Page 81 of Panther in the Shadows
She sends tendrils of corruption spiraling toward me. They move through the water like living things—seeking, grasping, hungry. Each one carries the weight of death. The cold of the grave. The despair of drowning.
Clean water forms barriers. Shields that deflect and redirect. But the tendrils are relentless. They probe for weaknesses. Find gaps. Slip through defenses.
One wraps around my ankle. Ice spreads from the contact. Numbness. Death trying to take root.
Life magic burns it away. Painful. Costly. Each purge drains reserves already running low.
My lungs burn. Life magic sustains me down here, keeps oxygen flowing despite the impossible depth. But it's a strain. A constant drain. The pressure makes every second cost more than it should.
But giving up isn't an option. Rafe is dying. Elspeth is trapped. Old Tom is still captive somewhere. Too many people are counting on me.
Pushing deeper into Catalina's defenses. Looking for the source. The center of her power. The knot where she bound herself to death magic all those years ago.
There.
A mass of corrupted binding magic wrapped around what's left of her heart. Pulsing with stolen life. Festering with rage and grief twisted into something monstrous. The place where she sacrificed her humanity for power. Where she chose revenge over peace. Where she stopped being Catalina and became something else.
I reach for it. Not with destruction. With healing.
Pure ocean magic flows from my hands. The kind that remembers what water is supposed to be. Clean. Life-giving. Themedium through which all living things are born. Pouring it into the corrupted knot at Catalina's center.
She fights. Claws at me. Sends waves of death magic crashing against my defenses. But I don't stop. The memory of the woman she was before she drowned surfaces. Before revenge consumed her. Before she lost everything to pride and heartbreak.
Compassion for that woman. Pity for what she became. Understanding of how grief and rage can twist someone into a monster.
That compassion is stronger than her hate.
The corrupted knot shatters.
Binding magic explodes outward in a wave of blue light. The circles carved into the ocean floor crack and splinter. The death magic holding Catalina together unravels like thread pulled from cloth.
Her eyes clear. The blue fire fades. For just a moment, she looks human again. Mortal again. No longer the monster she chose to become.
She sees what she is. What she's done. The murders. The manipulation. The darkness she embraced willingly.
For just a heartbeat, something else flickers across her face. Not the scheming woman who manipulated Diego. Not the sea-walker who raised the dead. Someone younger. A child running along Spanish beaches. Laughing. Playing in tide pools. Before ambition and pride and revenge consumed everything innocent in her.
The ocean magic shows me who she was before she chose to become a monster. Not to excuse what she did. Just to show what was lost when she made that choice.
Her lips move. Maybe an apology. Maybe just a final breath. I'll never know.
She scatters into the current. Flesh becoming water. Bones becoming sand. The necromancy that kept her alive afterdrowning finally releasing its hold. Particles drifting. Spreading. Returning to the ocean that claimed her years ago.
The binding circles shatter. Magic backlash sends shockwaves through the water. Every soul she bound is freed in an instant. I feel them rising. Dozens of luminous shapes ascending toward the surface. Toward light. Toward rest.
Including Elspeth.
My sister's spirit floats past me. No longer trapped. No longer corrupted. Her eight-year-old face is peaceful. Smiling.
She mouths two words: Thank you.
Her spirit rises with the others, released at last from torment that lasted far too long.
My lungs scream. The fight took too long. I've been underwater past human limits. Past what even a sea witch can endure. Black spots dance across my vision. My limbs feel heavy. Weighted.
Swimming up. Kicking toward the surface. But my body won't respond. The magic channeled has left me hollow. Empty. Drained beyond exhaustion.
I sink.
