Chapter 18
Maren
“Help!” I screamed in panic.
With my back pressed against the glass wall behind me, I moved along the ledge in the only direction I still could, toward the exit from the palace.
Fear seized my heart in its icy grip. My skin crawled with horror as the tentacles splashed and slithered in the pool of the great hall, threatening to drag me under again, back to the cold darkness I’d just escaped.
A guard cracked open the heavy front door and tentatively peeked inside.
“Who’s in here?” he asked cautiously.
“Help me, please!” I rushed to him.
He reached out to give me a hand, then jerked it away, stepping behind the door.
“What happened to you?” He gave me a once-over, his features pinching in repulsion.
I glanced down at my naked, slime-covered body. Black pearls clung to my skin like a disease. If there was a way to explain this, I didn’t know it.
“I-I need Kye,” I stuttered.
That was all I could think of. I needed to see him. Only he knew how to make me feel safe in this wretched, weird, dangerous world. Only he could protect me.
“His Majesty isn’t here. He hasn’t returned from his walk last evening.”
“He hasn’t...”
The other guard opened the second half of the massive double doors, peeking in.
“What’s going on here?” he grumbled, before staring at me too.
The crashing of the waves in the great hall behind me and the slapping of the otherworldly flesh against glass jolted me with a new rush of panic.
“The king...” I panted, struggling to breathe. “Where is the king?”
“I’m here!” His strong voice sounded from the plaza behind the guards.
His tall figure emerged from the graying pre-sunrise air.
“Kye...” I exhaled, leaning against the closest wall for support. Relief was so overwhelming, it rendered me momentarily too weak to stand on my own.
“Maren? Why are you here? What happened?” He rushed up the steps to the doors.
The guards shrank away from him, and he pushed the doors open with force. The metal grate on the wooden doors turned to glass under his touch, but he paid it no mind.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, taking in my sorry state. Raising his hand, he hovered it next to my slime-smeared face.
I’d give everything for just one hug from him at that moment. I needed to have his arms around me and for him to tell me in that deep, soothing voice of his that everything was going to be fine, that I was safe.
“Who did this to you, my love?” he growled, glowering at the slime and pearls on my body.
“A...um, a god.” I tried to stay still, even as everything in me wished to lean into his hand for a caress. “They called him the Ancient One. Jay...Jah...something...ham?
“Jahanam,” he said in a grave voice.
“The vengeful God of the Abyss!” both guards gasped at once.
A high wave of dark water rose from the ocean on the other side of the plaza. It blocked the sky, rising higher and higher. When it would inevitably crash to the ground, there’d be no plaza, no gardens, and no palace stairs anymore.
The guards froze in shock, as did I.
“Run!” Kye gestured inside the palace. “Up! To the tower.”
Both guards ran in the opposite direction, however, to the shore on the other end of the island. As sirens, they sought safety in the ocean. As a human, I was the safest on land. And Kye chose to stay with me.
Water sloshed under our feet, flooding the corridors of the palace. Tendrils of dark mud spread through it, searching, prodding.
“They’re here,” I croaked through my tightening throat. “They came after me.”
“This way.” Kye directed me to the great hall.
My feet refused to obey, however. I couldn’t bring myself to enter the same room I’d just fled in so much fear.
“We’ll need to get to the tower,” Kye explained.
A crashing noise came from outside. The giant wave slammed into the island.
“Hold on!” Kye yelled, grabbing onto the nearest wall.
I hugged a corner as tightly as I could.
The heavy palace doors screeched and cracked but held against the impact. Only a thin film of water slipped under the doors, washing away the slime from the floor.
“Come on, Maren. Faster,” Kye urged.
I ran into the great hall after him and started moving along it by cautiously shuffling my feet along the ledge to the other side.
Kye waited for me to get ahead, then stepped onto the ledge too. A long, black tail whipped through the air, then slapped the glass ledge in front of me.
I jumped in horror, then stood still, splaying my hands on the glass wall behind me.
A female shape emerged from the water. Black, glossy maggots crawled inside the open sores on her soggy breasts.
“Where do you think you’re going, warm thing?” the undead mermaid hissed through her decomposing lips.
“Stay away, ghoul,” Kye warned, stepping closer to me.
She cackled in response. The torn skin around the deep gash on her neck flapped with a disgustingly wet noise. The surface of the water bubbled and foamed around her as another ghostly female emerged.
“There you are, oh mighty king. Come. Join us for a swim,” the mermaid croaked. Her one black eye focused on Kye. Her other eye was missing, and a pale tentacle of some creature slithered out of the empty socket instead.
Kye smirked, then bent a knee to lower himself to the water.
“I’d love to,” he crooned slyly. “Come closer, fair maidens. Give me your hands.”
He stretched his arms toward them. The mermaids recoiled, hissing like feral cats, clearly aware of what touching him would do to them.
A muddy green tentacle unfurled from the pool like a water serpent.
I shrieked, flattening my back against the glass wall behind me. My heart leaped to my throat. Horror sliced through me. The monsters would drag me back into the darkness.
Kye straightened, standing up. He darted a hand out, trying to touch the beast, but the tentacle lashed aside, evading his touch. The monsters had learned their lesson and knew to avoid him now.
Another tentacle cut through the water along the ledge, followed by a third. One appendage looped around Kye’s ankle, immediately turning to glass at the contact. But before Kye could shake it off, another one snapped around the first one and yanked Kye off his feet.
He slipped into the pool.
“Kye! No!” I dropped to my knees, peering into the depth.
Kye’s long hair fanned out like moonlight as he went under.
But he didn’t panic. Instead, he raked his hands, scooping the water, just like I taught him.
His eyes were open, his mouth closed as he held his breath.
He bent at the waist and punched the tentacle that was dragging him under.
The monster turned to glass. With a powerful push of his arms, Kye surfaced and grabbed onto the ledge.
More tentacles reached for him through the water. Claws, tails, and the webbed fingers of the undead mermaids grabbed for him from the darkness below. The attention of all the creatures of the Abyss seemed to focus on the siren king. No one was attacking me now.
In one quick, determined movement, Kye pulled himself up and onto the ledge, swung his legs upwards, and slammed the glass loops that had trapped his feet against the wall. The glass shattered, shards big and small flying everywhere.
The mermaids hissed. The monsters groaned. Their disappointment charged the air.
“They’re here for you, not me!” I yelled, climbing to my feet. “Run! You have to run, Kye. More are coming. You can’t fight them all.”
He glanced at me, and I nodded quickly, letting him know I’d follow him. At that moment, I’d follow him anywhere as long as it was away from these disgusting creatures.
Then he ran.
A gray claw hit the glass in his path. He jumped over it. White bone pincers snapped, aiming for his ankle, but he evaded them too. In a wide leap, he reached the first step on his way out of the hall. I stayed close on his heels, running as fast as I could along the slippery glass ledge.
The pearl strings on my body suddenly tightened. My chest constricted, my lungs gasping for air. My legs jerked, tripping my feet.
With a cry of desperation, I slipped off the glass and plunged into the pool. Cool water closed over my head for a moment, then parted again, allowing me to draw a frantic breath.
“Maren!” Kye shouted, stopping short of escaping.
“No...” I sputtered in the churning waves raised by the lashing, undulating monstrous bodies around me. None had grabbed me, though. The mass of all that sleek, dark, moving flesh rolled and rippled in one direction, following Kye’s every movement.
The pearls around my legs and arms yanked and eased, not letting me drown yet but not releasing me either. They made me thrash and struggle on the surface.
“Like bait,” I realized.
The god used me to lure Kye into the water.
“Don’t...” I tried to yell a warning before water flooded my mouth.
Don’t come here. Don’t jump.
He couldn’t help me anyway. He couldn’t pull me out.
The black pearls tightened around my torso, pulling me under. I held my breath, then realized I could still breathe underwater thanks to Jearda’s magic pearl choker around my neck. The god wouldn’t kill me. Not until he got what he truly wanted—the siren king.
“Maren!” Kye’s anguished scream thundered above me.
Something splashed into the water next to me. It wasn’t another monstrous limb this time, but a long cord of large, blush-pink pearls. Kye’s family heirloom.
“Hold on!” he shouted.
Fighting my restraints, I kicked my feet wildly and flailed my arms in a frantic attempt to reach the pearls. The moment they were within my grasp, I clasped the smooth, warm orbs in my fingers, holding on for dear life.
“Don’t let go.” He yanked the cord with so much strength, my body propelled forward, raising high waves on each side in my wake.
“Don’t let go, Maren,” he repeated, pulling me out of the water.
Then he ran up the tower stairs, tugging me along by the cord of pink pearls.
The loops of black pearls tightened around my body, chilling my skin. My feet slid backward, making me trip again.