A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(90)

Was she dead? If finding out meant staying here, I’d rather not.

Maria’s water column began to lower us back to the sea. Even with her level of power, she couldn’t keep this up forever.

“Summon the wind,” Magnus called. He caught Dee, whose face and body were scarred.

Blackwood and I hooked a current of air, while Maria created a platform of ice beneath our feet and we rode a wave in toward shore.

Her strength finally gave out about fifty feet from land, and we plunged back into the water. I coughed as I paddled forward. Just when I thought I was about to sink, my feet scraped the rocky shore. I dragged myself out, dripping and ragged. My sodden skirts weighed me down even further, and my legs were rubber. My head stung from where I’d ripped out my hair. When I touched my scalp, I found blood on my fingers.

Magnus had already got ashore and laid Dee on the ground. I groaned in horror as I beheld the damage: his right leg below the knee was splintered, bone poking out of his shin. His left arm below the elbow was gone, a few strips of torn flesh all that remained. Lines of scarring crisscrossed his face. One eye had been shut forever. His flesh was white with shock.

“Move!” Maria shoved me and got to work. “Make me a tourniquet. Now!”

I tore at my skirt, hands shaking. We tied off the bleeding at his arm, and she rotated his leg so that his pain wasn’t as intense. Maria laid Dee’s head in her lap. Still, he didn’t wake.

“Too much blood loss,” she muttered, wincing. “That leg may have to come off.”

Dear God. Blackwood and Magnus stalked about in a circle, looking painfully helpless. When Maria bid me set my hand on fire and cauterize Dee’s wound, I did, even though I tasted bile while he screamed.

Still, after rechecking his pulse and breath, Maria nodded. “He could still die of the shock. But he may live. He may.”

The immediate emergency began to dissipate. Now we had time to consider our escape from Nemneris.

“How the hell did you do that?” Magnus cried, crouching beside Maria. She became mute. While Blackwood questioned her as well, I held Dee’s hand. And then, slowly, I recalled those prophesied words I’d hung on to earlier:

You shall know her when Poison drowns beneath the dark Waters.

And Lambe’s words: Take the belladonna and you’ll finally know the truth.

My entire body went cold.

Maria was Agrippa’s daughter, a girl of sorcerer parentage who had seen her mother burned: A girl-child of sorcerer stock rises from the ashes of a life.

How had it taken me this bloody long to realize? I stopped the interrogation, making a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. When I had the boys’ attention, I said, “She’s the chosen one.”

The three of them regarded me as though I’d lost my mind.

“I’m what?” Maria asked.

I practically crawled to reach her. She looked frightened as I said, “You were foretold by the Speakers. You’re meant to save us.” Should I kiss her hand? Throw my arms about her ankles? How did one embrace a savior?

Maria paled.

“But she is not a sorcerer!” Blackwood found his voice at last. I couldn’t tear my gaze from Maria as I answered him.

“She’s Master Agrippa’s daughter. That makes her more of a sorcerer than I ever could be.” The boys gaped. Recalling the tapestry’s image of the white hand with Agrippa’s seal burned into the palm, I smiled in realization. “The prophecy must have meant the chosen one would come from Agrippa’s bloodline, not that he’d find the girl.” So simple. I’d been so close, thinking it was Gwendolyn.

My trance dissolved when Maria pulled away from me.

“No.” Despite her exhaustion, she looked furious. “I don’t want it.”

“Howel, you could be right.” Blackwood ignored Maria’s words, lost in his own thoughts. “I’ve never seen such power.”

“I don’t want to be your anything!” Her anger fed the wind, which picked up sharply. “Why should I risk myself to save murderers?”

“You’ve risked so much already,” I said, stunned.

“For you, and for Rook, and for my friends, I’d risk everything. But for the Order?” She spit on the ground. Blackwood rose angrily. Waving him down, I approached Maria with care.

“Please.” Maria watched me, her brown eyes wary. “Forget the Order. What of England?”

“England’s done nothing for me.” She balled her fists. Beneath us, the earth shifted in response to her passion.

I sank to my knees, to Maria’s bewilderment.

“What are you doing?”

Taking her hand once more, I bowed my head. When I was a child, Rook and I had played at something like this, acting a scene from the Arthurian tales. A knight knelt at the king’s feet, pledging his loyalty and service. My desperation resonated through my body and into hers. I could sense it.

“I am at your service, now and always. I’ll fight for you, die for you if need be. From this day forward, I swear no one will harm you.”

Maria watched me, wearing a stunned expression. I’d no right to ask this, but I would, because she was stronger than I. From the moment we had met, she was the stronger, the better, the kinder, the wiser person, and England needed her. And while I was not much, I was a servant of England, now and always. “How do you think the Order will feel when a witch is their champion?” That gave her pause. I pressed one final time. “Show the sorcerers the full horror of what they did.”