Page 75 of Silverbow
Seeing the wieldings of other water wielders was one of the first steps toward wielding her own gift, but Crissa only stared at empty space, wondering what in Sakaala’s watery domain a wielding was supposed to look like.
“What do you see?” He asked.
She braced for the blow. She didn’t answer, and the lash fell against her back. The three balls rushed toward her and spun as if she were juggling them. She shrank back from the godsong she had no sense of.
“What do you see?”
“N-Nothing, Recruit.”
She whimpered as another blow landed between her shoulders. The balls dropped into the bucket with three wetplops.Recruit Trakaw leaned against the door, his perpetual disappointment evident.
“Blocks are common in wielders that come from families like yours.”
Families like hers. Families where wielders are so openly despised. What must my mother think now?Crissa swallowed. She could never go home, but she supposed it didn’t matter much. She neverwouldgo home. She belonged to the crown now.
“Wielder Adler has been asking about your progress,” he went on. “If we do not break the block soon, I will have to give her your link.”
Crissa’s knuckles went white as she gripped her arms. She saw little of the air wielder, but she knew enough to know that she did not want Louissa Adler to hold her link. Louissa Adler was not someone wielders disappointed.
A stream of water leapt from the bucket and swirled in a ring around the center of the room. “Look for the wielding.”
Crissa braced for the lash that didn’t come when Recruit Trakaw finally let the water fall back into the bucket.
He sighed and stepped toward her. “Perhaps we ought to try something different.”
Crissa held her breath.
“Perhaps, we ought to jump right to wielding.”
Wielding? How am I supposed to wield anything?It was absurd. She could wield no more now than she could in Westforks. “I don’t know how.”
“It comes naturally for some…” He took another step so he was towering over her and Crissa tried to make herself smaller.
He beckoned her forward, a tingle of warning passing through the collar as she tried to resist. Crissa trembled as she slid toward the edge of the cot. Fear, raw and exhausting from her weeks of knowing nothing but fear, rose in her chest. None of the link holders had raised a hand to her outside of the leash, but Recruit Trakaw stood close enough to share breath.
“...with the right motivation.”
Crissa went rigid as his hand cupped the nape of her neck, and then her face was surrounded by a bubble of water. She reeled back, trying to pull free, but Recruit Trakaw’s fingers dug in, holding her firmly in place. Water rushed into her mouth and nose. Pain shot through the collar, seizing her limbs as she tried to jerk away again.
Oh, gods.
When she thought it might never end, Recruit Trakaw released her, and Crissa sat back, coughing and spluttering. Her eyes streamed from the burn in her throat as she desperately gulped down air. She eyed the globe of water that floated before her face with horror. He watched her with an impassive face and went back to juggling again. Still she could see nothing of his wielding. She could feel nothing of the gift they claimed she possessed.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“If you want out of the water, Crissa, wield it away.”
twenty
Enya
Windcross Wells first appeared as a smudge on the horizon. It grew larger with each mile they crossed, but when the day drew to an end, it still shimmered like a mirage rising out of the distant horizon.
The endless expanse of flat land made the sky stretch forever overhead. She found the Dragon’s Fang in the east and traced it with her finger, the way she and Liam had traced out the constellations Marwar had shown them as children. She wondered where they were, if they were looking at the same stars, and sadness tightened her throat.
“Do you know the story of that constellation, Ansel?” Colm asked.
“It’s the Dragon’s Fang,” she shrugged. “What’s there to know?”
