Page 30 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

I must have looked feral. I hoped I did. The markings down my arms glowed bright, ancient lines and tallies gleaming through my skin. My black dress beat behind me, flagging under the wind. Kye swept into my side, blade ready. He charged at the first man who stepped in my direction, the wide arc of his arm like the sun glinting from behind the horizon.

All around me, water came. I pulled some of it to me, but most seemed to trickle in on its own. Snow melted, clouds rained. I held my hands, and it pooled above my head, an angry churning bubble large enough to drown a horse.

Or six men.

I lifted my arm. Pointed at the first man in sight, the one directly in front of me.

I wondered if I would think of him later when the anger left my bones. I did not know if it ever would.

The pool of water above my head lengthened into a gliding stream. I stepped forward, and it trailed above me as if it were lighter than air. Dipping, winding, undulating. Its mouth opened, swallowing the Rivean’s face just as he turned to run. He tried to escape, tried to claw his way out. But my call just pulled him back in, sucking him to the center and down, down, down. To the very end of the stream’s tail. By then he was merely a corpse.

And I stepped toward the next one.

They outnumbered us, thousands to our hundred.

The Naiads didn’t possess the same level of power that I did. They let their victims come close enough to swipe, calling to their blood in small ways. A human body is nothing if not an ever-flowing river. But a river can be dammed. And even a tiny clot is fatal when placed just right.

From the threshold of our assembly, someone sang. Feminine and high-pitched, lyrical and haunting. Most of the Riveans ignored it. But some dropped their arms, turning to the song.

“Fight your comrades,” Olinne’s voice rang out.

In the short distance, coats of red turned. Someone out of view shrieked.

To my right, Kye drove his sword through a man’s chest. Spun in close to the Rivean as he whipped it back out in time to thrust it through the armor of another one. Evaded the blade of a third, leaning back to slice the man square on the chin. Then turned back, boot aligned with his victim’s shoulder as he yanked his sword from the dead man’s chest.

I simply walked.

The water above me followed. Coiling, striking, slithering. Devouring men before they even reached me. The lives lost should have doused my anger. But each one only fed it, sending that hissing stream to strike harder, faster, crueler.

Even through their fear, the Riveans didn’t stop coming. A line of them attacked, and I turned my water-serpent on its side and sent it barreling into them in a deathroll. Focused on my attack, I didn’t see the smear of red as a soldier shot to an opening on my left. But Kye did.

He weaved between the man and me, meeting the Rivean’s raised blade with a crack of his own, the jolt rippling through his hair and the silver-tipped fur over his shoulders. I held my position, trained on the drowning men within my grasp, ready to pull the water back to kill this one as well. But Kye ended him with a burst of steel that scattered crimson flecks across his chest and face, a constellation of death. Another man approached from my right, and Kye lunged for him as well.

But not before pulling me in for a quick kiss.

Everywhere I looked, we were fighting—winning—beating them back.

But there were so many.

And as angry as I was, I knew I hadn’t reached the depths I had before—when I’d brought this mountainside to its burning knees. But that hadn’t been rage. I’m not sure I knew what to even call that fall into the void.

From the corner of my eye, a man fell at Aitne’s feet. The healer Naiad strained, eyes wide and palm thrust down as she watched him choke and sputter in the dry air, a slow, smooth puff of fog streaming from her pretty mouth.

Olinne fluttered between trees, a lethal weapon masked in airy beauty, golden curls bouncing with every flick of her fingers. She sang as she went, collecting human minds for her bidding. Nori followed her, a poison dart tipped with wine-red hair, launched from one target to the next, extinguishing the soldiers who resisted Olinne’s song.

Selena led a small troupe of Naiads not far from them. Rather than dealing critical blows, she disarmed soldiers as she passed. They grabbed their own wrists, dropping their swords in the muddy snow, rubbing their palms as though working numbness from their blood.

And the sirens that followed attacked.

Any injuries? I asked Nori through our Oculos bond.

None, my Queen, she answered.

I sent back a mental nod. A small sputter grated somewhere deep in my arms. The first ache of muscles against the power I’d pulled from them. My water-serpent had grown in the minutes since I’d created it, lashing at anyone who drew near. But they came anyway, first in small groups and then in larger numbers.

Six from the front. Nine from the side. Twelve at my rear.

Static fizzled between my hands, brief bolts of light shooting behind the clouds.