49. Enna
Chapter forty-nine
Enna
The Drink is warmer than I remember. The water, once so bitterly cold to evoke a sharp sense of clarity, now feels thick as soup. My gills struggle to filter the water, sucking in deep pulls but finding no relief from the burning in my chest. The scent is unbearable, acrid in its sting. Eyes firmly closed, I pump my tail but do not move forward, only drag it a small increment up, then down, hanging suspended in the broth of the deep.
I have to get out of here. This is not right. I was in the middle of something important, somewhere far away from here. My mind spins, searching for the thought I’ve misplaced. It had something to do with Odissa.
I open my eyes. The water is not black, but a thick, brackish green, the color I imagine the inside of a dredgebeast’s stomach would be. I blink my outer lids to clear the fog from my vision, but the haze does not focus, only thickens. I attempt to turn my head, to scan my surroundings for danger, for this certainly is not the Drink. I am out of my element here. Much like my tail, I get nowhere fast. With painful slowness, my neck swivels, and my periphery expands, revealing a white shape: a mermaid skeleton.
The skeleton floats in the murk, its arms limp at its sides. The cavern of its ribs hosts a lone bloodfish, nibbling a rib bone for final scraps. The skull is nearly picked clean, with only a few threads of sinew clinging to its cheek. Awareness prickles the back of my neck, and my spines rise in warning. I am not alone. The skeleton moves, swiveling its head to lock its cavernous eyes on me. Its teeth snap shut with a creak of its jaw, the tail bones stir, and the bloodfish darts away.
I scream at my body to move. My tail is dead weight, my gills fluttering in normal rhythm. The skeleton lurches forward, extending its bony arms. Its fingers grip my neck and yank, towing me through the water.
Through the murk comes a sinister laugh, deep and rumbling and terrifyingly familiar. The water trembles in its wake. Cold fear twists my panic-stricken heart. The laughter morphs into the sound of my name, a dark, gnashing phrase on repeat.
The skeleton speeds forward, the bones of its tail thrashing my scales, cutting deep. Blood clouds the water. In my periphery, dark shapes begin to move. I open my mouth to shout, to spell, anything to get me out of here, but my voice will not sound. A few bubbles escape, popping on my cheeks as I’m dragged through them.
“You have broken your oath, Enna Valomir,” Tephra’s voice calls again, clearer, louder. “I will take the blood you owe me.”
I glance around as best I can, but do not find the goddess. Her voice echoes from every angle, disembodied.
Something rumbles below me, and the water trembles. A dark, colossal shape comes into view, half buried in a garden of bones on the sea floor. Four flat fins protrude from the long, muscular body, paddling the water in the rhythm of sleep.
My spine tingles. A dredgebeast.
“This is how you’ll pay my price. No weapons. No magic. Just you and the blood in your veins.”
The skeleton that holds me lurches to a stop, and my tail curls up from the sudden change in momentum, slapping me in the face. The sharp edge of my tail slices the top of my cheek, drawing blood. In a thin, swirling tendril, my blood floats into the water, and the beast’s nares flare. One great eyelid peels open, the bright yellow orb locking on me. It releases a rumbling groan. Bones crack and snap under its weight as it shuffles, stirring clouds of sand.
Tephra’s voice cuts through the water. “Kill the beast, and your life is yours to keep,” she says. “Better swim fast, little fish.”
As the final word rings out, the thick weight on my body suddenly lifts. I flex my tail, testing it against the murky water. Relief pulses through me for a moment before adrenaline takes control.
With a push of its paddle fins, the beast emerges from the sand. Its other eye pries open, focusing on me. I eye its sharp teeth, each twice my length, and calculate the beast’s age accordingly. A mature adult. Female, judging by her size. Two streaks of red run parallel from the crown of her skull down the length of her spine, joining at a single point of her long, whipping tail. Thick, scaled armor coats her body, save for a few small weak points. I locate them quickly—the underside of her gills and fins and a soft palette between her eyes.
I instinctively reach for my knives, connecting only with smooth skin. My waist belt is gone, my knives with it. My pulse thuds in my ears as the nerves settle in; I’ve stunned a dredgebeast before, but never killed one. Not with my bare hands.
Her mouth opens wide, that great black tongue lifting at the back of her throat. She screeches. The sound blasts a torpedo of current, launching me into a spiral. I backpedal, steadying myself in the stream. The beast lunges. I dodge. The tips of my tail clear the gap in her teeth before her jaw snaps shut.
I swim along her body, forcing her to twist to find me. Keeping close to her scales without touching them, I lead her into a coil. I slip beneath her great fins, scanning for the weak points. There. The socket rotates as she tips right, baring the soft flesh. I sink my claws in deep and rip free a bloody fistful of her meat. She shrieks and snaps, whipping her long neck to find me.
As I dodge her flailing limbs, I plop the piece of meat into my mouth, warm and tender. Goddess, did I miss this taste. I glide to the next fin, then the next, plucking sweet morsels from her flesh. Her blood clouds the murky water.
A hoard of bloodfish rushes the water, following the smell of iron. Their long bodies wriggle as they screech, scenting the sores. One locks its beady eyes on me, opening its large, funneled mouth. Rows of hooked, razor teeth line the channel, spiraling deep into its gullet. The rim of its mouth quivers, sucking in a trail of my blood from the water, and then it lurches for my face.
I catch its neck in my hand, fingers pressing into its gills, and I squeeze it until its eyes pop and the teeth stop moving. I toss the corpse to the writhing mass of its kin and they devour its stringy flesh to the bone. More hooked teeth sink into my tail, tearing my scales. I swipe at them with my spines, but the teeth sink deeper with every swat of my arm. Some lose their grip, leaving a searing pain, only to be replaced by more teeth, more pain.
One latches onto my hip and sinks its teeth in deeper than I can dislodge without a knife. Its mouth quivers, suctioning tight as it begins to suck my blood. My veins burn as my blood rushes backward, flooding the fish’s mouth.
Fuck.
With my thumbs, I dig my claws into its eyes. The creature holds firm, its tail whipping furiously. Above me, the dredgebeast shifts and a screech vibrates the water, ringing in my ears. Gritting through the pain, I grasp the fish by its gills and yank as hard as I can. My flesh tears, caught in its teeth, and still, the fucker won’t let me go. I clench my teeth against the searing pain.
The dredgebeast whips her tail, freeing her body momentarily from the feeding mouths. I scramble for her tail, pulling myself up the length of her spine away from the bloodfish hoard. With my claws, I find purchase in her scales. Her neck arches, head swiveling to watch me climb. I’m exposed here on her back, but I dare not venture beneath her belly among the gnashing teeth. She strikes with her mouth, snapping at me. I release and roll, but the edge of her tooth slices deep into my forearm, gouging free a few of my spines. I howl in pain, holding on by the end of my claws. Latched to my side, the bloodfish drinks greedily. My mind grows fuzzy, and the water begins to spin.
The beast tucks her fins, breaking into a dive. Then, she climbs toward the surface, the current sliding over her lithe body. I’m an attachment, dragging in the stream. The pressure of the water batters me, threatening the strength of my grip. I grunt with exertion; my gills flutter nervously along my neck, fighting to filter oxygen. Fear stings like a whetted knife through my beating heart. The dredgebeast is bleeding but strong. My efforts have barely affected her, and here I am, my arm mottled, a gash in my side and face, and my energy reserves depleting from blood loss. I cannot Voice my way out of this. And if I don’t survive, I will never see Soren again.
My heart aches at the impending loss of him. Odissa will find a way to ruin him, and my sacrifice will have been for nothing. I cling to the side of the beast and choke out a curse.
Fuck Odissa. Fuck this blood oath. I should have never agreed to help her; it was a chum-brained pursuit from the start.
The dredgebeast stalls in the water, and I fling forward, sliding up the length of its neck. It twists its head and strikes, catching my tail between its teeth. I shriek in pain and try to wrestle free, but her tooth has impaled the membrane of my fin. I cannot break free without ripping the soft tissue. The beast whips her head, and I fly with her, moments away from becoming her snack.
I kick my tail, trying to rip free, but her tongue snakes out, twisting around my waist. The slippery leather of it holds me fast. The bloodfish releases its teeth at last, abandoning me to my fate.
“I’m sorry, Soren,” I cry out, my heart palpitating with the pain of my loss. “Soren, Soren, Soren.”