Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Theo's heart froze in his chest. He was so nervous about what the Blue Men had to say, you would’ve thought they had the actual cure for Cliodhna’s curse, not just the language of the curse.
Still, Calum, Emmett, and the rest of their little family had been insistent that they could do a lot with the actual wording of the curse.
Emmett had given Theo several long-winded lectures on the linguistics of magic when they first began their trek.
Theo now found himself wishing he remembered more of Emmett's lessons.
“Well,” Wyn broke the silence with a loud scoff, waving his hands in the air, “What are ye waiting for, a drum roll?”
A slow roll of thunder echoed through the sky in response. Some of the Blue Men smirked at one another.
Huh, Theo found himself thinking, it seems some of them do have a sense of humor after all.
“At the time of your birth,” the leader turned towards Theo, looking at him directly in the eye.
A cold shiver went down Theo's spine at the intensity in his stare, “Cliodhna said the following, ‘When the time is right, under the rolling waves, the prince will lose the fight, and take his beloved to their grave.’”
No one moved. Theo wasn't sure if he was still breathing. Lyra was frozen next to him, her hand still gripped tightly in his. Wyn was deep in thought, picking over the words in his head, unable to immediately come up with anything satisfactory as to the curse's meaning.
Finally, Lyra shook her head, as if she could reject the curse and they'd all be on their merry way.
“That doesn't make sense.” Lyra looked up at Theo. “Does that sound like a curse to you?”
Theo's face scrunched up in confusion.
“Um, yes. It does. Especially the whole bit about losing the fight and taking my loved ones to their graves.”
“It dinnae sound like a picnic, that's for damn sure.” Wyn's accent was thicker with frustration. Theo watched him pull a flask from his shirt pocket out of the corner of his eye. The three of them fell back into awkward silence, failing to make sense of Cliodhna's trickery.
“I’m serious.” Lyra insisted again, a more eager plea in her voice. “It sounds more like someone trying to read your fortune than it does a curse. A curse has more… I don't know. Verbs! Action! Something.”
Wyn poked his head out from behind Theo and gave Lyra a deadpan expression.
“Do you think all curses really need to start with ‘I curse you’? That wouldn't be very elegant now, would it?”
“I can't say that I've ever thought about the elegance of murder and maiming people.” Lyra fired back.
“Well, that's got to be a first from the siren!” Wyn snapped, their hostility with one another ramping up to its former intensity.
Theo groaned internally, ready to try and break up the commotion again, when the leader of the Blue Men did it for him.
“Our part of the bargain is fulfilled.” He looked directly at Wyn.
Wyn snorted, some of his whiskey presumably going down the wrong pipe, and nodded aggressively.
“Yes, yes. You most certainly have. You may return to Scottish waters, per His Royal Highness Calum's agreement, something, something, a royal decree.” Wyn wiped his chin on his sleeve.
“Just, you know, no killing or maiming people, magical or benign, and try not to make any mortals think you're a harbinger of the apocalypse.”
“They do love that shit,” Lyra agreed, resting her chin on the edge of the boat. Theo couldn't keep up with how often Lyra and Wyn bickered, but at least Wyn wasn't trying to fight Lyra any more physically.
“Do you have any questions or... Oh,” Wyn started to ask the leader and trailed off. All three of them started scanning the water, chills erupting over their skin and scales.
The Blue Men had disappeared. Whether they vanished out of thin air or sank beneath the water without so much as a splash, Theo didn't know.
All he knew was they were in front of the dingy one minute, their leader talking to Wyn, and then gone the next.
The sudden absence of the Blue Men was infinitely more palpable, as though an atmospheric vacuum opened up, and a huge wave of magic had been sucked right out of the air.
It was deadly quiet. Even the waves and the seagulls seemed silent. Theo could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
“I don't like this,” Wyn muttered, grabbing the oars. “Theo, help me. Let's get back to the ship and get out of the Minch, quickly.”
“Go,” Lyra encouraged, her face going pale.
“What's happening?” Theo insisted, tightening his grip on Lyra's hand instead of listening to Wyn's instructions.
“I don't know.” Lyra shook her head, her voice getting high-pitched and panicky.
“But I didn't think the Blue Men would disappear so quickly.
This has always been their territory, so there's residual magic in the water.
We were relatively safe from other threats while we were in their company, but now they've left us out here like sitting ducks.”
“Let's please discuss the finger points of fallen angelic migrations when we are back on the bigger, magical boat!” Wyn snapped, grabbing the second oar from Theo's hand. In a few strokes, he'd nearly hauled them halfway back to the ship, his muscles flexing without barely breaking a sweat.
“Lyra!” Theo turned around, searching for her amongst the waves. She was no longer hanging onto the edge of the dinghy, and Theo couldn't see her body in the water.
“Wyn, stop!” Theo screamed, grabbing the oar and pulling at it. “Where did Lyra go?”
“Oi, don't act like a fucking eejit.” Wyn grimaced. “She's a siren! We're in the fucking ocean! Excuse me for not being concerned about her right now. She's probably just swimming back to the boat, as we should be!”
Wyn grabbed the oars again, tightening his grip and practically pulling them across the surface of the water to the side of their ship.
“Wyn, stop!” Theo screamed.
The anxiety in his chest had turned into abject panic and horror.
There was something wrong; he could sense it in the sky and the water surrounding them.
He hadn't been raised amongst his magical kin, but his instincts were still sharp.
They had to be after learning to spend his entire life on the run.
And there was something very, very wrong.
Instead of the skies and the sea turning dark with an impending storm, everything very slowly started to take on an abject green hue.
It started so slowly, Theo wasn't even sure if that was what he was seeing.
But as every moment passed, and Wyn secured the side of the dinghy to the boat, he was more convinced the world around them was turning a sickly shade of green.
The water grew deathly still, not even the soft waves of the current rocking them to and fro.
There were no whitecaps of churning waves, only soft, rolling trails of sea foam coming from every direction at once.
Even the light of the sun started to feel weaker and weaker, as if someone had turned down the dimmer and given it a vomit-tinted hue.
“Wyn!” Theo screamed, putting every inch of bravado in his voice he could muster, “Are you fucking seeing this?”
He turned around, shouting at the elf prince, who was halfway up the rope ladder towards the deck.
Wyn, to his credit, knew when a man was desperate.
He heard the panic in Theo's voice and stopped moving, his gaze quickly sweeping over the horizon for any threat.
Theo saw the exact moment on Wyn's face when he realized there was nothing actually chasing them and no cyclone threatening to sink their ship.
Rather, the entire atmosphere had become tainted.
“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Wyn whispered. It came out of him like a prayer and a plea. He held his hand out for Theo, beckoning him to climb onto the ship.
“I don't like it. This is something much worse than Blue Men or shite weather. This is Scotland. I know how to handle those.”
Theo stayed where he was in the boat, frantically searching for Lyra. The water was still as a pond now, with the same greenish hue. If he stared in one spot too long, Theo could swear he started to see reeds growing up from the ocean floor.
“I know you're looking for her,” Wyn grunted, “but she can handle herself. We have got to get moving. Now.”
“No!” Theo protested again. He got down on his knees in the dingy, a mess of desperation and panic.
There was something in the back of his mind, a survivor's instinct, trying to let him know that there was a predator in his midst. But Theo had been listening to that part of his brain his entire life, and now, his heart was telling him he was a coward. He couldn't leave Lyra here.
These were not friendly waters. Not even to a siren.
Wyn cursed under his breath, something about refusing to babysit in the future, and jumped down into the dinghy. He tossed Theo over his shoulder and started up the rope ladder again.
For the second time in less than a day, Theo found himself in the rather undignified position of being thrown over another grown man's shoulder.
“Wyn, please!” Theo could feel the blood rushing to his head, only adding to the physical sensations of panic compounding in his body. “Something's wrong. We have to help—”
Wyn hauled them over the railing and deposited Theo with a heavy thud on the deck. Without a word in response or recognition, he raced towards the ship's wheel. The ship's magic recognized its captain as the sails unfurled from their masts, and the boat began to turn towards the shore.
“Wyn!” Theo shouted, this time in fury. He was tired of other people controlling his life. He was tired of feeling like a coward, constantly on the run from a threat he'd never seen or known up close. Now Lyra had disappeared from right next to him, and he wasn't going to do anything about it?
History was preparing to repeat itself at a shockingly high frequency as Theo prepared to jump overboard.
Instead of grabbing him, Wyn continued to man the ship's wheel, letting out a high-pitched whistle.
On his command, some of the ship's rigging came alive.
Two ropes shot out towards Theo, wrapping around his waist and tying him to the mast.
“You know,” Wyn shouted, his hands furiously turning the wheel to try and navigate them out of the cursed sea, “most of the time when I have to tie men to the mast because of a siren, the sirens are singing.”
“Let me fucking go!” Theo shouted, fighting against the ropes. It was no good, but he was bursting with energy and desperation, still scanning over the sickly water for any sign of life. For any sign of Lyra's blue tail or bright hair.
The boat stopped.
The sudden momentum sent Wyn flying to the deck, barely avoiding breaking his nose with the sudden harsh impact.
The wind picked up speed, but the boat stayed in one place like it had been moored at a dock.
A rotten smell of death invaded their senses, carried on the fast winds like a rampant warning of disease and carnage.
Theo and Wyn shut their eyes against the offensive smell, tears streaming down their cheeks as they choked through it, desperate for fresh air as though they'd never known it.
When Theo managed to blink through his tears, he looked out over the starboard side of the ship, and his heart sank to his feet.
There was no mistaking Cliodhna, the goddess of the banshees and the Irish seas.
She was standing fifteen feet above them, the ocean lapping at her waist. She was dressed in rags, permanently torn and soaking wet, her hair hanging in limp strands around her face.
Everything about her was green, from the dark green of her lips to the sickly yellow green of her eyes and teeth to the muted shades of her skin.
By contrast, bright and beautiful and full of life, was Lyra, trapped in Cliodhna's hand like a child with a doll.
Lyra was crying, shaking her head back and forth, but making no attempts to escape. Theo could see her mouthing 'no' repeatedly, clearly trying to dissuade him from going after them.
“Lyra!” Theo screamed, throwing himself against the ropes, which held him steady.
“By the gods.” Wyn looked disgusted, more than afraid. He was scared witless at the sight of such an overbearing apparition come to life, but he’d never admit it, especially not in all the retellings this story would receive in the future.
“T-theo, at l-long last,” Cliodhna finally spoke, shaking the air with her words.
Each syllable was like a thunderclap, rocking the boat beneath Theo's feet.
When she spoke, her face flickered, her flesh melting away to reveal only a skeletal grin, only to reappear the very next.
She was a Halloween holographic portrait come to life, except instead of a beautiful woman and a ghost, there was only a corpse and a skeleton.
“Don't listen to whatever she says!” Lyra screamed, her voice cracking, as she pounded against Cliodhna's fist.
Cliodhna shook her hand a few times, jostling Lyra violently. Theo cursed, trying to force himself now to remain calm, the way he imagined Calum would under duress.
“C-come and f-find me,” Cliodhna teased. When she exhaled, banshees flew out from her cracked lips, disappearing on the wind before they made it closer to the boat.
“Lyra—” Theo shouted, but she interrupted him.
“Don't you dare! Theo, no!” Lyra tried to dissuade Theo, but a forest of kelp and pond weeds was rising from the depths, latching onto Cliodhna's body.
They pulled her back down into the abyss, slowly at first, then all at once.
The whole way down, Cliodhna had a wretched smile on her face, staring at Theo in challenge from underneath her heavy brow.
Then she was gone.