time I catch his words.
A name is a gift. A name is a curse. A name is a …
My eyes shoot open.
A name is a riddle.
Realization buoys me up, sending the answer skyrocketing to the surface of my mind.
Tell me, Storm Weaver, what am I?
‘A name,’ I say, my voice distorted by the water, hundreds of silver bubbles streaming from my mouth and rising up into the darkness above. ‘The answer is a name.’
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then the water begins to drain away, as if someone has pulled a gigantic plug out of the floor below. I kick my legs hard, swimming upward and breaking the surface, sucking in great, ragged lungsful of air. The room is suddenly lit withorbs of bright light, and I almost sob with relief when my feet finally touch the floor.
When the last of the water has drained into nothingness, I find myself lying on the ground, sodden and trembling as the adrenaline subsides.
River says nothing as he kneels down and gathers me up into his arms. He takes me back to my chambers, where Elva is waiting. I let her dry me off, wrap my wet hair and cover me with layers of blankets. I can still hear the riddle whispered over and over, punctuated only by the chattering of my teeth. I clamp my mouth shut. Clamp my eyes shut too.
