Oathbreaker

by Cara Witter

  He waited until the pull of the stone was behind him, then doubled back along the ocean floor, snapping off a larger piece of coral as he passed. Even with the support of the water, the thing felt heavy. It gave off significantly more light and was also large enough to hurt the beast, if he needed to bash it in the face before swimming off again.

  He paused above the entrance to the cave. Below in the dim glow, he saw a slithering form ripple across the stone floor. The creature was still searching for him. Nikaenor gripped the coral, gathering his courage.

  He was no Kenton, no Saara, no Jaeme. He couldn’t rely on force to kill the thing. But Mirilina had chosen him, and she was his god. Doubting her would be prideful.

  More importantly, back in Ithale, his family was waiting for his miracle.

  Nikaenor swam into the mouth of the cave with as much confidence as he could muster. He kept the coral in front of him, illuminating the path.

  There! Mirilina floated ahead, at the center of a somewhat larger cavern, now that it wasn’t occupied by the enormous body of the eel.

  Nikaenor swam toward it.

  The surface of the cave shifted again. Nikaenor raised his coral, searching for the head of the beast, when he felt water turning behind him. Nikaenor turned to see the face of the beast illuminated in the soft glow of his coral branch. Panic consumed him.

  The mass covering the surface of the cave was not one eel, but two.

  By the gods. The stone floated at the center of the cave, as if suspended on a string. Nikaenor couldn’t reach it without exposing his arm to the oncoming eel, but he had another idea. He braced his back against the stone of the entrance and flared the webbing on his hands and feet, swishing them frantically in the direction of the stone. He worried that the current wouldn’t affect Mirilina, but the stone drifted backward, wobbling slightly with the shifting water.

  It bumped up against the eel’s rough skin.

  Near the top of the cave, Nikaenor saw another eye open—the head of the second eel, its mouth gaping wide.

  But instead of writhing in pain, it only turned and looked down at him as the head of the first eel continued steadily into the cave behind him.

  Gods. The stone had no effect on it. No person could touch the stone, but this eel was allowed to cuddle up to the thing, chosen or not?

  Which god’s idea had that been?

  Nikeanor scrambled farther into the cave away from the heads of both eels, one emerging from the tunnel, the other descending from above. His arms brushed the slippery flesh of the one that still encircled the cave, and with a shockingly sudden movement, the eel tightened around him like a great swamp boa—a creature that was fond of dropping from trees onto unsuspecting rabbits or toddling children and squeezing them to death. Its slimy skin left behind a thin, oily film that coated Nikaenor’s scaly flesh. Before the coils of eel could wrap entirely around him, Nikaenor raised his coral branch and thrust it into the eel’s side.

  A burst of black blood spread through the water, and from above, the eel’s mouth opened, descending on him. Nikaenor looked about frantically for Mirilina, but he’d lost track of her in the tangled mess.

  I’m sorry, Nikaenor thought—at Mirilina, at his family, at Kenton, at the other chosen, at everyone he’d ever met and lots of people he hadn’t—as the eel gaped its expansive jaws after him, all the while tightening around him, pinning down his arm that held the coral. Nikaenor pushed back his despair and did the only thing he could think of.

  He opened his mouth and bit down into the creature’s flesh with his unfortunately unaltered teeth. A foul taste filled his mouth, quite unlike the flavor of fine roasted eel. Nikaenor gagged and released the creature, looking up to see if he’d at least angered it.

  But the eel only blinked at him, not a single muscle flinching at the contact. It opened its mouth wider, and Nikaenor realized with horror that the thing was unhinging its jaw to swallow him whole.

  And then, blessedly, the second eel darted forward and fastened its jaws onto the throat of the first. Nikaenor stared as the eels thrashed together, the coils of the first tightening so firmly around him that his ribs ached, then suddenly going lax as the second eel tore open its throat, and dark blood dispersed through the water.

  Nikaneor squirmed, freeing himself from the body of the eel, which now floated listlessly around him like a clump of seaweed.

  Then the second eel turned on him and opened its jaws wide.

  Nikaenor screamed and shoved his coral-light right into the creature’s oncoming maw. He managed to succeed in catching the beast in the teeth, and it struggled, trying to open its mouth wide enough to take off Nikaenor’s arm, coral and all.

  Nikaenor flailed, keeping a tight hold on the coral, and pivoting in the water to keep it between him and the eel as the beast thrashed, its jaws opening ever wider.

  He jerked back in reflex, and the jaws clamped down on the coral, the teeth mere inches from his fingers. With the stalk mostly engulfed in the eel’s mouth, the cave plunged into near-total darkness. Nikaenor let out another bellow and shoved backward on the eel, pushing his webbed feet against the back of the cave and using all his might—from his arms to his back to his knees—he used the creature’s grip on the coral to bash the eel’s head against the wall of the cave. His cry turned from terror to pain as he twisted, fighting the thing as it struggled, shoving the coral deep into the back of its throat, stabbing at the eel over and over again.

  The cave brightened again, and Nikaenor collapsed, floating free in the water. When he looked up, he found the mouth of the eel still gaping, but also oozing a thick, black blood as it floated up toward the top of the cave, its eyes now unfocused.

  As the bodies of the dead eels floated upward, Nikaenor caught sight of Mirilina bobbing near the floor of the cave.

  Nikaenor reached through the water, shoving aside coils of eel flesh.

  And closed his hand around his god.

  Eighteen

  As Kenton pulled Perchaya past the crowd, fully intending to head for the swamp and find a marsh-boat they could use to get offshore while they waited for Nikaenor, a new sound met his ears. A deafening roar, like the tide crashing down, but constant. It grew louder and louder, and the earth trembled beneath them. People screamed, but within seconds the tremendous roaring drowned out even their voices.

  Kenton drew Perchaya close to him, and they clung to each other as a massive wall of water rose up out of the ocean, parting around the town and encircling it like two loving arms, destroying nothing except the trees and terrain along the town’s borders. It cradled the townspeople, but crashed into the oncoming soldiers—and, unfortunately, those few men left from the front line that had rushed forward to stop them—washing them away moments before they could reach the crowd. Horses fell, dragged along by the relentless tide, and their riders disappeared beneath the churning water.

  Gods, Kenton thought, staring up at the enormous tide. The crowd of townspeople dispersed, racing away from the water that was so very close, but some had no sooner retreated than they fell prostrate to the ground, shouting praises to Mirilina.

  Kenton and Perchaya wilted together against the rough stone wall of the nearest building, both of them breathing hard.

  This was it. Their miracle. But already Kenton dreaded telling Nikaenor it had come only moments too late to save the life of his father.

  The water collapsed in a deluge, and Kenton held tight to Perchaya, sure they were all about to drown. Instead, the water rained down, dousing the buildings and extinguishing the fire, but flowing mainly away from the town, washing out soldiers and horses, kicking up the topsoil into a layer of silt. Some of the townspeople cried for joy, while Kenton and Perchaya joined those who stared on in shock and wonder as the water settled into a kind of moat around the town, at least a quarter-mile wide. The remaining soldiers turned their horses and ran.r />
  Kenton hoped Erich was among the fallen, but he didn’t see him and knew he couldn’t count on it.

  The water settled, and the town fell into an eerie quiet. Children cried, parents comforted them, and on the far side of the water, the soldiers retreated. Erich—if he lived—wouldn’t be deterred forever, but he’d lost too many men to continue the assault, even if he had a route across the water. Kenton expected the moat to drain back into the sea, but instead the water lay calmly around the town.

  “Kenton,” Perchaya said. “Feldan sent some of Nikaenor’s family out of the town. Do you think they might have been caught in the water?”

  “Go with Delyn,” Kenton said. “See if you can find them. I’m going to get Nikaenor.”

  Perchaya hesitated, then nodded. For a moment, Kenton wondered if she might be better at delivering the news.

  But no. Kenton had led Nikaenor here. He’d asked him to pay this price, and he knew better than anyone what a terrible cost it was. He would be the one to tell him. As he walked along the edge of the water on the ocean-side of town, he saw far more soldiers than villagers floating among the dead. A group of men were sorting through and loading the bodies of the locals into a large wagon, leaving the others for now. Kenton could hear them murmuring to each other as they worked.

  He looked out across the water but saw only the waves and the occasional gull. Kenton hadn’t seen Erich’s body yet, so he had to assume that he lived. It would be much worse for the town if Kenton and his friends remained when he returned. No one had seen any sign of Daniella, Jaeme, or Sayvil, so he hoped that the three had traversed the swamp in the direction of Haidshir, as Jaeme had said. But he and Perchaya couldn’t move on until they found Nikaenor.

  Then, far out to sea, Kenton saw a creature surface. A man covered in fish scales. He swam toward Kenton with long, bold strokes, and as he neared, Kenton saw it, clutched in his webbed fist. A round gem, surface roiling with soft blue swirls.

  Mirilina.

  Gods be praised. As with Nerendal, it had been one thing for Kenton to see the miracle, to know that the bearer had the stone, and another to see it with his very own eyes. When he grew closer, Nikaenor bobbed in the water, scanning the rocky beach, no doubt for people who might think he was a sea monster and club him on sight. He spotted Kenton standing there, waved a webbed hand, then lifted the godstone and brandished it triumphantly in Kenton’s direction.

  Kenton smiled. Nikaenor had done well. Kenton only wished that he had been able to keep his end of the bargain. He held out the bed sheet he’d brought for Nikaenor to dry himself with, leaving the change of clothes Kenton had gathered for him lying on a rock. Nikaenor’s eyes landed on the body of a soldier that floated nearby, his feet beached upon the shore, black hair stringing through the water.

  Nikaenor stared, the look of horror on his face unmistakable even in his fish form. Another wave reached him, and the body rocked toward Kenton and back to the sea again, hair waving like seaweed. Kenton moved closer to Nikaenor, enough so that the water lapped at his boots. “Come on,” he said. “There’s been some bloodshed, but you came through. You found your goddess, and she sent the sea itself to protect us. The fighting’s done.”

  Nikaenor nodded and stood, his body fully covered in scales. Kenton handed him the bed sheet, and Nikaenor moved quickly away from the ocean. Sandy pebbles stuck to his scaly feet as he dried off the rest of his body without the use of his right hand, which held the stone close to his body, as if he was afraid to risk holding it even a foot or two away.

  “My family,” Nikaenor said. “Are they all right?”

  “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are fine,” Kenton said. At least, as far as he knew.

  Nikaenor smiled, obviously overlooking Kenton’s omission. “Great,” he said. Then he looked up into Kenton’s face, and his smile fell.

  His face was back to normal now. Only a few scales remained under his ears and beneath his chin. His scalp hovered halfway between his sandy hair and his fin-like fringe.

  But there was no mistaking the look on his face. Kenton wasn’t looking at a monster, or even the bearer of a god. He was looking at a boy who was about to learn that he’d lost his father.

  Kenton knew exactly how that felt. “It’s your father,” he said. “The soldiers got to him. He died defending the town, defending your family and friends from the soldiers who were going to murder them.” Kenton wanted to go on about the man’s brave deeds, but in Nikaenor’s eyes, he could see what he already knew.

  It didn’t matter. Not now. Maybe not ever. Nikaenor’s body continued to return to normal, and he tightened the sheet around himself as he changed.

  But a part of him would never go back. Not now. Not on the other side of this.

  “I took too long,” Nikaenor said, his expression bleak.

  “No.” Kenton gestured back at the town. “You saved them. When you claimed your stone, the ocean itself washed up and took out the ranks of soldiers. They were going to slaughter everyone, Nikaenor. The women and children, people begging on their knees. You saved them all.”

  Nikaenor shivered, though the beach was far from cold. “Not all.”

  Kenton watched Nikaenor’s shoulders droop under the weight of it. The knowledge that Kenton wished he’d never had to learn.

  Not everyone could be saved.

  Nikaenor scanned the beach, looking over the bodies, dispassionately this time. There was only so much emotion one’s mind could bear, and now, at this moment, Nikaenor himself needed all he could spare. Kenton put out a hand and rested it on Nikaenor’s shoulder. The boy’s face crumpled, and though it went against everything Kenton believed about himself, he could do nothing but hold Nikaenor as he cried.

  As they made their way through town toward the Fish Hook, Nikaenor stared down at the stone in his hand, barely watching where he was going. Kenton nudged him down alleys and around overturned carts and their spilled contents. As he kicked a cabbage out of the way, Kenton considered which of the mess had been caused by the rioting and which by the water. It was impossible to be sure.

  Other than the constant dripping of water from the rooftops and the squawk of an occasional disgruntled bird, the town was quiet. As they moved, Kenton heard scattered residents searching through wreckage on the surrounding streets.

  Near the center of town, the smell of smoke still hung in the air. They stepped out onto a street and looked up at a charred building, still smoldering from within. Around the side of the building, a man looked at them, his eyes widening at seeing the gem in Nikaenor’s hand. Kenton had the urge to reach out and hide the stone, but he couldn’t touch it without the risk of immolation.

  Besides, the people here knew what Nikaenor was after, and that he was the bearer. Perchaya had used that information to get them to revolt in the first place. The man by the wreckage turned and hurried off in the direction of the center of town—and the inn.

  Kenton already had an inkling of what they were going to find there.

  “Brace yourself,” Kenton said to Nikaenor. “People are going to be talking about this for the rest of their lives.” He put a hand on Nikaenor’s shoulder and led him rapidly toward the town square, before rumors could continue to grow.

  The burned section of town stopped short of the inn, and Kenton let out a breath of relief to see Perchaya safe, standing with Nikaenor’s sister Aralie on the porch. Farther down the street, near the market square, a large crowd had gathered—from the looks of it, nearly everyone who remained in the town.

  “Nikaenor!” Perchaya called, spotting him first. From the outside of the crowd, Delyn turned, the two women he’d been speaking to wheeling about as well to get a look at them.

  Most of the rest of the crowd were huddled around something at the center of town—a wooden platform that would typically have been used for announcements or performances, now being used
to hold the dead. Several in the crowd around it were crying, but most just hugged themselves and each other and stared at the platform with blank faces, as if the shock and grief were too much to bear.

  “He’s here!” Delyn cried in a booming voice. “The bearer of Mirilina!”

  Nikaenor stared with wide, red-rimmed eyes as the rest of the town turned to face him. Aralie scooped Tam up from behind her and stepped down off the porch and into the street, watching her brother with a stunned expression. Ronan stepped up onto the platform, looking in their direction, his mother standing at his side with a tear-stained face.

  Nikeanor blinked at them all. The air felt charged with quiet divinity, a feeling that Kenton could describe in no other way than holy.

  Then Aralie looked at the stone, set Tam on the road beside her, and got down on her knees. “Randareth enet Mirilina,” she said.

  Perchaya moved to kneel in the street beside her, putting an arm around Tam, who looked at them both, mystified. And then, slowly, behind them, the rest of the townspeople filed forward and fell to their knees before the entrapped goddess and her chosen servant, many people prostrating themselves completely against the dirt as they had when beseeching her aid.

  Kenton bowed to the ground beside Nikaenor as the boy surveyed with wonder the people on their knees before him repeating the phrase: “Randareth enet Mirilina!”

  Then Nikaenor, whose faith in his goddess must surely have been slipping, opened his mouth and repeated their words.

  “Randareth enet Mirilina,” he said. The soft, swirling blue reflected in Nikaenor’s bright eyes as they shone with tears.

  Kenton hoped that, years from now, when Nikaenor looked back on this day, he would feel that his loss hadn’t been for nothing.

  Nineteen

  The taproom was growing uncomfortably warm, even with several of the windows opened to let in the evening air. Lanterns burned brightly all around, casting a glow on the townspeople, who were all wearing vibrant colors and their finest fabrics. Kenton assumed they were festival clothes, though the town hadn’t been able to have a proper festival to Mirilina in many years without hiding it under the guise of a more mundane holiday.