Mud and rocks ground into my back as I blinked, staring up through the creek. The water was pure, sweet, and clear this high up in the mountains, and I could make out Salina's wavy figure standing above me on the bank. I couldn't tell for sure, but I thought she was smiling.
But the worst part was that I could - I could see her through the water. Standing beside the tub watching me drown - smiling while I was drowning.
Eva's words whispered in my mind. I remembered what she had said about how Salina had watched her drown - and the pleasure the elemental had taken in it. Now, all these years later, Salina was doing the same thing to me.
Not if I could help it.
There was no use struggling against the tentacles, not now, when Salina had moved in for the kill, so I let my body go loose and slack against the water that surrounded me like a wet tomb, like I was already halfway to drowned. Not much of a stretch. I had maybe two minutes' worth of oxygen left before I blacked out. After that, the end would be quick.
My Stone magic was useless in this situation, so I focused on my Ice power, gathering and gathering it around me. It was the only chance I had left - and I didn't even know if it would work. If I had enough power to do what needed to be done in order to survive.
Ten seconds passed . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . My lungs burned a little more with every passing second, the need for air so great I wanted to scream from it, but I forced myself to be calm, to wait to bring all of the Ice magic I had to bear, along with what I had stored in my spider rune ring. I thought about reaching for the Ice power that was in my knives as well, but my concentration was a little shaky, and I didn't know if I could tap into the magic of all six items at once. So I decided to focus on combining my magic with the ring's and releasing all of that power outward at once. I'd only get one shot at this, and I had to make it count - or I was dead.
So I gathered up the final scraps of my Ice magic . . . and let loose with it.
I sent out a blast of Ice, forcing the cold power out of my hands and into the water around me. I didn't know if I had enough strength, enough magic for what I needed to do; hell, I didn't even know if it would work at all.
The creek water that had been rushing by immediately froze. One second, I could feel the water flowing around me. The next, it had stopped cold - literally. The entire creek had frozen around me, including the tentacles of Salina's magic. They wrapped around my body like crystallized tendrils of ivy gnarled and knotted every which way. The whole scene, all the glittering, elemental Ice around me, was strangely beautiful - and still deadly.
I might have stopped Salina from drowning me by freezing the creek, but I still wasn't getting any air. I might have been an Ice elemental, but that didn't mean I could breathe through it. So I sent out another desperate burst of magic, hoping to crack the Ice that encased me like a crystal coffin.
But I'd already used up so much of my power, and the Ice was frozen solid. Again and again, I sent out burst after burst of magic.
And at last, slowly, much too slowly, the Ice around me began to chip and crack and fall away from my body.
But it still wasn't enough.
Running after Salina, fighting against her water tentacles, using my own Ice magic until there was none left - all of that had taken everything out of me, and I simply wasn't strong enough to claw my way out of the weight of Ice pressing down on me and get to the air I so desperately needed.
I thought I punched one hand free of the Ice, but I wasn't sure, and it wasn't enough to matter anyway. Bit by bit, the blackness crept over me before it rose up in a wave in my mind and blotted out everything else.
The last thought I had was of Owen, and what he would think when he realized that Salina had killed me.
Chapter 24
Someone was pounding on my chest. Over and over again, a tight fist smacked into my ribs right over my heart. An uncomfortable sensation, especially when I'd been so peaceful just a moment before, drifting along in that calm, soothing, unending blackness . . .
"Come on, breathe, dammit, breathe!" a harsh voice barked at me.
Something hot and wet pressed against my mouth, forcing air down my throat and into my lungs. Again and again, that hot rush of air invaded my mouth, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. A few seconds later, my chest began heaving and convulsing, and I started coughing, spewing up all the water in my lungs and trying to choke down all the air I could at the same time.
Hands rolled me onto my side to make it easier for me to breathe. I just lay there, cold and half-frozen by my own Ice magic, my fingers curled into the dirt, my face resting on a bed of dried, cracked leaves, sucking down breath after breath. After a few moments, I managed to open my eyes and found a face right there on the dirt next to mine - but it wasn't the one that I expected. His eyes were blue, not violet, and his hair was as light as the sunshine kissing the forest.
Kincaid gave me a crooked smile. "Don't think you're going to weasel out of our deal just by dying, Gin."
Deal? We didn't have any deal. I'd never agreed to kill Salina for him. I opened my mouth to tell him that, but the words just wouldn't come. The blackness rose up in my mind again, and I was helpless to resist it once more.
The girl had finally quit screaming - if not crying.
Even though her father was dead and had been for a while now, the girl was still slumped over his body - or what was left of it - and sobbing like she would never, ever stop. Each one of her loud, wild, soul-wrenching cries was like a knife piercing my own heart. I knew that pain, I knew those screams all too well - they were the same ones that had torn my heart to pieces and spewed out of my mouth after the murder of my family.
I was still a little shocked by what had happened. Mab Monroe had spent the better part of an hour torturing Benedict Dubois, burning him with her elemental Fire, delighting in his tearful pleas and whimpers as he begged her to stop. And she'd made everyone watch - all the dinner guests, all the chefs, all the waiters, even Dubois's own daughter.
It had been like a nightmare come to life.
At first, Mab had toyed with Dubois, jabbing her red-hot fingers into his arms like they were slender cigarettes she was stubbing out. Then, she'd used her elemental Fire to burn the rest of him - his chest, his legs; she'd even used her power to singe all the hair off his head like she was scalping him.
Still, no matter what Mab did, I made myself watch the whole thing just like Fletcher did beside me. These were the realities of life in Ashland, especially for an assassin-in-training like me. Because if I was ever captured, especially by someone like Mab, I would face the same sort of torture. Fletcher didn't say the words. He didn't have to. Not tonight. Not when I was faced with something like this.