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 kingdom-wide call to The Gathering at Ban-Keren's keep was usually a sombre affair.
The people would stream from their homes, not in jubilant celebration but like mourners travelling behind a funeral procession, their gait slow and heavy, their mood full of dread and foreboding. There were not many left alive who could recall the Moontide Markets first-hand. Tales of those long-ago tides were told as bedtime stories to children, wistful yarns narrated in awe-tinged whispers, the memories almost obscured by time, as if viewing the coastline through the thickened sea mist.
This tide, however, the mood was different. It rolled in tumultuous waves through the crowds who had left their homes without protest and now strode with mindful fervour, as opposed to the usual march of the celebratory dead—called to pay homage to a new god they neither loved nor wanted.
Elara walked among them, the hood of her cloak pulled up and a scarf wrapped loosely around the bottom half of her face. She had barely slept, and her body ached with exhaustion, but her blood was alive in a way she had not felt in many moons. The song of her foremothers rarely stayed with her unless she trod in the subterranean temple of the Naiad, bare soles moulding to the slick black rock, but she heard it this tide, a constant wild hum of noise flowing beneath her skin, heating her veins.
By her side, her friends Anton, Kelena and Bazel walked with her, all four of them blending into the bustling throng. They were buoyed by the furious chatter and noise that filled the air, carried along by the anger and frustration that had reached boiling point throughout Grimefell.
On any other tide, she wouldn't dare to walk these streets knowing she was still wanted by The Order for questioning about the death of Koh-Miralus. One whisper in their ear from a scoundrel hoping to earn a coin or two, one sidelong glance, and she would be dragged from this place and that would be it.
But not this tide. No, on this tide, the people cared only for one thing, and that was to march their frustration and their thirst directly to the gates of King Aldolus Ban-Keren himself.
Riggs Cree had played his part and played it well, not that Elara had ever doubted he would.
She had always known Grimefell would listen to him. In another life, he would have made an expert politician, such was his influence. There were many impressive qualities to Riggs—and not just those she'd discovered within the bedchamber—but his powers of persuasion were second to none. Of course, some would say that Riggs' authority only came with the threat of the blade and a swift end in the Setalah for all those who crossed him, but Elara knew better. Fear him they did, but Grimefell still housed a respect for the migrant Carraterrean gang boss and not a begrudging one either. Riggs was brutal but not cruel, and although he sought to leave this place one tide, until then, he would sweat blood to bring the elite of Druvaria to their knees.
She could see him, further forward in the crowd, his tall frame at least half a head above most others, ever alert and moving with purpose. He too was hooded, but she'd have recognised him anywhere, not to mention the half a dozen brutes who lingered close by, ready to protect him should he be picked out by the Highguards, who, by all accounts, still wanted him for his role in the bloody skirmish at the port.
