41. 41
forty-one
Sarah
Sleep only claims me when I can no longer fight it. My eyes burn from the illusions that keep parading the faces of those I've grown to care about, reminders of the life I have built here. Virellan feels like home. It's safer than the surface will ever be.
Here I have knowledge. Here I have magic. Here I have him.
The darkness waits for that admission like bait. The moment my eyes close, nightmares surge.
The dining hall in the palace surrounds me. Orion is there. His strong hands aren't on me. They roam over Nyxalene’s chest, fingers curling beneath the curve of her breasts, claiming territory with a confidence that shatters me.
Her siren teeth sink into the side of his throat.
A low sound vibrates from him, a sound I've never coaxed from his lips.
His head falls back as she presses her body to his, scales scraping his skin.
His mouth brushes her ear, whispering something that makes her breath hitch.
His tail coils with hers, bodies locked in a rhythm that feels too intimate. Too practiced.
Heat spikes through me. Jealousy blisters. My pulse rages like a hurricane.
Before thought can stop me, instinct takes control. I launch through the water, speed fueled by fury alone.
I slam into her, tearing them apart. We burst through the windowed archway and into the open ocean, spinning and thrashing in a violent spiral.
I fist a handful of her dark hair, yanking her head back, exposing her throat like prey.
My other hand drives a punch into her stomach, the impact sending shockwaves through us both.
She laughs. He was never yours.
Red floods my vision. I reach for the dagger in the sheath I keep strapped to my body. Ready to—
The scene fractures. Colors smear like wet paint. Her laughter twists through the water, distorted, as the nightmare contorts into another vision.
Nyxalene perches on the thick armrest of Orion’s council chair, her body angled close to his as they discuss battle tactics for The Currents of Mastery.
Orion looks up when I enter, voice warm as he greets me, but my gaze cannot leave the way her petite body leans into him, how easily she fits against his side, like she belongs there more than I do.
Just moments ago, her teeth were buried in his neck. Now she wears a smile that stretches too wide, the points of her ears sharp enough to pierce flesh. Her eyes gleam with truths the nightmare wants me to believe.
Is something wrong, land-dweller? She purrs, every syllable dripping with mockery. She's toying with me. Daring me.
Before I can fire back at her, movement sweeps into the chamber.
Another female enters. A mermaid I've never seen before.
Her beauty is overwhelming. Golden hair spilling like honey through water.
Skin, kissed bronze by currents I've never known.
Eyes glimmering the same soft blue as her tail, while it curves with sensual confidence.
She doesn't falter. She glides straight to Orion, each movement fluid, as though she's weaving a spell with her body.
Her tail arcs through the water, scales catching the faint light and gleaming like frosted azure.
She drapes her hand over his shoulder first, a casual touch that makes him tense, the muscle along his arm flexing beneath her fingers.
Then her other hand slides down, tracing the curve of his chest. Orion exhales sharply, a low sound that sends heat coiling in my belly.
Every dream of his touch turns traitor. Every thought that I could be special to him burns to ash.
I remember the first time he held me. We were still strangers, yet his arms wrapped around me with a warmth that made the freezing currents of the ocean fade into nothing.
The steady pounding of his heart against my temple lulled me as I drifted toward sleep, and for a moment, I felt something I hadn't felt in years—safe. Entirely, painfully safe.
Not to mention the time he extended his hand toward me, offering friendship and trust. Hesitantly, I reached for it.
The moment my fingers brushed his, the simple touch sent a wave through me that I couldn't name.
It was warmth that traveled straight into my chest, spreading outward like sunlight through thinning clouds, as if Mother Ocean herself acknowledged the spark between us.
My pulse raced, every nerve on edge, yet a comforting peace had washed over me, like the tides themselves had paused to witness that small connection.
Even now, I feel the lingering echo of that warmth.
Nyxalene rises with graceful indifference, drifting past me as she leaves. Her voice slices clean as a blade. Sea mate bonds do not forbid exploring someone more enticing.
Her words sink like an anchor into my chest. My heart doesn't simply ache. It drowns. It plummets to the darkest part of me, where all the truth I fear waits to devour me whole.
Regret coils tight around my ribs, threatening to consume me. I spent months denying what was growing between us, refusing to even consider a bond I didn't want to acknowledge. I was drawn to him long before I knew the word for it. I kept turning away with excuses that tasted safe.
I'm not from here. I don't belong. I will never be enough for him.
The mermaid moves against him with purposeful confidence, her hands mapping the ridges of his stomach, sliding lower as if she owns every inch of him. She tilts his chin toward her, lips brushing the edge of his jaw. But even while her body tempts him, his gaze never strays from me.
Those deep blue eyes pin me in place. They burn. They plead. They promise.
His tail curls with hers, their scales brushing in intimate patterns, and a sound escapes him that tightens something low in my stomach. Heat rushes through me so quickly I nearly gasp. Desire doesn't care that this is a nightmare. It doesn't care that I'm terrified. It wants him.
My chest tightens. My pulse races. Desire claws through that fear, reminding me how badly I want him, even as the cavern forces me to doubt my worthiness.
Confidence flickers. Small. Trembling. A realization: he is looking at me even while another woman touches him. His expression isn't lust for her. It's hunger for me. A hunger I've denied again and again.
Maybe I deserve this torment. If I give in to this bond, if I accept what the currents already know, what then? What if I drown in him? What if he sees every flaw, every insecurity carved into my heart? What if he decides I'm not enough, once he truly knows me?
I burn with want and fury at once, a wildfire trapped beneath the waves.
He deserves someone from the sea, someone like Nyxalene or the mermaid currently wrapped around his chiseled body.
Someone strong and confident, not me. Though I cannot ignore my pulse screaming, urging me forward, demanding I stake my claim to the bond we share.
The mermaid presses her lips to the side of his throat. He draws a sharp breath, but his stare only deepens, smoldering and insistent. A silent plea that I step into the place Mother Ocean has already marked for us.
My pulse bangs against my ribs. The audible sound placing my mind further into panic. My body aches toward him.
I want to be brave. I want to choose him. I don’t know if his choice would still be me, and that's where the hesitation comes in—to finally make that decision and still be rejected in the end.
I see shadows flicker along the walls, moving with a mind of their own, whispering things I refuse to hear aloud.
Each echo twists a memory, each breath I take tastes of salt and fear.
The cavern doesn't simply show me illusions—it tests the fibers of my being.
It answers with laughter. Distant. Everywhere at once.
A reminder that this place feeds on every crack in my heart.
Control flickers back into my grasp, a fragile moment where I can breathe and think again.
I seize it. I force myself to see the truth.
Every illusion here has been about Orion and me.
Not the surface. Not training. This is the cavern tearing open my deepest fear.
The fear that I don't belong at his side or in the sea the way he does.
The fear that the bond Mother Ocean forged between us is wrong.
The cavern knows I don't believe I'm worthy of him. Yet he came to Coravaluné and confessed he loved me. That should mean everything. That should be enough. My heart tries to stand tall on that truth.
The weight crushing me fights back harder. Control slips through my fingers like the ground fracturing beneath a quake. The illusion seizes me again.
The female mermaid is gone.
I'm the one pressed against him now. For a moment, the chamber melts away into pure darkness, replaced by heat and closeness and the wild beat of two hearts. Then, as the darkness dissolves, it’s replaced by the familiar dry air of my resting place within the palace walls.
The windows are bare, fully exposed to the ocean beyond, turning our closeness into a spectacle.
Anyone could witness this. Anyone could see how undeserving I feel.
Relief isn't what floods me. Dread is. I thought this ordeal was ending. I thought I had proven myself.
The cavern isn't finished. It has saved the hardest trial for last.