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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To go back to Grimefell will mean death for you.
Elara pulled the hood of her cloak further over her face, moving quickly through the network of alleys and footways in the upper east quarter. She was glad of the muted dawn light but knew full sunrise was not so far away and that time was now but a fool's hope.
She'd lost so much time. Wasted it wrapped up in a dream. And now, Juda's prediction felt all too real.
She'd not laboured under any illusions about how killing Koh-Miralus would change everything. There was no way of getting close to the silk merchant without it eventually leading the Order directly back to Sanus Vise and in turn, back to her, but the plan—if it could even have been called that, for it seemed like a madness now—was to return to Grimefell before the bathwater had turned cold and get to Kelena, Bazel and Anton before the dark moon fell. She would tell them it was a spontaneous act of revenge, an opportunity that had to be taken, if Kelena was to be free of her past forever and then she would leave, flee to the Naiad temple and finally do what needed to be done.
Life rarely follows the pathway ahead, Naiadini, some tides it will hit obstacles so insurmountable you will have to find a different route, some tides it will take you in directions you do not wish to travel.
Of course, Elara had never once considered she would have to find a different route for herself, nor that her longing for Juda would take her in a direction so far off course that she'd almost lost her mind, as well as the time she'd assumed she would have.
Kelena always said her arrogance would one tide lead her into a pit of trouble out of which she would never be able to climb, but Elara had always scoffed at that, just as she'd never once believed her plan to kill Koh-Miralus would fail. By her foremothers, how her mother would have scolded her for that ego. Now, she was going to pay for her arrogance, but not before she did everything that she could to ensure her friends did not pay for it too.
The deck of the rickety bridge was slick with wood-moss, its feather-like fronds reaching around the beams and rendering the surface slippery underfoot. Unlike most others in Grimefell, Elara held no fear of losing her footing and plunging into the dark waterways of the Setalah below, but she also couldn't risk being seen taking a tumble only to resurface unharmed. In this part of the quarter, there was always someone watching. It was, after all, the reason she had come directly here, instead of home.
Reaching towards the end of the footbridge, she stopped, sensing the shadows shift ahead.
The air was fetid with the stench of riverweed, green mist swirling in smoke rings out of the gloom.
"How do you ever expect to master the element of surprise when your addiction to that rot precedes you, Erron Rhomm?" Elara said, pushing back her hood a little.
Childish giggles echoed out of hidey-holes, far more than Elara had been expecting. She shouldn't have been surprised. More and more of the Grimefell young had gravitated towards the protection of the slum gangs. It was the easiest way to earn a coin or two and ensure hunger was held at bay. Here in the slums, education was taught on the streets, not in schools, and you'd do better in life to learn how to lift a purse from a rich man's belt than how to read.
