Despite what she had told Roth—despite the way in which she had said it, with disdain and scorn dripping from her tongue—Elara had thought about this moment far more than she would ever have confessed. Perhaps, even to herself.
The account of The Trial of Sin-Sabre in the book Roth had shown her had not left her mind since she had read of it, the illustration of the nightmarish parasitic borer-worm being fed into the open mouth of the novice an image she wished she could scrub from her brain. Yet every time she had closed her eyes, she saw him—Juda—having to endure that very horror and despite everything she knew of him, despite everything she had learned of the man he was, she just did not see how he would ever live to be that same man again.
And yet, here he was, looking no different, that same dichotomy of dark and light in his face, of adult Juda and the part of him that would forever be stuck a child in that cold, soulless room.
Yes, she had thought of this. Of seeing him again. Of feeling what it was to have Juda Vikaris consume her with his gaze. Of the possibility of experiencing his touch once more and all that came with it—his desire, his anger, his hatred, his love.
You want the truth, girl? Roth had said. I never once thought him capable of it. For his mother, yes. But for anyone since? For anyone to come? No. Not him. Not Juda. Love perished for that boy on the tide they took Aleina. But then I saw the way in which he looked at you, and I hoped...by the dead gods, I hoped. I hope still.
Whatever it was Juda felt for her—and she wasn't sure she even believed in what Roth had said—Elara wanted it. By her foremothers, she wanted him. The thought of that didn't even terrify her as it once had. There was even a part of her that understood it. There was a transgressive quality to it all that called to her blood. That wild thing inside her that was aflame at the thought of rebellion. A spark of violence, not in the physical sense, but a violence of the heart that made her body roar with want and need. And damn if it didn't roar for him and all that he was.
"Did the borer-worm take your tongue?" she said. "That would be a pity."
She didn't care that her words had an audience. There was not much left to hide from her friends, these rare creatures who had risked everything for her, even luring a Highguard of the King's Serpent Order deep into the shadows of Grimefell.
Juda's eyes sparked in an instant, shock shifting into flame. Stepping into the chamber, he moved to allow Anton and Bazel entry, who closed the door behind them.
Elara had to marvel at this—that she could be here, in this room, with her friends and him. Her secrets exposed. Laid bare. There was a strange sense of freedom to it all that she'd never once felt before.
"The borer-worm took nothing," Juda replied, but he wasn't being entirely truthful, Elara could see that much. The trial had taken something from him, but what that might be she could not say. "And you'll be pleased to know my tongue is very much intact."
She smiled then. Couldn't help herself.
Bazel, on the other hand, made a puking sound and threw himself down on the bed, leaning back with his hands behind his head and crossing his legs at the ankles. "Any chance we could do as Clova said and talk business, you soft-arsed dutzals? I don't fancy still being here when Cree comes a-knocking."
Elara slipped off the ledge and landed with a grunt. "Riggs isn't going to touch you, you little kreeworm. Not if I tell him not to."
Bazel chuckled, as he glanced Juda's way, clearly noting the way Juda's expression had darkened. "You put too much faith in his feelings for you. You're wanted by The Order for the murder of a noble. The King holds Grimefell to ransom and demands a Naiad as payment. How long do you think it will be before Cree connects the dots?" He smirked. "And then there's the small issue of you bedding not just a Highguard, but now an Elite Highguard. You'll be lucky that Cree doesn't drag you to the black gates himself for that crime alone."
Elara stared hard at him. "He wouldn't do that," she insisted.
She didn't believe Cree would hand her over, but she knew him well enough to know that he'd probably be more disgusted by her relationship with Juda than by the possibility of her being a Naiad. In fact, he might even loathe her for it. Juda had been there at the uprising. She'd seen him. She knew what he'd done. And Cree would know it too. If he caught Juda, his justice would be slow and excruciating. He'd make sure of it.
"I can handle Cree," she said. "We can handle him. We can handle them all."
Juda made a small, surprised sound. "Listen, I know you can pretty much take care of yourself, and the rest of you..." He looked at them all. "Well, I'm sure if you've made it this far then you must possess some knack for survival, but the four of you against the entire lower echelon?" His gaze came back to rest on Elara. "Even with the water at your disposal, not even you could stand against the whole of Grimefell if they find out what you are and decide they're going to hand you to Ban-Keren."
"You underestimate me," Elara said. And he did. They all did. After all, not all her secrets had been exposed. Not yet. "Besides, I won't need to stand against them all. None of us will. Because we're going to make Grimefell stand against him."
"Another uprising?" Juda said. "More bloodshed? The people here already thirst, Elara. They're weakened. Do you honestly think they can withstand another battle? Right now, all they want is the water and he'll dangle the prospect of that in front of them until they're on their knees gasping for just one fucking drop to quench their thirst."
Elara shook her head. "Weakened maybe, but not weak, and while strength remains so does their propensity to fight, to resist."
She went to him then, unable to hold the distance any longer, fighting the urge to reach up and trace her fingertips along the edge of the Serpent burn across his face. She knew what it meant, understood all too well what it signified, but she was drawn to it nevertheless, because while it represented a darkness, she knew Juda's real darkness was not the regimented detached coldness of The Order, but a wild thing like hers was.
"The King's power lies in propaganda, Juda. In myth and fairy tale. He peddled lies about the Naiad long before they cursed the Setalah. He spread rumour and falsehood to turn the people against my foremothers, and he convinced them that we were the enemy. Grimefell has been so busy looking down, they've failed to see what seeks to keep them bowed, subjugated and weakened is not the bones of those long dead, but the one who sits atop of the citadel. The one who has lied to them repeatedly. The one who sets himself as a god, when he is nothing but a monster."
She did touch him then, gently, for her own sake more than anything because any more than that and she wouldn't be able to bear it.
"The people don't worship him," she said. "They never have. Spend enough time here and you will hear it. Whispers in darkened corners. Behind closed doors. You will feel it. It's in the air. It paves our streets. The Gathering is a farce, a pretence. We go because we must. Because if we don't The Order will rip us from our homes and ship us off to the dead fields or hang us from the palace walls. That's not worship and that's not faith. We can give them faith, Juda. We can give them something to believe in."
"And what is that?" Juda replied, the groove in his forehead deepening. "The old gods are dead. You cannot resurrect them. There is nothing left for the people to believe in."
She squeezed his arm, inched closer to him. Her blood thrummed in her veins, a roaring tide under her skin. "Fuck the gods. Fuck him. What good are gods to the likes of us? Faith does not need false idols, gatherings, shrines, or temples. It just needs a story. One the people can believe in."
"Elara, you are talking about undoing a lifetime of lies so engrained within Druvaria that we raise our children on them. We live and breathe them. We drink them in as we do the water. We thirst for those lies. What story could possibly have power enough to change that?"
He believes in you. I believe in you, Roth had said.
"My story," she said, almost timid, and then louder, firmer. "Mine."
She wanted to see it then in his eyes. She wanted to see that what Roth had told her was the truth. How she had come to want Juda's faith so much she could not fathom, but she did.
Yet all she saw was confusion, and something that worried her more—fear.
She couldn't speak then. Couldn't find the words and she needed to so badly.
"We will tell Elara's story," Kelena said, her voice strong and firm, cutting through the sudden uncertainty that threatened to drown Elara. "We will tell the people the truth of the last water witch. We will tell them what the King really did, of how he poisoned Druvaria, how he cursed this place with his lust for power and for blood. We will flood every street, every alley, every tavern, and every home with the real story until they believe it, and then—then—we will make them believe in themselves. In Grimefell. We will give them their faith back, not for any god, nor any false King, but in their own right to live, to prosper, to not spend every waking moment on their fucking knees."
By her foremothers, Elara's heart soared once again, even more so when she saw Juda's fear giving way to intrigue.
"You make a pretty speech, Kelena," he said, "but these are just words. The King's power..."
"Is waning," Elara cut in. "Without my blood, his reign cannot last forever. It's already slipping from his grasp, and we need Grimefell to follow. Right now, he holds us in the palm of his hand and with each tide he squeezes a little harder, and a little harder still. He despises the slums, Juda, and it is a hatred that encourages his cruelty. Even if he did give us the water, at what point will he withhold it again? What will he make us do next? With each enforced law, each act of dominance, he drives us not to our knees, but onto our bellies in the dirt. For too long we have duly accepted this, but things are changing. The uprising at the port proved that."
She placed her palm on his chest and saw him wince, but instead of shrugging her off as she thought he might, he laid his hand over hers. Intrigued he might be, but he was a long way from being convinced. Maybe he never would be, but she had to try.
"I did that, Juda. I sparked the riot, and I did that with the words you say are just words. I told Riggs Cree of the King's plan to deny Grimefell the water and he took those words and turned them into something powerful. A fireball that grew and grew until it swept through the entire slums, laying waste not to the citadel, but to the people's belief that they deserved to be on their knees. To their belief they should accept the King's cruelty without question. They rose, Juda. For the first time, they got up and they stood against him. Yes, there was bloodshed, yes, there was death, but what war is waged without either of those things?"
"And you would risk that again?" Juda asked, his wide-eyed gaze reaching each of them in turn. "You would urge the entire population of Grimefell to revolt against the King's blade? To risk death? You ask too much of them. You know you do."
"I ask nothing that I would not give myself!" Elara snapped. "Look at our lives, Juda. Look at how we all scrabble around in the gutters to survive, or have you spent so much time in the luxury of the mid-echelon that you have forgotten what it is like for us here?"
Juda's reaction was instant. Scorn twisted his face, his eyes flashing danger. "I forget nothing. How can I when it is the very reason I am to be transferred to the palace on the next tide? How can I forget when I understand all too well exactly what I have sacrificed to put myself in arm's reach of the King? But that is my point. You need not do any of this. Any of you. You need not risk your lives nor those of the people of Grimefell, because the only way to dethrone Ban-Karen is by my hand and by the blade your own mother entrusted to Roth."
The blade. Roth had told her of it, and she'd demanded it of him, because by rights it should have been hers and hers alone. Why her mother would think to entrust the sacred dagger not just to a Highguard, but to the butcher himself, she would never understand, but she had to put faith in Eva's decision, just as she put her faith in her foremothers and all the waters had shown her.
Juda gripped a handful of her tunic and pulled her closer, his face softening but his eyes anguished. "I can get you on a ship. Just two tides from now. I can get you all safe passage off this rock. Stay out of sight until then. Stay vigilant. Let me do what needs to be done and you need not put yourself in harms way."
He glanced at the others. "You forget your feelings for Elara are guided by your friendship, by the family you have become together, but the rest of Grimefell do not have that to hold onto. All they hold onto is that the Naiad are the reason the citadel suffers..." He focused back on Elara. "...and whether you wish to hear it or not, that part of the story is true."
Guilt and shame swept through her, far stronger than she ever thought it would. She knew her foremothers' part in all of this, and she understood the people's anger. She'd always understood it for she had lived the same life as theirs, experienced the same struggles, suffered under the same boot and blade. The responsibility of knowing just what devastation the Naiad had wreaked had lived under her skin for her entire life, but the fact remained the King had caused this, and it had been his evil that had drowned Druvaria.
"I know what the Naiad did," she said, dropping her hand from his. Heat swelled behind her eyes. "Think that I could not? You have carried your secret with you since the tide your mother was taken. I have carried mine for my entire existence on this rock. You talk of sacrifice like you think I don't understand. Once my kind were trusted, celebrated, loved. I have never been able to celebrate what I am because what I am is reviled and feared. I have lived half a life, Juda."
She sniffed back her tears and raised her chin in defiance. "But I am not what he claims me to be and if I could lift this curse I would do it, not for him, but for the people. Once he is gone, and by my foremothers I swear I will make certain of that, I will devote my life to finding out how to rid Druvaria of the burden my foremothers imposed upon his lands, because these are my lands too. I am a Druvarian by birth, the Naiad were Druvarian. We are not and never have been the enemy."
"I understand all that..." Juda began, but she cut him off, her anger resurfacing.
"If you understand, then you will know why we must do this." She stepped back from him, rage swelling. "Take the butcher's blade and spill Ban-Keren's blood, Juda, but unless we do this, unless we flood this place with the truth, you will only make a martyr out of him. He is a god now. The people will be forced into mourning, and then they will be made to suffer. And who will replace the slain King? Lord Dageor will! It was the Druvari sect who sat behind this whole plot to discredit the Naiad in the first place. Destroying the bloodline of the Ban-Kerens will not right all of Aldolus' wrongs because they were Dageor's wrongs too."
"Then I will kill him as well!" Juda said, his voice laced with irritation. "Once the King is dead..."
"Dageor will take his place, he will discredit The Serpent Order for breeding traitors, and he will replace them with his Druvari army."
Juda jolted, his eyes clouding with confusion. "Army?"
He didn't know, or he didn't recall. It was no wonder. Having a borer-worm shoved down your throat was horror enough to deal with.
"Roth got word to me," Elara said. "At the King's Trial, he said the Druvari were far greater in number than they once were. He said they weren't ordinary priests. Roth thinks Dageor is creating his own army."
"For what purpose? The Order has always protected the throne. Why would the King need another army?"
"I know being an Highguard has a tendency to dullen the brain, but you're really not getting this are you?" Anton said, with a roll of his eyes, moving to sit on the edge of the bed next to Bazel. "If that mad bald priest is transforming his flock into warriors, an army over which he has direct control, perhaps they're not designed to protect the King at all?"
Juda shook his head, adamant. "He would not dare oppose Ban-Keren. Elara, you told me yourself that the Druvari wanted Aldolus. Why stage a campaign against the Naiad—commit genocide—because of a Druvari prophecy that foretold his death at the hands of a water witch? Why do all that to protect the King if Dageor ultimately wants the crown for himself?"
"I don't know," she said. "What I do know is that whatever dark plans Dageor has for Druvaria, if we do not rouse the people now, before the blade strikes upon Ban-Keren, then they will forever remain prostrate in the dirt."
She cast her gaze over them all, this family who had embraced her, this man who had captivated her. She knew not what she had done to deserve their loyalty, their fire, their love, but she knew she wanted it—needed it.
"Which is why I won't get on that ship, Juda," she said to him. "I cannot. I know my story. The waters showed me. And while they did not show me the end, what I do know is that it does not end—will not end— with me running away. I'm the last water witch and if the Druvari prophecy says that I am to be his downfall, then that's what I intend to be."