She pointed her head face up, gasping for air with the surface barely an inch from her mouth. A burst of bubbles rose from her lips.
But Mira’s grip was strong and gave her no room to rise.
Katryna’s stinging eyes went wide as she watched her mother’s ghostly, distorted figure above her through the sloshing water.
Mira did not move. She remained on the side of the bathtub with her arms extended into the water, keeping Katryna beneath the surface.
Katryna fought and kicked as she realised she was drowning. She tried to stand but slipped. She tried to climb but was forced back down. She flailed about like a dying fish.
She was not weak, but her mother’s sudden strength could not be overcome. She clawed at her mother’s arms like a wild animal, drawing blood and scratching strips of skin away.
Still, Mira held her down.
Katryna felt her lungs screaming for air. Her chest grew tight. She began to gag and splutter, choking on more water.
She swung her arms and legs about, trying to get a foothold or grab something that wasn’t slippery. Anything at all. The tub was too steep and too wet, too smooth to grip.
Her vision began to diminish. Her head spun and everything slowly began to fade.
The silence began to come back.
Her muscles lost strength as she continued to fight, but Katryna could not catch a breath of air no matter how hard she struggled.
As she grew weaker, Mira pushed her down all the way the bottom of the bathtub.
An icy cold embrace began to consume her entire body.
Then from out of nowhere, another silhouette appeared above Katryna’s sightline, colliding with Mira. Her mother’s tight grip on Katryna’s shoulders was released, and the drowning girl was pulled from the water.
Someone had managed to stop Katryna’s mother from killing her.
The silence disappeared as Katryna fell to the floor, dripping wet and naked. She threw up all the water she had swallowed, taking huge breaths in between the bouts of vomiting. The floor became slick with puddles of water and sick.
She could hear screaming. A woman. It was her mother. And then she heard a man’s voice. A familiar one.
He must have stopped mother, Katryna realised, before going straight back to her breathless huffing.
Katryna slumped onto the slick floor, coughing and gasping. Her blurry vision slowly returned as she caught sight of the man who had managed to save her.
He wore silk clothes and had a stocky build. He was yelling at Mira who was pinned against the wall. The look on her face was one Katryna had never seen before. Her mother stared so menacingly, so wrathfully at her daughter that it gave her chills.
The man holding Mira back … was her father, Giliam.
Katryna came to her senses as tears fell from her eyes. She curled up into the foetal position on the wet floor, crying, staring at her parents.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Mira?! Have you lost your damn mind?!” Giliam screamed at her.
“I only wanted her to feel how Willem felt,” Mira said coldly, unblinking. “I wanted all this to end!”
Katryna continued to uncontrollably cough up water, shivering. Her entire chest was spasming.
“You could have killed her!”
“She deserves to die, the murderous bitch!”
Smack.
Giliam had struck Mira with all her might in the side of her face. His arms were shaking and his eyes bulging from his head with fury.
Yet, he did not speak another word.
Katryna stumbled to her feet, trying to flee the insanity before her. She could not think. All she could do was get away.
As she staggered naked towards the door, she realised Trish was standing in the corridor outside. Katryna realised that her father must have finally released her.
Trish’s eyes were filled with tears, her hands holding back screams over her mouth. She was in just as much shock as Katryna was.
Katryna fell into Trish’s arms, looking up at her friend’s scarred face, begging for help.
“Please,” Katryna whispered, unable to gather the energy to speak any louder. “We must leave.”
But Trish could hear the desperation in her voice. She wrapped her coat around the naked princess, before helping her back to her feet and running for her quarters.
Katryna put her arm around Trish’s shoulder for aid. She staggered from the bathroom, cold and in shock.
They were followed by the sound of her mother’s screams of agony. Why Mira was screaming and crying, Katryna did not know, and did not care.
Katryna’s heart pounded from her chest. Her mind was set on running as far away as possible, away from the woman who had nearly drowned her.
Under Trish’s supportive embrace she felt an ounce of security return, yet the thought of being in the same home as her mother was filling Katryna with dread.
“If I stay, she will kill me,” Katryna said as they stumbled for her bedroom. “She… she will kill me.”
Trish nodded, flicking her golden hair from her face as she continued to help Katryna walk. “Then we will leave. Tonight.”
“Th…thank you, Trish.”
“Don’t worry, I will protect you, m’lady. We will get out of this cursed place for good.”
Chapter 38 - The Two Assassins
Katryna Bower could not make sense of the storm raging inside her head.
It was Trish all along. What have you done? How can this be?
The thought was almost too difficult to comprehend. Her best friend, a woman she had grown up with, run away from home with, experienced so much with… could this woman really have orchestrated the assassination of her parents and aunt?
It wasn’t even the how of the situation that bothered her so
