This Poisoned Tide: The Last Water Witch Book One

CHAPTER 26

She looked at him, at the Batak oil scars slashed across his eyes, the curve of his mouth that had the power to twist from cruelty to beauty with one turn of his lips. "I think the only unpredictable kink of reality in all of this is you. I doubt all the prophets and priestesses in all the kingdoms could have predicted your presence here. You are a surprising twist of fate, novice."

He stared at her, the serious dark-hearted boy he had been and the vengeful creature he had become.

"Well, I have been called many things, witch—by you in particular—but I'm not sure any have been as strangely complimentary as that."

Elara smirked. "Not even in the bedchambers of Clova Dell's house?"

He preened then, actually fucking preened. An arrogant flicker of pride crept into his features.

"That, witch, is between me and the good women of Clova Dell."

Elara raised a brow. "That's what you think. Those good women don't tend to keep these things to themselves. How do you think the slums are rife with the talk of the King's Highguard who fucks as if it's his last moontide on this accursed rock?"

She laughed and pressed her mouth to his, unable to stop herself, drawn to that dark flicker in his eyes as much as she was the cruel curve of his lips. When she drew back, she sighed, the beat of the temple suddenly louder under her skin. The pulse was particularly relentless this tide. Not that she should have been surprised at that. Her mother had told her that the sacred ground always knew when it was time. And blessed foremothers, was it time now.

As if sensing the change in her, Juda said, "Why are we here? Why are you here?"

"To discover the stories that were untold. To learn my story. If that is what the water wishes for me." She let her hand linger on the surface again, drawing patterns with the drag of her fingertips.

"What if it doesn't wish that for you? What does it mean?"

Goodness, but he really was perceptive, this one. The way he could pick up on the hidden messages behind words that others would never see. Not even if you slammed those words into their eyes.

"Then I will die here this tide, Juda. The waters of the divining pool will take my body, strip the flesh away and sink my bones to the bottom, to lie with the bones of all the other Unchosen that have dared to step into its depths."

His eyes widened, almost like a child's would, before glancing into the pool as if he thought those bones would rise to the surface.

"You can't mean to do this?" His hand was heavy on her forearm, his grip insistent.

"I was born with the mark of the Chosen, Juda, here, look."

Elara swallowed and sat on her behind, splaying her toes, showing him the tiny scars between each digit, the ones he would never have noticed because he'd been too preoccupied with other parts of her body.

"The webbed skin was cut away, to protect me from any Druvarians who would know the signs. The Druvari priests would have bashed my head on the black rocks before I could have barely uttered a single cry." She smiled wryly. "Of course, maybe I was just a surprising twist of fate too, but my mother was convinced. She was a Chosen herself, after all. The stories of the Naiad place us where we are meant to be. I am the last. If I am Unchosen, then it ends with me. If not, then..."

"Then what?"

The panic on his face surprised her. He was so cold, distant. Angry. Sometimes it seemed as if his anger would engulf him; raise up that wave so high that it would crash over him and sweep him out into the dark to be adrift forever. But of course, she'd seenhim, maybe even understood him. There was warmth there. Tenderness even. He hated that part of himself as much as the Naiad under her skin hated those same traits in her.