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hard
when her lungs were crying out for air and more seaweed clawed at
her on all sides. She could see nothing in the dark water either,
so everything was by touch. She cut the tendril restraining her
wrist and twisted, lunging for the one at her ankle. A cold strand
of seaweed slid beneath her shirt. She bucked away from the slimy
intrusion.
    A loud crack sounded overhead. A gunshot
being fired.
    They might not be able to see her, but they
must be able to see evidence of her thrashing with the seaweed.
    Amaranthe finally cut herself free and
stroked away without any elegance. If she’d had any breath left,
she would have gone dozens of meters before breaking the surface,
but she had to come up long before then.
    The squabble with the seaweed left her
disoriented, and Amaranthe didn’t know where she was in relation to
the boat and the island. As soon as she lifted a hand to dash water
out of her eyes, something slammed into her from above.
    The weight forced her several feet under, and
she fumbled Sicarius’s knife, almost losing it. An arm snaked
around her torso, a strong muscled arm. The male thief. He was in
the water with her, on top of her.
    Metal scraped against her cheek. He had a
knife too.
    Amaranthe ducked her head to protect her neck
and slashed her blade into the arm restraining her. A yelp of pain
sounded, the noise distorted by the water.
    She twisted so she faced the man and stabbed
again, trying to find his torso in the darkness.
    Something brushed her foot. The cursed
seaweed again. It probably wanted to hold her down so he could
stick her like a pincushion.
    Amaranthe yanked her foot free, and kicked
hard with both legs, angling around the thief—or where she thought
he would be—thinking to take him by surprise. He might think she’d
flee and be chasing after her.
    A current breezed past; the thief swimming by
her?
    Amaranthe took a chance and lashed out with
Sicarius’s dagger. It slipped into flesh and muscle, far more
easily than a normal blade would have. The man screamed, but he
managed to grab her wrist as she was retracting the blade.
    Knowing he had his own knife, Amaranthe
pulled both legs up to her chest and kicked out. Her heels hammered
into the man’s abdomen, and he released her with a grunt.
    She ought to close and finish him, but she
needed air. She clawed her way to the surface, though she tried to
break the water carefully, so the woman would not hear if she were
nearby. Maybe the thief would be busy with her sinking ship.
    As soon as Amaranthe broke the surface, she
inhaled a great gulp of air. A rifle cracked, and water splashed
inches from her head.
    Amaranthe ducked back below the surface and
swam. She had not had a chance to get her bearings, and had no idea
which way she was going, only that she needed to put a lot of
meters between herself and the woman with the gun.
    She stroked until her lungs burned for air,
and then stroked farther. Only when her fingers scraped algae-slick
rock did she come up. She had run out of room to run. In her heart,
she hoped she had swum toward the mainland instead of the island,
but her brain knew that was unlikely—she hadn’t traveled far enough
for that.
    When she broke the surface, she let only a
couple inches of her face come out, just enough to breathe in
several deep breaths. When a few seconds passed with no one
shooting at her, she lifted her head farther.
    She was indeed back on the island, kneeling
in the shallows. The woman’s voice floated to her from twenty
meters away. Her boat was sinking—only an inch or two remained
above the water—and she had pulled the man to its side. She was
repeating something over and over. His name? He floated in the
water on his back, unmoving.
    Amaranthe closed her eyes, grimly realizing
that she’d killed the man. The poison. Even in the water, some of
it must have remained on Sicarius’s knife.
    When Amaranthe opened her eyes, the woman was
looking in her direction. The darkness hid the