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 wild violets of Druvaria were found only on the isle of Tevari, the farthest outcrop of land from the island citadel. With only the dead fields beyond it, Tevari could not have been more different than the lowland isles where traitors were sent to work until the poison that seeped up through the dank earth slowly rotted them from the inside out.
The outer-islanders were few now, many migrating to the ruthless streets of Grimefell to seek a fortune that would never come. Those that remained, harvested the flowers, Tevari's only source of income, much of which was bled into taxes for the King.
Life on the isle could be bleak, and yet the land was anything but.
Whether meadow or mountain, the long-stemmed violets grew voraciously wherever they could lay their roots, covering the land in a thick blanket of blue and crowding the air with their sweet scent.
Elara had never been there, but her mother had told her stories of when the Naiad would traverse the short waterways between the islands, and walk barefoot through the fields, the purple pollen dust staining their soles and toes, the scent consuming their senses. She often thought to travel to Tevari, knowing that her secret would not remain one for very long should she appear on the shore, but the longing to tread the paths of her foremothers was strong.
Sometimes Elara hated that longing almost as much as she hated the way the nobles of Druvaria filled their homes with the violets, capturing that which should remain wild inside gilded vases and urns.
Was there nothing they would not try to possess?
Watching as Koh-Miralus appeared halfway down his grand staircase, which was lined either side with golden jars of blooms, Elara surveyed the man that had possessed her friend and would possess her again if she was discovered in the slums.
He was dressed much like he had been during their first meeting, his britches loose-fitting, his feet uncovered. The only difference now was that he wore a thin silk house coat, intricately embroidered with a glittering gold thread, unfastened all the way from collar to hem, his broad chest bare and exposed. It was an audacious, confident move, to appear so in front of a guest – no matter who that might be – but Elara knew that Koh-Miralus did as he pleased when it pleased him.
And besides, he had already assumed the outcome of this moontide, as he had wrongly assumed Elara's intent.
Behind her, the prim-faced girl stood waiting, her hands clasped at her waist, her expression a landscape of disapproval from the valleys on her forehead to the pinch of her mouth. She had admitted Elara to Koh-Miralus' house with a look that said she thought no more of her than she did of the girls who worked the whorehouses, but Elara didn't give a shit. She cared nothing for the opinion of the waspy girl with the dead eyes. The buzz of what was to come was too strong in her veins, the anticipation of her plans too sweet for this girl to sour it.
"You are dismissed for the rest of the moontide, Kadra. I will see Sanus Vise's girl out when our business is complete," Koh-Miralus called down to her.
