Page 84 of Wateredge

Seren lifted her hands.

“Come, Water, come as I call, do as I bid. Rise and let me hold safe what is mine!”

Seren was aware of the inherent contradiction in her instructions. Her Water would not wait patiently. Her Water would know a threat. Her Water would want to eliminate that threat⁠—

Seren shook her head. Only her power was in her hands. The rest? The rest would come as it may. And yet, she had to try.

Her arms fully extended in front of her, Seren felt the surge of magic to her chest as the ocean pushed backward, parting, opening a path for Magnus to move out farther, before it rose behind him like a wall. He gave Seren a horrified glare.

“You will burn, witch! For your sins!”

“So you keep saying. Burn, drown, hang. Make up your mind, you asshole.”

Seren barely heard him, barely raised her own voice, watching Victoria move after him, watching as the water retreated further, rose higher. Her arms shook, the force to hold back an ocean robbing her of breath. She coughed, stumbled, almost dropped her hands. The ocean trembled with her, the waves suddenly drenching Magnus and the almost lifeless Lark. Seren called to her Water again.

“Come, Water. Keep my love safe. Keep my heart alive. Rise. Rise!”

The ocean obeyed, but Seren felt its reluctance. The Water was being asked an impossible task. Protect and shield. Even though destruction was logical. Even though protecting Seren meant destroying the man standing in the midst of the path that she had opened for him. The Water demanded its own justice, its own resolution.

Seren tasted salt and knew it didn’t come from the ocean. She was crying. Powerless tears. Terrified tears. She wouldn’t be able to hold her Water for much longer.

She strained her arms, trying to keep them up, trying to hold. She was so tired, so weak. And then, as she was about to drop her hands, the crows on her skin, the tattooed birds, came to life, their wings moving, their caws echoing in the darkness, calling to the Water. Seren felt their power take shape, the birds rising from her arms, sustaining her magic by weaving in theirs.

She smiled, shook her head again in an attempt to clear her eyes and realized that her tears were being washed away. The skies above her had opened. Thunder split the horizon, bright and violent, preceding lightning, breaking with the laws of nature.

Storm descended.

“Rhiannon!” Seren turned around to see her sister, who was like a banshee, flying more than running barefoot toward her.

“What the hell, Rennie? How is he back?”

The ground vibrated beneath them, disruptive and terrifying. The cliffs shook, boulders falling into the ocean. Seren half expected the stone giants to stand up. They didn’t, they had answered the call of the one who was their mistress.

Earth awakened.

Seren could not hide her relief. In an ivory satin slip, Ceridwen appeared like an avenging angel descending from heaven. Or ascending from hell, with her long red hair flowing in Rhiannon’s Wind.

The ocean floor under Rathcross’s feet cracked ominously. Ceridwen’s tone was like a taut string.

“The bastard took a private boat. The fishermen noticed the docking, called me and Paloma minutes ago. Deryn is on her way⁠—”

Fireworks eclipsed the lightning in the sky, raining ash and smoke on the beach.

Fire arrived.

“It’s a bitch living so high on the cliff. The views are magnificent, but when you need to get down to smite fuckers, it’s not as expedient.” Deryn was breathing heavily, her bathrobe not quite tied around what looked like bare skin. On any other occasion, Seren would’ve commented on certainly interrupting something.

As it stood, the four of them stared into the ocean to see Magnus Rathcross drag a semi-conscious Lark further into the retreating water, and Victoria striving to hang on, refusing to let him go. She swiped at his leg as he kicked her, and Seren took a step forward, the incantation on the tip of her tongue.

“No!” Victoria’s scream was loud, her chest heaving as if she was throwing everything she had to be understood. “No, Seren, not yet, not until⁠—”

Seren nodded, but the effort of waiting, of holding… She dropped to her knees, the water sloshing high around her one more time, her power almost exhausted, her heart beating slower and slower.

And then, a hand on her shoulder gripped hard, and Ceridwen’s voice started chanting. The eternal words. The old language. The call of their mother. The spell of their ancestors.

Rhiannon gripped her other shoulder. Deryn’s hands closed the circle around her.

The magic of her sisters slammed into her like a hammer. It felt immense, stronger than ever before. Seren stumbled up and fell again. She had never been this affected by their craft. Something was feeding it. Something else.