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I clawed at the glimmer of the light, holding on to it through the agony, through the pressure, fighting through it, pushing past the threshold of pain. The darkness melted a little. I strained, trying to move my arms. Like trying to lift a car. The water pinned me to the wall, trying to crush me. I couldn’t raise my sword. I couldn’t even open my eyes. All I managed was a weak twitch.
Aaron’s magic burned me through the water. I felt it, a net woven from power borrowed from a god saturating the sea.
My body screamed for air. The memory of Darin lifting the smaller boy up flashed before me. He’d known what was about to happen. This is what Aaron did to them. This is how he punished them.
Not today. Not anymore.
I bit the inside of my mouth. The salty taste of my blood coated my tongue, the magic in it nipping at me with electric sparks.
Air! Air, air, air…
I had almost nothing left in my lungs, and I was about to spend it all.
I choked on my blood. It had to be enough. I strained and spat it out into the current with the most basic of power words. “Hesaad.” Mine.
The current convulsed like a living creature, a sea serpent caught between my blood and Aaron’s net. Seawater roiled, breaking into foam. Waves clashed, its grip on me loosened, and I surfaced long enough to suck in a desperate breath.
The sea pulled me under, and I whispered into it, letting it wash my bloody mouth. Amehe, amehe, amehe…Obey.
Something squirmed into my mouth. I tried to bite down on it, but it slipped past my teeth into my throat.
Aaron’s net broke. The sea ripped free. My feet touched the bottom, and I kicked up. My head broke the surface. Air. All the sweet air I could ever want.
The water streamed away, and I stood. It was to my armpits and rapidly receding.
My throat was on fire like someone had poured boiling oil into me. My left arm hurt like hell, and when I tried to move my shoulder, it ground, shooting spikes of pain both ways. I couldn’t lift it properly.
On the stage Aaron snarled. Magic twisted around him, building again.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. No voice. No power.
No matter. I still had my sword.
I started toward Aaron, wading through the water. It was barely to my thighs now, and I was moving fast.
Aaron jerked his hands up. A wallop of magic tore out from his hands and sank into the water in front of him. Three dark knots spun in the sea, sucking up the remaining water until it was barely up my ankle. The nearest whirlpool erupted. A big head broke the water. A round snout, bristling, blue fur, and huge tusks ready to gore.
Manannán’s eternal sea swine. Shit.
The whirlpool popped in a fountain of water, and the first pig spilled onto the floor, a walrus-sized monstrosity with porcine front legs armed with 9-inch hooves and tusks the size of carving knives. A forest of bright blue quills rose from its mane. Past its forequarters, the bristles stuck together, transforming into matching scales, and the body flowed seamlessly into a muscular, thick fish tail that coiled behind the beast in a classic Capricorn curve.
The first boar tore across the floor, aiming for me. Two others were forming behind it.
Legend said that Mucca Mhannanain, the eternal swine, provided an endless supply of food to the Tuatha Dé. They continuously regenerated, and the myths were fuzzy on how exactly that happened and how long it took. Killing them permanently was probably impossible. But I didn’t have to kill them. I just had to get past them.
The first boar charged, coming at me like a battering ram. Sea, land, it was still a boar, and the club’s dance floor was wet and slippery.
The two other boars scrambled across the floor, each on their chosen trajectory.
The first one was almost on me. Wicked tusks gleamed, the unnaturally pale, wet bone reflecting the feylanterns’ lights.
I twisted out of the way with zero time to spare, spun, turning, dashed left inches in front of the second boar, sliced at its snout in passing, and threw myself right, out of the third boar’s way. The gleaming tusk grazed my thigh in an icy slash, but I kept running.
Behind me the second boar collided with the first and snapped at it, enraged by the bloody gash across its snout. The third boar barreled into them, and they slid across the room in a tangled mass.
Sea hogs weren’t made for dancing.
I cleared the room and vaulted onto the stage.
Aaron raised his hands. Gold coins glittered in his fingers. They were large and yellow, with uneven edges, cold struck and minted by hand.
He smiled and hurled two at me. I dodged, but they turned and streaked toward me. One struck my right arm, the other hit my left. Heavy manacles clamped my wrists and sprouted chains that whipped into the water on the floor, where the sea hogs grunted, trying to follow me. The chain jerked my arms straight, sending a bolt of dizzying agony right into my left shoulder. Cold magic swirled through the metal, sinking into my skin.
