This Poisoned Tide: The Last Water Witch Book One

CHAPTER 23

He caught her with the knife as they tumbled, a lucky stab of the blade considering he'd been so consumed with blind fury that he hadn't given a second thought to how close they were to the edge.

Elara supposed she couldn't blame him. She knew what rage could do, how extremities of feeling could mould and shape you with a click of your fingers, erasing a lifetime of caution, and destroying everything you'd worked so hard to achieve.

The dagger caught her just under the shoulder blade, what she hoped was a superficial piercing of her flesh—not that it didn't hurt like a fucker—sucking the air from her lungs, before the knife fell from his grasp as he realised what fate now awaited him.

His eyes bulged. His scream, as if terror had torn a hole in his chest and ripped his heart free with deadly claws. Elara couldn't blame him for that either.

Once, a person could have survived a fall such as this, as long as they didn't find their skull dashed against the rocks or had fallen into a storm-churned sea that dragged them under until the water choked their lungs.

But that was then. Before her foremothers cursed the Kingdom of Druvaria, and all those who lived here. Before the waters became poison for all those who were not like her.

They hit the water hard, not the graceful dive Elara was used to, but with a back-stinging punch to the spine that saw them both plunged deep below the surface, the breadth of their fall and their combined body weight sinking them like stone into the Setalah.

Bubbles streamed from Mirha's nose and mouth. Elara pulled herself free from his grasp, kicking backwards as he flailed his limbs. She watched as he began to swim upwards to the surface, the light dappling above them. It amused her, she supposed, to see him try, to believe that if he managed to lift his head out of the water and breathe air, that maybe—maybe—he'd defeat the inevitable.

But it had been too late the moment he had hit the water. In fact, the cold reality was that it had been too late as soon as they'd fallen from the edge of the black rock.

She surfaced not far from where he now struggled, desperately kicking his legs and trying to swim, even as the Naiad poison worked its way through his body, the blackened veins spreading under his skin, the rot steady and relentless, as always.

Exhausted, she swam towards him, keeping her distance but close enough to hear his strangled gasps, his whimpers and groans. Soon, his efforts subsided, the effects of the water taking their toll as the thin obsidian veins began spreading up the side of his face. Treading the water, she waited for him to notice her, to realise she hadn't perished below the surface.

When he did, he couldn't speak. His tongue was already black and thickening in his mouth. Bloody tributaries bursting across his flesh. But his eyes told her everything his lips could no longer say.

She'd been prepared to feel something. A touch of guilt, maybe. Regret. A sign maybe that her heart was not as blackened as the Naiad magic would have her believe.

But Mirha told her only of his fear, his repulsion, his disgust and a hatred that burned, even as the Setalah doused whatever flamed remained inside his poisoned heart. His silent mouth screamed it all at her.

She held her breath as he took his last, his body slackening, bobbing like rotting driftwood on the surface. And then, she sighed, weary, the pain in her back pulsing. Blood clouded the water around her and she knew she had to leave. Not every sea creature had been affected by the Naiad curse and the scent of her blood would draw some of those who usually sought sanctuary in the deepest stretches of the ocean. The sweetness would be too tempting.