Chapter Ten Arion #2
She bares her teeth on yet another snarl, but I ignore it. I ignore her, turning away to pace at this new information. As much as I’d like to discard her explanation as trickery, just another deception, I cannot ignore how my throat and hand still burn. I cannot ignore my own blood.
Loathsome mermaid. My knees lock with tension as I turn, as my chest aches with the desire to throw her back to the sharks.
I shouldn’t have rescued her from the noose.
I should’ve watched her hang. I could’ve found another way to Abysses—I could’ve done more research, spent the next week reading something, anything, everything, scouring over maps and poetry.
Riddles. The answer could still lie in one of them.
I could still find it without Zephyra. I could have waited for another mermaid to happen upon, a mermaid not yet killed by the king or his men, a mermaid willing—no, forced—to work for me.
A shudder racks my spine, and I glance beneath my tunic at the web of black veins whirling out from my heart. Death’s touch reaches my abdominals now. I don’t have another week.
I don’t have another choice. I need to find Mortem’s heart.
I need her.
I have forsaken my kingdom, abandoned my vows, fled my home. There is no more time to search for another path, another merrow, another anything. I am dying. I am dying, and there is only one way forward.
I need to rely on a mermaid who has already betrayed me.
She glowers still, her gaze flicking between my wounds and my wings as though she’s debating something herself. I don’t give a single fuck what it is, or how she’s feeling—if her throat still burns like mine, if bone-deep exhaustion has settled over her too.
No. If this is going to work, I need her to understand. I need her to know—beyond a shadow of a doubt—she can’t fuck me over again.
I am in charge. I am in control.
And I’ll expend every bit of my power to prove it, even if it kills me before she can do so herself.
My wings must agree, because the left extends and knocks her chin upward with more force than necessary.
It quivers like a fist in front of her face as if warning her, reminding her of what will happen should she attempt to betray us again.
I feel that knock on the chin as if it hit me too.
Thankfully, I am accustomed to pain. It is as easy as breathing to ignore this fresh blood of hurt.
Zephyra, however, rears back in disgust, smacking it away. A revulsive shiver runs down my spine at the touch. “As you’ll notice,” she snaps, “I don’t have any nasty feathers on my body. So if I pluck them from your wings, it might not hurt me. You’ll be the only one to bleed.”
I’m not quite sure I believe that. I bare my teeth in a smile, imagining her broken and bloody. “Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
“Hit me again and find out.” Her nails scrape along the rock, chiseling off pebbles and shells as she prepares to lunge again.
To attack. I can see it in her eyes, the bloodthirst. The fury.
She hates this just as much as I do, and—just as in her cell—she can’t conceal her emotions.
They smolder in her gaze, each and every one.
Which should, hypothetically, make it easier to control her. And if she is indebted to me… perhaps I can use that to my favor as well.
I cross my arms. “My wings have a mind of their own. I’m not sure they appreciated drowning either.”
“A mind of their own? What the shit does that mean?”
My wings shake, expanding wide under her critical gaze, and the movement carves deep pain between my shoulder blades.
I feel it all the way to my core, though this pain is more familiar than any other.
My wings are no different from the rest of my body at this point, save for the fact that they’re far more opinionated than any ordinary limb.
“So you’re not… moving them?”
I shrug, and the feathers bristle. “No.”
“How—”
The primary feathers extend to press against her lips, silencing her beneath ivory and gold. She swats them away, scrambling backward on her tail as if her scales are somehow less offensive. Less revolting.
“We don’t like to talk about it,” I say as she plucks a tendril of white from her lips.
She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, appearing seconds from another dry heave. “You are both crazy.”
“Says the merrow.”
She scoffs. “I would peel your nails from your finger beds right this second if it wouldn’t hurt me too.”
“Yes,” I deadpan, “because I saved your life.” She continues to glower, but I really couldn’t care less. “Why—if you owe me a debt—would I bleed when you’re cut?”
“Are we trying to scientifically analyze a gift from divinity, now?” She rolls her eyes toward the heavens with more exaggerated condescension, and gods, I’d love to wrap my hands around her throat.
“Perhaps because a life debt can’t possibly be repaid if the one in debt is dead.
We’re linked, asshole. Of course, if you’d like to slit my throat to prove me wrong, be my guest.”
She extends her neck, stretching the fresh cut there and revealing an angry pink welt from the noose. It mars her skin alongside a dozen—a hundred—small silver scars. They shimmer on her golden skin, on her arms, her back, her belly.
Interesting.
But those scars are nothing I can use now.
I need to figure out the intricacies of this debt, and if it runs as deep as she claims. We both bleed in unison.
Her pain has become my pain, but the only way to know for sure—to know that it’s even real, not just merrow manipulation—is with magic. My magic.
I place a fist above my heart, shut my eyes, and breathe.
My magic responds instantly, as if it’s been waiting for this very moment, almost eager as it blows through my ribs.
But I don’t wince at the breathtaking pain.
I don’t groan or double over, as my body yearns to do.
Instead, I open my eyes and splay out my palm.
Zephyra curses, her own gaze widening as she scrambles backward, away from me. Away from it.
She can’t run from this, however. Neither of us can.
We are, indeed, bound.
A glowing silver cord—a million sparkling dewdrops of salt water and diamonds—connects my heart to hers. Proof of the life debt. Proof of the bond.
Fuck.
“No,” she whimpers. Her fingers curl around the silver cord, and she tugs.
My heart stutters, and my breath whooshes from my lungs.
Instinctively, I pull it back toward me, and she clutches her chest with a gasp.
“No, no, no.” For some reason—though this is only a physical representation of the truth she already knew—she seems entirely panicked now.
Against my better judgement, I move closer to her.
The silvered bond shortens with the distance.
She stares at it in horror.
“I’m shackled to you.” Her voice falls to a whisper, cracking on that word.
Shackled. She shakes her head frantically, clawing at the cord now, and I grimace at the feel of it.
Each ripple foreign, unnerving. She seems to agree, pulling it tighter still.
Pulling me closer. “Make—make it go away.” When I don’t immediately respond to her outburst, she hisses. “I said make it go away! Now!”
Glowering at her, I hold the cord in my hand and will it to vanish.
But the magic in my blood… it doesn’t obey me this time.
Confused, I try again. Now the magic scorches through me, through the bond, but instead of the cord disappearing, it only hardens to the touch.
The silver gleams between us. Bright and impenetrable.
Zephyra eyes it with palpable hostility. “Why isn’t it working? Why is it still here?”
“It has nothing to do with my magic,” I say through gritted teeth. “This is all yours. I merely called forth physical proof of the bond, and now—”
“And now?”
I force myself to say it, loathing every word. “Now I can’t seem to put it back.”
Her jaw clenches, and decision sparks in her gaze only seconds before she moves.
I don’t brace myself for it—I’ve no need.
She throws herself forward and tackles me to the ground, her hands wrapping around my throat and her nails carving into my skin.
Her body presses into mine. The silvered cord pulses with light, tangling us in knots as she tries to choke the life from me.
As she chokes the life from us both instead.
She coughs—wheezes—where I do not. I don’t make a single fucking sound.
Instead, I move my hands to her scale-infested hips, their saltwater moisture soaking into my fingers as she stiffens above me, her gaze wild and desperate.
Her hold doesn’t ease until my vision blackens and my lungs feel like bursting.
Then, and only then, does she finally throw herself off me.
Collecting herself with painful breaths, she stares at me. At the unwavering cord. “There,” she announces weakly. “I could’ve killed you just then, but I didn’t. I saved you instead. The debt is repaid.”
I rub a warm hand along my throat, soothing my lungs with small bursts of magic until I can once more inhale deeply.
Then, calmly as I can manage, I say, “It doesn’t seem to count if you’re the one who tried killing me.
” My teeth ache as my jaw hardens once more.
“That’s twice now, mermaid. If I were less benevolent, I’d punish you for it. ”
She almost laughs at that. “You’d punish yourself?”
“Yes.” Without question. If Mortem’s heart weren’t at stake—if my life weren’t at stake—I’d take my time with it. I’d have her begging, screaming, for days, maybe even weeks, and I’d relish the pain.
Zephyra must understand this because she slides back an inch and looks between the sea and the silvered cord. Between the wild waves and me.
I wind the cord around my fingers once, twice, and reel her closer. “If you flee, I’ll find you.”