Page 34 of The Crown's Awakening
It comes at me wrong, faster than its broken body should allow, and I meet it with the blade, not to cut it down, but to turn it. Steel catches bone and slides, forcing it off balance long enough for me to drive it sideways into the wall. It hits hard, limbs tangling, but it does not stop moving. I pivot and catch its arm with the flat of the blade, knocking it wide, then slam my shoulder into it, forcing it back into the breach where the ice catches it again.
I realize with humbling clarity that I am not killing them, I am simply holding them back. Barely. The ship shifts under me, but my footing holds this time, my weight landing cleanly in a way that still feels new.
Nyara notices. “Your leg,” she says, dragging another surge of ice upward through the breach, “I thought you were limping.”
“A weaver fixed it.”
She glances at me, interest cutting through everything else. “Oh, shit. You survived that?” Another body jerks backward as the ice catches it across the torso. “I heard it’s the worst pain possible. Supposedly leaves very attractive markings though.”
“It was painful,” I say, forcing one off me as it lunges, using the blade to lever it away rather than cut through it, “but now I can use my legs again, so there’s that.”
“Oh,” she says, almost amused. “Colsar will be relieved, I'm sure."
The next surge hits harder. The breach widens again. The ice slows them, fractures them, holds them for seconds at a time, but it does not stop them.
Nothing here truly stops them.
“What is Junis?” I ask, forcing another one back into the mass behind it as it reaches for me.
She doesn’t look at me. “He is something far worse.”
Another body forces through. I step into it, redirect its weight, drive it down to its knees and shove it back into the crush behind it, buying space that disappears almost immediately.
“But he is male,” Nyara adds, her tone dry even as she pulls more of the frozen sea through the hull. “Being dangerous is an asset, not an abomination.”
“In Rathmor bloodlines, twins are always dangerous,” she continues, as if this is a conversation we can afford to have. She shrugs slightly. “In most royal bloodlines, actually. Look at Prince Tamal of Yorali and his sister.”
The words are meaningless, because I know almost nothing about the Yorali twins or what magic they possess.
The wall gives further and the opening widens enough that two of them force through at once. Nyara pulls more of the cold upward, but the strain shows now. The ice forms slower, fractures faster, the pressure behind it too constant to hold indefinitely. “This chat is all very nice,” she says, “but I need you to do whatever the fuck it is Alarnan royals are supposed to do.”
Another body forces through beside the first. I catch it with the blade, redirect it, shove it back, but more take its place before I can recover.
“I have always been curious about lightcraft," she adds, driving another surge of ice upward. "I meant to ask Talen during our journey but we were too busy for conversation.”
She glances at me. "I didn't realize until I overheard the Threns talking that you even possessed lightcraft."
“Full of surprises, best friend,” she says with a grin.
“As are you,” I say, the wordbest friendmaking me feel warm. I was still impressed at her fighting skill and whatever this hidden water power is that she possesses.
The opening tears wider, and the next wave doesn’t slow.
“Anyway, if you by any chance know how to use this lightcraft skill of yours,” she says, turning her head just enough to look at me, “now would be a great time to fucking use it.”
CHAPTER 12
The Final Push
“Now would be a great time to figure it out.”
The next surge does not hesitate. The wall gives beneath it in a long, splintering fracture, the wood separating under pressure that has been building for too long, and the opening widens faster than either of us can control. Bodies force through in overlapping motion, catching briefly against ice and splintered wood before the weight behind them pushes through.
Nyara draws the cold upward again, shaping it through the structure with visible effort, the frozen shards rising in jagged lines that slow the first of them, but the strain shows in the way the ice forms and fails in the same breath.
I step in beside her anyway.
The sword becomes leverage instead of a weapon. When one reaches for me, I shift its path, sending it past me and into the bodies behind it where it tangles just long enough to matter. Another collapses when the blade catches its leg, but it dragsitself forward again immediately, its body refusing the idea of stopping.
