Page 79 of Surfaces
Death surrounded us on all sides.
That’s when the fear hit me. It must have been delayed by the adrenaline but the fear of dying made my mind go blank for half a second, before I had the wherewithal to shove it back a bit and try to find a way out of this.
Several people shrieked and everyone trembled against one another as they swerved to avoid all of the poisonous creatures.
The eyes of the lionfish shown a dull milky, pale blue and my thoughts were immediately drawn to the witch who’d attacked us on the road to Reef City.
I hadn’t seen eyes on the stonefish, but I’d have wagered my crown that they were the same.
"We have to go up faster than they can. They're enchanted to attack," Felipe whispered from nearby, reiterating my own thoughts.
This ambush was magical.
Rebels? Or Gorgono? Both?
It didn’t matter right then. What mattered was getting away as quickly as possible.
I searched inside for my song, my own magic, but the screams were loud and jarring as panic overtook rational thought.
I saw someone’s arm—I had no idea whose—turn black. Stonefish poison. I twisted my head to try to see but the press of people was too thick. I could only see flailing arms and blots of hair.
Shite.
Guilt mangled my stomach as I imagined torturous things—dead bodies, ruined lives. What was happening right now?
Focus, Avia. Stop this attack. You’re the only one who can do something.Humberto’s magic wouldn’t do any good. Speed magic potions wouldn’t help.
I saw Taft transform into a metal shield. Mateo grabbed him and held him up to stop a lionfish that zoomed at him.
Where are my mages?I wondered.Where the sard is Lizza?
I heard an explosion that shoved the current and made my head curl to one side as the water rolled forcefully across it.
But I still couldn’t see. I had to stop this shite. Now.
I focused again on my magic as Valdez fought to swim me up, higher, faster.
I can try to throw out an ice shield.That could block the lionfish surrounding us. But the damned stonefish were right in the midst of us, trying to swim up around our ankles.
How could I freeze them too, without turning everyone else into ice sculptures?
Cold. What if I didn’t freeze everything, just turned it so cold that it was like the depths?
These bastard fish lived close to the surface, they’d slow in lower temperatures. So would everyone else…but the fish were smaller…hopefully they’d slow faster.
My song surged up, the hauntingly beautiful voice singing an angry, wordless tune today, one that shouted, made her voice turn scratchy and deep on her long notes. It was a war song.
I tried to take the reins of the music. I tried to focus it, make it yield to me, but my fury was so strong that I couldn’t conduct the notes—I lost the thread when I saw a servant nearby shriek and clutch his leg as it slowly turned from gold to black.
I wanted to scream and vomit and cry but I did none of it. I had to focus.
I had to close my eyes to let the music fill me, which went against every instinct to watch my enemies. Instead, I turned into Valdez’s chest, clutching at him, while I called up my magic.
I waited longer this time, let the war song fill my bones and make my eardrums shake with the power of the melody. I appreciated the song of the sea, the beauty of its wrath, before I tried to control it.
When my entire body was filled with the hum of a low note, I lifted my hands like I was conducting the music—and an arctic blast erupted from my palms—creating fifty balls of ice floating in the water, forming right between the packed in crowd, instead of the blast of cold I’d wanted.
Shite. Sard. Shite.
