Page 110 of Whispers of the Water

“It’s Mingxia, Your—” she started to bow but quickly stopped. Her freckled cheeks grew crimson as she said, “Sorry. I forgot. No formal stuff.”

Smiling, I waved it off. “No need to apologize.” I casually moved closer again and made a point of looking at everyone. “Mingxia is right. This is the creek where I often came. But that’s not all. This,” I gestured to the space around us, “is where my powers awakened when a Bat Fae tried to kill me.”

I paused to let my words sink in. Some seemed shocked, others angry as they looked at the space in disgust. Dax remained stoic.

Which only pissed me off more.

“And I’m afraid,” I continued, walking with my hands clasped behind my back. “That the Bat Fae wasn’t working alone. He’d been hired to take me out.” I came to a stop a few feet in front of Dax. “By one of you.”

A chorus of gasps rang throughout the group.

“Your Highness, we’d never!”

“You are our beloved Princess. We are loyal to you.”

“Ask us anything! We have nothing to hide!”

“Silence!” Dallas snapped.

The space fell quiet again, and I let the stillness spread, stretching time as I stared at Dax, whose fingers twitched by his sides. His nostrils flared slightly, and his jaw clenched as he held my gaze.

Finally, I asked, “Dax, where were you the night of the attack?”

He huffed in defiance and crossed his arms over his chest. “I was at the hideout. You can ask almost anyone here. They were with me. Maybe you should be asking fucking Marcus where he was. He wasn’t at the hideout.”

“Excuse me?” A tall, broad-shouldered guy stepped forward to glare at Dax, and I assumed this was Marcus. “I was on scouting duty! I was posted at the rear entrance of campus, which has a security camera. You can check it, Dallas. I was there the entire time.”

“We know, Marcus,” Dallas said from directly behind me. “We already verified your exact whereabouts. We’ve confirmed everyone’s whereabouts for the entirety of that night. Everyone except you, Dax.”

“You were at the hideout. Until—,” Imani started, turning her doubtful eyes on Dax.

“Until you got that text,” Dallas finished. “You know, the one that had you needing to leave. What was it again? Something about checking out a threat at the Water Fae border?” Dallas probed, suspicion dripping from her voice.

“Yeah,” Dax said calmly. “Samantha informed me there was a threat, so I went to make sure everything was secure. You can check with her. She was with me the whole time.”

“We did check with her,” Dallas said. “In her initial questioning, she claimed you were there, but when re-questioned, it wasn’t long before she broke down and admitted that you weren’t actually there.”

“So, again, we can’t confirm your whereabouts after that text,” Rance said. “We know you weren’t at the border.”

“Where were you?” Imani questioned.

Dax’s chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, and his gaze darted between me and Dallas.

Plastering on a wide smile, I said, “I know where you were. And you know where you were. And Jonah knew where you were. You were right here, watching as Jonah tried to drown me, watching as I got my powers, watching as Jonah nearly gave you up. So, you silenced him.”

Dax reacted. A ball of water darted past my head from the creek, and shrank in his hands until it was a flat, sharp blade. It was only a beat before he hurtled that disk right at me.

Instinct took over. I put up my hands to block the attack. As soon as the blade reached my palms, it melted into liquid that stretched along my hands like gloves. Meeting Dax’s wide eyes, I threw my hands back down to my sides, and the water shot off my skin, sinking into the grass on either side of me as shards of ice.

The entire encounter felt endless but took mere seconds. Once everyone processed what they’d witnessed, they moved. Imani and Rance rushed forward to grab Dax by both arms, and Dax thrashed around, screaming as he tried to escape their grips. Everyone moved in close, some hovering around me while raising their hands up preparation for an attack, while others closed on Dax where Rance and Imani had shoved him to his knees, cuffing his hands in large metal shackles.

“Get off me!” Dax roared. “I’m King! I. Am. King! Let me go!”

I squatted in front of Dax, and he whipped his head around to glare at me as he took quick, heavy breaths.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why did you do it?”

He let out a humorless laugh. “If you think I’m going to answer to you, you’re a fucking idiot. You aren’t my Queen. You’re a fake. You’re a disgrace, and I look forward to the day when you rot under the mound of your failures.”

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