Chapter 31
Jane
We curved through the water to circle the creatures, my strokes harder and clumsier than they ought to be, all to keep close to Finn’s long limbs. He was painfully fast, and I knew he was slowing his pace for my sake.
Every nerve in my body urged me to look back, to find even the smallest glimpse of Reagan among the tangle of those dreadful things. I couldn’t call them animals. They looked like something born of a deranged union between a sea octopus and a land spider, only much larger and appallingly swift.
Alone, he’d taken down more of them than seemed remotely possible, and now he was bleeding. I’d seen the wound open more when he dove back under.
Finn kept glancing behind us. I watched the flicker of his expression whenever he did, even while I kicked hard enough to keep myself from sinking like a stone.
Far ahead, the Elven Lords carved through the sea as if it were a gentle bathwater, leaving us entirely to whatever horrors chose to rise from the depths.
I wanted to bristle at their indifference, to fear openly for Reagan, but the ocean brimmed with so many other creatures that I couldn’t afford a distraction.
Manta rays glided beneath. Turtles paddled lazily by. Colourful fish swam below us, and something long and sleek kept surfacing in the gloom, which I prayed with every stubborn breath was a dolphin and nothing else.
The island still felt impossibly far. I had no idea how long Reagan could hold off an entire swarm alone.
Finn cursed under his breath again.
"Is he in danger?" I asked, forcing the rhythm of my arms to remain steady.
Finn halted completely and pressed his lips together. "Not deadly, no. But he will bleed. He won’t ask for help. I can control some of the sea a bit." His eyes found mine. "Elven trait."
“So go,” I told him.
His head snapped back to me, then forward to the distant shapes of Maith and Arun forging toward the island. "Follow that path in their direction. Be fast. Try to reach them. If you hear a siren thrall, swim faster. Don’t look. Really don’t look.”
I nodded. “Just go.”
He was already turning, cutting through the water toward Reagan.
A mouthful of salt coated my tongue and the weight in my arms grew heavier with every stroke.
The sea life around me still drifted close, seemingly harmless, so I kept moving and tried to glance at the seabed whenever I could. A few of the spiders scrambled over the rocks, jumping between shadows.
They did something curious. They avoided the manta rays and turtles.
I angled toward a broad manta near me and swam just above its wide wings. At first it drifted away in alarm, then it let itself glide closer beneath me.
Staring into the deep water below, my mind wandered to what Reagan had done. Those four slits along his neck. He shifted himself in an instant, granting his body the means to breathe underwater. The ease of it, the raw instinct behind it.
He was extraordinary. A part of me ached to watch him command the sea, to follow the thrum of his magic.
Another part wished I had managed to shift that cursed hourglass and slash the creatures myself.
Though, admittedly, they were gross. I would have preferred not to touch them at all.
But if I could conjure my own gills and breathe beneath this cold, numbing—
The current shuddered.
The manta slipped away into the darkness below, like all other animals, and the water around me fell abruptly still.
Finn and Reagan were nowhere. Only the distant shapes of the elven swimmers remained.
Water lapped at my ears. Beneath the surface, a sound reached me, like a low humming.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I stroked harder, muscles burning as I kicked, my breaths turning thin and fast.
The humming followed. Sometimes near, sometimes distant.
I didn’t look below. I fixed my gaze on the silhouettes of Maith and Arun as they vanished and reappeared beneath the shifting water. They were farther than I realised. The island farther still.
Fear pressed at the edges of my thoughts, but I aimed for the elves and kept swimming, my shoulders screaming until something scraped my calf.
A sound tore from my throat, my strokes turning panicked, uncontrolled. A moment later, something brushed my stomach, and I finally spun, water flooding my mouth.
It had been too fast but…it felt like a cold shape with sharp edges. Nails or maybe teeth.
My hands shook.
There had to be a predator nearby. Animals didn’t vanish without reason.
I knew. Knew there was a siren in the water with me.
It was her keening curling along my skin beneath the surface, its vibration sliding over my legs like a breath.
I shut my eyes and swam blindly, but the water tilted my balance.
With my vision gone, I had no sense of direction.
For all I knew, I was veering away from the island.
The siren only grazed me, yet the presence was all around, stilling the entire sea.
Something like hair coiled lightly around my arm. My skin pebbled.
Too close. It was so very close.
It was with no small amount of dread that I realised I wouldn’t make it to the island. Not like this. Above the water, I dared to squint through my lashes. The elves were still there, but so far ahead.
My heart pounded harder as, again, something brushed my ankles. I couldn’t swim blind forever. I scanned the surface, finding a jagged cluster of rocks rising ahead.
Slower than I should, I swam again, the burning in my muscles milder as I let myself think. I’d read about sirens once, in a book from the study. We had even talked about them over dinner.
I thought they were evil. Creatures who lured sailors to their deaths with their singing.
And with their eyes.
I see you started the book already.
Legs kicking, I headed for the cluster of rocks, hearing only my ragged breaths and my limbs parting the water.
The keening… It had stopped. I wanted to peer down, to confirm that the monster was gone. I had no more than a heartbeat to breathe before fingers closed around my ankle and yanked me under.
Salt burned my nostrils, and pressure crushed my chest as the sea swallowed me whole. I thrashed, but the grip was too strong, too cold.
I opened my eyes.
Sunset thinned above me, dwindling to a pale smear of colour. Long dark hair drifted through the water. A grey, bony hand held my ankle.
I wanted to scream, to tear free, but there was no breaking the monster’s hold like this.
It circled slowly, aligning its face with mine. I shut my eyes as my chest began to ache for air.
Like this, I would drown.
I couldn’t. Not here.
If I died here, Joy would be alone. Father would never forgive me for that. I would never forgive myself. This could not be how it ended. I refused to be bested by a monster.
The pressure increased as I was dragged deeper into the gloom. The creature moved slowly, as though it were waiting for me to drown.
It stirred something cold in my chest. Not the dread that had already lodged itself in me, but something else. Something better than fear.
Fear got me nowhere, but thoughts did. Focus did. I pushed past the burn in my lungs, the rising desperation, the pain. A strange calm settled over me. Everything narrowed down to the sensation of the grip in my skin and what I knew about the monster.
Not like this. Not in the bloody water.
Hair brushed my leg, a cold curtain marking where it hovered. The siren dragged us down.
The pendant of my location relic was gelid as I closed my hand around it and snapped the cord. My other hand curled inside my billowing skirt. I twisted my leg and angled the pendant toward where I assumed her eyes were, the round metal catching the light.
I had the faint awareness that the creature turned, her head levelling with what should have been her own reflection in the shining metal.
Yes. Look. Look at the pretty metal.
Cold, membranous fingers slid over mine and took the necklace from my hand.
She never noticed the other object clenched in my fist until I drove the hairpin between her gills. The creature wrenched open its tooth-filled maw and screamed.