━━━ ❝ I pity the fool who wants to be a God. ❞
&
━━━ There is enough fire inside you to put
all of Hell to shame, but you are
pretending to be water, for someone
who is too afrai...
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CHAPTER XXI. legacies
The frigid waters of Djel consumed Leia easily, the coldness of it harshly jolted her heart awake upon the plunge. Axel's special Grisha cables had wrought solid damage, enough to make Leia certain that her insides were haemorrhaging faster than her Heartrender friend could ever repair her.
Despite the brutal waves dragging her like a marionette downstream, the pain from her injuries sang a slow, seductive lullaby, tempting her to surrender. Yet, Leia knew that this would be a slumber from which she would never awaken. The ice does not forgive, she'd heard Matthias mumbled under his breath from time to time.
But the water hears and understands.
Matthias was right. The water could hear and understand. Half of her was a Tidemaker, forever bonded to the waters.
This legacy in the House of Valentine was cruel, she always believed it. A twisted gift by fate. A gift that casted their family into exile, and later drowned Selma with power. Leia ran far from this legacy. To the point where she struggled with her mastery of the elements. The blagoslovennyys were the first and last of their kind, and so little was known about their abilities or limitations. There was no manual, no Baghra to train them.
How they came to be was a mystery in itself. For however influential her maternal family in Ravka's Courts, none of them were Grishas, the same for her father's family. While her mother and Selma's abilities fully materialised at birth, Leia did not discover her affinity with waters until they escaped to Ketterdam, when she was already 15 years old.
Dare Leia say, her mastery of fire was complete. She learnt everything there was about manipulating fire. But all she knew about the waters was from theory only, from Adira and Selma Valentine. Today, she barely managed to liquify the solid ice moat without depleting all her energy.
Leia refused to be a Tidemaker. Not after she was supposed to die in that disgusting motel with her parents—a family reunion in the peaceful afterlife. But her gift robbed her from the last good thing by drawing the poison from her body. That day onwards, she became a living contradiction. Dead but still alive, a girl who breathed fire but was drowning in water.
What good was this half of her?
Yet, the cold Djel waters still uncovered this hidden half of her. The waves nudged against her fingers, as though telling her they were waiting for her all along. They never left. Leia knew the baleen around her lips was deflating as the minutes passed. She had no idea if they were close to where Kaz planned for them to resurface.
The force of the river seemed to calm around her, no longer yanking them through the abrasive currents. She could somewhat pinpoint where Nina, Kuwei, Matthias and Kaz were located, judging by the difference in disturbance of the waves. The latter struggled and kicked around more, compared to the other three. With Kaz's history, this was his personal hell.
