Page 20 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Raj

M y fingers unclenched as the panic that had snuck up on me over breakfast receded and my grip on my tankard relaxed. I blinked, staring down at my plate and avoiding the curious looks of fellow competitors as I focused on taking slow deep breaths.

A sharp rage nicked a chip out of my ribcage and furious pain flared throughout my body.

I was left panting, a bead of sweat bursting on my forehead, as I stared down at the uneaten seaweed wrap in front of me and wondered what had triggered that random burst of emotion.

Did water pressure affect the body? It felt denser here in the cold than it had in the south.

The current weighed more heavily, pressed down on my shoulders.

Perhaps that was it. This weak siren’s body couldn’t handle the chill.

I glanced down the line of the competitor’s breakfast table to see that fool of a jester, Keelan, feeding shrimp to his turtle as it hovered at his shoulder. He seemed unaffected by the water pressure. And hadn’t he mentioned being stationed up here?

Swiping at my forehead, I wondered if perhaps I was coming down with something. In my djinn body, it had been ages since I’d been sick, and I hadn’t thought to wish protection on this siren form. Maybe that was what was happening?

“You alright?” Mateo asked from his seat on my left side.

I nodded, not bothering to face the idiot mer or offer him any excuses. It was none of his business. He was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. For that alone, and the fact that he’d witnessed my strange attack, I wanted to kill him.

But then Avia’s weeping eyes appeared in my head and clawed open the underside of my anger, making it all leak out. Instead of a potent fountain of rage, the emotion dwindled to impotent discontent.

She wouldn’t want him dead.

It would hurt her.

Sarding hell.

My fingers clenched around my cup again, but this time, not from panic—from fury. At myself.

What was wrong with me?

“I’m sure this next task will be easier than the last two,” Mateo said in a conciliatory tone that was for weaklings.

“It’s not that.” I didn’t know why I was bothering to speak to him other than the fact that it was intolerable for the bumbling fool who couldn’t even swim to take pity on me.

“Okay. Then what?”

“Yesterday. That girl.” I threw out a half-lie, knowing that the death had stirred up a lot of whispers all around.

Let Mateo think that Stavros was weak-stomached, I didn’t care.

Stavros didn’t exist. But I had been imagining yesterday.

Had been picturing the horrified helpless expression that had come over Avia’s face after I made that wish to kill the bitch siren who could identify me.

A raw tenderness floated through me as I recalled Avia’s devastation over some simpleton, some stranger. It was almost a shadow of regret. I couldn’t have that.

Heaving out a low, long breath, I stood, slamming my tankard back onto the table with my wasted breakfast. “I need to go.”

“Can I?—”

I strode off down the narrow corridor left between occupied chairs and the stone wall before the idiot offered to follow me. To nag or prod or do further damage.

Turning the corner into the empty hallway, I finally let my placid expression fall and fury burn through my gaze. Unwinding this wish had to be my top priority.

I’d thought I’d have time to let ideas simmer, to parse out the best path forward, to be strategic.

I’d thought this rebounding wish was only half as bad as the one Bloss had foisted onto me because I still had use of my mental faculties.

That clearly wasn’t the case. This love shite was far more insidious.

It crept in during unexpected moments in unexpected ways and was slowly going to drive me mad.

Bursting out of the front door, I stormed across the nearest bridge, determined to find some solitary place where I'd be able to scheme.

I needed to reach into my chest and use my magic to wrench this parasite out of my heart?—

There she was.

Golden hair flowing behind her. Iridescent wings shimmering in the soft morning light. Her expression the loveliest shade of infuriation I’d ever seen. Pinkened cheeks. Pinched lips. Those lavender eyes alight so that they glowed like underwater fires.

Frozen. My limbs locked for a moment, as frozen as the iceberg she passed. As unnoticed.

But then her head turned, and it was as if I’d stepped right into the sun’s path. Her expression softened and her lips curved. Every inch of my body warmed. I floated up an inch in the water, my feet lifting from the bridge.

“Stavros, were you looking for me?” Her words were wind chimes—soothing music to my ears. “I’m about to go practice my magic?—”

“Can I come?” The question came out impulsively, erupting from the magnetic haze of her presence, but I immediately justified the instinct to tag along.

If I wanted to reverse this wish, reverse it properly, I needed to get some insight into the magical protections surrounding Avia.

I needed to know which wishes would lead to dead ends and where the cracks in her magical armor were.

What better way to ask innocent-seeming questions about her magic than by helping?

A dark fluttering feeling flitted through my chest as her soulful amethyst eyes stared up at me. If those were butterflies, they were black creatures—excited only for the chance to execute this plan.

Her hand slid into mine, fingers soft as silk. And those sarding bugs burst into color inside of me.

I nearly bent down and brushed my lips over Avia’s soft cheek. In fact, my lips ached from the restraint of holding them back.

“I’m so happy I ran into you. Your help is exactly what I need,” Avia smiled up at me, her expression as bright and glittering as the summer sun on the sands of Cheryn. Shimmering.

My chest grew tight, and I realized I’d forgotten to breathe.

Shite—

She was already tugging me along, swimming after the undead witch woman who walked along one of the many bridges that crisscrossed around this town. The current blew lightly around us, and I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt so content. When had I derived bliss from simply holding hands?

Avia seemed to feel the same because she leaned her whole body into my arm, her small breasts pressed near my elbow, the white dress she wore cut low in the front and creating a deliberately tempting view.

“Of all the competitors, you’re one of the few that wears his heart on his sleeve,” she murmured. “It makes it easy to trust you.”

The floating feeling inside my chest was merely glee that she was so easily fooled. That would make her slip up, divulge more. Except…as we swam up toward a sheltered shelf on an iceberg to practice, it hit me with full force that removing this wish might mean I never got to feel this way again.

This dancing light inside my chest would fade and all that would be left was the lonely darkness I’d inhabited for centuries.

But alone was better.

Alone was certain.

Alone allowed me to become the threat I’d been. To rise up and conquer.

With solitude came power.

Avia gave my hand a squeeze and then released it, her iridescent wings gently brushing against my sleeve as she swam forward to face off against Lizza, the rainbow band in her hair glinting merrily.

But as she gained her footing and took up a fighting stance on the ice cliff, she glanced back over at me, as if for reassurance.

And my determination wavered.