The Drowned Woods (80)

She would not let all of this be for naught.

She wouldn’t.

The doors went still. There was a startled noise, and then Mer felt the wood give a sudden yank. Someone was trying to push them shut from the inside.

Mer held on with all of her will. She was perhaps twenty paces from them, her legs suddenly wobbly. So close. She was so close.

The doors twitched and Mer’s jaw ached with the exertion of holding them open.

Ten paces. Eight—then five. And finally—

Mer raised both hands and urged all of her magic, every droplet of water, into those wooden doors, and then she slammed them open.

The doors collided with the two guards who had been desperately trying to close them. They went down hard, knocked senseless.

Garanhir stood in the center of his bed chambers, his last line of defense on the floor. The room was beautiful—a bed draped in soft, embroidered fabrics; a table spread with cheeses and a pitcher of wine. A tall chair stood in the corner. It was a room meant for royalty and no one else. Mer strode inside like it was hers.

Garanhir had aged in the time she’d been away. His hair had not grayed but dulled like dark metal too long without a polishing. The years of war sagged on a face that should have otherwise been youthful. But his eyes were narrow and sharp as a snake’s. He gazed upon Mer like he could rend her apart with his bare hands.

“Your Majesty,” said Mer. Her voice was cold and steady—and she was glad for it. She’d feared perhaps this would be like a nightmare in which she would never manage to utter the words she so desperately needed to. “You have to evacuate the city.”

Garanhir gazed at her, seemingly startled out of his anger. “What?”

“You need to act now,” she said. “Send out riders—warn the coastal villages. You have hours, perhaps half a day at most.”

She watched as walls were erected behind his eyes; his mouth pursed and arms pulled tight against his sides. She might have startled him at first, but whatever advantage she’d had was rapidly draining away.

“Diviner,” he said. His voice was soft, too melodious to come from such a hard mouth. And at once, Mer was a child and standing in that dungeon, listening to Garanhir speak to a spy mere moments before thrusting a knife into his eye. “You should never have come here.”

Quicker than she would have expected, Garanhir’s hand flashed toward the table. Amidst the cheeses was a small, wicked knife. His arm pulled back, muscles coiling as he readied himself to slam the blade into Mer’s stomach. She sidestepped the strike, catching his arm. He’d been trained to defend himself—perhaps even by his own spymaster.

Mer did not have time for this. With a snarl, she curled her fingers into a fist. She found the water in his body and held it tight. The cheese knife fell from his grip, clattering to the floor.

Garanhir choked on his own words. Then he was stumbling back, forced against a wall by his own traitorous body. It was blunt, clumsy magic and Mer only managed it because the prince wore no armor. The only metal upon him was silver signet rings, and those were no protection.

The prince’s head thunked against the stone wall. Mer stalked toward him. She did not care that Garanhir was the prince, that he’d had her branded, that he had sent men after her, that he would see her killed or imprisoned and had the coin and power to do so.

She had never been brave—but she’d always been angry. It would have to be enough.

Garanhir bared his teeth in defiance, waiting for the final blow.

And there was a large part of Mer that yearned to do it. She had spent four years running from this man, always looking over her shoulder, never able to stay in one place. He had taken Mer from her family, replaced a kindly father with one who had molded Mer into a weapon. And when she had questioned the prince, he’d marked her as property.

She could quash her nightmares by ending him.

But it would have been a selfish decision, one made in a moment of childish spite. It would have been the actions of someone still bound up in Renfrew’s desires. He would have killed the prince.

“Do it,” said Garanhir. He was many things, but none could call him a coward. “I know you want to.”

But Mer still needed him. Only a prince could evacuate the city and surrounding countryside in time.

This was her choice—to save those that Renfrew had deemed dispensable. Renfrew and the prince had both used her, tried to sharpen her into a weapon, but both had failed.

She belonged to herself.

“No,” she said. “I’m not here to kill you, Garanhir.”

Confusion flickered through his eyes. And she could see why—her invasion of the castell, using her knowledge of the passageways to get this far, her companion attacking the guards. Her actions weren’t those of a woman who desired a peaceful conversation.

“You are going to listen to me,” she said, and she barely recognized her own voice. Her anger was cold and even as a frozen lake. Renfrew, she realized. She sounded like her mentor, even now. “Renfrew destroyed the Well.”

It took a few heartbeats for the words to sink in. She watched as Garanhir’s pupils dilated, his mouth falling open. “That is—that’s not possible. That Well is protected, my grandfathers made sure—”

“He used black powder,” said Mer. “He brought in a miner from Gwynedd who helped him do it. The boar is dead, the Well is gone, and the magic that came from the spring is draining away.”