Page 41 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Avia

F elipe rose from the sea like an ancient warrior, the waves pushing him upward, foaming beneath his navy tail. His rage outdid the storm’s as he rammed the spear harder.

Sahar slid further onto the blade, her hands clutching at it in a desperate bid to stop what was already done. The tip punched through her back, and she was run through.

When his eyes met mine, the ferocity and protectiveness there might as well have been a feral growl.

Mateo broke through the surface just then, gasping before he realized what was going on.

He startled, backpedaling a little, eyes wide and lips pressed together as he took in the scene as my adviser twitched, blood blooming across her dress.

His gaze darted back and forth between my guard and my adviser, as if he was trying to figure out the situation without words.

“Oh gods!” Keelan’s curse made my head whip in his direction so fast that my neck cracked, alert for more threats, the thrum of adrenaline vibrating beneath my skin.

But I didn’t think Keelan had seen his mother get stabbed, not with the wild way the ocean was behaving, not when he was treading water fifteen feet away.

Not with the way his face paled as he stared up at the monster above me, who spread his wings wide and cast a shadow over us all, one darker even than the roiling clouds.

Panic pelted through my veins, mangled my lungs, and shone in my eyes. Fear pulsed, twice as intense as the dull, sorrowful acceptance of death that came from my human side. No, this out-sized panic was laced with longing so huge that it had to be supernatural.

The air shifted and suddenly the dragon dove, wings tucked, right past me—so close that he grazed my arm.

In shock, I watched his massive jaw open near Felipe and my mouth opened to shriek. My mer guard didn’t even flinch.

The dragon’s sharp, dagger-sized teeth crunched through bone and yanked. Half of Sahar’s hand dangled from his mouth.

Her scream bit my ears but was nothing compared to the shock of realizing that Raj had just taken back his ring.

She was a traitor.

But he was the sultan of Cheryn.

The endless king.

A much more dangerous enemy.

My throat dried out as the black beast rose and hovered in front of me, slowly opening its mouth and then extending its tongue, the mangled bit of Sahar’s flesh on the tip of it like an offering.

My eyes flew up to the dragon.

Is this a trick?

Raj hovered, awaiting my decision.

Was I going to trust the most infamous djinn of all time?

Anxiety flickered like a candle in my stomach, but then I also felt that deep longing again, only this time it was muddled by a sense of adoration and sharp regret. Feelings that made no sense.

With a jagged inhale, I realized what was happening.

These dual emotions weren’t simply my magic malfunctioning. My inhuman side and my human side.

Somehow, I could feel what Raj did.

Somehow, with my heart inside his chest, his emotions were leaking into me. Linking to me. Magically tethering more than just our life forces.

And that’s how I knew… it would all be okay.

Raj's dragon eyes were latched onto me, speaking without opening his mouth. His head leaned in, just a few inches.

Swallowing hard, I slowly lifted my hand toward his mouth. I hesitated, but he didn't make a move to snap my arm off. Didn't trick me. He held perfectly still.

My fingers fumbled, stomach churning in anxiety, but I reached further until I gripped the ring.

My mind floated in state of disbelief as I pulled it free from Sahar's dismembered hand.

Then I slid the blood-stained band onto my own finger and looked Raj in the eye. "I wish you'd stop attacking me."

One giant sigh heaved from the dragon's chest, and some of the anguish in my own ribs vanished.

He hovered in place, waiting until I’d backed away before snapping his jaw shut and swallowing the lump of flesh.

I shoved aside my queasy stomach and just stared at Raj for a moment. Those cat-like golden eyes blinked.

“Show yourself,” I whispered. “Your true self.” I deliberately ordered but didn’t make a wish because I wanted to see what he’d do.

Would he listen?

The arrogant king who bowed to no one?

The villain who’d plotted to conquer the world with my mother but who’d just handed me his ring?

In an instant, the dragon was gone and a muscular man with black hair, dark eyes, and a short beard hovered in front of me, his abdomen disappearing in a trail of navy smoke in his true djinn form.

His jaw clenched tight as my gaze met his, and my pulse flooded once more with a soul-deep yearning. His yearning.

Shite.

This strange magical tangle between us left my toes tingling and my mind a disjointed, drunken mess.

But that would have to wait. Other things couldn’t.

I turned to Keelan, whose face was white as a ghost. Leaning on Mr. Whelk, he was blinking if he couldn’t quite register what had happened.

With a flutter of my fingers, the ocean hummed as it gently lowered me into a seat made of cresting waves resembling a throne.

My hand lifted, the ring still dripping blood, as I studied Keelan’s face.

Anger toward Sahar rose inside me, the slash of her betrayal, and I studied her son’s face carefully as he swam toward her, suspicion whispering in my ear to end him too.

He might have been in league with his mother. Played some part in her tricks.

His eyes darted to where his mother hunched over her bitten-off hand and back to me, raw panic emanating from him.

A massive blast of water could throw Sahar and Keelan so high and far that their backs would break as they smacked down onto the ocean’s surface.

I could strand them on an island and let them suffocate above the sea watching the water but unable to enter, the ocean retreating with every step they took toward it…

punishments drizzled through my head like decadent chocolate down a cake, each one sounding delicious. Certainly deserved.

Palms up, I lifted my hands. The storm rumbled out a cruel laugh as I made Sahar rise on a plume of water and float toward me. As soon as she reached me, I slid my hand down, freezing the pillar and melding it with her spear. Her eyes were wide as she gasped, unable to breathe.

Traitors should know horror.

The pitch-black thought might have come from the swirling mix of my emotions with Raj’s or simply from my own evil depths.

I wasn’t sure—but it didn’t matter.

I stood, leaning toward her as the clouds started to pelt us with slush. “Should I make this your tomb?”

“Please—”

My hands curled into fists and suddenly the surface of the ocean was riddled with star bursts of ice, each side sharp as a sword.

“Avia!” Mateo’s voice snapped my concentration, startled me, and I glanced down, suddenly worried I’d impaled him.

He raised an arm and reached for me, expression beseeching. “This isn’t you,” he called out, and his words somehow dove beneath the tapestry of my rage and plucked at the tiny heartstrings remaining.

He was wrong… but he was also right.

It was me. But it wasn’t who I wanted to be.

Not for him. Not for the kingdom.

Setting aside my anger felt like shedding armor before battle. Heavy. Wrong. It allowed less favorable emotions like sadness and self-loathing to surface. My hands trembled and my throat tightened as I lowered my arms and took a deep, calming breath.

“Avia,” Raj said my name for the first time and the way he said it was aghast. Disbelieving.

I thought I perceived a trickle of disappointment running through my veins, which simply made me redirect my anger and him and snarl, “Shut your mouth.”

Surprisingly, he heeded me, and I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts.

A trial first. At least a questioning. That would give me time to gain control of myself and avoid becoming the ruthless dictator that instinct urged me to be.

Impassively, without sympathy, I gazed at Sahar where she moaned and clutched at her ruined hand—still impaled but not yet bleeding out because the ice sealed and partially numbed the wound. She hovered in a space between life and death.

“Why did you betray me?”

Her wheezing breath interrupted her more than once as she answered. “Keelan almost died. Again and again. I realized it wasn’t going to stop until I had to bury him.” There was a harsh bite to her final words, the ferocity of a snarling mother who’d do anything to protect her child.

My glance toward Keelan and his pale, shocked expression told me everything I needed to know about his involvement—he had no clue.

I turned to Raj, where he hovered effortlessly, watching, his thick lashes laced with raindrops. “How did she get this ring? I wish you’d tell me the truth.”

The djinn’s lips twitched to one side reluctantly, as if he didn’t really want to answer me.

There was a new flare of hatred in my belly, but it didn’t feel directed at me, it seemed like Raj was furious with himself.

“Taft told her about me.” A gasp went up from Mateo as the djinn continued, “I don’t know how he found out. ”

I did. I’d sent the blue man to spy on Watkins and they’d been roommates. Clearly the nixe found out something different than expected. But when? And why had he gone to Sahar?

“How long ago?” Try though I might to keep my royal tone, my throat closed up at the end of the question and it came out pitchy. Hurt.

“After the whirlpool,” Raj responded.

I’d been bedridden and Taft had gone to her. So, she hadn’t been my enemy until the end. Or at least hadn’t had the means to do so.

“Keelan!” Sahar gasped, extending her good hand down toward her son, as if she wanted to hold him one last time. I glanced at her wound and realized that her body heat was slowly melting the spear inside her belly. She had minutes, perhaps less.

My head swiveled to look at Keelan’s ashen face. Red rimmed eyes blinked up at me—and I watched a man as his belief broke, snapped in half by a reality he had never expected.

As much as her betrayal hurt me, his anguish was worse.

I’d felt it—that realization that I was born of a monster.

My fingers flicked and he rose up next to me, the water creating a matching liquid cape and throne for him, though he didn’t sit.

He stood, eyes fixated on Sahar, though his expression was distant.

“What should I do?” I asked quietly.

Keelan closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

“You can wish I’ll make her better. Wish I’ll leave Okeanos and never return. Tell me what you want me to do,” I urged. “This isn’t a test. It isn’t a punishment. I know… what you’re feeling… I know. Tell me what you want me to do.”

When he opened his eyes, they were wet with emotion. “Wish for me to tell you the truth and only the truth. Then you’ll know I had no idea. That I’d never ?—”

“No,” I responded with a soft shake of my head, raising my hand when his nostrils flared and he inhaled deep, mouth opening to argue.

“Love isn’t love without trust,” I whispered.

He surged forward then, the ocean helping him, pushing him, as he leaned across the space. His good hand took my hand with the ring and squeezed, before he reached down and gave the band a quarter twist. In a broken voice, he murmured, “She betrayed her queen. I wish her peace in the afterlife.”

“Keelan!” His mother gave a broken wail, and I watched his own chest convulse as he swallowed down the onslaught of grief.

But Raj had already lifted his hands and was staring steadily at me as if to confirm.

“Be at peace, Sahar.” I said.

“Granted.” Blue smoke rose from Raj’s fingertips. The inky tendrils darted through the sky and wrapped like a shroud over her face before she slumped down on the ice spear. When the smoke cleared, her gaze was vacant.

For a long moment, the entire world seemed to pause.

The rain thinned to nothing.

The waves grew quiet.

Even the lightning halted its dance.

I gently melted the pillar of ice until Sahar floated upon the waves. As if they were reading my mind, Felipe swam forward, and Mateo followed suit. With a nod to me, they gathered Sahar’s limp body and disappeared beneath the water.

“Go,” I commanded the djinn.

His brow furrowed and he surged forward, reluctance pulsing through me.

I held up my hand with the ring and spoke slowly as I thought through as many contingencies as I could to tie his hands.

“I wish you’d wait for me in my private sitting room at the castle in Palati.

I wish you wouldn’t speak to anyone or communicate in any fashion other than to say you’re waiting for me.

I wish that you would sleep until I come and wake you. ”

A bolt of intense emotion shot through me fleetingly, but it disappeared as quickly as Raj did. One second he was there, the next, he was gone in a puff of smoke, the word “granted” echoing in my ears.

I muffled the inner voice that yelled at me and called me foolish for not immediately addressing the djinn. For not immediately killing him.

Bloss would have my head.

But Keelan needed—and I needed —to breathe. To mourn. To process.

An hour passed and then another as the storm slid away, the clouds dispersing.

The sun sank beyond the horizon in a red haze and still we sat, Mr. Whelk swimming up to rest his head on his master’s lap.

Keelan and I floated side by side on our wave thrones as the seagulls swooped and the stars blinked. Sometimes there were tears, sometimes there was nothing but the sound of the ocean gently rocking us.

When the moon was high overhead, Keelan finally spoke.

“There are things worth dying for,” he whispered, turning to face me with a stare steadier than I ever would have managed.

“I knew that when I joined the military. I’ve always known that.

My queen and my future wife are worth it.

I don’t know why she couldn’t see that.”

I reached for his hand. “Yes, but some day, if I’m in her position, our child will be worth it too. And you can bet I’d do any and everything to save them.”

Keelan stood then and yanked me up, smashed me into his ribs in a crushing hug. Burning tears flowed freely down my face as I clutched at him—tears of sorrow and pain. But also tears of brokenhearted love.