Chapter Fifty-Four
ADRIAN
By the time they landed on the deck of the Starred Siren, Adrian’s blade was already drawn. He forced his grief down, knowing there would be a time to honour his sister later.
Enzo landed beside him, looking wildly around as he coughed. ‘Where is she?!’ he demanded, stumbling to his feet with a roar. ‘Where is my soulmate?’
Adrian took in his surroundings as he heard Santi land behind him. Stella cards were scattered upon the deck, and his crew, his traitorous fucking crew, were all kneeling, looking towards a figure who was staring into the depths of the sea. His stomach turned. He had thought them loyal.
Scorpius turned. ‘I was waiting for you,’ he said to Enzo.
The members of the crew all looked up, some with fear in their eyes, others sorrow, though some triumphant.
‘We couldn’t let you do it, captain,’ Pieter said. ‘We couldn’t let you give them safe passage and defy our god.’
They had chosen the Stars over him, gods who had never helped them a day in their lives.
Adrian ignored him, striding forwards. There was a body lying near the ship’s wheel and he began to run as he finally made out who it was.
‘Victor,’ Adrian rasped. The master-at-arms was lying prone, breathing shallowly. To his left lay Davey, his huge form so much smaller in death.
As he approached, Adrian recoiled at the lurid green veins around Victor’s throat, colouring his usually deep-red eyes the same ghastly green.
‘I tried to fight him, captain,’ he said. Santi let out a hoarse cry as he knelt beside Victor and took his hand. ‘They all turned the moment you left. Called upon the god. None of this crew deserves you.’
‘You do,’ Adrian said. ‘That’s why you have to stay with me.’
Victor shook his head. ‘It’s my time to go. It’s an honour to die in battle. With a Star, no less.’ His neck strained as another convulsion took him. ‘I pray Ariete takes me to the battlefield above.’
His eyes fluttered shut.
Adrian’s hands shook in disbelief as one of his most loyal men took his last breath.
The anger and grief that he’d tried to lock away after seeing his sister began to shake and rattle. He felt it in his blood as he raised his head slowly to look at Scorpius, a smug grin playing on the god’s lips.
‘You committed starsin, pirate,’ Scorpius crooned. ‘Hiding our enemies. I can’t wait to flay you with divinitas.’
Enzo crawled forwards, still in agony. ‘Where is my Elara?’ he seethed.
‘At the bottom of my ocean.’
It was then that Adrian felt it, a moment before the others did.
He had always been tied to the moods of the ocean, had felt it stormy and churning as well as clear and peaceful. But this was something utterly foreign that had awoken within its depths.
A tremorous creaking sound pierced the air.
The sound continued, like the very Earth splitting apart. The water began to roil and swirl, a gigantic whirlpool forming, though Adrian was not controlling it.
The waves parted in a deafening crash, and before their eyes a shipwreck rose up from the water. First its mast, then a tattered sail with a pirate’s mark flapping in the wind. Its rigging was skeletal, covered in barnacles, rotting wood creaking and swinging as the ship righted itself.
‘Holy gods,’ Adrian muttered, his voice trembling. His mutinous crew stood around him, motionless in shock.
And then someone behind him began to scream.
At first, Adrian didn’t know why.
Until his eyes caught on what they had seen.
A slow grin spread across Adrian’s face despite his circumstances, and, thank the stars, Enzo’s coughing stopped, the Sun standing up as he began to take deep lungfuls of air. He clutched the side of the Starred Siren as Scorpius stared in confusion.
There, on the shipwreck, were corpses. Adrian spotted one figure, its jaw only bone, eye sockets empty, scraps of cloth hanging off its frame. Another was missing an arm. And there was one that wore a tricorn hat. A captain.
But it was not the gruesome sight of the dead that caused Adrian’s crew to yell and scream, some abandoning the ship for the water, others offering up a prayer to Scorpius before them.
No. It was the fact that they were moving, their weapons drawn as each skeletal corpse scuttled about the deck, hoisting the sail and readying cannons while the captain uncannily turned his head, one eye socket looking directly at Adrian.
And there, at the ship’s wheel, adorned in sodden black, her hair inky, silver eyes alight with triumph, stood the Moon.
Enzo began whooping and clapping, slamming his hand on the ship’s railing.
‘That’s my fucking girl!’ he roared across the water, shining a beam of his Light on her.
Scorpius staggered back, cursing.
Because Elara…
Elara had raised the dead.