Page 33 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Avia

P anic driving me, I snarled at Mateo until he relented and allowed me to go see Watkins.

Mateo had tried to cajole me into resting but I flat out refused and so his compromise was to carry me in his arms across all the bridges in town, my guards floating inconspicuously behind us as we went to check on the body.

Watkins couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.

Night was just giving way to morning, and if it weren’t for the debris floating through the current, it would have looked like a peaceful morning. Instead of schools of fish darting overhead, however, there were bits of wood and seaweed casting dappled shadows across the ocean floor.

Two men riding polar bears swam past, their mounts tied to bundled loads of rubbish dragging behind them.

I probably shouldn’t have, but I glanced back in the direction of the open field where the island man had been.

Nothing was there—he’d left and the space was empty—but my eyes didn’t simply see the patch of water as it was now.

The churning rage of the whirlpool flitted into my vision for a second as memory eclipsed reality.

A shudder hit my bones and shook them—hard.

I’d been terrified more times than I could count, but the wretched cruelty of mother nature hurt in a new way. The elements didn’t care if you lived or died. There was no pleading. No bargaining. No possibility of escape.

Life and death were coincidence.

Dumb luck.

And the guilt of being an undeserving survivor ate at me.

The people of Kremos met us with dull, listless stares. Some of the stares might even have been hostile, but I lacked the energy to discern which. I gave them sympathetic nods as we passed so I focused on getting to Lizza.

My mind raced, galloping from thought to thought.

What caused the whirlpool? How badly hurt was Taft? I should never have listened to Sahar and allowed this tournament to continue.

When we reached the mayor’s house, I didn’t even flinch as we walked through the dark cave in front of it.

Mateo managed to open the front door on his own without jostling me much, and once we were inside, one of Didero’s assistants immediately fluttered off at my request to find Lizza and Sahar.

The witch arrived before the siren, and I ushered her into a seat before turning to Mateo. “Can you check on Sahar please? I really need her.”

With a sharp nod, he swam off. Then I turned to Ugo and Paavo. “Privacy. No one comes in but Sahar.”

They also left the room, leaving me with just Lizza and her ever present black bag of tricks.

The undead woman gave me a cursory glance over but stopped when I said, “Mateo said Watkins is dead.”

Her brow attempted to raise but there wasn’t enough skin left to do the job. “Really?”

“How is that possible? I thought if my heart was safe then I was safe. But if the person with my heart is dead…”The witch’s eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed in thought.

Without replying, she reached into her bag and rummaged around.

When her hand emerged, she held up a jar that I was quite familiar with, one full of x-ray fish.

“We need to see if he really has your heart. You didn’t name him aloud if I recall correctly. ”

Shock came over me. “What?”

Her gaze was challenging. “Well, did you name him aloud?”

Defensiveness trickled down my spine, because of course I did. But unease shoved its way forward and my mind reeled, thinking back to what happened. Horror rushed over me in a tumbling black wave. “You’re right.”

I hadn’t named Watkins. I’d merely said my heart should go to my worst enemy.

Fool. A cold prickling pinched at my skin, and I forgot to breathe for a moment.

Terror and self-loathing made my tone harsh as I stared down at the x-ray fish she’s still holding out, realizing she thinks that we’ll be able to reveal the truth with them. “He can’t eat those if he’s gone.”

Lizza gave a dark smile, and I immediately regretted my statement as she abandoned her bag and walked over to the fireplace. She picked up a long, thin poker as she said, “Sure he can. We’ll just have to help him.”

In a dread-filled silence, I followed Lizza through a maze of corridors and then across a bridge to the rear of an iceberg, my nails carving half-moons into my palms. Not far from the mayor’s, on a narrow wooden platform hammered into the wall of ice, the bodies from the disaster were all laid in a row, feet hanging off the edge.

They were awaiting transport up to the surface to be laid in the snow, turned into part of the cold forever.

Some faces were peaceful, and if they weren’t so pale, might have been mistaken for people sleeping.

Others had wounds that were so horrific that it was hard to look at them, but I forced myself to look.

To see. These people didn’t deserve their deaths, but they did deserve to have someone acknowledge their tragedy.

Recognize the injustice and weep for them.

It seemed bizarre that a whirlpool had formed out of nowhere, but I knew very little about natural disasters.

I’d been trained more for those created by people.

At least this horror wasn’t on my shoulders.

At least it wasn’t another attack because of me.

I had enough guilt already, and that was eclipsed by my own stupidity assigning out my heart.

Determined not to repeat Mayi’s mistakes and give the heart to someone I loved… instead I might have condemned myself.

Might have.

There was still a chance.

Still a chance that Watkins did have my heart, which I could then try to transfer to someone else. Hadn’t Mayi once taken her heart back from the man she loved and then given it to me?

I had to hope that it was possible.

But if Watkins didn’t have my heart…

“Here he is!” Lizza called out with far too much enthusiasm for the somber occasion.

I swam over.

Watkins looked peaceful in a way he rarely did in life.

His expression was placid, eyes closed, and his shock of white hair fell across his forehead just the same as it always did—giving me the urge to brush it back.

But the energy in his form and the sarcasm that crackled out of his lips at every opportunity were gone.

Lizza snapped her fingers together, summoning Ugo a bit rudely. “Need your help. Take him to that berg there and find a spot away from other eyes.”

With a solemn nod, my burly guard hefted the body onto his shoulder, and we formed a sad little procession to a more private location far from the eyes of any wandering civilians.

When Watkins was laid out on a narrow ice shelf, I averted my eyes as Lizza and my guard forced his stiff form to swallow down as many X-ray fish as possible.

To avoid listening to them, I sought out the ocean’s song, wanting comfort. Once again, I heard it far off, like instruments playing in the distance, just out of reach. My magic avoided me, perhaps as disgusted with me as I was with myself for the desecration I was allowing.

“He’s changing,” Lizza said, yanking up Watkins’s shirt.

“Thank you,” I told my guard. He immediately understood the dismissal and gave me a quick nod before swimming off to give us privacy.

Anxiety drummed inside my skull as I peered down, watching Watkins’s blood vessels and muscles become visible. My teeth clenched as I ran my gaze up his ribs, which looked as sharp as shark teeth. And there, nestled between his lungs, was a solitary, singular heart.

My vision speckled.

My breathing stuttered.

My hands flew to my chest.

The rebel and I had never been linked.

I’d dragged him into this tournament for nothing. Yanked him away from his home and people for no reason. He clearly hadn’t hated me as much as I deserved. The shark shifter wasn’t my worst enemy.

Lizza’s cloudy eyes turned toward me, and her expression was solemn. “Majesty, you’re not going to like what I’m about to say…”

But I didn’t give her the chance to finish because intuition was already tugging at me with clawed fingers, pulling me into a dark and haunting reality. I’d thought I was being clever, but I’d never been more foolish in my entire existence. “It’s Raj, isn’t it?”

Why else would the unending king come beneath the water?

Why else would he stay?

Why would he kill a girl for speaking to me? A girl who could reveal his presence?

Though I had never done a single thing to him, there was no other reason he’d be here. There was no other reason he’d stay.

Not unless he was my true enemy.

Had the unending king secretly declared war on me?

Like puzzle pieces that clicked into place, the galvanized rebels suddenly looked different to me, and I wondered if their hatred had been whipped into a frenzy by the djinn bastard.

Yes, Watkins and his kind had loathed me.

But throwing squid ink and attacking caravans were leagues apart.

I’d assumed the escalation had been natural.

But what if it hadn’t been? What if it had been unnatural?

Speaking of unnatural…

The whirlpool yesterday had appeared out of nowhere.

That could have been wished into existence…couldn’t it?

The sultan had my heart.

And he was trying to kill me.

The irony ripped a mournful laugh from my lips.

I’d been at war and hadn’t known it.

Now I did.

And if Raj wanted a fight, I’d be sure to give him one.