Chapter 31
Into the abyss
LORIEN
Jude is slipping away from me.
I see it in the way his body goes limp in the kelpies’ hold, his limbs slack, his dark curls drifting around his face in the murky water.
His skin is too pale, his lips tinged with something close to blue.
The pearl embedded in his chest should have kept him breathing, but it isn’t working. Not anymore.
I tighten my grip on my trident, forcing my expression into something cold, something unreadable. My warriors hover at my back, tense and waiting for my command, but the kelpies have stopped attacking.
They don’t need to anymore.
Not when they have him.
The queen moves through the water with an unhurried grace, her dark body rippling like a living shadow.
She is taller than me, her limbs too long, her every movement fluid as though she’s part of the currents themselves.
The crown of black coral twists unnaturally against her brow, jagged and sharp.
Her lips curl into a smile. It’s cruel and I will cut it from her face before I am done.
“You brought him to me.”
Her voice is soft, smooth as silk, but there is iron beneath it. A knowing in her tone, as though all of this was inevitable.
“He is mine, Lorien.” She tilts her head, surveying the scene. “He was never yours.”
“Let him go,” I growl.
Her gaze flicks lazily to Jude, as if she’s only now acknowledging his presence. She reaches for him, tracing sharp black claws along the curve of his jaw, her fingers barely grazing his throat. My grip on my trident tightens until my knuckles ache.
My muscles lock in place, but my body is screaming at me to move. To rip Jude from her grasp. To carve my name into her flesh so she never forgets who he belongs to.
But I can’t.
I can only watch as her claws trace the skin on his throat above his collar, as her dark eyes sweep over him with something too close to claiming.
My magic surges violently against my skin, but I shove it down. If I move too soon, if I strike before I have a chance, they will drag him into the abyss, and I will never get him back.
The way she touches him makes me sick.
Jude is mine.
Not a thing to be bartered with, not a prize to be passed from one ruler to another. Mine.
And he cannot even fight her.
The fire that burned in him before is nothing but embers now, barely flickering.
The force of him, the storm of him, is muted beneath her hands.
And I hate that she gets to see him like this.
That she gets to see him weak. That she gets to touch him when he should be safe in my arms, waking to my voice, knowing that I would never let him go.
I cannot stand it. I cannot stand it.
And I will make her pay for this. I will make them all pay for this.
Not for insulting me, but for daring to touch Jude.
“He is not mer. Not human. But something in between.” Her voice dips lower, almost affectionate. “Something unfinished. Something that belongs to us and now must be returned.”
The kelpies around her murmur their approval, their black eyes gleaming with hunger.
“Did you truly think you could keep him?” she asks, her gaze locking with mine.
A sharp, taunting smile.
“Do you truly think he wants to be kept?”
Rage burns through me, hot and fast, but I keep my expression unreadable. I will not let her see how deep her words cut. I will not let her see the doubt curling like rot beneath my ribs.
Jude chose me.
He did. I know he did.
I might have forced the issue in the beginning, I might have taken him before he had a choice, before he understood what I was, what we could be. But that was before. Before I knew what it meant to hold something precious. Before he made me feel the weight of his fire, his defiance, his will.
Jude chooses me.
Despite everything. Despite the war between us. Despite the fact that I stole him from his world and made him part of mine. He still looks at me with something fierce, something that burns, something that tells me he knows what I am and he chooses me anyway.
As I choose him. As I always will choose him.
But he has always been something other.
Something special. Something more precious than I dared to admit.
A storm, a force, a thing even the ocean itself does not seem to understand.
And the queen sees that. As I always have.
She spreads her arms, and the water hums around her. She’s powerful. Ancient. The pressure in the depths tightens, as if the ocean is watching.
“This is not a fight you can win, little prince,” she purrs. “You know this. Your warriors know this. The only question is, how much are you willing to lose before you accept it?”
Behind her, Jude stirs weakly, his body barely reacting. His fingers twitch, and for a moment, I think that he’ll wake up. He’ll fight. He’ll come back to me and this nightmare will be over.
Then his head lolls forward again, dark curls obscuring his face.
He doesn’t have time.
“Let him go,” I say again, my voice low, dangerous.
Her smile doesn’t falter. “You make demands, but I don’t think you understand your position here.”
She tilts her head.
“I offer you a choice, Prince of the Mer.”
She trails her fingers along Jude’s throat again, this time pressing just hard enough to leave shallow scratches. My vision darkens at the edges.
“He can live. But only if he embraces what he is. Only if he lets us guide him.”
A flicker of movement. The kelpies shift behind her, their sleek black bodies weaving in and out of the darkness. They are waiting.
They don’t hover like warriors braced for battle.
They lounge. Some coil around the ruins of ancient structures long collapsed, their long fingers trailing lazily through the water.
Some drift in slow, lazy circles, baring their jagged smiles, their black eyes glittering with something like amusement.
They are watching a performance.
They know they’ve already won.
“You see, merblood,” she muses, “he cannot wield his magic without us. Not properly. He is raw power with no shape, no purpose. He is drowning in it. And if you try to take him from me, he will drown completely.”
She presses her palm to Jude’s chest, just over the pearl.
For a brief, terrifying moment, his body reacts.
A slow inhale. The faintest glow beneath his skin.
Something deep and restless stirs in the water, and for the first time since we arrived in these dark and dangerous currents, I feel the stir of power. It doesn’t belong to the kelpies, and it isn’t the queen’s power either. It’s his.
I don’t know what she’s doing, but I know what it looks like.
It’s like he’s slipping further from me.
“Or you can fight me.” The taunt in her voice is subtle, but it’s there, twisting in the currents. “You can strike, you can rage, and we will tear you apart, piece by piece, until there is nothing left to save.”
A pause. A slow, sharp smile.
“I wonder how long you will last before you break?”
I cannot lose him.
I will not lose him.
“You think you can take him from me?” My voice is raw, edges sharp with the weight of what I refuse to say and everything I refuse to admit.
That if I lose him, I lose everything.
The water trembles around me, not with magic, not with power, but with something deeper. The rage I have kept leashed for too long.
“I will burn your kingdom to the ground.”
The words spill from me like a promise, like a curse.
I will burn the ocean to ash if it means keeping him.
I will rip open the trenches of the deep and let the darkness devour every last one of them.
I will salt the bones of their ancestors, shatter their thrones, drag their wretched bodies to the surface to choke on air and light.
I will make sure that when they speak of me, it is in fear.
I will let the queen believe she holds all the power here. Let her think I will cower before her ultimatum. She has no idea what I am willing to become to keep him.
“I will break the bones of every kelpie who dares to touch him. I will shatter the depths of your empire and salt the remains. I will rip the magic from your bodies and leave you gasping, dying, in the dark. You think I cannot win? I do not need to win.”
I step forward, dragging my trident through the water, the golden light flaring at its edges.
“I only need to make sure you lose.”
The queen’s smile vanishes.
The battle around us has stopped, but my warriors hover at the edges, their weapons still drawn. Blood curls in the water, evidence of the fight, but the kelpies wait, because they don’t need to fight anymore.
Not while they have Jude.
I force myself to breathe, to think. My mind is screaming at me to be rational.
To weigh the risks. If I attack, I might doom us all.
I was raised to rule, to command, to ensure the survival of my people.
I know the weight of war, the cost of it.
I know what it means to burn an empire to the ground and build another from the ruins.
If I strike first, I might doom us all.
I might unleash something that cannot be undone.
Jude would hate me for it.
But I would rather him hate me than lose him. I would rather stand in a kingdom of ruin with him at my side than let him slip through my fingers.
There are no choices here. There is only him.
And nothing else matters.
Because I will not let her take him.
Not now.
Not ever.
The water around us trembles as the first blow is struck.
One of my warriors lunges before I can call the order, his spear flashing through the darkness, catching a kelpie in the ribs. The creature shrieks, black blood spilling into the water, and the stillness shatters.
The kelpies move.
Not in a reckless charge like before, but in a deliberate, crushing force. They surround us, their bodies cutting through the gloom in flashes of sleek black and jagged teeth.
I push forward, shoving through the chaos toward Jude.
The queen is still holding him, her grip iron-tight, and something is happening beneath her touch. The glow under his skin pulses, the faint hum of his magic growing stronger, shifting like a tide rising to claim him.
“You cannot stop this,” she says, her voice low and smooth, even as battle rages around her.
I strike.
My trident slices through the water, aimed for her throat.
She moves, just enough to avoid the killing blow, her body twisting fluidly like the current itself. My strike skims past her shoulder, but her grip on Jude does not falter.
“Do you not see it yet?” she murmurs, her black eyes gleaming. “He does not belong to you.”
She presses her palm against his chest, against the pearl, and Jude gasps. The sound is weak, but I feel it like a wound to my chest. His body jerks, fingers twitching, and then his eyelids flutter.
For a single, fragile moment, I see him.
His eyes open. They’re clouded, unfocused, but his lips part, shaping something soundless.
Then they flood.
His irises—once warm, dark—glow.
Not with the ocean’s light. Not with anything mer.
With something else.
With something ancient. Something I do not understand.
The queen’s lips curve into a knowing smile.
“There you are,” she whispers, her fingers trailing against his jaw. “At last.”
A wave slams into me.
It is not magic. It is not a kelpie.
It is him.
The water bucks, pushes, and I am thrown back, my warriors scattering as the currents whip into something violent. The ocean itself is shaking, Jude’s body the center of it.
The queen lets go of him. She does not need to hold him anymore. Because he is floating, suspended in the dark, his head tilted back, his arms limp at his sides. And the power he contains is stirring. His power is waking. His power is terrifying.
“Jude!” I lunge toward him, fighting against the storm building in the water.
His gaze flicks to mine.
And for a second, for just one second, I think he sees me.
Then his lips part, and a soundless pulse tears through the depths.
The warriors scream.
The kelpies scream.
Even the queen’s eyes widen into something close to shock as the ocean bends. It shifts, reshapes itself, responding to Jude’s will. His magic floods outward, and the entire battlefield stalls, frozen in the currents he commands without even knowing how.
His chest rises and falls with slow, deep breaths. His pulse is steady. Strong.
But I can tell he isn’t fully there.
His expression is too distant, too empty, like something else is holding him in its grip. His eyes have lost their color, their blue fading into dark grey nothingness. Jude’s soul is leeching away and I cannot let this happen, not when he’s being taken from me and I may never get him back.
I push forward again, shoving through the pull of his magic, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Jude!”
He doesn’t respond.
The queen tilts her head, studying him like he is the most fascinating thing she has ever seen.
She stares at him through her pitch-black eyes, her lips parting slightly as if tasting the shift in the water, as if she can feel whatever is unfurling inside him.
Something she adores and craves. Something even she did not anticipate.
Her fingers twitch at her sides, claws flexing, and a slow, eerie smile spreads across her face.
It’s not victory.
It’s reverence.
“How interesting,” she murmurs. “You are stronger than I thought.”
She reaches for him again and I strike.
This time, my trident connects.
The blade slices across her arm, dark blood trailing in the water. She hisses, eyes snapping to mine, and for the first time, I see something like rage in them.
I don’t care.
I don’t care if she hates me. I don’t care if I’ve doomed us all with this act alone.
I reach for Jude, and his fingers close around my wrist.
There’s a heartbeat of silence, and I rejoice that he is mine.
And then he speaks.
Not a whisper. Not a plea.
A command.
“Enough.”
His voice is not his own.
And the ocean obeys.
A pulse rips through the water, deeper and more violent than before, and I am thrown backward, my warriors dragged with me. The currents turn brutal, no longer responding to the queen or me, no longer bending to the will of the kelpies or the mer.
They belong to him.
A crushing force surges through the battlefield, wrenching kelpies and mer alike from their places, scattering them like debris caught in a storm. I reach for him, but the force shoves me back, relentless and merciless.
The last thing I see before the dark claims me is Jude, floating, glowing, his eyes burning with something vast and unknowable. With something that isn’t him. With something that isn’t mine.
Then the currents take me, dragging me down, down, down—
Into the abyss.