Whisper of the Waters

“For Epha’s sake, Mayra, we’re going to be late.”

Ryga’s voice carried through the door. Mayra stood before the mirror with one hand pressed against the skirt of her mother’s dress. It still smelled faintly of roses, or perhaps she only imagined that.

“I’m coming,” she called as she quickly wiped away her tears.

Ryga stood in the corridor with his arms crossed, but his annoyance faded when he saw her.

“Have you been crying?” he asked, though it was obvious.

Mayra looked away. “No.”

Ryga let the lie pass and opened the front door.

“Let’s go, then. I don’t want to miss any part of it.”

Mayra stepped out after him, pulling it shut behind them.

The streets were already flooding with people, some draped in silk and others dressed in soot-stained linen. Banners hung from every column, each bearing the crest of Ephamor, a sea serpent coiled around a crown of thorns. One of King Hydris’s sons would be dead by sunset, and the whole city intended to watch it happen.

Mayra lowered her eyes and followed the current of people moving toward the square until she heard someone call her name. Their elderly neighbor, Merel, shuffled toward them with a basket hooked over one arm. She had dressed in her best shawl, though the hem was patched and its color faded.

“Off to the square?” she asked, as though there were anywhere else to be.

“Like everyone else,” Mayra said with a forced smile.

Merel’s eyes lingered on the dress. She did not mention it, but she reached for Mayra’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, brushing her thumb once over her knuckles. It had been her mother’s wedding dress and was the only dress she owned that was fine enough for a day like this.

Mayra had been eight when she lost both of her parents, and Ryga had been fourteen. Afterward, they became what everyone expected them to be, two children raised in silence and sorrow.

Merel had lived beside them all their lives, feeding them when there was nothing in the cupboards and scolding them whenever grief made them careless. She had never replaced their mother, because no one could, but she had become the closest thing Mayra had to one.

By the time they reached the amphitheater, almost every seat had been taken. Mayra wiped her damp palms against her dress as she and Ryga climbed the rough stone steps to the commoner stands, where the people below blurred into a sea of faces.

“We’re too far,” Ryga said with a frown.

“What difference does it make?”

“I didn’t come all this way to stare at the backs of people’s heads.”

He began making his way down the steps, and Mayra followed with a quiet sigh. After weaving through the crowd, they found two empty seats several rows lower. Mayra settled onto the cold stone beside her brother while Ryga turned his attention to the arena.

Across from them, the nobles reclined in velvet-lined chairs beneath silk canopies while the common folk sat shoulder to shoulder on bare stone. The kingdom had been built that way so no one would ever forget their place, and something sour twisted in Mayra’s chest whenever she looked at the royal stands.

A low drumbeat echoed through the amphitheater as dancers emerged from beneath the stone arches in flowing crimson and ash-gray silk. They spun with burning torches in their hands, tracing bright circles through the air while the drums quickened and the scent of smoke and oil filled the arena. One dancer tilted her head back and exhaled a plume of fire, drawing gasps from the crowd.

“I feel like I could do that,” Ryga said.

Mayra snorted. “I’d pay to see you try.”

The music slowed, and the dancers lowered their torches before disappearing beneath the arches. As a hush settled over the amphitheater, Prince Risus stepped into the arena wearing nothing but a strip of pale linen around his waist. He raised one hand toward the stands, and cheers erupted from every corner of the amphitheater.

His smile widened as he crossed the arena. When Prince Oren entered behind him, the cheering dwindled to scattered applause. Mayra had never met either prince, but she did not need to know them to understand which brother the kingdom wanted to survive.

King Hydris descended the steps, and Ryga went rigid beside her. “There he is,” he muttered. “The bastard who had our father killed and fed our mother to his palace.”

“Ryga, not here,” Mayra whispered.

Most commoners cursed Hydris behind closed doors, but others worshipped him as a god and praised him for protecting Ephamor. In a crowd this large, there was no knowing who might be listening.

Mayra turned her attention back to the arena. Hydris wore robes the color of crushed sapphire and an iron crown forged to resemble rippling water. He entered the arena without acknowledging the crowd, and both princes knelt before him.

Six figures cloaked in midnight silk crossed the stone behind them, their faces hidden by smooth, featureless masks. The Soulkeepers formed a circle around the kneeling twins and raised their hands in silent unison.

Hydris struck the end of his staff against the stone, and a jagged fissure split the arena floor. Water surged from the darkness below and rose in a twisting column that towered above the princes. It curled around Hydris without touching him, glimmering beneath the sun like a living serpent, before separating into dozens of suspended streams at the lift of his hand.

The streams wound above the arena and passed so close to the crowd that people ducked and laughed in startled awe. When Hydris closed his fist, every strand stopped above them. He held the water there for several seconds before opening his hand and sending it crashing into the arena in a single roaring wave.

The crowd erupted into applause as the water gathered around the twins’ knees. Mayra watched them cheer for the man who had taken so much from them and hated how easily their applause made him look beloved.

Two of the Soulkeepers drew curved daggers from beneath their robes and drove them into the twins’ exposed spines. Oren and Risus arched once before collapsing into the water like puppets whose strings had been cut. There was no blood. A blinding light burst from the pool instead, and Mayra covered her mouth as her chest tightened.

Everyone around her remained frozen. The Soulkeepers stepped back and joined hands while priests stationed at the edge of the arena began to chant. Their voices echoed against the stone as the sky slowly darkened above them.

For several long moments, nothing happened. Hydris stood beside the pool and watched the surface for any sign of movement. When none came, he straightened and turned toward the steps, but the water stirred before he could leave.

Ripples spread across the pool and circled inward until Oren rose from its center with Risus’s body in his arms. Water streamed from his hair and shoulders as he carried his brother toward the edge, and a gasp swept through the amphitheater.

“Is he dead?” someone whispered behind Mayra.

She leaned forward. Risus’s head rested against Oren’s shoulder, his arms hanging loose at his sides as water ran over his face. From where she sat, she could not tell whether he was unconscious or dead.

“That was it?” Ryga asked, unable to hide his disappointment.

Mayra understood why. They had grown up hearing that the king’s sons would fight until only one remained, yet Oren had returned carrying a body after a death no one had seen. She was grateful there had been no fight because she did not think she could have endured watching them kill each other.

Hydris gave a sharp nod to the crowd and turned away. As the Soulkeepers lifted Risus onto a wooden stretcher, a woman rushed forward and collapsed beside his body with a cry that carried through the amphitheater.

“That’s Mythia,” Ryga whispered, and the tips of his ears turned pink.

Mayra nearly rolled her eyes. He had spoken to Mythia once, and she had treated him as though his presence alone offended her, but that had done nothing to discourage him. “Now that her fiancé is dead, perhaps you finally have a chance.”

Ryga considered it. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Mayra bit back a laugh as the crowd began pushing toward the exits. Ryga joined them in the aisle, but she lingered.

Most of the royal party had already gone, though Mythia still stood beside Oren and struck his chest with both fists. Tears ran down her face as she shouted something Mayra could not hear, and Oren neither stopped her nor stepped away. He allowed Mythia to spend her grief against him.

When Ryga called from the aisle, Mayra followed her brother, still wondering what Mythia had been saying to Oren.

The rest of the kingdom poured into the feast, laughing, drinking, and tearing meat from bone as though the day had not belonged to death.