QUEST WORLD

Water Fight!

My eyes lift. A sword touches my neck, gripped in the unwavering fist of an adventurer.

Her eyes narrow on me from beneath a sweep of curling brown hair and her towering, leather-clad frame is draped in all the telltale quester necessities—weapons, provisions, supplies. She isn't one of the pomp and parade type of adventurers who demands an entourage; this woman is serious, and she's deadly, and I know with one look up at her that I'm done for.

And something about that just infuriates me.

I'm downright seething; my chest heaves; my vision goes red.

I rise slowly.

"Put down thIS USELESS PIECE OF METAL," I scream, "BEFORE I TWIST IT AROUND YOUR THROAT!"

The adventurer blinks at me.

Then she grins.

But she doesn't sheath her sword.

"I wasn't entirely sure that you were the sorcerer," she says. "Now I am."

My anger rises into my cheeks, and I know it paints my face red.

But footsteps thunder up the beach.

"Back off!" Sela shouts.

I knock aside the adventurer's sword and try to channel magic into my threat—wrap the sword around her throat and squeeze—but the adventurer reacts, tossing her sword aside to yank out a short knife.

My throat tightens, panic welling, and everything slows. I don't know the first thing about knife fighting; Sela and Steel are still too many paces away, up the shoreline; but the adventurer is diving towards me, pale eyes peeled wide, teeth bared.

A flash of light splits between us, like a lightning strike ripping down from the clear sky. It sends both the adventurer and I flailing apart—her into the forest, me into the pond.

The icy water splits around me and sucks me down before I can utter more than a garbled cry.

When I was younger, my oldest cousin shoved me into the river not far from the back of The Dizzy Ogre. He chortled laughter as I shrieked and fought the current, tumbling downstream in and out of the water until I caught a low-hanging branch and hauled myself free. I ran back to The Dizzy Ogre and made the mistake of sobbing the story to my uncle Etold—who took one look at his waterlogged niece and rolled his eyes.

"Not a full brownie, but clearly not something with water in its veins," he'd said. "Get out—you're dripping water in the kitchen."

That was one of the many reminders I'd gotten over my life that I'd have no support but myself.

So I went back to the river.

I went back, and back, and back, until I could swim even when the current was raging after a fresh rain, and I wasn't afraid anymore.

Now, when the pond water sucks me in, I hold under the surface long enough for my shock to subside. Who used lightning to break me apart from the adventurer? Likely not the adventurer herself—it'd thrown her back too. I hadn't done it either—I hadn't even been thinking about lightning. Sela's a hedgewitch, not one that can affect the elements like that. Steel's magic is only useful with the quill that I broke.

So there's someone else on the shore.

Someone else who is likely hunting me.

I exhale, bubbles rising around my face, and let the water suck me deeper.

It's quiet here. The slowly setting sun cuts rays of light through the water, rippling in the jostling current, reflecting off particles and hovering dirt.