Now I saw I’d underestimated the ferocity, the violence, with which the tide was advancing. The Cage must only have held it back for a few minutes, but that was enough. It was spitting with rage.
It was done now. Things were too far gone. I’d have to see this through—however it ended.
The line of soldiers, of Orha, was fragmenting. Awkwardly, for my wrists were bound in front of me, I shrugged off my pendant and kicked it away, then dug in my pockets and got rid of the remaining laconite.
A figure appeared next to me. Llir, face white. He’d managed to tug his gag down around his neck.
“What is this?” He was staring out at the tide.
“Take that off,” I said, nudging his pendant, and he looked at me, wild-eyed, as he pulled it over his head.
“Was this you?” His voice was cracking with fear. But suspicion, too—a simmering resentment. My betrayal hung between us, unspoken.
“Kind of,” I muttered. “Come on. Get these off.” They’d freed our ankles, but our wrists were still lashed, and I scrabbled at his bindings. “Gods. We need a knife.”
A distant shout came then, echoed down the line: “All Floodmouths! To the rear! Stop this nonsense!”
I suspected it had originated with Uirbrig Crake.
But it was hopeless, trying to organize this rabble. Panic had gripped his forces like a fever. His soldiers were trying to remove their armor, but time had run out, the wave was here. The Orha, the Floodmouths, were already shouting, but their words went unheeded by the oncoming tide. An Orha fled past me, spitting commands, and I remembered pushing laconite deep down into her cloak. Another still had his pack on his shoulders, a pack I’d laced with the beads in the ward.
“We need to get away from them,” I said to Llir. “They have laconite.”
He looked at me, uncomprehending. I pulled him with me. “All the Crake Orha. I put laconite on them. They won’t find it. It’s too small. Too well hidden.”
“It’s too late,” Llir said. He was staring above my shoulders. And when I half turned, flinching, I saw he was right.
Boom.
The first wave smashed into the wagons, splintering wood, sending sacks into the air. There were yells down the causeway, horseswhinnying. There was no sign of Rhianne, of Tigo or Mawre. The next wave reared, dark and ominous, and though it wasn’t as tall as the tidal wave, it still sent a zigzag of ice through my insides.
Llir was backing away, looking horrified. “What did you do?” he said. “How did you do this?”
I looked around wildly. We needed a blade. And there on the causeway, cast off by its owner, I saw one: a short sword, its edges glinting. But as soon as I spotted it, the next wave reached us, towering over us, about to crash down.
I threw myself forward, reached out my bound wrists, just grasped the hilt as the gray wall descended.
Smack.
I flashed back to my test in the cove. To the towering wave on the night of the ball. That same stinging shock, that same bone-deep chill, slamming the breath from my lungs in an instant. Salt filled my nose, my mouth, my eyes. I was tossed, tumbled, knees over shoulders, but somehow my fingers still gripped the sword.
My side knocked into something, the causeway maybe, and jarred my elbow so hard I cried out. But my voice was lost, brine pouring through my lips. I could only struggle to keep upright in the water.
Around me, other bodies were tossed by the tide. Weighed down by their armor, they sank like stones, hands scrabbling desperately, eyes stretched wide in fear.
The next wave swelled, carrying me upward. I could sense the tide’s ferocity, its singular focus, its fervor to make up the distance it had lost. I kicked my legs, trying to stay above water, but it was nearly impossible with my wrists still tied.
“Llir!” My voice splintered. “Llir, where are you?”
I knew I couldn’t use the short sword alone. But it was more than that. I needed him; I needed Llir to be all right.
My head whipped around. I could see no sign of him. But off to the north, I saw men…stuck in mud.
The sucking sands. The ones that had caught Emment.
The soldiers had fled, left the solidity of the causeway, and headed toward the mainland, trying to outrun the tide. But it was foolish—the sea was around and ahead of us, curling inward and trapping us like hares. Tidal bores boiled up the Cage’s channels, flooding the mudflats, drowning those who’d got stuck.
My eyes raked their forms—I was terrified I’d see Llir—when one burly figure among them caught my eye:
