Ran moved like a wave toward the ship and placed herself on the deck before changing her form. She ran to her father and touched de Gifford’s hand, sending plumes of steam into the air. No matter how much water she put on it, the burning did not stop.
“I am here,” she yelled, stepping away, now fully in her human body. “Stop, I pray you. Stop.”
Now horror replaced the pain on her father’s face as she walked toward him. When de Gifford let go his grasp and Ran tried to help him, her father recoiled from her touch.
“What are you?” he asked. “Are you some perversion like he is? An ungodly creature?”
The words cut into her heart. But he was in terrible condition and had suffered at this evil one’s orders. Ran looked around at the other crew members and saw the same horror and fear in their gazes.
“Bjorn,” she said, walking to the older man. He backed away from her and then made the Sign of the Cross over himself, as most of them did. Askell would not even meet her eyes.
A part of her died then, realizing that they would never accept her as Ran Sveinsdottir again. Well, if she was Waterblood, she would do what she could to protect them. It was the reasons the old gods set up their bloodlines—to protect mankind. She faced de Gifford and studied him for a moment, now seeing the coloring of Brienne in his face.
“What is it that you want of me?” she asked. She noticed that his black hair was now more gray than black. A change since she’d seen him the first time. He seemed older now.
“I want you to take your rightful place in the order of things,” he said. “You have powers that they cannot understand or accept.” He nodded to the men who had just rebuffed her approach. “At my side, you will learn the full extent of them.” De Gifford walked closer and whispered. “You have no idea of what you can truly do.”
His voice grew soft and enticing. Within it was a compulsion to follow him. He was deep within her thoughts now, whispering his temptation.
“Chaela is unlike anything you can imagine, Ran. And she will give you more powers when she is freed from the place she was imprisoned by the traitors who turned on her. She is the strongest of the Old Ones, the only one still in existence. Help me open the circle and she will grant you your every desire.”
Ran tried to fight it, but there was something stopping her. She could not move now. Could not speak. Could not turn to water. Had he done this to Soren? How had Soren escaped?
“Come with me,” he said without speaking. “Once he helps us open the gateway, you will have him for eternity. And I will show you ways to punish him for his betrayal. Torment to last an eternity, Ran. For his faithlessness. For fucking your brother’s woman and then pushing her from the cliff.”
She gasped, horrified by the words. Were they the truth? How would he know such things? Her gaze alone moved, looking across at her father. Had her father revealed such things to this evil man?
The sibilant temptation began again and Ran wanted to accept it. She wanted to give him what he wanted. All of it. To pay Soren back for his actions. To make him suffer, not for two years as she had, but forever.
She would take the life from him bit by bit, sucking the water from his bones and marrow and muscle. She could do that. She could take the water from him. Make him feel the painful loss of each drop until he was nothing.
Nothing but dust beneath her feet. “Ran.”
Ran opened her eyes. She had taken hold of one of the sailors without even knowing it and had . . . had . . .
She had taken every bit of water from his body.
The man’s desiccated body now crumbled under her touch.
Silence reigned, not a sound was made. Only the sound of one man moving toward her.
“This is only one of your powers. You control the water in this world. Take your place of honor and we will rid ourselves of those who opposed us.”
The voice was real now. The temptation more so. “Soren will rue the day he betrayed you. He will regret not accepting his place with me. Soren will . . .”
She heard nothing but his name now and her heart pounded at the sound of it. Soren did not deserve such a fate. No one did. But as de Gifford now touched her, she saw the destruction and the ultimate chaos of all she loved.
That would be the result of freeing this Chaela. “Soren!” she screamed out.
The sea around them bucked, the ship tilted and de Gifford lost his hold on her. She joined with the sea and escaped the ship, tearing through the water and screaming. The seas boiled as de Gifford sent his terrible fire into it, but after rising in steam, the water always returned to its home.
In confusion, she went with the water, in circles, deep and then shallow, moving, always moving, until the last whispers of his temptation left her. But the fact that she’d murdered a man with her touch did not. Tormented by what she’d done, she could not go back to the others and face them. Instead of protecting, she had destroyed.
Ran swam away from Orkney, out into the larger ocean to the west where no ships sailed, racing through the cold water, away from her homeland, and screaming out her rage and horror and guilt. Forcing herself up into the air, she released the wave and crashed back into the sea, trying to punish herself for the heinous act. Crying and sobbing, she whipped the water into currents and whirlpools.
When she was finally exhausted, she turned herself over to the sea, hoping it would let her die there. Better that than to live to kill again. Especially if she killed Soren.
For in spite of his betrayal, in spite of her anger and hurt, she loved him. She’d never stopped loving him and she knew that now. And she knew she would die first before harming him.
