He’s right. Faces slowly peer through darkened tents, wide eyes watching us. Some of the warriors emerge, disheveled and groggy.
But I don’t care. For the first time in my life, I don’t care what my father has to say. My mind reels, struggling to process what I saw with my own eyes. Father has a second ability, like me.
He’s a tidesdamned stormwielder. But how?
Realization dawns on me, cold and swift.
“Turmah,” I whisper, eyes wide. “She was already with child when she returned.”
His mother’s name ignites Father’s fury.
“You know nothing of what you speak!” he shouts, his eyes wild. Just as quickly, he seems to remember an audience has gathered. His posture morphs, assuming the disguise of respected king once more. Everything about him is a lie.
Father’s gaze sweeps the camp. “Return to your tents,” he says evenly, waving his hand in dismissal. “Recent events have made my daughter … sensitive. Perhaps it was wrong of me to send her to Arbinj. She is upset. The Commander has harmed her.”
“He has not!” I shout. “You have!”
All eyes are on me, but I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.
Vicious power swirls inside me, fueled by my rage.
“Admit it,” I pant, shoulders heaving. “Say the words.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Liar. He’s a tidescursed liar.
He’s been lying to me my entire life.
“Mama. Who killed her?”
He crosses his arms over his chest, sidestepping me.
He’s walking away. He’s fucking walking away.
“It was you,” I seethe, whirling to look at him. Zev’s eyes burn into my back.
“Sleep, Mayah,” Father calls over his shoulder. “You’ve embarrassed me enough for one night.”
A tremor starts in my spine, crawling up my throat until it tastes like blood. He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t even flinch. That silence—that fucking silence—splinters something inside me.
I grit my teeth, slamming my boot into the ground. A wall of water, siphoned from the damp earth, rises in front of Father and freezes into a thick sheet of ice.
The entire camp falls silent for a heartbeat. Then, whispered murmurs erupt at once.
“…was that…”
“…a second ability…”
“…did you know…”
I ignore them all. My focus is reserved for my father. He slowly pivots and faces me, his silhouette stark against the sheet of ice still glistening behind him.
“Yes, Mayah,” he spits, rage blazing in his cold eyes. “It was me. I made a mistake marrying Meerah. A filthy common.” He spits on the ground. “I loved her. Treated her well. And still she asked for more.” A scoff. “Always more. Just. Like. You. ‘Better treatment for nonwielders,’” he mocks, waving his hand through the air. His spine is rigid, knuckles white around his staff. “Still, I could have lived with it. But she couldn’t, as it turns out. She ran.”
My breath escapes in harsh pants. I remember the night she died—the sky raged as if it wept for her.
But it was him.
His cold eyes cut through me, each word an icy shard in my heart.
“I would have let her go. It would have been a burden off my shoulders, truly. But she took you—my heir. That, I couldn’t forgive. So I came for you. To bring you home.”
“You told me it was Arbinj,” I seethe, tears blurring my vision.
A casual fucking shrug even as his voice hardens. “Arbinj has harmed our women before. Our wives. Daughters. Mothers. They will do so again.” I know he’s thinking of the shell of a woman who raised him.
Tides, what if Varad had been telling the truth about Turmah? What if she’d wanted to remain in Arbinj with her husband? I can’t trust anything my father has told me.
My head spins. Bile churns in my gut. “And all the storms?” My voice cracks. “Why? Why put me through that?”
His lip curls with disdain. “I couldn’t stomach the fear the … experience left in you. I wanted to rid you of your weakness. I wanted to help you.”
Everything I’ve ever believed was a lie.
This is the man I spent my life trying to make proud.
This liar.
This murderer.
The fissure in my heart splinters wider and wider, and fury keeps gushing from the angry wound.
My hands rise of their own accord.
Father tsks. “Accomplished wielder, you may be, but you’d be a fool to challenge us all.” He casts his gaze around the camp, at the warriors standing ready, at Sorka also watching, his eyes dimmed with a quiet sadness.
In my tent, Vy peers through the flaps.
My murdering father is right.
I can’t take on all these warriors.
At least not alone.
Father must read the intention in my eyes.
“Mayah, no—”
But he’s too late.
I’m already on the platform, thin ribbons of water snaking into the keyholes of his iron collar and cuffs. Lock-picking with ice—a skill Daak reluctantly taught me years ago.
The iron clanks as it hits the ground.
Zev falls to his knees with a dull thud.
My body moves before my mind can catch up.
I whirl to face my mother’s murderer.
A scream tears from my throat.
I attack.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAOS DESCENDS ON THE camp. Men scramble, some with hands poised to attack, others with fists clenched in hesitation. Even now, with my second ability revealed, their wide eyes stare at the battered man behind me.
They think I’m weak.
They think I’m not a threat.
The air hisses as I summon water from the soil, from the mist, from the very breath of the storm—shaping it into a towering tidal wave. A sharp flick of my wrist, and it crashes into the unprepared warriors.
Father raises a hand. Effortlessly, the wave parts around him, flowing past his body as if he’s the eye of the storm itself.
The sky groans above us, clouds pulsing with fury.
I don’t hesitate. I lash another whip of water straight for his chest.
Behind me, Zev coughs, hacking up congealed blood and bile.
The warriors gain their bearings, realizing that, princess or not, perhaps they should attack me. Three whips of water nearly slam into my torso before I’m able to freeze them and send them flying back at the wielders.
A rough scrape of wood behind me.
A heavy thud. Ragged, labored breaths.
The wood creaks as Zev bears his weight on a post, attempting to stand on his feet after days of being bound and beaten. Warriors close in, their movements sharper now—more urgent. Until now, they hadn’t truly been trying to harm me.
But that’s quickly changing.
Sorka keeps his eyes on Zev, hands raised and ready, though he doesn’t attack. Not yet. There’s something unreadable in his eyes as they flit between me and my father—tension bracketing his jaw, hesitation in his stance.
Vy bursts from the tent, panic etched across her face. She says something to the general, but he shakes his head and pushes her back inside.
“Get the king to safety!” Sorka calls, whirling and pointing to a cluster of warriors. They snap into motion.
I hurl an ice shard toward them, but a larger icicle slices it midair, scattering tiny, glittering pieces across the dirt. Four warriors flank my father, lifting him onto a horse before mounting up beside him.
And then they vanish into the trees, swallowed by shadows.
The remaining warriors advance, sculpting water into frozen spears and jagged shards aimed straight for us. Behind them, nonwielders loose a volley of arrows—some I barely deflect in time.
Sorka steps forward again. Whether to stop them or join them, I can’t tell. But then Vy’s hand shoots out from the tent, grabbing his arm and yanking him inside. Her cool eyes lock with mine. The message is clear.
