Page 59 of Waves
Maimed millions.
Never loved.
Tenderness was new to me.
I’d thought that the spark with Julian had been something special, but it dulled in comparison to the moments I’d spent training with the sea queen. Even though I knew our connection was the result of misfiring magic, there had been something special there. A darkness in her that resonated with me.
The whisper of her tainted soul called out to mine.
And the brilliance of killing on her behalf rather than my own…there was no comparison.
The choice was made already.
It was just my nature to rail against it.
To question it.
But my fate was already tied to hers.
If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have dithered over unknotting this wish.
I took a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart and debated if I should wish for him to stay still until this event was over. But…the judges would expect him to move again.
Accounting for other people’s expectations was incredibly irritating. It was the sort of inconvenience I’d never had in Cheryn.
My fingers drifted to my ring, but then I heard soft feminine voices drifting overhead. Glancing up, I saw Avia’s wings fluttering as she and Sahar circled around the island man, observing each of us and conferring in low voices.
She was watching me.
“I wish I was twice as strong,” I muttered under my breath, twisting the ring before I crouched in front of my boulder and shoved hard against it a second time, muscles bunched and straining.
Her eyes were on me and lit me up, her pride and admiration sank beneath my skin and left it abuzz. Between the wish and her attention, I felt as if I could take on an entire pack of wolves, killer whales, giants.
Cramming my body against the stone, wedging in my shoulder and inching forward bit by bit, I rolled my boulder steadily back up the island man’s arm. Dipping into a deep squat, arms haloing that rock overhead, I heaved it onto the bastard’s triceps with a huff of pain. Heat, sweat, and steady breath defined every moment. My entire body became an aching burn. I had to swap out my shoulders because the skin on one side became so raw from the constant scratch of stone on skin. And yet I pressed on.
Stubbornness drove me.
As did Avia calling down, “Well done, Stavros!” before she fluttered off.
The next time I Pity moved, I began to sprint, shoving harder. Quicker. Faster.
At the very last second, as he rose, I crested his shoulder. Lungs heaving, hunched forward with my hands on my thighs as I tried to restore oxygen to my lungs, I heard my competitors’ exclamations as they were sent tumbling.
At least, I thought that was what I was hearing.
Until the dismayed shouts turned into screams.
Until I looked up and saw a whirlpool ripping through the crowd, grabbing people and gulping them down like hors d'oeuvres, flailing hands and heads visible in the monstrosity’s spiraling walls, sucking up the competitors on the front side of the island man and trapping them in its wilding whipping vortex as it moved across the field…heading right for my Avia.
Chapter 25
Raj
Adismayed yell ripped through me with the ferocity of a wild beast, and I darted forward. The boulder was left abandoned behind me to smash to the ground—I didn’t give a damn.
The only thing I cared about was getting to her.
My heart reeled, punchy and unsteady, the beat terrorized by the idea of something happening to the sea queen.
