Villainous [Wattys 2021 Shortlist]

12: Prince of the Seas

They stopped only to steal a faster and lighter boat from the next village they passed. Dante's stamina surprised Delilah - he hadn't rested since they'd set off. She offered to take over rowing for a while, but Dante merely raised an eyebrow and gestured to her body. Compared to him, her limbs were sticks, her muscles non-existent. She just scowled at him and unrolled the map of Anloch to continue charting the way.

The staring people they passed made Delilah feel jumpy. The soldiers would be following, surely, if they got permission from the Southern Clans' Chief. And they would ask everyone they came across if they'd seen two mysterious people travelling upstream.

She briefly wondered whether Gaol would call upon the Silver Knight to aid the soldiers in their search, but immediately banished that thought to a dark corner of her mind. Thinking about him would not bode well.

They rounded a sharp bend, Dante grunting with effort. And Delilah's jaw dropped. Completely forgetting who her companion was, she reached out a hand and pawed at him blindly, her fingers snagging in his hair and brushing his shoulders. "Look, look!"

Dante loosed a threatening growl and she snatched her arm back, but then he turned. And even his onyx eyes widened.

The palace-temple was made out white moonstone. It rose up out of the fields of reeds around them on a huge platform, so that it seemed to float. Delilah realised it was in the centre of a huge lake, but the amount of reeds and plants that choked the water made it impossible to tell how big it was. She glanced at the reeds on either side of their boat and wondered if they'd already rowed into it.

"We hide, and prepare," Dante said curtly.

The sun was setting, angry grey clouds filling the sky, and in the half-light the temple seemed to glow. Parts of it looked translucent as ice.

The reeds whispered around them as they scanned for a hint of land or earth. To Delilah, it sounded like a murmured warning, the words just too soft to catch but no less urgent. Her skin prickled and she felt Aki's dried blood on her hands - which she'd forgotten about - itch.

"Low clouds," she said. "Hopefully mist, too. Perfect." A moment later, she let out an exclamation. Beneath some particularly tall reeds, she'd spotted a mound of earth - a little muddy island.

Dante couldn't manoeuvre the boat in, so they jumped out and waded through waist-high water to drag it into cover. Delilah shivered: it was freezing and clammy. She imagined Aki's blood in the water slowly diffusing upstream, reaching her and soaking her with red -

Reeds closed in around them as they pulled the boat onto the island. Slipping and sliding, they clambered after it.

"This is hardly land," Dante said in disgust. "The mud is half water."

He was right, the island wasn't very stable. Delilah peered anxiously up at the reed heads around them. Some were feathery, and some were dull and brown and seemed to glare at them.

A gust of wind rippled the water, sending a reeking wave slamming into them.

"Blah!" Delilah spat out a mouthful of mud and wiped her face.

"I hate this place," Dante said vehemently.

"Maybe Ahura is angry with us."

He gave her a flat stare.

"At least I'm getting into the mood."

After a brief bout of arguing over roles, Delilah agreed to let Dante be the one who stayed out of sight. They gathered their materials, and got to work.

The moon reached its highest point in the sky and beamed down cold icy light. It illuminated the mist that clung to the Water Temple, not at all natural, and the cloaked figure that also seemed to glide above the water.