Page 34 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Raj

P ain screamed up my hand, buzzed along my arm, rattled through my neck, and detonated inside my skull. Loud, belting agony.

Reactively, I jerked up in bed, panting and blinking, confused. After over a full day at Avia's bedside, I'd collapsed onto my mattress fully clothed and fallen into a deep sleep.

But now... I blinked up at two figures who hovered over my bed.

One wore a massive black cloak with a hood so deep that I couldn’t see their face.

The other figure was male, his profile highlighted eerily by the orange light cast by the orb floating in the corner of my room.

Panting, I didn't truly register his face because my attention raced down my arm to see a cloud of red mist enclosing my hand.

Lifting it, I realized my ring finger had been severed.

It spun through the water above my face, pointing accusingly at me as if this entire situation was my own fault.

My djinn ring!

Searing panic screamed louder than my excruciating wound.

The figure over me moved and my eyes bolted up as a gloved hand reached out and snatched up my finger, holding it aloft in a rude gesture. Though the face inside the hood was well hidden, the teeth glowed as my tormentor gave a wicked smile.

The water around us seemed to grow denser and thoughts slashed through my mind, the type of thoughts that hadn’t cut me for a very long time.

This was it.

I sensed resolve from the cloaked figure in front of me, the same sort of violent, unyielding resolve I’d had when I first took over Cheryn.

My gaze traveled to the male figure, who stood closer to the door, leaning against the wall.

Recognition rolled over me at the sight of the thick, silent blue shadow.

Tart? Tuft? Taft. His name finally came to me as I watched his face contort in pain.

One of his hands clutched at his thigh, where a heavily bandaged wound leaked fresh blood.

He’d been too injured to visit Avia, and I hadn’t bothered to check in on him because I frankly didn’t care.

But based on the red stain blooming on his thigh, he shouldn’t have been here. Wouldn’t pose much of a threat.

“Hurry, please,” he heaved the words out like a man who’d struggled through the desert carrying a heavy load on his back, a man who had used up all his strength and had nothing left.

I could get through him easily. A plan to bolt started to form in my mind?—

But the cloaked figure yanked the ring from my severed finger and then discarded the hacked off digit, letting it float away.

My black band slid over the glove as I sat up in bed, moving to shove the bastard.

Before my hands touched that cursed cloak, the figure gave my ring a twist. A harsh whisper rolled forward like fog, the magical force of it blinding me. “I wish you’d turn Taft into a butterfly.”

“I can do that mysel—” The nixe’s protest cut off as my uninjured hand rose automatically—against my will. With a snap, the massive man folded in upon himself again and again, almost like a sheet of paper, reforming into a fluttering insect with bright blue wings speckled with black teardrops.

The cloaked figure turned, and the head tilted to watch the butterfly’s wings as they began to sag beneath the weight of the water.

Murderous fury drove me to stand and reach out. I’d rip this sarding fool’s skull from her neck just as I had that little siren woman who’d dared to try to control me.

Rage roared loud inside my ears, but I was held back by a singular thought.

Is it Avia beneath the cloak?

Did the queen know who I was?

Was this supposed to be my punishment?

A sick delight coiled inside my belly as if this punishment was merely a cruel kiss. A bite rather than my end.

Near the door, the butterfly’s wings began to stretch out into long, flat limbs—a parchment-like figure of a man. I didn’t see the twist of the ring, I felt it. That magical tug like a chain around my neck.

Another whisper, “I wish he was a grasshopper.”

With a snap of my fingers, a grasshopper started to sink between us, massive hind legs jumping as if it could swim. A pleading trill came from those legs, as if the nixe were begging.

“I wish he was a beetle.” The next order came just as his legs lengthened.

A black beetle clicked its pincers open and closed, one leg still leaking copious amounts of blood.

“I wish you’d take away his ability to shape shift.” It had to be Avia, showing me the darker, harder side of herself. How our hearts aligned so perfectly, our twisted souls matched.

This time I smiled as I snapped. Stepped closer, ready to embrace Avia as the beetle stopped moving. Stopped fighting. Probably stopped breathing. It sank to the floor with a final twitch.

But as I drew up next to the figure, cold reality scraped across my bones.

This person was too tall to be the queen.

I should have known. I should have known, and yet I got caught up in the thrill.

Avia would never have killed the nixe. Not like that, not for helping her.

Though she had delicious dark moments, the queen still carried a bit of golden innocence threaded through her, gleaming strands amongst the savage nature she was finally realizing. She would never do this.

The cloaked figure spun quickly, and I saw the face beneath the cloak for the first time and a set, determined expression—one very familiar to me as it was one I’d carried on my own face centuries ago, when I first stopped caring.

“Why?” I asked.

An unhinged smile slowly spread as gloved fingers latched onto the ring. “You don’t get to ask questions, puppet. You don’t pull the strings. Now, I wish you’d dance for me.”

With loathing in my heart, my feet began to move.