❛the ends justify the means.❜
( part two of deadwater kings )
The board is set and Shabina chose her side. The better world she dreamed of is finally within her grasp, but she struggles when the path to victory seems to be paved in blood. The long...
"Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way."
―Celeste Ng
tw: casual transphobia, misgendering
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Lin figured that she'd already witnessed the complete obliteration of a major island once, nearly dying in the process, so she probably wouldn't encounter that problem again.
Yet there she was. Again.
And all those books. Just gone in the blink of an eye. It had taken decades for them to amass their collection and a witch had wiped it all out in moments. If she still had her sigils --
No. No use lingering on what-ifs.
She'd survived. Unfortunately, so had Cortez. And they were on the same boat.
The only reason Lin hadn't hopped off onto one of the other ships while they were shuffling passengers around in the aftermath was because this ship was headed to Razo. Therefore she would have to suffer Cortez' presence for far longer than necessary.
Lin stood with him and Raina, listening to the Librarian that Raina had insisted on helping. Raina valued his testimony, since he'd allegedly come face-to-face with the Witchking.
"I swear -- he looked like a child, no more than thirteen!" His blue eyes bugged, made worse by the sweat dripping down his reddened face. "I tried to help him -- to get him out -- but then he looked at me and his eyes..."
The Librarian paused his tirade to take a shaking breath. Lin checked her nails.
"Looking at his eyes was like looking into the blackest ring of hell," his voice went hoarse, "and there was nothing there but darkness. A soulless evil. I saw my own death in those eyes."
An old man waxing poetic about a child's eyes was a little weird, but Lin could forgive him given the circumstances.
She uncrossed her arms and looked back over her shoulder at the flat heap that used to be the Library. Her chest tightened at the loss of it. She'd had lots of good memories there, ones that could never be replaced. Meeting Shabina for the first time. Working with Razo to hunt witches. It was the one place free from politics and conniving kings. Things were always simple at the Library.
The image of Alekhine's handsome face smushed into the pages of a book, blond hair mussed and his lean body contorted between the stacks, came to her unbidden. Like a punch to the gut.
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from the wreckage.
Her old boyfriend -- partner, fellow hunter, target, victim -- hadn't haunted her in a while. She'd taken it as one of the few boons that came with being free of Greymark's influence. That had been a mistake, apparently.
