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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When Elara watched her mother being dragged away by the Highguards of the Serpent Order, it was the first time the young Naiadini had ever thought what it would be to take a life.
Terrified, but filled with a poison, not from the Setalah in which she hid, but from something that had rushed so violently into her veins that it almost crushed her heart in its hands, Elara wondered what it would be to grab at the ankle of the closest guard and pull him into the water. She saw him clearly—the rot slowly crawling under his skin, black tributaries of putrid blood creeping through his body, the pain in his eyes like the sweetest torture—and she had yearned for it, like she'd desired nothing before in her short life.
Of course, logic had destroyed desire on that tide. She was, after all, but a girl, and he a man—a strong one at that—and she knew the chances of her besting him before he could pluck her from the dark waters to face the same fate as her mother was impossible.
She should have pulled this Juda into her waters when she'd had the chance.
How was it that she was always squandering the opportunity to avenge her mother when it presented itself to her?
Because you are weak and selfish and unfit to carry the legacy of your foremothers, Naiadini.
So sure, she had been. So certain of her ability to carry out the task at hand.
No. Determined. That was it. So determined to bring her own form of justice to Mica Koh-Miralus that she had not once considered that she would fail. Why would she? She knew how he worked. She knew what he liked to do to the girls in his bathing chamber. And, she knew the water was hers to command, not his, not Ban-Keren's. Hers.
And now she was here, in a strange house, still in the mid echelon, when she should have been in Grimefell, and what was worse, she was at the mercy of a Highguard of the Serpent Order, as if her life had come full circle.
So, you didn't think you would fail, huh? Look at you now, Naiadini. Look at where your vengeance has led you.
Dazed, she looked at the room under lids so heavy she could barely stand to keep them open. Pulses of pain were pushing outwards from the point of impact on the back of her skull, engulfing her head in tiny screams of agony.
From what she could see without having to move her head—for the pain of that made her want to whimper—the house was orderly and spacious enough, but the air was dead, as if nobody lived here or even cared for it when they did. The room in which she'd lived with her mother had been small and cramped and cluttered, but she'd treasured that space and could touch a hand to everything they owned and understood its meaning and worth. They'd shared the kitchen and the dunny with others in the dwelling, but it had been fine. They had love for each other and for their foremothers and that had been enough to fill that room far more than any treasure could.
This place was cold and lifeless, as if someone had just walked out one day, closed the door and never returned.
