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Royad isn’t here, and there is nothing I can do.
Except, there is.
My pulse picks up pace from its already unhealthy speed as I train my gaze on Myron’s bedroom door, legs already moving as I sheath one dagger to have a hand free to open it. Thank the Guardians there is no lock keeping me out, holding me back when I storm toward the murderous bathing room.
“I need water,” I tell it with conviction. Because it’s the only thing I can think of. If my daggers won’t help me, maybe whatever magic I have is willing to aid me in saving one of the two people I have left in the world. “Please.”
The door doesn’t as much as quiver under the force of my full weight as I shove against it.
“Come on.” I don’t know why I talk to it or what I expect. It’s a piece of wood with a history of not responding, but something about voicing my terror, my need to save him keeps me from shattering completely under the panic that has been building until it threatens to take all my logic.
“Open, by the Guardians. By Eroth. By any god in this fucking universe.” I heave a breath, putting my full weight into the push as I scream, “By Shaelak!”
The door swings open so easily I have to drop to my hands and knees to catch my momentum so I won’t stumble right into the lake. It’s open. It’sopen, and in front of me lie the salty waters of past brides’ tears. Of their pain and sorrow.
I try not to think about it as I draw upon my magic the way I trained all afternoon. It’s sluggish, just as my body would be, exhausted from hours of workout, but I push through the slowness, urging it to stop creeping through my veins like honey instead of a gushing river.
It’s not the magic in my body responding to my pleas but the sentient waters of the murderous lake that climb from their bed in long ribbons.
“Don’t kill me,” I tell the water, trying to keep my hands steady as I gesture toward the door. “I mean no harm. I mean nothing at all other than to save Myron’s life.”
“Why?” The question echoes in my head like through a haze, not male or female, not anything at all other than a command.
I don’t care who or what it is as I retreat from the chamber, pulling on my magic in hopes of drawing the ribbons with me. There is only one answer I can give, and I don’t hesitate, despite my shaking hands, my trembling voice, the tightness in my chest that tells me I’m already feeling more for Myron, King of Crows, than I ever intended to allow myself. “Because I am his only chance.”
In a thunderous cloud, the water washes around me, ribbons weaving into a web of glistening liquid, shoving me through the door on hands and knees. The stone scrapes along my palms, claiming bloody streaks, which the water instantly clears away with each inch it pushes me back, back, back, until I’m out of the chamber, until my shivering form slumps within the wet constraints.
I brace myself to be swallowed up, to be drowned the way the lake tried that first time I came near.
“Rise,” the bodiless voice repeats as the water pulls back, allowing me to scramble to my feet, and I do.
With all I have, I pick myself up, my bad hand giving out as I use it to push myself up. My wince dies in a whirl of cool liquid winding around my arm, caressing the sore spot where my stiff wrist is protesting.
The water doesn’t soak me, though. Instead, it’s climbing all over my body, weaving around me like armor until I’m wrapped in a shiny shield. In my bad hand, I feel the prickling sensation of my magic—of the lake’s power—drawing me forward as if telling me to go save the Crow King.
“Thank you,” I whisper into the room, the shaking never ceasing as I set one unsure step after the other toward the hallway where Myron’s roars of rage are weakening.
I’m running out of time—and so is he.
The water armor slides smoothly along with my strides as I rush down the hallway, heart beating out of my chest as the noise of battle becomes slower, weaker. Then, I’m at the banister, looking down at the entrance hall—and my blood ices over.
The two Crows are crouching on either side of an unconscious Myron, their bird faces hidden in shadows as they lean over him, claws ready to rip him to ribbons.
“Leave him alone.” My voice doesn’t tremble from fear now that unadulterated rage floods my veins, my thoughts, every last part of myself.
Their heads snap up, all-black eyes finding mine, and the delight on their features—I remember them like it was yesterday that they hunted me down in the forest, and it’s obvious they can’t wait to take revenge for my escape.
“Lovely, I’ve been wondering if we’d get the opportunity to kill the both of you today or if we’d need to hunt you down—again,” one of them caws, the sound grating along my bones like coarse sandpaper, and I shake my head to maintain my anger. They tried to kill me then, do much worse than kill me if what Myron told me is to be believed. They attacked their king in his own home. They brought him to the ground, knocked him out, were about to shred him apart.
“No hunting.” I palm my dagger in my good hand, raising the bad one with the pulsing magic contained in it, and give them a feral grin I haven’t used since the last looting on the Wild Ray. “Not for you, at least.”
I don’t wait before I hurl the water at them with a scream. It bursts from my body like a gushing river, eating up the stairs as it falls step by step at neck-breaking speed.
The two Crows startle, leaping to their feet and raising their magic to strike. The air ripples in the entrance hall, making it difficult to breathe, and I cough as a thin, silky layer of water wraps back around my torso, protecting me like translucent steel. The rest of the water stays its course, aiming for the Crows, their eyes widening with fear when their power does little to push me off balance.
“Don’t touch Myron,” I tell the deadly stream and feel the water nod even when all I can see is the spray of the former brides’ tears as they disperse, each of them a projectile piercing the Crows’ bodies. Their screams tear through the entrance hall like a sinking ship coming up one last time before the ocean takes it. Then, the water rushes their lungs, their own blood lacing the crystal liquid as it fills their lungs, streaming out through the holes the water punctured all the way through their bodies.
All I can do is stare as they collapse into the waves lapping up at them as the lake drags them under. I don’t know where it starts and where it ends, only that it’s everywhere. Everywhere, except for that narrow spot where Myron is lying on the gray stone floor like on an island in a rocky sea, one wing stuck beneath his body while the other one is draped over his side at an odd angle. A trickle of blood is running from his mouth, and I can tell it has nothing to do with a truth he shouldn’t have spoken. This is the assassins’ doing.
