To overthrow the cruel King who brutally slaughtered her foremothers, the last surviving water witch Elara Consuli must team up with novice warrior Juda Vikaris from the Serpent Order and realise an ancient prophecy, before the blood-thirsty ruler d...
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The Grim was in a foul fucking mood.
Ever since he'd joined the Order, Juda had never once seen the man crack even the bleakest of smiles. Not that the novice barracks were a place where smiles were encouraged to flourish, in fact, anything but, yet Juda had formed the opinion that The Grim's mouth was incapable of the gesture.
Juda remembered smiles. Real smiles.
Aleina Vikaris had possessed one with the power to banish nightmares, defeat demons and conjure sunshine from shadow. On a rare moontide, when he lay awake in his cell, attempting to anchor his memories in a place where it would be impossible for them to be destroyed, he even remembered his own smiles. Those memories were few. Hazy recollections of his childhood that existed like forest wraiths. Phantoms seen only from the corner of the eye.
But he had smiled once.
He remembered that, at least.
Juda doubted that The Grim had ever smiled in his entire miserable lifetime, yet the Commander had mastered the scowl and the sneer greater than any man Juda had ever encountered.
He was scowling now, deep lines creasing his forehead and puckering the flesh around his mouth. Quite why he was scowling at Juda, the novice could not fathom, nor could he imagine why he'd been summoned to The Grim's official quarters.
His thoughts lingered on the possibilities. The bastard Rimo Tor-Narun sprung to mind. He wouldn't have put it past that fucking dutzal to conspire some plan to have Juda cast out, or worse, especially after their exchange on patrol.
And then of course, there was the witch.
Zera Kalise of Flax Lane did not exist. Juda's preliminary enquiries had already prompted enough confused looks and blank expressions from anyone questioned to confirm what he had already known, ot that he'd harboured any belief the sorceress had been telling the truth. The Naiad were created from lies and falsehood. It dripped from their tongues, just as the poison with which they had cursed the Setalah.
Yet, she had looked him in the eye and matched his lie with her own. Would she really risk everything just to see him exposed and punished for his treachery?
Juda didn't think so, and yet his heart beat harder in his chest than he cared for. He hid it well, staring directly ahead, his focus fixed on a point of The Grim's barren, cold hearth, even though his senses fine-tuned to all around him. The stinging, acrid scent of pepper tobacco. The brush of sea breeze drifting in from the open window. The weight of The Grim's unwavering stare as it cut into him.
The Grim was more mountain than man, his muscles seemingly carved from the black rock itself, his flesh tougher than the obsidian stone of Druvaria. He towered above most, his height only rivalled by that of Roth Vi-Garran, and yet despite his sheer bulk, Juda had never seen a man move so fast and with such controlled brutality. He had earned his place here quite rightfully, and despite the bite of his whip and the beat of his fists, Juda bore a respect for this man, bested only by his own guardian.
