After seeing the lake through everyone’s eyes, being blind was alarming. My world had shrunk back down to Yethyr and Yethyr was fading. Water had once again filled his lungs. He couldn’t breathe, so that even out of the water, lying on the rock jutting out of the lake, he was still drowning.
Thankfully for him, he had me.
I had forced him to cough up water once before. All I had to do was do it again.
Before I could try, I was suddenly wrenched from Yethyr. Someone had taken me from his belt and to my shock, it wasn’t Jaetheiri.
It was Dathari.
All at once, I was seeing the world through her eyes and many other eyes too. Dathari stood on the lower part of the rock that was submerged in water and the selkies were still singing. They were far away downriver but sound carried in water. I could still hear them, which meant Dathari could still hear them.
My curse must have urged her to grab me, but now, with watersong swimming in her head, her thoughts were jumbled.
Dathari stood still, sopping wet, watching Jaetheiri untie herself from the rock, and then freeze at the sight of me in Dathari’s clammy hands.
“Huntress, drop the sword,” said Jaetheiri, much too loud. She clearly still couldn’t hear her own voice, wax plugs still jamming her ears.
I could see her eyes dart from my gleaming white blade to Yethyr’s unresponsive, dying body.
I could feel the moment she realized she would not get there in time if Dathari decided to kill her prince with my blade.
But Dathari ignored Yethyr. The selkies, connected to me through the water, sang to her through me. Their song promised Heaven for her and her brother if only she did one simple thing.
All she had to do was kill Jaetheiri.
I laughed. The selkie had fled from Jaetheiri in terror but still tried one last attempt to kill her from afar.
I was willing to help with that.
“Lady Jaetheiri took Deth from me,” I said in her voice. “I have to kill her to get my brother back.”
It didn’t matter that it made no sense. The selkies’ watersong had made Dathari nonsensical. It didn't matter that I could feel Dethur swimming on the opposite side of the lake.
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Dathari could only feel what the selkies wanted her to feel.
“Venerated Victor, why would you take my brother?” Her voice was frightened, but firm.
And Jaetheiri didn’t even hear her, ears still plugged as they were. She must have assumed whatever music had driven Yethyr overboard was still in the air because she didn’t clear her ears when she saw Dathari’s mouth move.
“Dathari,” Jaetheiri stepped closer. She had her warfang in one hand, still dripping with selkie blood, but her other hand was raised in an attempt at a soothing motion. “You hold the Prince’s sword. I know you would never steal, not from him or any other. You are not yourself. That sword is dangerous. For your own sake, return it.”
“Return my brother first.”
Jaetheiri paused just inside my range and I was giddy. Finally, the rematch I was waiting for. The conditions were not ideal. As Dathari had never killed with me, I had limited influence over her actions. Dathari herself was battered from swimming through a torrent and I was still frazzled by the dozens of brutal deaths I was just forced to feel.
Jaetheiri at least was no better. She panted with exhaustion and the blood covering her might not just be selkie blood. She was in no condition to handle a prolonged duel with me.
To my delight, Dathari was just as eager to duel her idol. She swung me, and I poured all the speed and power I could muster into the motion, ready for Jaetheiri to parry.
Which was why I was utterly unprepared for Jaetheiri to dart closer, under the swing to grab at my hilt with her open hand. Suddenly, I could see through both of their eyes.
The force of the tackle sent them both to the hard rock. Jaetheiri lost grip on her own warfang, but she used the momentum of the fall to try to pin Dathari down.
“Let go of the sword!” Jaetheiri commanded, but Dathari refused to stop struggling. She tried to swing me, but on the ground, in such close quarters, I was only a liability.
Jaetheiri squeezed her hand over Dathari’s hand on my hilt and then grabbed my naked blade with her other palm. I could do little as Jaetheiri forced me to Dathari’s neck.
No. No. No.
I tried to fight her, but gravity was on her side. I tried to cut her fingers, but she quickly pressed her armored forearm onto my blade instead. She pushed me down further and further until I was forced to devour my own wielder.
It felt like how I imagine a person would feel from eating their own hand.
Memories flooded me. Dathari’s childhood tussles with her brother. Her practices with her father.
And then there was the Oredreirium. Flashes of gruesome violence amidst burnt ruins as Dathari watched from the Wall.
“Look up at the royal window!” her mother had shouted. “The Prince is going to fall.”
Then there was a much younger Jaetheiri among the ruins, carving through every competitor in her path with only a knife. Brutal, Dathari had thought then. Beautiful even though there was only cold efficiency in her strikes. She never wavered; she never spoke.
It was only after all was dead but her that Jaetheiri broke her silence. She gave a shout so loud it echoed off the Wall. It still echoed in Dathari’s heart, even now, as Jaetheiri loomed over her with hard resigned eyes.
“This is the path I carve!”
Dathari wanted to walk that path. I drank in her violent training and her more violent Hunt Trial. She fought battle after battle and sacked town after town, even sacking Datrea herself. She got to fight alongside Jaetheiri herself.
And Dathari’s last sight was of the woman who made all that violence possible slitting her throat.
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