Page 84 of Fate and Flame
Leora’s bright light instantly went out as she sank into the floor.
“Take me to them,” I said, my voice a thousand miles away.
“They . . . they are dangerous,” Leora warned.
“So am I.”
Leora stayed behind as we followed Kai and a few others, including a female he kept particularly close to. Something about our commander in the sea still shocked me. He was like a sea god. Beautiful and commanding as he not only moved through the water but seemed to control it.
We surfaced and swam the last bit of distance to the guarded island. The hydra was waiting. Watching the prisoners with six sets of hungry eyes as she let the sun warm her massive serpentine body.
“Hello friend,” she said as I approached. Her heads leaned close to me and she took a long, deep breath, scenting me like the dragon had. She shriveled away, one head looked to Fen and the others watched me. “Do you wish me to kill them all?”
I shuddered. Ordering death was no better than dealing it. I recognized the thirst in her all the same. Death was like a drug to her. She needed it to satiate herself.“Why are you serving me?”
“You knew I was there,” her voices sang in eerie unison. “In the dark, when I was trapped, you did not fear me.”
“I should have.”
“Yes.” She laughed. “But you are brave, and you are good.”
I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head. “How do you know I’m good? What makes me different from them?” I asked, pointing to the barbed fence.
She curled in close to me again, while the others watched, keeping their distance.
“You freed me.” Her heads breathed me in again. “You are of the world. You are water and fire and air and land. You are creation. But you are also kind. Remorseful.”
“I am not kind.”
“Wrong.” She made a chortling sound I assumed to be her version of laughter. “Your heart is good. You let the tree sprite go.”
“I was a child then.”
“A child with more kindness than a queen.”
Fen’s magical fingers caressed me.Your heart is good. Even she can see that.
“I’m a murderer, gifted the ability to destroy,” I whispered, the words like a lashing as they left my lips. That pressure built within me again.
Her great body rose above me, cascading out of the water. She moved until she was on the sandy beach of the island, where she writhed and shrieked and shriveled, the lack of water killing her.
“What are you doing? Stop. Get back into the water.”
She pushed off the ground, leaped over the top of us, splashed into the water, and then swam back to me.“Do you see?” she asked. “The sun, the land, even the great sea are murderers. Is the land evil?”
A dramatic, philosophical sea beast,Fen said.Of course.
I couldn’t tell if he was surprised or intrigued. Maybe both.
“No,” I answered. “But the land doesn’t have a choice, and that’s the difference.”
“You’re wrong. The difference is the remorse. The land has none for those it kills, you do. Who would seem the most evil?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pushing her questions out of my mind.
“I’m guarding the island until you give me something else to do.” She moved her tentacles back and forth in the water.
“You’ve been trapped in Morwena’s castle for who knows how long. Now that you are free, you’re blindly serving me. Wouldn’t you rather be free?”
