Threats of Sky and Sea

by Jennifer Ellision

  I don’t feel like protesting, don’t have the energy it requires. I take a half-hearted sip of the sparkling wine like a dutiful child with a spoonful of elixir.

  Caden nods approvingly, a mother hen. “You should be resting.”

  “I don’t have a great deal of say in my activities. You might have noticed?”

  The room dizzies me as people swirl around, a typhoon of bodies. My skin flashes hot and cold. I close my eyes to fight off the spell of the nausea.

  “I’ll escort you and make your excuses.” He puts a hand to my elbow. “Come.”

  Aleta watches us with an interested eye, sipping at her wine nonchalantly. For the guest of honor, no one’s troubling to make themselves known to her, but I see the way they eye her, whispering behind their palms.

  I capitulate, thinking of my small bed and the relief of sleep. “You’re all right?” I check with Aleta.

  She scoffs. “Please.”

  It had been a foolish question. If there’s anyone I’d expect to be able to hold her own alone in a room full of catty nobility, it’s Aleta.

  Just as I let my arms be tucked into the protective embrace of Caden’s, we’re stopped short with the appearance of the king before us.

  “Lady Breena!” he greets me delightedly. “Son. Leaving so soon?”

  “Lady Bree’s taken ill, Father,” Caden says stiffly. I feel the tension drawn through his body. His muscles go taut.

  “Lady Breena is made of very stern stuff.” The king stresses the final syllable of my name, emphasizing the formality. “I’m sure she can muster the strength to attend this banquet.”

  Again, I’m given no choice in my activities. I slither my arm from Caden’s hold. “Yes, Your Majesty. I certainly can.”

  The sea inside of me thrashes. I inhale deeply through my nose to calm it. Perhaps in the open air that would do me some good, but in the crowded ballroom, the scent of sweating dancers mixed with food only makes me feel worse.

  “Lovely. Then I’m sure you won’t object to favoring your king with a dance.”

  My entire body objects. Caden’s hand finds mine hiding amongst my abundant skirts and gives it a rallying squeeze.

  “A pleasure, Your Majesty.” I’d do Aleta proud with the evenness of my voice. The lack of emotion in my tone masks a fair amount of disdain.

  The king leads me to the center of the floor, and Caden disappears into the crowd, returning a moment later with Lady Kat on his arm. It’s an easy enough dance to follow, so I try to focus simply on the arm that leads me and the music that guides us both. The music is merry, the horns moving quickly as the strings wind themselves around their tune.

  The king doesn’t speak.

  I feel the eyes of the nobles on us. I can guess at what their whispers say. The king is parading me like the prized carcass from a hunt. “Look,” he seems to be saying. “Look at my pet duchess.” These thoughts and the spinning required as the king loops me in a circle around him don’t do my stomach any favors.

  There’s a brief moment of the dance that requires the male beside us to spin me, and I swoop with relief into Caden’s arms, grateful for the respite.

  “You’re doing fine,” he breathes into my ear. His breath is harried. “It’s almost over with.”

  He hands me back off to the king.

  I feel many things, but fine is not among them. This dance needs to be over with soon. It’s already lasted an eternity. The music swells in a final crescendo, and I wrench myself from the king’s arm, putting space between us to curtsy shakily.

  The king lunges forward, and for a terrifying moment, I think he’s going to attack me.

  Instead, he picks up my hand and drags a kiss along my knuckles. His mouth is wet, slimy. This time, I can’t suppress a shudder of revulsion or the instinct to yank my hand away. I wipe it surreptitiously in the folds of my dress.

  “Thank you for the dance.” The tremble in my voice is loathsome, but I explain it away. “I’m afraid His Highness Prince Caden was correct, however, Your Majesty. I do feel quite ill.” A hand flits to my midsection. “I hope you’ll forgive my rudeness if I retire for the evening.”

  “I am a charitable ruler, Lady Breena, and not unreasonable.” He smiles a shark’s smile. “Of course you may retire to your chambers.”

  “I’ll escort you, Lady Breena.” Lady Kat must have been listening to us the entire time. She appears at the king’s elbow, resplendent in red silks, but for the purple that darkens her left eye.

  I cringe at the bold color of her gown. I know that Katerine’s killed, but I can’t believe her audacity—to declare it for all to see.

  “That isn’t necessary,” I protest. Even to my own ears, it sounds weak. “I’m certain I can find my way on my own.”

  “I insist.”

  The two of them look at me with matching grins, ones that could devour me whole. I acquiesce with curt nod, turning away from Lady Kat. She tucks my arm in beside hers and beams at me. To view us from a distance would be to see us as friends, about to share a giggle of secret confidences.

  Instead of leading me to the suite I share with Aleta, she winds me through the crowd. I mumble apologies as I jostle ladies’ fans and stumble on the hem of my dress.

  “I believe there’s been a mistake. I was to return to my rooms. Perhaps you failed to understand that, Lady Kat. How is your eye, by the way?” I infuse the words with as much sweetness as I can muster.

  Abruptly, breath abandons me. Kat prods me with a finger until I stand with my back against the wall.

  We’re in a corner of the ballroom, practically hidden behind an ornate sculpture of a giant stone flame. The countess smirks, exceedingly pleased with herself as I gulp soundlessly for air that will not come.

  My heart crashes against my chest as I’m suddenly back in the hall the other day, then back in the woods of Abeline the day I was thrust into this mad world where people threaten me wearing smiles. I raise my fist for a punch, and Kat pins my wrists to my sides.

  I force myself into calmness. Panicking will do little but waste the precious little oxygen I have left, and the burning in my lungs now is nothing to what it had been when I’d been on the forest floor. Nothing to the flames that raced up my arms at Larsden’s behest only weeks ago. This is pain I can withstand a while longer.

  Besides, I think on a weak wave of confidence, Katerine won’t kill me. Not in the midst of all these people. Not when the king’s made it clear that he still wants me alive.

  “It’s you who fails to understand something, Lady Breena. It is not wise to bait me. My name is Lady Katerine. I won’t tolerate anything else from a girl who may as well be a peasant. Is that understood?”

  I nod frantically, wanting only to have breath back in me.

  Katerine steps back, and air—delicious, life-sustaining air—rushes back into me. I gasp down lungfuls and press a shaky hand to my diaphragm.

  “Understood, Lady Katerine,” I say. I meet Kat’s stabbing gaze, despite the room swimming around me. I’ll use the woman’s given name, but I refuse to be completely cowed by her. Katerine will not own me. No one will.

  Like she’s been issued a challenge, Kat’s lips curve up approvingly. “Very good, then. Tell me, Lady Breena, how is your testing going?”

  “Inconclusive thus far, my lady.” As if she hasn’t seen that for herself three times over, stealing my breath away.

  She tuts. “I don’t know why he’s bothering.”

  “Do you mean the king?”

  “Of course. I don’t know why he’s bothering to test you. I’m not certain why he’s bothered to keep you alive at all, if we’re speaking frankly.”

  “I do so enjoy your particular brand of honesty,” I mutter.

  “I wouldn’t expect it to last much longer.” Kat barely seems to have heard me, she’s so wrapped up in her own musings.

  “The honesty?” Her thoughts are difficult to keep pace with.

  “No.” Her attention snaps back to me.
I start at the gleam in her eyes. She has a tenuous grip on sanity at the best of times, but the spark of madness truly shines there now. “Your life.”

  My nausea dissipates as a chill races over my arms. “The king won’t kill me. He needs me.”

  Kat’s laugh is shrill. “For what? The treasure your father is purported to possess knowledge of? His Majesty has me, Lady Breena. I have served him well in your father’s stead these past sixteen years. We have done without this treasure he now seeks. If he desires it again, I’m certain that the solution lies with me and not with you. We’ll be able to rid our realm of you and your father’s scourge soon enough. And I so look forward to that day.”

  A flame the size of a fingernail shudders across my arm. Pain lances through me. Kat simply smiles.

  It’s her. Somehow she’s not only a Rider. She’s a Torcher, too.

  Egria. This place and its secrets. This woman and her strange gifts. Why should the Makers give them to her when she only uses them to hurt people? It’s not right.

  I shove at Kat’s shoulder, suddenly livid. “That’s enough,” I say, voice low.

  A rivulet of water from a nearby glass splashes up, dousing the flame.

  My laugh is one of mocking disbelief. She’s a Thrower, too? Why not? Why shouldn’t she have three powers, one of which is supposed to be missing from Egria altogether?

  Kat takes a startled step away from me, eyes locked on my soaked arm. “How—”

  “I don’t care,” I say, stepping closer and closing the gap between us. “Do you hear me? I don’t care to know how it is that you wield three elements, Lady Kat. I care naught for your threats either. I may not be your definition of nobility, but like it or not, I am your peer now. I am finished pandering to your expectations. I am finished trembling in fear when you walk by. I hope we understand each other.”

  I make to turn away, but Kat’s faint voice stops me.

  “Two.”

  I turn back. “What?”

  “Two,” Kat says, voice stronger now, eyes still on my arm.

  “I—two what?” I ask, momentarily distracted.

  The color’s drained from Kat’s face, and she lifts her eyes to mine, searching my face as though it holds an answer to her question.

  “I have power over two elements,’’ the countess whispers, her voice steady again. Her gaze sharpens. “Unusual, yes, but Larsden has his theories. I wield only wind and flame, Lady Breena. So, pray tell, how is it that the power of a Water Thrower has come forth in such a way?”

  I don’t have an answer for her. My thoughts scramble. This is a trick. The water had been Kat’s. It has to have been Kat’s. How else—who else—?

  “How, when it hasn’t been seen in years?”

  My eyes flicker over the crowd, still whirling about the dance floor, none the wiser to what’s happening in our corner. I spot Caden arguing with his father at the throne, Aleta picking at a salad apathetically, and Tregle standing beside a guard.

  They all think I’m back in my room. No one thinks to look for me at the edge of the room, to pull me from this conversation where I have no answers but a growing number of questions.

  What Kat implies is impossible, yet I can’t think of another explanation. Why can’t I think of another explanation?

  The hall goes curiously silent to my ears as I roil in my thoughts, unable to reel a coherent one in. I’m drowning in them. They’re suffocating me as they tumble one after another. I clutch my head.

  A rushing sound fills my ears. It’s like my thoughts are all roaring at once as great emotion swells within me, rising up so that I can give voice to it.

  Not sure of what I’ll say, I open my mouth—

  —and a frothing wave crashes through the dark windows of the ballroom.

  The glass shatters, and screams echo around the room as the powerful gush of water knocks people to their knees. Dresses are weighed down with water, and still it floods into the room, whirling into the lanterns and plunging us into darkness.

  I stare with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

  The water pools around our knees, and bewildered shouts join confused sobs as people struggle to stand despite the force of the waves that thrash around them, receding and dragging them inexorably toward the jagged, gaping hole in the window that will send them crashing onto the rocks below.

  Water still pours in, arcing up from the ocean itself.

  I spy Caden hanging one-handed from a wall sconce. As Aleta is pulled past him, he grabs her around the waist. She pushes him off, scowling and holds onto the sconce herself.

  The current of the sudden waters carries Tregle by them. Aleta shouts, stretching out her hand. Their fingertips brush. But don’t hold.

  Tregle’s eyes widen as he’s dragged away. Aleta screams.

  It’s a terrible sound.

  “Breena! Get a hold of yourself! You’ll kill us all, you stupid girl!” Kat screeches. She clings bodily to the statue we’d been talking beside only seconds ago.

  I’m the only one left standing unencumbered. How is this happening?

  I extend a cautious hand and dip it into the dark water. It gentles at my touch. Like an obedient hound, it laps at my fingers.

  “We need a Shaker here,” Caden bellows, gesturing with his free hand toward the window.

  At his call, an Earth Elemental sloshes forward daringly. The current tries to down her, but she bends at the knees and pulls upward until the floor bends to erect a barrier between the ballroom and the outdoors.

  It comes just in time. Tregle and a host of others crash into the barrier. They groan—smacking into solid stone can’t have been pleasant—but they’re alive.

  I feel it then. The tie I have to the waters. I wiggle my fingers experimentally. Nothing happens but for a small splash.

  I give it a mental push. Go, I think at it. You need to go. Gently.

  The waters withdraw like a stopper’s been pulled, draining out of the room through cracks in the tiles and around the Shaker’s barrier to rush from the shattered glass.

  I behold the room before me. People are weeping, confused and clinging to the nearest stable object they found in the madness. Water drips from the ceiling and chandeliers.

  Torchers work to dry their hands so they can get flames and lights going. Everything’s soaked and everyone’s bewildered.

  No one except Kat realizes that I’m the source.

  “But I haven’t even reached my seventeenth year.”

  The feebly whispered protest barely reaches my own ears over the roar of ocean pounding within me. By the ether, I can still feel the waves thrashing at the foot of the palace, meters below.

  Kat’s talon-like fingers squeeze my shoulders, and she breathes a hot whisper into my ear.

  “Haven’t you?”

  Twenty-Eight

  Water dripping from our sleeves, Kat drags me into the throne room, commanding a messenger to relay that we’ll be waiting for the king. It’s empty this time of night and all the more daunting without bodies to fill it. I haven’t been in here since Da’s sentencing.

  The scene Kat and I left behind was a dream that had warped into a nightmare. My mind is still shrouded in fog, but it’s dissipating rapidly, leaving me with a sense of horror.

  I’m a Thrower.

  Makers be blessed, truly? Because my life really requires further complications at this point. I shake my hands as if that will shake the abilities loose from me.

  Even as I wish the Elemental powers gone from my fingers, I take it back. Maybe it’s a curse, maybe it’s not, but the gift is mine and it’s not something that can be stripped from me. There’s little else I can say the same of these days. A puddle of water pools beneath my feet, and my fingers absolutely itch toward it.

  No, I amend, correcting myself. Itching isn’t quite right. There’s a sort of…current in my blood now.

  I take a deep breath to clear my head. Kat’s beside me, watching my every move with the beady gaze of a hawk. I yank my a
rm from her grasp. She lets me go, but I’m sure she’ll stop me if I stride across the marble floors in an attempt to flee. I might be able to defend myself now, but I still doubt I’d make it past the hall.

  Kat taps a finger in the crook of her elbow and purrs, “I don’t know what keeps His Majesty.”

  I wish the rocks below the palace had kept him. It’s so little to ask in the wake of this discovery. If the water had to rear up like that, if I had to have a Reveal tonight of all nights, in the presence of the entire court, why couldn’t I at least have managed to rid myself and Egria of the poison of the king’s rule?

  But no, the Shaker intervened before anyone had gone crashing below and I’d managed to pull myself out of it. For the most part, I’m thankful for that—I’m not sure I could have forgiven myself if I’d had a part in Tregle’s death. Or anyone else’s.

  We wait, the drip-drop of our gowns the only sound.

  I expect the double doors to bang open, announcing the king’s entrance. For him to make a spectacle, cause a scene. Instead, the door creaks open, and the king strides in leisurely, Caden and Aleta following behind him. They’re little worse for the wear—Aleta’s hair sticks wetly to her cheeks and Caden looks like he hasn’t had a moment to catch his breath in days—but I’m relieved to see they appear unharmed.

  The three royals halt in front of me. Caden’s eyes scan me, stopping at the puddle rippling around my feet. “You’re well?” he checks.

  I manage a weak smile. “Depends on your definition.” I fight against the impulse to sink to the ground from exhaustion as I meet the king’s gaze.

  “It seems our search for a Thrower is at its end,” he says softly.

  I feign confusion, remembering that I’m not supposed to know of the problems he faces in his conquest of Nereidium. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’ve made things simple for me, Lady Breena. You are the second to Reveal before her seventeenth birthday. Your father holds the answer in the treasure he was supposed to retrieve for me, I am sure, and my patience is at its end. I have a Thrower now and—”

  Makers bless, he does not. I can’t believe he’s already making plans, when my shock has yet to subside.