Page 108 of Whispers of the Water

We stayed mostly quiet as we gathered some of my things. I grabbed my favorite clothes, my fluffy pink blanket, my sketchbooks, paints, and my unfinished fox painting.

As I stuffed some underwear in my duffle bag, I wracked my brain for something to talk about to distract me from what was happening. Finally, I asked, “Have you learned anything about who was working with Jonah?”

Dallas sat on the bed next to my open bag. “I still haven’t had time to look into it personally since I’ve been watching over you and performing those duties. When I last checked with Dax, he was still waiting for confirmation on a lead.”

I snorted sarcastically. “Well, isn’t that kind of Dax. I still can’t believe he offered to help with something that doesn’t benefit him.”

She laughed. “Tell me about it. He never wants to do work or be helpful, probably because he assumed he shouldn’t have to as the ‘future King.’ Maybe he was trying to win brownie points with you. You know, defending his ‘wifey’ from the big bad guy who tried to have her killed.” She pointed a slender finger at her mouth and gagged.

“He’s definitely not future King or my to-be husband.” I rolled my eyes and tossed a pair of pajamas in my bag. “Maybe the real reason he was invested was because he faced off with Jonah personally.”

“I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall for that. Dax said he did a major number on Jonah, which I would’ve loved to see.”

I laughed and cocked a brow at Dallas. “He hardly did a number on him. It was actually pretty anticlimactic. As soon as Dax showed up, Jonah basically tucked his tail and ran. There wasn’t really any fighting.”

Dallas’s face creased as she processed my words. “Really?”

I nodded and thought back to that night. “Yeah. They said a few choice words, and then Jonah—I don’t know—gave up, I guess?”

Dallas was quiet as she stared at me. The pinch of her brow and sudden frown made my curiosity spike.

“What?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”

She slowly shook her head and looked across the room. I could practically see the gears spinning in her head. “It can’t be,” she mumbled.

“Can’t be what? What’s happening?”

She remained silent and unmoving for a few endless seconds until, finally, she turned to me again. “That night Jonah first attacked you, why were you out there? Why were you in the woods that late at night alone?”

“I was out there because—” I paused and held her increasingly frantic gaze. My mind immediately started to assemble the pieces as I finished, “Because Dax asked me to meet him.”

“And the night your powers awoke, you said you weren’t the one who killed Jonah, right?”

“Right. He seemed like he was about to tell me who hired him, and that’s when someone beheaded him. There was no weapon from what I saw. It was almost like an invisible blade or something cut right through him.”

“A water blade,” Dallas whispered, hanging her head.

“A what?”

“A water blade. It’s something we can do. We create a thin disc of water that can slice through almost anything, including bone, if you’re good enough. Water blades are Dax’s specialty.” Dallas tipped her head back as she groaned at the ceiling. “The night your powers awakened, Dax had been at the hideout with a lot of us. At one point, he had gotten a text, and after that, he left for a bit. He said it was because another guard messaged him about an issue at the border, which I confirmed with that guard. Now I’m having doubts.”

My stomach pitched forward with the threat of nausea. I collapsed onto the bed and clutched my head. “Holy shit. Holy shit! Do you really think it was Dax? Why would Dax want me killed? What could he gain from that?”

Dallas shook her head and clenched her fists tightly. “I’m not sure, but I plan on finding out. Are you okay to finish packing alone? I need to make some calls. I’ll just be right outside.”

I nodded quickly, and Dallas shot up from the bed and left the room in a hurry. As soon as she was gone, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling with thoughts that seemed to be on a rampage.

Dax. My high school crush. My first boyfriend. My supposed fiancé. Could he really have been working with Jonah all this time? The mere thought of him watching and hoping for my death made bile climb my throat with a fresh wave of disgust. I knew we didn’t necessarily get along or even like each other these days, but to try to have me killed? It was far too much to process, especially since it didn’t make sense. If Dax wanted to be King, that could only be done by marrying me, and I was pretty sure marrying my corpse wouldn’t suffice. He needed me alive, so why plot to kill me?

I grabbed my pillow and screamed into the material. I screamed out all of my worries, my questions, my fears, and my frustrations.

Did it eliminate all those issues? No.

But did it make me feel better? A little.

With that, I got back up and finished packing my things. Turning to the wall by my bed, I found Rune’s painting, which still hung proudly. Thinking back on that night filled me with both a sense of delight and melancholy. He’d taken me on a surprise fake date, and I’d had more fun that evening than I thought I could given our attitudes toward each other back then. It was an easier time when the world felt far simpler and things made more sense. But I’d still been unsure of who I was, and Rune and I had still held boundaries we refused to cross. So, while life felt easier back then, I wouldn’t change where I was now.

I carefully removed the painting from its place on the wall and added it to my box of art supplies for my new home.

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