Page 60 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

Green light blinded her. Kora’s skin was sallow, and she blinked, adjusting from escaping the Eternal Tryk.

“There she is.”

Barron.

Trees loomed over and all around her. Twisted, thick dark roots clawed from the ground, mud slicking her already filthy leathers. A pair of hands hovered over her body, searching, probing, and she swatted Blake away, scrambling until the rough bark of a tree scraped her back.

She was in the Emerald Forest. Just about. The path to her left led to the Citadel, and through the break of trees, she could spot the sweet, sweet ocean.

Blake paused, his green stare tracking her every movement. He wringed his hands before shaking them, as if something on them bothered him. Barron stood nearby, his oil-black hair dishevelled, donning a black longcoat and shirt. He was surrounded by those guards, and the reek of them made her gag. They smelled unnatural.

“Welcome back, Kora,”

Barron sharply smiled.

“You gave us quite the scare.”

“How did we get here?”

“Oh, you’ve been unconscious for a day. We needed to get you somewhere safe, away from those pesky rebels.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. The metal collar was still clasped around her neck—the constant reminder she was a prisoner, a slave, to this bilge rat. She used the trunk of the tree to steady herself, slowly raising to her feet. Her legs trembled. She felt so weak.

Blake’s face was taut, lips thin, and he hovered between her and Barron, warily glancing at the latter. Last time she’d been here, she’d revealed her power to him.

Perhaps she could do it again.

In an instant, she flung her hand out, clenching her jaw as she claimed the final small dregs of her power. She was utterly drained—a trip to the Eternal Tryk would do that. A slither of water shot from the ground, spearing to her hand. It morphed instinctively, and she clasped a shimmering sabre dagger, aiming at Barron.

He stood there, his smile broadening into a grin. His dark eyes alight with amusement. “Blake!”

He clicked his fingers.

Blake sighed, and with a simple flutter of his fingers, the tree behind her twisted, branches wrapping around her body, pinning her to the trunk. Vines erupted from the ground, twisting around her ankles and wrists, another circling her forehead, pulling her head back roughly against the bark.

Blake prowled slowly, his eyes burning a deep, green ember. A shiver rippled through him, and his dark shadow emerged, echoing his footsteps, but always a second behind. The vines clenched against Kora’s skin. They were cold, and her skin turned blue from their touch.

Blake halted, and her nose wrinkled at his developing scent. He smelled like the earth, of soil and petrichor, and leaves in the autumn. He was the earth. Another elemental counterpart.

“I was disappointed you never noticed,”

he spoke quietly.

“The blessed can usually recognise each other.”

“Don’t believe in magic then?”

Kora sniped.

His mouth twisted.

“I did what I had to. We live in a world where magic was forbidden. Keeping it from you was paramount to our survival.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve kept enough secrets from me.”

“I never lied. Only omitted the truth.”

She barked a sharp laugh.

“This is a pretty fat truth. What else have you omitted?”

His jaw snapped, refusing to divulge any further secrets.

“Magic is still forbidden, we’re both breaking the law. The empire will kill us.”

“Not anymore,”

Barron interjected, and Blake startled, as if remembering Barron was still there. He reluctantly stepped away.

“These are my lands now.”

“And let me guess, you’re pro-mage?”

Barron’s smile quirked.

“You could say that.”

His hand twirled in the air, and with sickening amazement, darkness bled from his skin. It writhed like a living shadow, tendrils leaking into the air. His power permeated her skin, its strength chilling her bones and setting her scar alight. Except this time, the pain snaked down her jaw and into her neck, and she winced.

This power was new. It hadn’t been recorded in any of the mage factions. No god had displayed this kind of . . . shadow wielding.

It felt familiar. She’d experienced this kind of darkness before, and Kora hissed as a memory surfaced and faded, warring against the frayed tendrils plaguing her mind. A memory of unbearable pain, blood, and a sad male telling her she was home.

“Is that what this is about? A world for mages? Just change the law, you have the power to do that.”

Barron shook his head.

“No. It’s much more than that. Changing the law is not enough. We need to wipe the slate clean and start again.”

Blood drained from Kora’s face, as his intentions settled across the grassy plain.

“This war is wrong, Barron. You’re killing innocents! You can’t kill everyone who isn’t a mage!”

His face darkened at the mention of his name and he strode forward. She cringed away, his presence setting every nerve ablaze with horror.

“We are the blessed. We are the chosen ones. Mages are far superior to human scum. The witches are a mere copy of us. They’re humans who were desperate for magic, creating a pitiful, shameful replica.”

This male was insane.

“Their witch-seers are the only . . . things worth keeping around. They can predict the fates, the will that will be. And I have seen glory. And pirates? They’re the worst of them all. They can all rot in the Tryk.”

Spittle flew from Barron’s mouth.

“The witches’ prophecy,”

she wheezed against the branches tightening over her lungs. Blake hovered behind Barron, observing them both intently.

“You think it’s about restoring the mages?”

Barron’s smile returned.

“You’ve been busy, pet. I see your amnesia hasn’t stopped you.”

Kora flinched.

“Lost to the void, power ignites. Torn across the land, harbour the vessel. And sacrifice to the rift,”

he recited.

That made no sense whatsoever.

“Prophecies aren’t truth. That could mean anything.”

“No, but they guide the hands of fate. A fate I aim to secure for myself. My power will ignite the tear in our lands, and I will sacrifice the scum to attain glory.”

Kora wriggled against Blake’s magic. The ends of his fingers were dusted brown, as if he’d plunged his hands into soil.

“And I want you by my side,”

Barron continued.

He . . . what?

Blake’s magic faltered, vines loosening as he pivoted to Barron, shocked. Their words an echo of each other.

“What?”

Blake snapped.

Barron barely glanced at him.

“The power of the ocean is vital. As I said, you are the turning tide in this war.”

“Is having the power of the earth not enough for you?”

She glared at Blake.

“His power is . . . temperamental.”

Blake deflated at Barron’s words.

“The ocean outweighs the land. I need your power. With it, we will be unstoppable. We will fulfil the prophecy and restore mages. Imagine . . . a fresh, new world. No pirates. No humans. No . . . vermin. Not even Azaria would dare challenge us. We will use the nobles for purity. We will become new gods, in this new world.”

Gods? He was more than insane.

“And if I say no?”

Barron tapped the metal collar around her neck.

“Don’t forget, I own you.”

As he walked back to his reeking guards, he clapped Blake’s shoulder as he passed him.

“Something I can thank my son for.”

Son.

Blake’s shoulders hunched as she jolted in shock against her unnatural imprisonment. Son. The matching black hair, the sharp features. Son. The similar cold demeanour and tall frame. Son. Their eyes were completely different, as were their powers, but now that she looked, they were mirrors of each other.

“Son?”

she seethed.

“Oh, yes. I forget. You see, I couldn’t let you go running back to Galen. Your memory may be impaired, but I couldn’t severe your connection to them entirely,”

Barron waffled.

“I needed to keep tabs on you, without you getting suspicious.”

“You . . . no. I lost my memory from a pirate attack. I . . .”

Barron’s sly, darkening grin halted her words.

“You! You took my memory?”

Kora sagged with disbelief.

We can’t lose her.

I’ll see to it that she doesn’t.

The memory slammed into her.

That thing lurked in the doorway to the room. Opulence of gold and moss covered every stone wall, every crevice.

She’d been to Mossfell Castle before—a bloody mess, with a giant gash down the side of her face. Erick had pinned her down as Barron entered the room, a living, writhing shadow that’d entered her mind.

And wiped everything away.

An endless, bloodcurdling scream ravaged her mind.

“It wasn’t pirates,”

she whispered. Her words fell upon deaf ears as Barron rambled on.

“Getting our hands on you in the first place was difficult. Raiden and his jolly crew kept you protected on that island,”

he spat with vitriol.

“Once I finally had you, I had to make sure you wouldn’t go back. My son provided an excellent distraction. I couldn’t lose an elemental. Not one like you.”

Galen was . . . innocent.

The Talmon Empire was the enemy.

Did Erick know? Had he been spun the same lies from Barron, fuelling his vendetta against rebels for Eleanore?

She’d been hunting innocents for ten years. Trained as a weapon against her own people. She was a murderer, a reaper of her own kind. She’d single-handedly tipped the scales in the empire’s favour by hunting pirates and rebels.

Her body screamed. Every nerve, every pulse, every pore cried with agony of what she’d so blindly, willingly, done.

And Blake was the real spy. The real enemy. Not Finlay. Not the Skytors. Blake.

She shot a venomous glare at him as she heaved against the vines, bark biting into her skin. With a raging cry, the earth shook, water oozing from the ground and mixing with the soil to create slick, watery mud. Droplets lifted into the air as the tree containing her cracked, and Blake flinched at the sound.

“Ah! I wouldn’t do that.”

Barron gestured to the reeking guards, and they parted like a diseased wave, revealing a kneeling figure gagged and bound.

Erick was bleeding everywhere.

His face had been beaten to a pulp, black and blue with bruises. His armour had been removed, leaving him shivering, his hairy, bare chest exposed, with only trousers covering his body. Kora paled. His back had been whipped and was crusted with blood and, around his neck, was a thick, metal collar.

“Kor . . . a,”

he muffled around the gag.

“Silence!”

A guard kicked Erick in the back and he sprawled into the mud.

Tears brimmed her eyes. He had lied to her, kept her past and powers from her, but she couldn’t bear to see him like this. Barron paused, noting the tears cascading down her cheeks.

“You feel such emotion for this male,”

he observed.

“After everything he’s done to you, and you still cry for him. I didn’t expect an attachment to form between you two.”

She frowned, and a sniffle followed.

“He lied to me about my powers. Doesn’t mean he deserves this.”

Barron threw back his head and laughed. The sound truly horrified her.

“My apologies, pet. I keep forgetting how much you don’t remember.” Ouch.

Erick cried out in the mud, pushing to his knees and begging Barron to stop. The guards kicked him again, pressing their heavy boots into his back, and he spluttered, mud caking his face as he suffocated. She yelled until Barron motioned for them to stop.

“You know, Erick and I have been friends for a long time.”

Barron paced the grassy plain.

“In fact, when we knew we needed you, he became my informant on the inside. He infiltrated Galen, befriended your family and the Windwards . . . and then snatched you right out from under them.”

Barron’s slick smile sent shivers through her, his hand passing through the air, imitating the snatch.

No . . . no, he wouldn’t.

“And we ensured they could never find you ever again. Placing you in his care, on the island furthest from Galen. Under strict instructions to keep you hidden until it was time to make our move. Allowing you in the trials, though, I was not impressed. Erick clearly has no control over you. So I had to send my son in after you. To make sure you remained loyal to us.”

She stilled. Erick had vehemently begged her not to participate. Blake had been her saving grace, an unpredicted alliance, and an unprecedented win . . . but the trials had been fixed. Barron needed their power. He couldn’t afford for them to die in the trials.

Even that had been a lie.

Barron’s gaze flicked to her hair and he grunted, as if her appearance was distasteful. Erick choked on his gag, desperately seeking her attention. He had tried to hide her in plain sight . . . as a male. The haircuts. The clothes. The attitude. It was all to suppress her true self.

Everything was a fucking lie.

Erick protested through the gag, and his muffled pleas raked against Kora’s ears as she looked away from him.

“What of my family?”

she whispered.

“Are they alive?”

Blake choked at her question.

Barron neared, until his cold breath tickled her face. He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, the sensation icing her skin, and Erick screamed from behind.

“Your real father is still alive, yes. I couldn’t tell you about the rest.”

She glanced to Blake, his face sickeningly pale.

“Please don’t tell me it’s you.”

Barron chuckled.

“God no, lucky me.”

He winked and Kora gagged. Barron had no scent, only cold darkness. His presence made her muscles tense to the point of snapping, her teeth grinding, her scar screaming.

It all made perfect sense now. He was the black mark upon her soul. He was the blockage. The fraying ends of her void. He had destroyed the tether to her previous life, to her powers.

“Who is my father?”

“The question is where, Kora. Your father is the most famous sailor in all of history, and he currently resides at the bottom of the Black Abyss.”