“Wh—”

He never gets to utter his question.

His body convulses, the air crackling around him. I can only watch in horror as his limbs contort.

The crackling growing louder. The stench of burning flesh permeates the air, undercut with a metallic tang.

The light fades from his blue eyes as he collapses to the floor.

My breath stalls.

My heart stops.

Behind where Daak stood is my husband—

—and I have never seen anything more terrifying.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

ZEV TOWERS BEFORE ME, fury crackling off his skin like lightning incarnate. The air sizzles around him, his face twisted into a mask of rage. A thick vein pulses in his forehead, tendons bulging in his neck.

I tear my gaze away, my heart battering my ribs with the force of a tempest. My eyes land on Daak’s lifeless body. Despair claws at my throat, my ribs, my heart, my soul.

Daak. He hadn’t deserved this.

Daak, who taught me how to fight and how to wield.

Daak, who held me through storms when my father turned his back on me.

Daak, who followed me into enemy territory as I sought my revenge.

Daak, who died knowing I no longer felt the same.

A strangled cry tears from my lips. The sound leaves me before I realize it’s mine. My knees hit stone, but I don’t feel the pain. All I can see is Daak—his body curled like he’s sleeping.

He can’t be gone. He can’t be.

I fall to my knees, cradling his head. My face is wet with tears as I trace a hand over his face. His skin is still warm, but Tides—his eyes.

They’re still open. Lifeless.

What will I tell his father?

Grief crawls out of the fractured hollow of my heart, flooding my veins with poisoned agony. This is my fault. This is all my fault.

Slowly, I raise my eyes to Zev.

He hasn’t moved. He’s a statue, stock still, a strange look on his face. His chest is heaving, hands clenching and unclenching. He opens his mouth—but it’s not a roar that escapes. It’s a breath. A falter. And then his face hardens into stone.

Violent power writhes inside me—not my gentle, healing power, but the feral tide of water. It rages inside me, desperate to be unleashed after months of suppression. He killed Daak.

I bare my teeth.

The water calls—

—and I respond.

With a sharp jab of my arm, water rises from the stream, jagged and swift, and for one blinding second, I revel in the water’s strength. In its fury.

Zev’s eyes widen with shock.

My hand shoots forward. Water slams into his chest, knocking him clear across the room. A loud thud resonates as his back collides with the stone wall.

My advantage is short-lived. He staggers to his feet, and the vengeful wrath in his steel gray eyes sucks the air from my lungs. Hate contorts his face, lips peeled back in a feral snarl, a vein throbbing across his forehead.

This isn’t Zev—it’s the Dark Commander.

And I’ve made myself his enemy.

He raises his hand—and I just know. This is no warning.

The Dark Commander means to kill me.

My arm arcs in the air in a graceful twirl. Just like Daak taught me. Water rises again, thin streams converging into thicker cords. It shoots at his chest, but he’s expecting it this time, easily rolling out of the way.

I didn’t freeze the water before launching it at his heart. I don’t know why.

I should have.

Because the room darkens. My mouth parts in disbelief—stone weeps above me where ominous storm clouds gather.

Tides drown me.

My husband has summoned a storm underground.

A shaky, trembling step back.

My eyes are glued to the rumbling clouds. A sharp crack of thunder, and I flinch. My back hits the wall just as a flash of lightning rips through the room.

A vise grips my lungs. I can’t breathe.

The clouds grow thicker, darker, closer.

Thunder booms louder, but the deafening shrill in my ears drowns it out. My knees buckle. The cavern walls shrink in around me—darker, then darker still. The shadows will swallow me whole.

Lightning flashes again, its electric heat brushing my face.

I try to scream, but there’s not enough air—a muffled whimper is all that slips free. My ragged gasps echo in my ears. Tides, there’s not enough air. My husband’s wrath has sucked it all from the cavern. Thunder keeps rumbling, closer and closer, and dark spots dot my vision.

Water shouldn’t drip from stone.

Thunder shouldn’t rattle a ceiling.

I shouldn’t feel lightning on my skin.

Through the darkness, I catch sight of black boots approaching me, each measured footstep echoing with lethal promise.

The storm in his gray eyes is more terrifying than the one he’s conjured.

“So many lies you’ve managed to tell me, wife,” the Dark Commander spits, halting before me. “At least your fear was one truth.”

Darkness surges—and then there’s nothing.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

“Y OU KILLED ME, MAYAH.” The voice is raw, splintered.

No. No, no, no.

Blue eyes bore into me, accusing and cold.

Dead.

“You don’t love me anymore. But you didn’t have to kill me for it.”

No, no. I—

“Just hang on a little longer.”

Daak.

Awareness reclaims me with a violent jolt. I suck in air, greedy for the breath that my lungs won’t accept. Storm clouds overhead, lightning crashing around me. The threatening caress of electric heat on my face.

Eyes clenched shut, I brace for the next thunderclap.

A beat passes.

It never comes.

The ground rocks beneath me. I’m moving. My eyelids flutter open—hard, wooden seats, a door set into the wall—I’m in a carriage.

I try to move, but I can’t.

Shit. My hands are chained to the wall. And judging by the ache in my shoulders and the numbness in my wrists, I’ve been shackled for hours. Tides, how long was I passed out?

The carriage lurches, and my shoulder slams into the wall. Wood creaks. Chains bite. My breath fogs in the tiny space like I’m breathing inside a tomb.

The air crackles, and I can sense him.

I’m not alone.

“What a relief, wife,” he snarls, voice dripping with venom. “I was beginning to worry you’d never wake.”

I don’t want to look at him.

My husband.

I don’t want to see the gray eyes that glittered with rage as he murdered Daak.

Eyes that will undoubtedly brim with hatred when they land on me.

“A waterwielder,” Zev muses. His voice is colder than the tundra. “Right under my nose for months. In my skiesdamned bed.”

I force myself to meet his stony gaze. His eyes are bloodshot. There’s no warmth in my husband’s face.

This is the Dark Commander, forged from lightning and steel.

And he hates me.

“Mayah, please. Just … please.”

Then, nothing.

Maybe I deserve this. The poison in his voice, the way he looks at me like I’m filth beneath his boot. I’ve betrayed him.

But that was always the plan.

And I think I might hate him, too. For what he did. Because Daak didn’t deserve to die that way, terrified and confused. And knowing I didn’t love him anymore.

So yes—I do hate him. I have to, if I’m going to survive.

He’s planning to kill me. How could he not? A secret waterwielder plotting to murder him and his family?

I straighten my spine as much as the chains will allow. Every rattle of the wheels echoes in my skull. Iron cuffs dig into my skin. I can’t shift without metal scraping metal. I cast my gaze around the carriage, trying to anchor myself.