Page 30 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Raj

A dismayed yell ripped through me with the ferocity of a wild beast, and I darted forward. The boulder was left abandoned behind me to smash to the ground—I didn’t give a damn.

The only thing I cared about was getting to her.

My heart reeled, punchy and unsteady, the beat terrorized by the idea of something happening to the sea queen.

My queen.

I didn’t even question that thought, didn’t second-guess or waver because the truth of it thrummed in my veins. Avia was mine to torture but also mine to protect.

She didn’t have the elven chain to protect her anymore.

And I’d witnessed her use of her magic first-hand. She was growing into her power, but she didn’t yet have the ability to stop something like this.

It was up to me.

I had to save her.

With that single-minded purpose, I kicked hard, swimming through the current, swerving to avoid the whirlpool—which was moving. It slid smoothly along the ocean floor, kicking up dirt and shells—a skirt of muck and mayhem.

It shouldn’t have been moving.

Whirlpools, unlike twisters, were created by opposing currents and water currents weren’t fickle like wind.

What the hell was going on?

As I shoved through water that felt thick as bread dough, I tried to pull my hands together to unwish this disaster. But the water swirled every which way, and my hands kept getting ripped outward and flung away from me—the water was unhinged. Not behaving naturally at all.

It was behaving as if controlled by magic.

Panic squeezed at my throat, sharp fingers digging into my windpipe as my way became even harder, more circuitous as the whirlpool expanded and swallowed up even more people.

I saw Keelan and his turtle sucked into the melee, their bodies swept upward, disappearing behind a swirling wall of churning blue.

A terrified female scream followed them.

Next to Avia, her adviser collapsed on the shell platform, falling to her knees as her son disappeared.

Her hands stretched forward grasping at nothing, terror and grief prying sob after sob from her lips.

Avia’s own expression was haunted as she stood, arms lifted, trying to summon her power. Struggling. Failing.

Her guards tried to yank her backward, out of harm’s way, but she shrugged them off, yelled something I couldn’t hear through the chaos of the fleeing crowd. And she tried again.

Beautifully stubborn.

Brave.

And…as her expression hardened, and her jaw clenched—vicious.

My queen was angry.

Her own fury lit my chest with flames, spurred me to swim faster, to pull my arms together harder.

I rounded the back side of the churning whirlpool, a good hundred feet from it—just far enough to avoid its suction.

Arms and legs burning, I pushed them harder, forcing them to ignore the desire to collapse into limp strings.

From the whirlpool, a thin spiraling line of blood emerged, darkening the water and the edges of my vision.

Again, I shoved my arms together, hands reaching for my ring, the black circle that could halt this massacre. Halt this storm that was spinning steadily closer to Avia’s platform.

I was uncertain how, because the bluster of the whirlpool was so loud and the high-pitched screams were tearing at my eardrums, but a low chuckle somehow made its way through the dense noise.

My head turned, seeking it out immediately.

Once upon a time, it would have been exactly the sort of sound I would have made.

The kind of glee I would have gotten from gore and chaos—still might have gotten—if the threat were to anyone else.

I spotted a group of silhouettes huddled in the distance on a bridge overlooking the tournament. The pebbled surface gleamed under their feet and the peaceful water around them glimmered in the moonlight as they watched.

Watched but made no move to help.

One of them had a shark fin.

Instinct told me immediately that it was the man I’d met with in the market and that he was responsible for this.

Which meant I was responsible for this.

Like a whip snapping open flesh, rending it apart, disgusted pain rocketed through me.

My teeth gnashed together, and I changed trajectory, turning from Avia to him.

Unthinking, driven only by rage that he’d gone beyond the basic brutal assault I’d wanted.

After the prior magical attack, I’d deliberately ordered and paid for steel, not magic, to confuse everyone.

But next to that shark shifter stood a woman not unlike the undead wench constantly trailing the queen.

A woman whose eyes were pitch black, no whites to be seen. A woman who held a small bunch of seaweed in her hand, circling it—mimicking the movement of the whirlpool.

Guilt burning a blazing trail up my throat, anger fueling my movements, I lifted my arms and shoved my hands together.

It was like trying to plow through a brick wall.

My chest grew tight, the effort lashed at my back, shooting pain deep and sharp.

My head spun from the force, which was so intense I nearly fell over.

It battered my skull, bruised my arms. The pressure of the water was so thick and unrelenting that any other man would have given up.

But I wasn’t any other man.

I was the unending king.

The sultan of Cheryn.

And now…I was Avia’s sword.

Her weapon, though she didn’t know she wielded it.

With a blast of raging energy surging straight from my heart to my fingertips, my hands slammed together.

I twisted my ring.

And I wished.

I wished for the witch to forget every bit of magic she’d ever known. Wished for her to forget herself. Wished for her to turn on her companions and slit their throats.

Brutal satisfaction coated my mouth when she dropped the seaweed, letting it float off limply, grabbed a knife at her belt, and turned toward the startled shark shifter.

He wasn’t even bright enough to step back quickly. Her knife was in him half a second later as the water around me calmed. As the pressure abated. As bright red droplets floated up with the last flurry of bubbles he’d ever emit.

I spun in the water, instantly searching for the platform, heart tight as my eyes searched for the giant shells.

But the platform was gone.

Ripped from its anchor, I saw it unmoored and gliding aimlessly off in the distance, fading into the shadows of the ocean.

Mute in my horror, I rushed forward, eyes scanning the tangle of bodies now dispersing from the spin of the whirlpool, floating out like dandelion seeds that were blown apart, spinning softly in the lingering drafts of the current.

Many dead.

Many moaning.

Some blinking as if they couldn’t believe they were still alive. Some blinking as if they wished they weren’t.

But I didn’t spare them any second glances. My pulse pounded shakily for only one soul.

Avia’s golden hair drew my gaze like a beacon, her iridescent wings shining in the moonlight, one of them with a gaping hole in the center, as if the whirlpool had flung a boulder right through it.

Her eyes were closed.

I swam forward, tension coiling every last one of my muscles as a barrage of unfamiliar emotions cracked my bones from inside, fissuring every hard part of me. Breaking me.

Disgust.

Remorse.

A regret so vast that it flayed me alive, making every inch of my skin burn.

My heart throbbed painfully, as if it were sobbing.

I’d made the wrong wish.