Footsteps. Soft, lethal, moving away.
Vivia pushed into the hall right as a figure exited through the door at the end, thick and bulky as if someone was draped across their back. Vaness. Before Vivia could shout for the Empress or kick into a run, a second figure materialized from the same door, a curved knife flickering in his left hand. In his right, winds swirled. Vivia felt more than saw those winds—just as she knew immediately that this man had come for her.
Dalmotti must have sent him. She recognized those rounded knives, just as she recognized the two rapiers hanging at his hips. He and the other man were Assassin Guild. Excellent at what they did: murder, stealing, kidnapping.
A ball of winds loosed; Vivia dove sideways; wind scraped against her shoulder, hard enough to bend bones. Sharp enough to flay skin.
Sailors stirred in other cells. Cam’s voice pierced out, “Majesty!”
Vivia lunged for the man in black, but her shoulder hurt. The bones resisted, and he easily dodged before loosing a second blast of winds, sharp and targeted, like knives made for each organ. One at her heart, one at her stomach, and two for her eyeballs.
Vivia barely flung up her arms to protect her eyes and heart. She twisted sideways to prevent a deadly blow to her belly. Still, the winds did damage, hitting her forearms, her side. Heat ignited. Blood and pain, briefly blinding in the intensity.
She screamed. Not because of the injuries but because she could not fight this Windwitch alone. She needed her sailors, now pounding against their wooden doors. She needed Yoris and his soldiers—anyone who might show up before this Windwitch drew in his winds for a third attack.
Still hollering, Vivia propelled herself for the exit, snagging the lantern as she ran. It wasn’t a targeted throw or a graceful one, but it was the distraction she needed. The glass connected with the man’s shoulder, and she reached the stairs.
She took two uneven steps at a time, bellowing as she ran. “Intruders! Intruders!” Then she reached the ground floor and burst out beneath the ship. “Intruders!” Lights flickered inside the galleon and footsteps thumped out. She didn’t wait for help, but instead skittered left. Toward the river and where another figure was now vanishing into the night.
She didn’t consider her own escape as she sprinted for the river. She thought only of Vaness, unconscious and claimed. Vivia would get her back. No matter what it took, she would get her back.
The river’s waters called to her, powerful. Soothing. Ready to be tapped and used and violent in her name. Each inhale brought more power, more water. Each step sent the wind-shorn pain receding further and the magic suffusing in. It filled her, as it always did, and held her in the moment so that she was nothing more than water, tides, and time.
She spotted Vaness’s abductor within seconds. He had reached the low dock where fishers cast their boats, and he was pushing off in a skiff. No oars, only magic.
He was a Tidewitch too, and he wasn’t waiting for his companion. No need, Vivia supposed, since the companion could fly.
She reached the dock, her footsteps thwacking a hollow beat. It drew the Tidewitch’s attention. His dark eyes glittered in the moonlight—as did his teeth, offered in a smile.
He launched water her way: four whips as deadly as the wind-knives had been.
Vivia ducked behind a chum barrel. Her magic flung wide. She could fight a Tidewitch, but she was losing blood from her abdomen. Hold me, she told the water. Help me. And the water obeyed.
It leaped up from the river, a shield that absorbed the assassin’s water, while Vivia, on her hands and knees, crawled to the dock’s edge. She needed a boat, a canoe, a raft—anything that would allow her to chase after that Tidewitch and Vaness.
But there was nothing. Which meant Vivia was going to have to swim. Noden protect me, she begged. Then to the water: Carry me safely. She toppled in.
The water welcomed her, as it always did, cooled by night, silted by years along these sharp banks. She could see nothing, could hear nothing, but oh, Vivia could feel so much.
The water came all the way from the mountains and carried all the way to the sea, fed by countless tributaries and dividing into countless streams. Creatures lived in the soft bottom, in the crumbly shores—creatures wise enough to burrow deep and hide as Vivia called her power to her.
Her blood ribboned out, one with the water. An offering to appease something more ancient than her little fox mind could conceive. She surged forward as easily as a tarpon and with a thousand times more focus, more ferocity. Dalmotti would not claim Vaness. Dalmotti would not win.
She picked up speed, her course as true as the river’s. Ahead was another current, another magicked force disrupting the water’s flow. He was a strong Tidewitch—there was no missing it. Vivia felt his magic brush against her, remnants of command that the water still recalled. He was a witch who forced his will upon the element; Vivia was a witch who let the element decide and lead. It was easier that way, and the power so much more vast.
Stix had taught her that, all those years ago on the shores of a lake when they were supposed to be studying history lessons.
Vivia gained speed, the water thrilling at her request. Pushing her onward as if she were made of the same eternal matter. Where the river bent, she curved. Where the waters deepened, she surfaced to gulp in air.
Then she was close enough to feel the Tidewitch’s power. It sizzled through the water, sizzled through Vivia’s senses. The water did not want to be controlled, yet it couldn’t fight a witchery such as his.
He noticed her approach. Water thundered toward her, sudden rapids to pummel her down. But she was ready. She rolled, she ducked, and finally, she surfaced. Her water, loyal and true, punching beneath her.
Air eddied against her. Her vision cleared and her lungs gasped. Blood and water streamed off her. There was the boat, there was Vaness unconscious upon its floor, and there was the Tidewitch.
His hood had fallen back, revealing a mustache and smooth skin. He was young; he was skilled. He kicked more water her way, whips like he’d used at the shore. Too slow, though. Vivia had reached his deck.
Sinking to a crouch, she caught his whips. The water did not want to be dominated, so she set it free. Go, she told it, and it obeyed in its own way: a funnel that sprayed wide and briefly blocked all sight, all sound.
Vivia couldn’t see the Tidewitch, and he couldn’t see her. She used that moment to burst forward. Water shed off her. Blood speckled the wood, speckled Vaness slumped nearby.
She slammed into the Tidewitch. He was ready for her, though, his feet braced and knives—real knives of real steel—in hand. He sliced, he swung, and Vivia let him. Because he had miscalculated one thing. He had assumed she would resist those blades. He had assumed she would evade.
She didn’t. She let the left one slide into her shoulder and the right one slide into her thigh. It hurt. Hagfishes claim her, it hurt. But she was so far removed from her body, so deeply bound to the water, that she could fight on.
Or fight on long enough to end this exactly as the water wanted it to end.
Her body pounded into his. A low tackle that had her arms, bleeding and weakened, flying around his torso. Too much momentum for him to stop, too much clumsy force for him to have expected. He was an assassin, not a brawler—and this was another trick she would have to thank Stix for.
His balance tipped out beneath him. He and Vivia fell overboard. He with Vivia’s arms still wrapped around him, and she with two knives still shredding against her bone.