It wasn’t enough to tame the storm of magic inside her, but it was enough to hurt her.
She clawed at her middle, fingers searching for a way to peel the seawater from her wound. Because the wound wasn’t closing. It wasn’t healing like every other cut or scrape or broken bone she’d gotten. It wouldn’t, coated in the ocean. Her magic would not touch it.
Her eyes found Toran’s.
He’d betrayed her. He still stood at her side, but he was no longer on her side. The difference was agonizing.
And then she was falling.
Nes craned her neck around far enough to see Genna’s stoic expression, the guard’s arms outstretched, before she crashed into the pool.
It was nothing like the salt water she sipped from her flask to keep the beast within at bay. It was nothing like the terrifying visions of drowning that plagued her. Watching the water close over her head, having it fill her gaping mouth and slither in her fresh wound, it was somehow worse than that day in the rowboat. It was all so much worse.
She struggled in the water, but it fought her every movement. The salt water felt like needles to her skin. It wove inside her, racing through her veins, overpowering her every muscle. That power—the one she’d always rejected—cowered behind her gut, shrinking in on itself until she could barely feel it. Ironic, that it should run away now, when she needed it most.
But she’d never needed it before. She was strong without it, had survived without it. And she didn’t need it now.
Nes tried to focus on finding her feet. Her mind was so attuned to the agony wracking her body and so disoriented from being submerged, it took thunking her head on the bottom of the pool to find her bearings.
The water wasn’t deep enough to drown her. All she needed to do was stand and she could survive.
But moving her legs was like climbing a mudslide or swimming against an avalanche. Something no one knew about the Witch—they didn’t need to bind or anchor her feet to drown her. If they had the right person, the ocean would do it for them.
She’d lied to Toran. She knew how to swim, was fairly good at it. But she couldn’t swim in the sea. The second she was submerged in the salt water she sank to the bottom, her magic a weight she would never be strong enough to lift.
Above her, someone was talking—someone was screaming—but she could only hear the roaring in her ears. Feet and hands found stone, found a floor, and she planted each on it, struggling to rise. Standing felt like driving icicles through her heels. The water lashed out at her every attempt, beating her back down just before she could break the surface. Again and again and again. She drowned every time.
The ocean weakened her magic. It made her weak, and she hated it for that.
It wasn’t long before she couldn’t feel her magic. Still, she knew it was there. The seawater kept it from leaving her until she was dead. She knew that was how it worked. How it had worked for the Witch for centuries. Only once she was nothing more than flesh could the magic escape, move on to the next poor girl.
But until then, her magic was a physical weight inside her. And that weight kept her underwater. Kept her under until she could no longer keep her eyes open. Kept her under until the light faded into darkness.
41
Toran
Nes was the Witch.
Toran watched her flail in the shallow water.
He watched her without emotion. Which, of course, was just another lie. His insides were tangled, so knotted with various threads of feeling, they’d come together to form a thick blanket that smothered it all.
He’d lied to her earlier. When he said he could love her, those had been the words she needed to hear to trust him again. The only truth to come from his lips as he stood beside her in that Ditch gambling den had been how he didn’t want to lose her. Because if he lost her, then he’d have once again failed his king.
I won’t let you drown.
He’d once made her that promise. And he’d kept it. He made no such promise today.
He knew she couldn’t swim. But, watching her now, he saw it was more than that.
She was fighting the water. Fighting and losing fast. Every time she reached for the surface, she was tugged back down from her middle. Her mouth opened, and her silent screams filled the pool.
He’d been suspicious of Nes from day one. From the moment he caught her eye in the Drowning Square, saw the word forming on her soundless lips.Fire. Seconds before the platform exploded.
And then came the explanation that she could smell magic. It was an explanation that served him well. So well, he let it dampen his suspicions. Never mind he’d never heard of such a connection to magic.
His suspicions had reared up again out in that rowboat. But even then, even seeing her in the ocean, he’d let the promise he made rise higher than his hunch. Let his growing feelings overcome sense.
