A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,227

of mean?”

“No, it’s hilarious. Look, I know you’re never going to be that undisciplined again, so don’t worry about that. And for you it’s a valuable lesson on the need to practice, to achieve that discipline. Power without control is useless. For me—well, look. I’m one of the people who has to clean the skeletons out of Bryn’s Lung every so often. I need to get my laughs where I can.”

Since I hadn’t been hurt and she knew I wouldn’t be, I supposed it had been funny and I could laugh with her. She coached me for a while longer on how to direct myself through the water, and once I had demonstrated to her satisfaction that I could move in any direction and stop when she said stop, she had one more test for me.

“This is the last thing we need to do. After this we’ll go get you dressed and signed up in the pelenaut’s service. After all that you’ll be itching to get back in the ocean, trust me.” She pointed to another couple that had surfaced during my practice: some other rapid helping out the newly blessed. “We need to get out of the way for this. Follow me out a bit deeper.”

We sliced through the choppy waves for perhaps a hundred lengths at a moderate clip before she called a halt and we treaded water.

“Okay, face south from here. There’s nothing in your way, nothing you have to steer around. Open ocean but not so deep that you have to worry about the huge predators coming up from underneath. We are going to propel ourselves south as fast as we can. Try to keep up with me—no: try to beat me. If you do pass me and you feel yourself coming apart, stop immediately.”

“Coming apart? That’s a thing I have to worry about?”

“It’s not a bad thing—poor phrasing. I mean if you feel your body kind of letting go and you’re becoming one with the water to move faster through it, just stop. Really.”

“All right.”

“Dinner’s on me if you beat me.” She flashed a grin and then shot through the water without warning, sloshing me in her wake.

“Hey!” That wouldn’t slow her down, so there was only one thing to do: go that way, really fast.

The power rose faster now at my command, practice and confidence making visualization and execution nearly simultaneous. I didn’t think at first I could ever catch up because she was seriously moving through the water faster than a horse could run on land, but I kept willing myself to move faster and faster and committed my whole will to surpassing her, and the gap between us narrowed. In a minute my fists were even with her feet, and in the next five seconds I had surpassed her, my heels even with her fists. It was thrilling to slice through the water like that, vast plumes of spray arcing in our wake, moving much faster than most fish could swim, and I kept going, the ocean beckoning me forward, and I realized that I was grinning in the face of it, truly enjoying my life for the first time since hearing that Festwyf had fallen. But that thought triggered another cloud bank of rage in my brain, and I was no longer swimming for the pleasure of it or for a friendly contest but in rage against those who had taken my family, adding on speed in a desperate attempt to outrun my grief.

I knew something had gone wrong when the pressure of water against my fists abruptly ceased and I could no longer in fact see my hands in front of me. I stopped wishing to move forward, and something wrenched inside of me, a stabbing pain in my chest and a throbbing vibration behind my eyes as I slowed to a stop in the water and windmilled my arms to turn around. I felt exhausted and winded and wondered where Nara had gone. I checked that I was truly facing north, and I was: the coast lay off to my left now. Where was Gerstad du Fesset? Had she perhaps passed me without my knowledge? I turned to check the south sea again but saw nothing. Growing worried, I faced north again and was relieved to see the telltale spray of the rapid’s wake approaching. I sent up a fountain of water—a large but still quite sloppy one—to give her my location.

When she slowed herself and the water calmed