Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen (top 10 novels txt) 📕

“Lydia?” he whispered, treading water, listening for any sound of her. She didn’t answer, and his heart flipped with the certainty that something had happened. That she was drowning. Or worse, that she was already swimming to shore intent on taking lives. “Lydia?”

Then his skin prickled.

It was so dark he couldn’t see his hand in front of his own face, and the only smell was the reek of everything draining from the city. But he knew she was there.

The water rippled against him, and almost the same moment he saw the faint glow of her eyes, he felt her breath against his cheek.

“Why didn’t you let me kill her?” The fury in her voice made him want to back away. “Why didn’t you kill her?”

“Because we couldn’t kill her and get out alive.”

“She murdered my parents! Stole every drop of life from my father and stabbed my mother in the back. And you might have cost me my only chance at vengeance!”

They didn’t have time for this. Already he could hear shouts of alarm from the fortress they’d escaped, which were spreading down to the edge of the lake.

“Agrippa told Rufina what he overheard the mimics saying to you.” He cast a glance toward shore. “Your mother died to save you, Lydia. Do you think she’d wish for you to die in pursuit of vengeance?” And though he knew it was cruel to say, he added, “Wouldn’t that make her death for nothing?”

She sucked in a breath, and his skin crawled, warning him that he was treading on dangerous ground. That like this, she might attack. And in the water, he might not be able to fight her off.

“Agrippa and Baird didn’t betray us. They have Malahi,” he said as the alarm bells rang through the city. “But getting her out of Derin will be next to impossible—they need our help. Mudamora needs her—and it needs you—far more than it needs Rufina dead. You need to fight for the living.”

“I’m no good to anyone now,” she whispered. “I’m corrupt.”

He’d seen it. Knew it. But hearing it from her lips carved out his insides because he couldn’t lose her. Not again. “Only if you want to be.”

She didn’t answer.

“We need to go,” he said. “Need to steal a boat before the beaches are crawling with soldiers.”

“You should leave me.” Her voice was choked. “Go. Get Malahi back to Mudamora. It’s what you were meant to do.”

“What I was meant to do was be with you.” Reaching out, he caught her around the waist, drawing closer. “To never leave your side and to guard your back until one of us ceases to draw breath.”

“You swore that to Malahi.”

“I swore it to you first, even if you weren’t there to hear it. Swore it a hundred times with you in my heart. And even if I had not, I love you. And if this is where you choose to make your stand, I will be at your side until the bitter end.”

“I’m not getting you killed, Killian—” Her voice cracked on his name. “Go!”

“No.”

“Damn it!” she snarled. “And damn you and your bloody honor.”

“Curse it all you want, I’m not leaving you.”

He could feel her thinking, trying to decide what to do. Then she said, “Fine. How do you propose we steal a boat?”

Relief flooded him. “First we need to find one.”

They swam silently toward the shore, which, judging from the noise, was already crawling with soldiers.

“Can you see them?”

“Faintly. The fog is obscuring them.”

Hopefully water would do the same. Squinting toward the bobbing torchlights, Killian examined the dozens of fishing vessels tied up to the docks, a small one catching his eye. “Can you swim underwater that far?” he asked, pointing.

“Yes, but the second we climb into that boat, the corrupted are going to see us. Me, especially.”

“That’s why we’re not going to get in. Let’s go.”

Taking a deep breath, he dived under the water, swimming hard toward the vessel, trusting his sense of direction to keep him on course in the blackness. The brightness of the torches grew, and he flipped on his back, swimming until he saw the boat’s shadow overhead. Setting his feet against the ground, he braced his hands against the bottom of the rowboat, then slowly tipped it.

His chest grew tight with the need to breathe, but Killian didn’t dare move faster. Not when the slightest splash would alert those hunting them. He sensed Lydia next to him, felt the water push locks of her hair against his face as she reached up to help him turn the boat.

And then they had it over.

Rising into the pocket of air beneath it, he sucked in a deep breath, hearing Lydia do the same. He moved to the front and untied the knot holding the boat to the dock, then whispered, “We’ll walk it out as far as we can, then head down the shore a bit before flipping it over.”

“This is insane,” she whispered back, her eyes glowing in the darkness. “Someone will see us.”

His gut told him otherwise. “Let’s go.”

Holding on to the edges of the rowboat, they eased it out between its larger neighbors and headed into deeper water, Killian’s waterlogged boots catching in the twist of weeds. Only once they reached the drop-off did he turn the boat south, ignoring the temptation to stick his head out from under the water to see if they’d been spotted.

Only when he was certain that they were truly hidden by the fog did he slip into the open, but all there was to see was darkness, even the lights of the city lost to the thick grey mist. The water rippled, and Lydia emerged, her eyes no longer glowing. “You see anything I don’t?”

“Nothing.” Her voice was tight. Strained.

“Let’s flip the boat.”

Together, they dragged it closer to shore, then eased it over, taking care not to make any noise. Climbing in, Killian untied the oars from where they were fastened and set them in the locks, heading