I met it mid-lunge, shadows slamming it against the far wall. It screamed again, body convulsing, obsidian shards shredding free from its skin and spinning like shrapnel.
Aurelia lifted her palm. Fire and shadow collided. The impact blew the air from my lungs, boiling the moisture coating the walls to steam.
When the haze cleared, the naiad hung there—half ash, half bone—still moving.
Then it laughed.
Not a naiad’s laugh. This one was colder, silkier, threaded with malice that didn’t belong here.
“Still playing at diplomacy, little flame?”
The voice filled the hall—Heliconia’s, unmistakable. I felt Aurelia freeze beside me.
“Did you think the river would wash you clean? That you could make friends with the fish and forget what you left rotting on land?”
“You have no real power here,” Aurelia told her coldly.
“And you do? Tell me, what has the river king promised you? Friendship? An army? Or the remnants of a grudge that will keep him Beneath until it’s nothing more than his watery grave?”
Patamoi roared at that, lunging off his throne assharpened ice spears shot toward the naiad. One of them buried itself deep in the naiad’s chest, drawing ochre blood.
“Demon,” Patamoi screamed. “You disrespect the very power you’ve stolen.”
The naiad choked, its chest rattling with the effort. But still, Heliconia’s voice rang out. “Lesha sings for me now.” Hate laced her words. “She dreams in ice and wakes whispering your name. You should hear the things she says when I peel back her skin.”
Aurelia’s skin heated, and I knew she was fighting to hold herself together.
“Burn it,” I told her.
Her eyes met mine, bright and furious. “Together.”
I opened my hand, letting the darkness flood outward. Her furyfire met it mid-current. For a heartbeat, everything froze—the entire hall suspended in fiery darkness—then the creature disintegrated.
Ash drifted like snowfall.
Only the hiss of cooling stone rang out in the silence.
When I looked up, Patamoi stood on his dais, trident lowered, the expression on his face unreadable. Around him, his court stared as if they’d witnessed a sacrilege instead of a thwarted attempt at assassination.
Aurelia’s fire winked out. My shadows coiled back to nothing. The smell of scorched salt lingered.
The king’s gaze settled on us—first her, then me. The weight of it pressed harder than the sea itself. “What abomination have you brought into my waters?”
Chapter Nineteen
Aurelia
The room was utterly silent, stripped bare of music and laughter. Only the scorch marks remained—dark streaks across coral tile and the faint shimmer of ash caught in the orbed light.
Patamoi hadn’t dismissed us, but the nobles and guests had gone, along with the servants. All that remained were the king’s personal guard—a number at least three times what he’d surrounded himself with at the beginning of the evening—and his daughters, Nali and Cerynth.
Rydian stood a few paces off, shadows reined in tight. The strain of the threat still clung to him, dimming only when he glanced at me. Keres, Amanti, Daegel, Slade, and Thorne gathered close, forming an instinctive circle without needing to be told. Even without an enemy in sight, they looked ready for war.
Unfortunately, war was a distinct possibility, judging from the look in Patamoi’s opaque eyes.
The river king rose from his coral throne, the trident in his hand catching the reflection of the floating lights. Beside him,Nali stood expressionless. For once, her harem of males wasn’t with her, and the look on her face wasn’t friendly.
“You lured a monster into my waters.” Patamoi’s voice rolled through the chamber, ancient and heavy. “And my people suffered for it.”
