Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 57
Mayah moves through two layered, dreamlike states. In the first, she’s briefly pulled into a memory of warmth and closeness with someone she once loved, but the feeling dissolves almost immediately into something nightmarish. Mayah finds herself outside, restrained, at the mercy of a man who threatens and degrades her. The dream grows more dangerous before it suddenly breaks apart with a sound, a presence, and a voice that pulls her back from the edge.
The second dream settles around Zev. Mayah knows Zev is there before anything else registers, his scent giving him away in the dark. He comes to her with nothing gentle about him, holding her down, leaving marks. Mayah says Zev’s name over and over, not to stop him but to reach him, telling him she needs him close.
Zev finally speaks. He accuses Mayah of destroying him when all he wanted was her love. Mayah tries to tell Zev she does love him, and he cuts her off, refusing to hear it. Zev takes what he came for, and Mayah lets him, begging his forgiveness even as she gives herself over entirely.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 58
Mayah wakes up after sleeping for two and a half days, disoriented and tended to by Vykiss, whom she quickly starts calling Vy. Vy awkwardly admits that Mayah was calling out Zev’s name in her sleep, and Mayah makes Vy swear to keep it quiet.
When Mayah steps outside, she sees Zev chained up across the camp, beaten and in bad shape. Mayah starts moving toward him, but General Sorka cuts her off before she can get there.
Sorka pulls Mayah aside and asks about his son Daak, who’s been missing from briefings. Mayah tells Sorka that Daak was caught underground the day Zev found out about the escape plan. The news destroys Sorka. He also hands Mayah back her mother’s necklace, which had been found in Zev’s pocket.
Sorka then tells Mayah that having Zev as a prisoner gives them leverage over Arbinj and that her father is arriving that night.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 59
Sorka takes Mayah on a tour of the camp, where Zev is restrained on a platform in the middle. Mayah learns that after a series of Rebellion attacks, Tundrayn received permission to establish camps inside Arbinj’s borders and that the warriors Zev left behind in the capital will have to find their own way home without him.
That night, Vykiss comes into the tent clearly upset. She tells Mayah that she knows Mayah has feelings for Zev. Vy figured it out because Mayah murmured his name while unconscious, and Mayah’s reaction to seeing Zev in poor condition made it obvious.
Vy then opens up about something that happened to her years ago. Two waterwielders she had treated came back to her healing tent and forcibly shared their power with her. Vy reported them to Sorka, who believed her, and eventually sent both men to the front lines, where they died.
Mayah then hears a familiar voice outside and realizes her father has just arrived at the camp.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 60
Mayah comes out of the tent to find her father arriving at camp. King Tormik walks straight past Mayah and goes for Zev instead, striking Zev across the face twice. Zev taunts Tormik into acknowledging his daughter, which turns everyone’s eyes to Mayah, but Tormik brushes it off and walks away. Mayah follows him into Sorka’s tent.
Once they’re alone, Tormik asks if Mayah is well. Mayah briefs him on the Rebellion attacks, Zev’s trip to the border, and her plans for the Equinox. Tormik tells Mayah his side staged most of those attacks themselves to pull Zev away from camp and give Mayah more room to carry out her mission. When Mayah stopped making contact with Daak, they assumed she was being closely watched.
When it comes to explaining how she was caught, Mayah lies and says Zev found her in the tunnels with Daak and his guards. Mayah starts to mention that she fainted, but Tormik cuts her off.
Tormik then lays out what comes next. With Zev as a prisoner, Tormik plans to use him as leverage against Varad to push for expanded territory and whatever else Varad will give up to get his son back. The endgame is to lure Varad and his heir to camp under the pretense of finalizing a deal, where Tormik plans to kill them both.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 61
Mayah can’t sleep and sneaks out to check on Zev, who’s restrained in the center of camp with two guards watching him. Mayah splits two trees with her power to draw the guards away, then crosses the camp to reach Zev. He’s been badly beaten, and Mayah uses her healing abilities to repair his internal injuries without touching the visible wounds. She feeds Zev bread and gives him water while she works.
Zev repeatedly demands to know why Mayah is helping him. She deflects by asking why he didn’t let her die when she was bleeding out before. Zev says he won’t give anyone else the pleasure of killing her. Once Mayah finishes healing him, she tries to take away his pain, but Zev shuts her down, saying the pain keeps him focused on surviving long enough to kill her.
Mayah leaves without answering Zev’s question. She tells herself she’s keeping him alive because it’s practical, but she knows that isn’t the real reason.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 62
During a break in training, one of the warriors named Parku confronts Zev, accusing him of killing his father. Rather than defusing the situation, Zev provokes Parku, and Parku hits him twice before Mayah steps in, calling Parku over to help carry supplies. The distraction works, though Mayah’s father notices.
Later that night, Mayah sneaks to Zev’s tent and heals his wounds. When Zev asks why she intervened, the truth slips out before Mayah can stop it. She tells Zev she couldn’t stand seeing him get hurt. Zev calls it a pretty lie. Mayah finishes healing him without another word and slips back to her tent, where Vy is already awake and watching her.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 63
Mayah is caught by Vy, who figured out that Mayah had slipped away somewhere off-limits. Vy offers to stay quiet in exchange for a future favor, and Mayah agrees.
The next morning, Mayah’s father interrogates Zev about troop numbers and military alliances. Zev refuses and responds with open contempt, so King Tormik uses his water abilities to drown Zev repeatedly, letting him recover just enough each time before starting again. The warriors take turns beating Zev throughout the day.
Mayah holds herself together until a strategy meeting with her father, where she vomits on the floor. King Tormik’s first question is whether Mayah is pregnant rather than whether she was harmed. Mayah snaps at her father and storms out, ready to go after the warriors herself, but Vy intercepts her and gets her back to the tent.
In the middle of the night, Mayah wakes and creeps to the tent opening to check on Zev. King Tormik approaches the platform where Zev is chained and demands to know whether Zev hurt Mayah. Zev turns the question back on King Tormik, noting that Mayah’s father was the one who sent her to an enemy. The confrontation escalates until lightning strikes near the platform.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 64
Mayah catches her father conjuring lightning and realizes he’s a stormwielder. She confronts him in front of the camp, and he responds by publicly framing Mayah as unstable, telling the gathered warriors that her time in Arbinj has made her emotional. Mayah doesn’t back down. She asks her father about her mother’s death, and when he tries to walk away without answering, Mayah raises a wall of ice to stop him.
Cornered, Mayah’s father finally confesses. He killed Meerah because she’d taken Mayah with her when she fled, and he refused to lose his heir. As for the storms Mayah feared throughout her childhood, those were his doing too, his way of trying to drive the fear out of her.
The confession shatters whatever loyalty Mayah still had to her father. She climbs onto the platform where Zev is restrained, picks the locks on his iron collar and cuffs with ice, and sets him free. Then Mayah turns on her father and attacks.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 65
Mayah unleashes her water-wielding abilities on the camp, but her father deflects her attack without effort. Mayah goes after him directly while the warriors start closing in around her. Zev, who’s been a prisoner for days and is in rough shape, struggles just to get to his feet. Warriors move to escort the king out, and though Mayah tries to stop them, her father slips away into the trees under guard.
The fight gets messier from there. Archers join in alongside the warriors, and Vy pulls Sorka into her tent, making it clear she’s claiming him as hers to protect. Mayah holds the warriors off while Zev finds his footing again. Once Zev is upright, they fight side by side. Zev manages to take down a couple of men with lightning but is too depleted to keep it up.
Mayah and Zev come up with a plan. Mayah floods the entire camp with a shallow layer of water, and Zev brings a bolt of lightning down into it. Every man still standing is electrocuted. The warriors all fall, and none get back up.
Before Mayah can fully process what just happened, someone hits her from behind, and everything goes dark.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 66
Mayah wakes up bound in iron cuffs, riding on horseback with Zev at her back. She confronts him about knocking her out, and he confirms that every man from the camp is dead. The weight of that hits her hard since she helped kill her own people.
After about two hours, Mayah and Zev stop in a clearing to rest and eat. Zev cuts the rope from her wrists but leaves the iron cuffs in place. He tells her to stop dwelling on the guilt and make peace with what they did.
Mayah asks what comes next. Zev says he has no intention of returning to Arbinj and is thinking about heading to Volca or somewhere further out. When she asks him where that leaves her, he admits he hasn’t figured it out yet. He explains that he knocked her out because he couldn’t trust her not to turn on him while he was still vulnerable, and that even with her having tended to his injuries, that distrust hasn’t gone away.
Mayah argues that keeping her cuffed is a liability if they run into trouble on the road. Zev moves closer, grabs her by the jaw, and makes it plain that any betrayal or attack will cost her her life. Then, almost as an afterthought, he tells her that if she tries to run, he’ll let her go.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 67
Zev removes Mayah’s shackles, and she offers to heal him as a truce. Mayah heals herself first, then tends to Zev’s wounds. There’s a brief, charged moment between them, but it breaks the second Mayah says his name. Zev shuts down, tells her to stop touching him, and walks off to tend to the horse.
When a storm starts gathering, Mayah and Zev sit across from each other and lay out their plans. Mayah wants to kill her father and take the throne of Tundrayn. Zev questions whether her people would ever accept her after the bloodshed at the camp. Mayah admits she doesn’t know but feels she has no real alternative.
Mayah then mentions possibly returning to Zev’s father in Arbinj to cut another deal, which angers Zev. Mayah argues that she’s already shown whose side she’s on by healing him and sneaking him food every night in captivity, but Zev refuses to budge.
Once the rain picks up, Zev tells Mayah to get in the tent. She resists until she realizes she doesn’t have much of a choice. Mayah goes in because the storm terrifies her and Zev is the closest thing to safety she has.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 68
During a thunderstorm, Mayah has a panic attack in the tent she shares with Zev, slipping into traumatic memories of the night her mother was killed. Zev pulls Mayah against him and touches her intimately until she finishes. When Mayah tries to reciprocate, Zev shuts her down coldly.
Mayah confronts Zev, confessing that despite her original plan to take revenge on his father, everything she felt for him was genuine. Zev asks about her captain. Mayah admits she loved the captain but insists her feelings for Zev were different, and she begs for another chance. Zev leans in close enough that Mayah thinks he’s about to kiss her, then tells her he doesn’t believe her and turns away.
Mayah asks why Zev touched her at all. Zev says it was only to stop her whimpering and that calling her “baby” was just because his wrist was cramping and he needed her to finish quickly. Mayah cries quietly and eventually falls asleep.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 69
Mayah wakes up seething and immediately confronts Zev at camp. She issues a string of ultimatums. Zev is not to touch her again, and she plans to leave the moment she gets the chance. Mayah also wants their marriage annulled. Zev responds with cold indifference, then abruptly cuts her off and pushes her behind him.
More than a dozen armed men step out of the trees. Zev threatens the rebels with a gathering storm, but Mayah shoves past him to address them directly. Zev grabs her and hauls her back.
Then a woman’s voice rises from the group, calling Zev “Vayru” instead of Zev. The rebels step aside to let her through. She pulls back her hood to reveal an older woman with dark hair shot through with white, worn in braids. Her kind and motherly eyes are what stop Mayah cold.
Between Tides & Thunder Chapter 70
Zev comes face to face with his mother Tairna, whom he believed was dead. Tairna tells Zev she fled because nonwielders like her were treated so badly that she couldn’t stay. Zev bitterly points out that she left him behind with his father, who told him she went home to Volca.
Tairna tells Mayah she knew Mayah’s mother, Meerah. Both were nonwielders with royal children who eventually found their way to the rebels, where they met. Meerah made Tairna promise to look after Mayah, and Tairna has been watching from a distance ever since. The Rebellion tried to intercept Mayah in Tundrayn before she reached Arbinj, but the plan fell apart because they didn’t expect Zev to be there.
Then, Tairna asks Mayah to join the Rebellion. Tairna wants Varad and Tormik gone and believes Mayah is the key. Zev tells Mayah not to trust the offer, but Mayah is torn between the chance for revenge and what she feels for Zev.sorka
Before Mayah can answer, Sura runs into the clearing. Mayah had believed Sura was dead. Sura tells Mayah she escaped the night Zev burned their camp and has been with the Rebellion ever since, along with Tumaas. Sura asks Mayah to come with them, and Mayah makes her choice.