Page 6 of Curse the Fae

I dive to the right. His arm swings, one of the blades shaving the water and narrowly missing my throat. Stabbing the spear into the ground, I use it to propel me in a full circle. After one rotation, my heels ram into his chest, which accomplishes nothing. He might as well be welded from steel. Instead of knocking him off balance, the impact throws me off.

His blades rotate and slice, executing a series of rapid-fire strikes, as if brandished through air rather than water. I thrust the spear, which mercifully blocks his attempts. My arms jellify, my movements slowing as every jab and parry scorches my muscles. The power of his weapon crashing against mine threatens to shatter my joints. Wildly, I envision battling an anaconda of The Southern Seas and fixate on how this moment compares.

Water ruptures around us. The fight continues across the river floor. With each collision, the tips of his fingers spark with a bronze sheen.

At last, the temperature rises, balmy enough to signal shallower ground. Overhead, the surface winks, liquid skimming my scalp.

Not only that, but the monster’s movements begin to lag, if only marginally. And I realize why once my eyes leap toward the spear inlaid with iron scrolls.

The iron! Of course!

I catch an opening—a weak spot—and put my very soul into the motion. I ram the spear in his direction, the edge slicing his torso and sketching a red line across the grid of flesh. Thin tendrils of blood spurt into the water. Despite being submerged, I hear a furious hiss reverberate from his tongue.

Before he can retaliate, I launch upward and crash through, emerging in a spot where several retreating steps enable me to stand, the surface licking my ribcage. At the same time, he breaks from the gulf.

A geyser of water spews everywhere. In unison, his daggers and my spear arch, then collide above our heads. The position shoves me into him, our chests dripping. And that’s when my gaze collides with a pair of vicious eyes.

2

Gold. So much gold.

The molten color sparks with hatred, penetrating me to the core. It’s the color of heat and power. It’s the sort of hue that will stop at nothing to disarm a viewer, impossible not to notice and equally impossible to resist.

I’ve beheld eyes like this before.

It’s him. I know it even before glimpsing the rest of his face, with its ruthless inclines. Faint scales trickle from his temples, then loop to his cheekbones and meld into unblemished skin, his bone structure neither refined nor rugged. Rather, his visage is as honed as a blade. It’s a venomous, unforgiving face—lethally beautiful, as I’d known he would be.

The Fae’s countenance is the sort capable of reflecting only a handful of expressions in totality, including vitriol and disgust. On that score, I’d wager his face exhibits only one of those emotions at a time. Therefore, it does so fully.

My attention stumbles across the furious pulse point at his throat, then to the plate of his chest—slick and hairless—and then below that, under the surface. His abdomen narrows into a V, twin hipbones slicing into his lower half. But where there should be limbs, a tail flits about restlessly, its banded scales glistening like black and gold armor.

It’s the appendage of a merman, though it lacks a fin. Instead, the tail embodies the likeness of a viper.

He’s more than just a water Fae. He’s the monster from my past.

Lord of the Water Faeries. Ruler of the River.

Brows as black as his hair slash at dangerous angles above the Fae’s eyes, which burn like one of the underground lanterns. The viper’s golden irises skewer my face. Yet he’s not looking at me at all. Not directly. Rather, his gaze jumps from one end of me to the next, as if searching or sensing his way through.

He’s blind.

Shock courses through me. His blades grate against my spear, and my arms quaver to stave off his weight, our bodies drenched and straining against one another. In my world, tales overflow about this ruler blinding others at close range, but it’s not just that. He can’t see any more than his victims can.

Confusion loosens my defensive stance. For a moment, I second-guess my memory. Either that, or I’ve misidentified him.

It can’t be. Hecannotbe blind.

Either way, awareness and loathing flash in his pupils. “You,” he says.

His baritone is raspy, a voice spawned from fathomless depths—dark, gritty, and suffocating. The word hits like a physical blow, accusatory and punishing. Somehow, he knows it’s me. Despite his condition, he knows who I am.

Among my sisters, I’m the sweet one. But I wasn’t always like that.

And he knows that, too.

Less than an hour ago, I had cried in my sisters’ arms, my voice taking a vulnerable shape, as delicate as porcelain. I was a victim then, but in this moment, something new wrenches free from dormancy, an impulse I haven’t felt or expressed in years. That old part of me unleashes, the part that hasn’t shown itself since the last time I saw him, the part I’ve fought so hard to keep buried.

Nonetheless, I let that part rise from the pit of my stomach. I may be his captive, but I won’t be his prey.

---