This Poisoned Tide: The Last Water Witch Book One

CHAPTER 33

Ch. 33

The old study was thick with dust and sorrow.

It covered everything in a leaden shroud. Clogged the senses. Thickened the bile.

There was a whimper of old wood and the door opened. A phantom engulfed the doorway, pausing on the threshold. Still. Waiting. And then, a bone-deep sigh.

"Come out, girl," the phantom said, closing the door behind him. "I give you my word, I will not harm you."

Elara unfurled from where the gloom had cloaked her but did not move any closer as Roth Vi-Garran lit a candle and placed it on the desk, careful to distance it from the parchments and books stacked there.

The flickering light dragged the shadows from under his eyes, leeching them into his cheekbones and blurring into the edges of his beard so that his entire face was a darkness, an unfathomable black hole where flesh had once been. The stench of wine and ale was pervasive, although the room had stunk of it when she'd crept inside, a stagnant, moribund thing that had nauseated her. She wasn't sure how much of it was engrained in this place, and how much the butcher carried upon himself.

Leaning forward, he pressed his knuckles into the desk and stared at her, but only for so long, as if the act of looking at her pained him. "Girl, I said..."

"That you would not harm me. Yes, I heard you." Elara, feeling emboldened, stepped forward. "Only we both know your word is as worthless as you, Special Commander."

He winced, closing his eyes briefly. "I no longer go by that title."

"Whether you go by it or not is no matter," she said. "It is who you were, who you still are and who you will always be. Refusing to acknowledge the title does not make you a different man. It does not transform you into someone else. The stain of murder is eternal. You cannot escape it."

Vi-Garran nodded slow. "Hmm, yes, and it would seem you know a thing or two about that yourself. What is it now? Three noble-borns added to your death count?"

"And I would gladly make it four."

He laughed in the low light. She supposed it was mocking, but it sounded sad and hollow.

"Think I'm not capable?" she said, anger flaring.

"I think you are capable. But not here." He gestured around him. "You'll find no water to aid you and I think you need it. You're good, Elara, I'll grant you that. You caught Juda fast, and by the dead gods, he is faster than most. Perhaps the quickest of blade I have ever seen, and I have seen many come through my ranks. But your blade is not of iron or steel. Your blade is water. So, excuse me if I don't believe I will become number four. Not in this moment, anyway."

The fury ignited, spitting and snarling like a beast inside her, desperate to be free so it could claw at his throat and spill his blood all over this place where he drank so much even the dust smelt of it.

But she would not give him her rage. Not yet. Not until she heard his final confession.

"You look like her."

The way he spoke it was soft. Anguished. Elara wanted to rip his tongue from his mouth. She didn't want his softness or his pain, for both were a lie. The man before her was no gentler nor more sorrowful than she was free to be what she was. He was a mindless monster who understood only the blade and his devotion to the King.

"Don't fucking speak to me of her," she said, through gritted teeth. "You do not deserve to say my mother's name nor evoke her memory."

He shrugged, but not dismissively so. "Is that not why you have come here? To speak of her? I don't think you came here to kill me."