Page 61 of Waves
Instinct told me immediately that it was the man I’d met with in the market and that he was responsible for this.
Which meant I was responsible for this.
Like a whip snapping open flesh, rending it apart, disgusted pain rocketed through me. My teeth gnashed together, and I changed trajectory, turning from Avia to him. Unthinking, driven only by rage that he’d gone beyond the basic brutal assault I’d wanted. After the prior magical attack, I’d deliberately ordered and paid for steel, not magic, to confuse everyone.
But next to that shark shifter stood a woman not unlike the undead wench constantly trailing the queen.
A woman whose eyes were pitch black, no whites to be seen. A woman who held a small bunch of seaweed in her hand, circling it—mimicking the movement of the whirlpool.
Guilt burning a blazing trail up my throat, anger fueling my movements, I lifted my arms and shoved my hands together. It was like trying to plow through a brick wall. My chest grew tight, the effort lashed at my back, shooting pain deep and sharp. My head spun from the force, which was so intense I nearly fell over. It battered my skull, bruised my arms. The pressure of the water was so thick and unrelenting that any other man would have given up.
But I wasn’t any other man.
I was the unending king.
The sultan of Cheryn.
And now…I was Avia’s sword.
Her weapon, though she didn’t know she wielded it.
With a blast of raging energy surging straight from my heart to my fingertips, my hands slammed together.
I twisted my ring.
And I wished.
I wished for the witch to forget every bit of magic she’d ever known. Wished for her to forget herself. Wished for her to turn on her companions and slit their throats.
Brutal satisfaction coated my mouth when she dropped the seaweed, letting it float off limply, grabbed a knife at her belt, and turned toward the startled shark shifter.
He wasn’t even bright enough to step back quickly. Her knife was in him half a second later as the water around me calmed. As the pressure abated. As bright red droplets floated up with the last flurry of bubbles he’d ever emit.
I spun in the water, instantly searching for the platform, heart tight as my eyes searched for the giant shells.
But the platform was gone.
Ripped from its anchor, I saw it unmoored and gliding aimlessly off in the distance, fading into the shadows of the ocean.
Mute in my horror, I rushed forward, eyes scanning the tangle of bodies now dispersing from the spin of the whirlpool, floating out like dandelion seeds that were blown apart, spinning softly in the lingering drafts of the current.
Many dead.
Many moaning.
Some blinking as if they couldn’t believe they were still alive. Some blinking as if they wished they weren’t.
But I didn’t spare them any second glances. My pulse pounded shakily for only one soul.
Avia’s golden hair drew my gaze like a beacon, her iridescent wings shining in the moonlight, one of them with a gaping hole in the center, as if the whirlpool had flung a boulder right through it.
Her eyes were closed.
I swam forward, tension coiling every last one of my muscles as a barrage of unfamiliar emotions cracked my bones from inside, fissuring every hard part of me. Breaking me.
Disgust.
Remorse.
