Chapter 30
Reagan
Reagan had expected them to toy with him the moment they set foot in this cursed land.
The last time he’d stood with these people, conversation had deteriorated as swiftly as their jests had begun.
Accusations had flown from one side to the other.
He still remembered Iqbal refusing Finnegan in one meeting on the grounds that he had no business learning of Banfgaard’s internal dealings.
Gwinifer had threatened to send a patrol sweeping through their borders.
Jane, at least, was calm. She held herself with the same composure Finn usually had, though less so here. If their last visit had taught Reagan anything, it was that a level-headed mind was harder to train than political expertise.
Besides, she represented the hybrid-born, treated by the Order just like the elvenborn were. She represented the very kind they aimed to protect.
But none of that mattered if she felt unsafe here.
Reagan had expected the indecent clothes, had expected the lecherous greetings meant to remind him whose estate he stood in. Their first test had been whether he would comply with their customs. As if a few warm mouths pressed to his face were an affront.
It was nothing. But what they were forcing them to do now… It tested his patience.
He hadn’t expected a three-kilometre swim through freezing water before the welcome dinner. Worse still, they meant for the guests to fend for themselves against sirens. And of course, Arun was here, wearing that hungry expression that Reagan had to pretend not notice.
The moment he stepped into the surf, the frigid waves climbed his legs. He ground his teeth. Only Finnegan’s bloody family would greet their guests by marching them into a monster-ridden sea.
They trudged forward, the flimsy shorts already clinging to Reagan’s skin. When the water reached his groin, he sucked in a harsh breath.
“We will make sure you are plenty warm on the island, Reagan,” Iqbal said, before dipping beneath the surface and shooting forward.
Eldar cursed and followed, driven by his competitive nature, even against his own partner.
Reagan glanced back.
Jane shivered violently, arms wrapped around her torso, eyes scanning the dark water swirling around her waist. The tight dress revealed far too much, the fabric outlining even the faint peaks of her nipples.
For once, he was grateful for the cold water.
Finn tugged her by the elbow and guided her between them. Their lips had already begun to turn blue.
“If I haven’t said it yet, let me say it now,” Reagan muttered. “I hate your family.”
They both laughed under their breaths despite the shivering.
“I might second that,” Jane managed, her teeth clicking.
Reagan rubbed warmth into her arm, channelling heat into her chilled skin. She exhaled in relief.
“If you are waiting for me to defend them, we’ll stay here all night,” Finn said.
“Ready?” Maith called, standing far from them, closer to Arun. Anife had already vanished ahead.
“We’ll give you a head start,” Reagan said.
“Good luck,” she purred, her gaze sliding briefly to Finnegan. “Try not to let the sirens catch you.”
As she and the other began cutting through the waves, Jane leaned closer and whispered, “How do I not fall into a siren’s thrall?”
“If you hear a sound like it is coming from beneath the water, do not look for it,” Reagan said. “If anything enters your vision, close your eyes immediately. Whatever you do, do not meet their gaze. And swim as fast as you can.”
She nodded with earnest focus. “And sea spiders?”
Finn answered first, bouncing in place to stave off the cold. “Don’t worry about sea spiders. We should go, or we will never hear the end of it.”
They pushed past Reagan and began cutting through the shallows, both flinching as the cold seized their limbs.
He followed, pushing into the open stretch of water.
The daylight still held, warm but thinning, enough to grant visibility into the deep.
He guessed the seabed lay thirty metres below far ahead, a dark blur but not impenetrable.
For a few heartbeats, there was only the rhythm of their strokes and the harsh, steady pull of their breathing.
“At least this is better than climbing that bloody hillside with the smooth rock,” Finn said from Jane’s other side, reminding him of their last time there.
Jane swam with tension on her arms, breathing harder than them, but the strokes were efficient. She didn’t leverage her legs enough, yet she kept a steady pace. Reagan watched her more than he watched the water.
“Just as much fun,” he replied in a deadened tone that earned him a short huff from Finn.
Reagan kept pace with them until a disturbance to the east caught his attention.
Something moved beneath the surface. Something large.
A surge of pale limbs knifed upward and headed toward Eldar far ahead.
The spiders should have been no more than a nuisance for the elves.
Their bodies were little more than membranous heads attached to bristling maws and a sprawling mass of limbs, each no larger than a man’s forearm.
Slow compared to worse things with that much hunger and teeth.
But what he saw ahead made Reagan halt, a hard stillness settling through him as a second wave appeared, then a third, each moving with a single mind.
Just before reaching the elves, they veered.
The swarm scattered, curling wide to circle all the elvenborn in the water before heading straight for the three of them.
“Well, fuck,” Finn muttered, stopping mid-stroke.
“What is it?” Jane spluttered, her arms flailing to keep her balance on the water.
“Sea spiders,” Reagan said. “A lot of them.”
“What do we do?” she asked.
His voice shifted, cold and focused. “Stay here.”
Before either could protest, Reagan centred himself on a charm he had learned from his sister when they were young, replicating the gills of her familiar around his own neck, and dove.
The sea clamped tight around his ribs as he cut downward. Dusk filtered through the surface in streaks of copper and violet that barely reached the dim below. The spiders swarmed above the seabed, their membranous bodies keeping them suspended.
Reagan angled toward the rocks, letting jagged silhouettes swallow his descent.
One spider drifted too close. He shot forward and aimed for the creature’s star-shaped core, holding it still in the murk.
His mana traced the form, and Reagan split its slick carapace, spilling black ichor into the tide.
Too many for this. Claws rasped through the water.
Before the swarm could close in, he opened his palm and let his access spill. Spill and spill and spill ahead. Reagan summoned heat and aimed at the nearest cluster. The sea seethed only around the creatures, water churning and nearly boiling.
Legs curled inward. Chitin cracked. Bubbles roared upward like smoke rising from a forge.
The rest scattered, then rounded on him again.
He thrust both hands outward and seized the currents, slamming the creatures back into a single mass of flailing limbs as the boiling tide swallowed the rest.
They pressed in, mandibles clacking. He rolled back, feet scraping stone. He missed another skittering low, earning a slash along his arm. He caught its clammy leg, smashed it against the rock, and hurled a current that dragged more into the waiting boil.
The seabed lay empty. He was certain there was another cluster, but perhaps they scattered after feeling the heat. Reagan drove upward, bursting through the surface with a rough inhale.
Gills were horribly unintuitive.
“Flaunting much?” Finn said, grinning.
Jane surfaced beside him, breathless and pale.
Reagan’s chest burned from exertion, and blood streamed freely from the fresh gash along his forearm.
Perfect. The scent would draw every creature within reach.
“There are more,” Jane said, her voice tight as she pointed. Below, the seabed was beginning to stir, a knot of legs churning into view once more. “Why are they avoiding the elves?”
“My thought exactly,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes at the approaching swarm while calculating how to carve a clean path for the two of them.
Stupidly, he looked to see whether the elves were preparing to intervene. Iqbal could have broken the swarm with a single gesture. Instead, he lingered far ahead, smirking, and tapped his knuckles against his chest in farewell.
Reagan bared his teeth and dipped his chin. “We’re on our own. You two swing right. I will take left and draw them off.”
“There are too many,” Jane said as she fought to stay afloat.
“That wounds me,” Reagan said with false solemnity. “Do you really think I cannot handle a few oversized spiders?”
She didn’t laugh, wasn’t convinced at all, based on how her gaze fixed on the churning water.
“Go,” he said. “Finn, keep a look if any slip past me.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. The nearest group tasted the current of his blood and surged. Reagan tore the wound wider, let the water carry the scent, and drove himself into their path.