Water: Daughter of Nature, #3

By L.C. Mawson

On my list of "ways this could get worse", sharing my mind with someone else wasn't up there...

But I don't have time to dwell on that. If my sister is going to keep sending monsters after me, it's time to go on the offensive and finally track her down. Before she can hurt anyone else...

I'm nowhere near as powerful as her yet, but I'm out of options.

 

If you love kick-ass heroines and magical adventures, you'll love WATER, the third book in L.C. Mawson's new F/F urban fantasy series, Daughter of Nature.

 

Get it now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.C. Mawson
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215815311

Book preview

Chapter One

Everything hurt as I tried to pry my eyes open, sleep keeping them glued shut.

Hey, be gentle, I think you burned yourself out healing me. If you get up too fast, you could hurt yourself.

I frowned as much as I could, but even the barest movement of my muscles hurt like hell.

Noah? I asked mentally. What are you still doing in my head?

As much as I couldn’t see anything, I got the strong sense that he was shrugging. I have no idea. When you passed out, I started to see fragments of colour and sound. Your dreams, I assume, and I didn’t want to intrude, so I tried to shut off the mental link between us, but nothing I did worked. I think you’ll have to be the one to close it.

I thought you didn’t want it closed.

Well, I didn’t, but I wasn’t thinking about being mentally linked to you all of the time. You would never have any privacy.

I shuddered at the thought of him not just seeing a clearer version of my dreams next time, but being stuck in my head while I changed, or spent time with Dana.

Or had to go to the loo.

I concentrated, trying to mentally push him away.

Are you still there?

Yes.

I would have groaned if my throat felt up to the task.

Can you show me how to do this? Cutting off mental bonds isn’t exactly something I have experience with.

Okay, um... I usually find it helpful to visualise things. So, maybe picture yourself by a river.

Umm... Okay? I’m picturing it.

Okay, so, you know those little paper boats? Imagine you have one, and that’s me. Just put it on the water and send it on its way.

Okay, I replied as I did what he said, taking a little paper boat and imagining a tiny version of Noah in a little sailor hat sitting on top of it for good measure before sending it down the river until I couldn’t see it any more.

I waited for a few more moments, making sure that the boat was truly gone before asking, Are you still there?

Yes.

I sighed. Okay, what now?

Maybe you’re just not a boat person.

Well, I mean, I’m not really an ‘outside’ person.

Okay, so, let’s try again, but with a computer. Like, imagine we’re talking online, and it’s time to hang up on me.

I imagined a computer in front of me and my messaging app open. I’d only used the call function a couple of times, but I remembered enough to picture it in my mind, move the mouse over to the ‘End Call’ button and hang up.

Are you still there?

Yes...

I sighed before closing the messaging app, finding it in the hidden icons and making sure it was closed for good.

Still there?

Yep.

I shut down the computer.

Still-

Yeah.

I leaned under the desk and grabbed the power cable from the back of the computer and yanked it out.

Still there?

Yeah, I’m still here.

I groaned, though all that came out of my throat was a tiny hum. What was the problem here? Was I just bad at visualisation, or...?

Wait, I keep asking if you’re still there. What if I’m reconnecting the link to talk to you after I’ve disconnected it?

Hmm... You might be right.

Okay, let’s try this one more time, and you tell me if you’re still there. Okay?

Okay.

This time, I imagined a massive machine in front of me, with a large cable coming out of it, connecting me to Noah. The cable was so large I could barely get my hands around it, but I grabbed it as hard as I could.

Okay, I’m disconnecting it now. Let me know if you’re still there in a few moments.

I grabbed the cable tight and pulled as hard as I could, the three-pronged plug coming out of the machine in a shower of sparks as I fell back.

The silence was deafening as I took a deep breath.

I’m still here.

Fuck!

Before I could think of something else to try, heavy footsteps approached me.

Poppy? Are you awake? You’re... You’re frowning a lot.

I managed to finally pry my eyes open at Viktor’s voice, as I realised that my brow was furrowed, and I’d just got used to the pain.

Viktor smiled. Hey, you’re up. How are you doing?

I groaned again, and this one actually sound like a groan, before I tried to push myself up, only for my arms to give up after the barest movement.

I don’t feel great, I managed, every word a struggle. Everything hurts.

Yeah, you burnt yourself out. But that doesn’t account for the amount of damage you sustained when healing Noah.

I took a deep breath, realising what he meant. The magic I was tapping into...

It was poisoned, and you must have absorbed that poison. Probably just as you did when fighting the vine creature. The more you tap into nature to access more power...

The faster it’s going to hurt me. So, how long do I have? I mean, how much of it can I take before I end up like my sister?

He sighed. Well, we’re not even sure that the poisoning was the thing that killed her originally, so...

I didn’t mean before it kills me. I mean before I, you know... Decide to subjugate all of humanity.

Viktor folded his arms. I don’t think it’s, like, a firm binary, Poppy. Like, at a certain amount of poison, all morality goes out of the window. It’s probably more complicated than that.

I just gave a non-committal hum. Neither of us knew how it worked, but one thing was for certain, the poison couldn’t be helping anything.

Anyway, Viktor continued, you’ll heal from this with some rest. And Noah... Well, he seems to be healing, too. It’s so slow we nearly didn’t realise, but whatever your cocoon is doing, it’s working. It just might take a few months to heal him fully, and... And it seems to be using part of your power to do it.

You’re using up your magic to heal me. You won’t be able to reach full power while I’m here. If your sister attacks-

If my sister attacks, we’ll deal with it together. I’m not gonna leave you to die just to increase my own power. Just like I wouldn’t leave Dana.

Noah’s fine, I said aloud, hoping that would stop Noah from trying to argue further. I formed some kind of telepathic link with him after I put him in the cocoon.

Viktor frowned. So... He’s listening to us right now?

I tried to nod, but it felt like a spear through my neck. Yeah, he is. I haven’t been able to figure out how to disconnect it, so... He’s just gonna be permanently in my head for now.

Well, if you can hear me, Noah, I’m glad that you’re alive. And so is David. He and Dana had to be practically dragged out of here and forced to get some rest. It’s still the middle of the night.

I frowned, ignoring the shooting pain between my brows. Have you slept?

No. I needed to keep an eye on both of you. But don’t worry about me, now that you’re up and stable, I can get some rest in a bit.

Okay. I made an effort to relax my muscles, hoping that it eased the pain. It helped, but only a bit. What happened while I was passed out?

Well, we brought you back to the Elves. They insisted on getting you back to full health before letting you leave, and I’m going to insist that you take them up on that offer. I know you’re worried about putting people in danger here, but the odds of an attack happening soon are far less than those of you hurting yourself because you tried to move too quickly.

Okay, I said, without much enthusiasm. If I could move, I probably would have argued, but as it was, the pain everywhere else was drowning out the guilt twisting my stomach.

The poison and weapon specialists here have also been examining the assassin’s dagger. They believe that the blade itself was actually forged for one of the Demon noble houses, while the poison was specially ordered from Atlantis. It’s expensive, but not particularly rare, given that Demons can heal from it, where Slayers usually can’t.

So... Is this Demon noble house after me? Or have they partnered with my sister? Why?

We don’t know. We can’t be sure that the blade wasn’t stolen at some point in the past, so it might not even mean anything.

But if the poison is expensive... I mean, nobility must have money, right?

Viktor shrugged. So do a lot of people. Anyway, I know next to nothing about Demon politics, and no one here was certain of any connection. What they were certain of was that no one would order this expensive poison if they didn’t think they had a use for it, and I was with you when they first attacked, so they must have known that the poison wouldn’t kill all of your allies. And it wouldn’t kill you, either. But it would have knocked us out.

So then their plan was probably to knock me out and then kill me.

"Except there are poisons that would have harmed you more. That would have knocked you out quicker, or weakened you enough to be sure that they actually could kill you. The Fin’Hathan and I think that knocking you out was deliberate. We don’t think this was an assassination attempt, we think it was a kidnapping attempt."

But why would Demons want to kidnap me? Unless... Unless my sister really did hire them.

It looks like she’s getting impatient to meet you. But all of this is still speculation. I can make us all inoculants against the poison for now. Which just leaves where we go next... Any ideas?

I was going to try the necklace again. Maybe ask Willow if she knows who it’s sending me to next...

Well, I’m going to use a rune to ease your pain, and you should try to get some sleep. We can all talk about it some more in the morning.

THE NEXT TIME I AWOKE, I was in a lot less pain. Whether that was to do with Viktor’s rune or the fact that I had started to recover, I didn’t know. I suspected