Adela’s pose eased. The rapier slipped slightly away from Eira’s throat. Adela’s expression relaxed with what Eira could only assume was recognition.
“Youhavethem?” Adela breathed. Not “had.” Eira’s words had been chosen intentionally.
Eira nodded now that the rapier wasn’t so close to her chin. “Well, I did…they’re back there.” She pointed to Warich.
Adela swooped the rapier down—it was a cane once more that seemed to extend from the palm of her icy hand. “Reverse course. We return to Warich. We can unload the rest of the cargo there as well.”
As soon as Adela had issued her command, the vessel banked hard. Eira noticed another ship sailing near them doing the same. She wondered just how many of the small boats making their way upriver were under Adela’s control.
“Eira, with me,” Adela commanded, walking to the front of the boat. In a daze, Eira followed. “I had planned to kill you for the transgression of using my name but?—”
“You’d kill your own daughter?” Eira blurted. It wasn’t how she had intended to broach the subject, but none of this was going according to her imagining.
Adela stilled. She slowly turned her face to Eira. Her brow was furrowed in confusion, but her eyes were alight with cruel amusement. A quiethrmphsounded like every last person who had ever laughed at Eira in her life.
“My…daughter?” Adela repeated.
“Yes, I?—”
“Foolish girl. I have no children.”
2
Ihave no children.
The night was collapsing around her. The stars blotted out from a darkening sky. Her vision tunneled and her ears rang. All Eira could see was the smoldering town in the distance. An angry spot at the edge of her horizon. As if the world was burning down around her…
No children.
The angry flames were a cold Eira had never felt before. The last flicker of hope, of finding something—some kind of meaning, or purpose, or explanation for the yawning hole that had opened within her following the discovery of the vast unknown that haunted her past—extinguished. All that lingered was the smell of smoke and a darkness as complete as the pit. As cold as the lake Marcus had died in. The chasm within her that had been created with her parents’ revelation only grew wider. Pulling her in. It’d never be filled.
“Are you sure?” Eira desperately tried to find that spark of hope one more time.
Adela stared at her incredulously. “I believe I would know if I had conceived and birthed a child.”
It had been a foolish question. Of course Adela would know if she had given birth. But if Eira wasn’t Adela’s, then whose daughter was she? Who would’ve left her on her parents’ doorstep with the mark of Adela as a baby? Where did her magic come from and why was it so,sosimilar and suited to Adela’s?
Although, all Waterrunners’ magic was similar. Maybe their overlapping talents meant nothing at all. Maybe, after finding the journal by a twist of fate, Eira had been hunting for meaning that was never actually there.
“I would never allow the risk of an offspring to myself or my legacy,” Adela added coolly, as if the mere idea of a child was utterly unpalatable to her.
Did she offer that addition because it was true? To be cruel? Or…perhaps Adela was lying. That could’ve been some way of her hinting that Eira could actually be her daughter, but Adela couldn’t risk saying so.
The questions and uncertainties spiraled with her, further and further down into the abyss of her own making. Adela was either oblivious to Eira’s turmoil, or didn’t care.
“Glad we’ve cleared that up.” She added, under her breath, “My child,really,” with a small chuckle. Even though Eira’s body was cold all over, she wasn’t numb. Not yet, at least. And the words still stung. “As I was saying, I had been planning on killing you. But you can buy your life—at least a bit more of it—so long as you make yourself useful to me.”
“I’ve found myself rather partial to living.” Eira’s mouth was moving, words were forming—they were even cohesive, miraculously. But it felt like someone else was the one behind them. Her mind was in a distant place. It had been jolted from her body by the events of the day. The scales had tipped out of balance; everything had all added up to be too much.
“Most are.” Adela shifted her weight with an air of smugness. Eira got the sense that this was a tactic that she’d used manytimes. But, for once, Eira didn’t have the strength to fight, or even care, at someone so blatantly using and manipulating her.
Perhapsbecauseit was blatant was why it didn’t bother Eira, unlike the people around her who tried to lie and be subversive time and time again. Or maybe it just didn’t matter anymore. Her parents. Her uncle. Vi and Taavin… Her friends…
She gripped the railing at the bow and sank to her knees, physically holding herself up from toppling over into the river. The weight of the world was compressing her. Collapsing with each passing moment onto her shoulders. Everything was lost. Her eyes burned.
“Really, you crumble that easily?” Adela snorted at Eira’s pain. “To think anyone believed you could’ve been me reborn.”
Eira didn’t fight. She just hung her head between her arms and allowed the tears to spill from her eyes, onto her bloodied knees and pants that still held the dust and smoke of the arena. She was so immeasurably tired. She could sleep for a thousand years and still wake exhausted.
