Chapter Thirty-Three Zephyra
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ZEPHYRA
I stare out over pitch-dark waters and try not to puke.
Six months. I ran away six months ago and vowed to never return.
But here I am, as if no time has passed, as if I never fucking left.
I can almost hear the sorcerer’s phantom laughter in my ear, a dark storm of vengeful irony.
He won. Whether the others know it yet doesn’t matter.
The High Sorcerer of the Four Seas always wins.
I tuck my hands under my arms, leaning over the starboard side of the ship to peer into the unnaturally still sea.
The Sceleratus Trench lies beneath, tens of thousands of feet below.
A shiver racks my spine.
“You know there’s a world where this plan—bleeding me into the seas to trick the sorcerer—didn’t work, right?
He could be down there. Right now. He could be waiting for us, and as soon as I drain it, we’re all as good as dead.
” Worse than dead. We’ll be his. My stomach churns uneasily.
Every instinct in my body begs me to turn this ship around, to force it as far from here as possible.
Every instinct screams that I need to run.
But there is no more running.
Arion takes my hand, brushing a kiss along my knuckles as his wings stretch out around his new silver armor.
Amaya has fitted the entire crew. Silver breastplates and silver swords and that same silvered cord between us.
“I know,” he says shortly. “But if that happens, we’ll figure it out. This isn’t over for us.”
Arion has refrained from using his magic over the last few nights.
Every time he sleeps, he gets a little stronger.
I’d almost believe he wasn’t dying at all, but he’s stopped masking his pain, and even now I taste his death—our death—on my tongue.
The veins in his skin have blackened all the way to his calves, which I see nightly when we disrobe and lie side by side in the private chamber Amaya gifted us.
Mostly, we sleep. Sometimes, we fuck. Always, he holds me.
He tells me everything is going to be all right.
“You believe that?” I ask him skeptically now. Under the first rays of dawn, with the trench churning beneath us, I don’t feel safe anymore. I feel as if I’m about to make another huge mistake. One from which I’ll never be able to recover.
“I do.” He tips my chin up. “Do you trust me, mermaid?”
The answer immediately dries on my tongue.
Yes. Yes, I trust him—but I shouldn’t. I should have learned my lesson.
I should have learned to never trust anyone ever again.
He stares at me, and the cord pulses with my honesty even though I don’t speak it.
He nods once in understanding. “I’m going to get us out of here. Alive.”
“And then?” I ask.
That’s our new favorite game to play. In the dark, we make up wholly unrealistic scenarios for our future. Each more unbelievable than the last. But this one, it’s the worst yet.
“And then we take the heart, we kill the sorcerer, and we leave,” Arion says, voice low and hard. “We go wherever you want, Zephyra. On land. In the sea. Everything else… they’re just details to figure out later. They don’t matter.”
But they do.
If we manage to trick and kill the sorcerer, our lives will unfold like an endless roll of blank parchment that neither of us are prepared to fill in.
Arion would never survive the Syl, my home. They’d strip him of his wings almost as quickly as they’d tear out his heart. And I could never return to Mortia. So where does that leave us? What does that leave us? I am still a mermaid. He is still a warlock.
There is no future for us.
Arion must know it too. His gaze darkens. “Trust me, Zephyra,” he repeats, sharper than before. As if he can convince himself, can convince destiny or the gods or whoever the fuck has been making our lives so miserable, through words alone. I don’t have the heart to tell him it won’t work.
So I take his hand, and I allow him to lead me back to the plank.
“Hold tight,” Amaya orders. “Hold fast.”
Her crew—armored in the same silver as Arion and me—hurries to grab on to the surrounding riggings. They pull at the ropes. Clutch on to the edge of the anchor’s wheel. Arion simply pulls me to him, holding me against his side with an arm thrown around my waist. “I’ve got you,” he says.
Amaya guides us down with a harsh wind that jostles every crew member as the ship finally settles on top of still waters.
I hear Gavriall curse distantly, but I keep my eyes fixed on the sea.
I’m still waiting for him to appear. I’m still waiting to hear his laugh, still waiting for him to condemn us all.
“Ready?” Arion asks.
“No,” I say.
He releases me anyway, and Vesper moves to join us. Her hair falls flat around her shoulders. There isn’t a hint of wind left to rustle her silver locks, not a stroke of gentle breeze or the violent whipping of riotous squalls.
“So,” Gavriall says, popping up beside Vesper and startling her enough that she nearly trips over her feet and off the plank. He looks extremely satisfied at that. “You’ll just be… draining the entire ocean now?”
“Yes, Gavriall,” I deadpan. “I’m going to drain the entire ocean in the span of a few seconds.”
Vesper whacks Gavriall upside his head. “She’s being sarcastic, you twat.”
He hisses, rubbing the back of his skull and sliding away from her. “Yes. I understood that.” His brown gaze seeks mine. “How does this work?”
“I need to rub my hands together, sing a prayer to the goddess, and piss in the ocean six times. Six, Gavriall. Not seven. Not five. Six. Got it?” I throw him a glare over my shoulder.
He glances between me and Arion and Vesper. “This would also be sarcasm?”
“This would be me telling you to shut the fuck up so I can concentrate.”
“You’re prickly,” Vesper says. When I turn my glare on her, she raises her hands. “I didn’t say I hate it. This might be my favorite version of you.”
I grind my teeth.
They don’t understand. My stomach knots as if sea serpents laid eggs inside it and those eggs just hatched.
A dozen little snakes coiling around my organs and nerves and fears, smothering everything in me until I am trembling and sick.
Arion has been a distraction. A gorgeous, devastating distraction.
But it wasn’t enough to actually erase my memories.
Nor was it enough to scramble my basest fears. I’m fucking petrified.
All the while, anticipation slices through the rest of the ship.
Amaya’s hunger at being so close to such a gargantuan discovery, Gavriall’s lust for something that might buy his way out of Tower Historia, Vesper’s need to resurrect her sister, and Arion’s desperation for the heart.
They all think they’re headed toward something big. They all anticipate success and glory.
But I know we’re running straight toward another noose.
Shutting my eyes, I try to force myself into my body from days ago. When I was standing over the table and explaining the castle with such confidence. When I felt as if maybe this would all be okay. It doesn’t work, however, and I am still trembling. “I don’t know—”
Amaya’s sword nudging my spine cuts off the last of my sentence.
“We are not backing out of this, Zephyra.” When the sword lowers, away from my back, I turn to look at her.
“We are here now, and we have prepared for every circumstance. We are equipped with every weapon and strength known to mankind. We have sirens and warlocks and storm magic on our side. So we are going to see this through.”
The or else part of that was clearly silent.
Right.
With a hissed curse, I knock her sword away and step forward, pulse thundering beneath my rib cage as the edge of the plank groans under my boots.
I glance down. Can’t stop glancing down.
The trench waits below. Dark. Twisted. Evil.
I lower myself onto my knees, and my hand shakes violently as I extend it toward the water.
I know what has to be done; I just really don’t want to do it.
I look up at Arion for help, but he only gives an encouraging grin.
Gavriall shoos me on with both hands. And Vesper—well, she wants me to die, so of course she flashes me two thumbs-up.
“Must you dawdle forever to die?” the cursed skull chitters from Felix’s outstretched hands.
I snarl. “If I transform and use my magic, it will alert the sorcerer as to my current whereabouts. If the sorcerer is alerted while he is inside his castle, we’re fucked. Okay?”
“He won’t be in the castle,” Vesper says. “He will be in one of the other three seas looking for you. Following your trail of blood.”
“Trust me,” Arion echoes, imploring me with that beautiful silver-gold gaze to do this. My eyes flick to his chest, where armor conceals his decaying heart.
Fine.
The salt air prickles across my skin. My breath catches as my fingertips break the surface of the Syl.
This transformation isn’t like the other times. The ocean doesn’t welcome me now. It devours me. As if some part of him is here, already wrenching me home.
Magic erupts white light beneath my flesh, beneath my loose white skirt.
My legs fuse and stretch, bones reshaping as scales bloom iridescent turquoise below my navel.
My tail slams against the plank with a wet crack, nearly upending everyone on it, but Amaya saves them at the last minute with a forceful gust.
“Are you okay?” Arion asks, crouching low behind me. One hand on my back as I lean over the ship and stare at my rippling reflection.
“Not at all.” I drag my finger in a lazy circle, disrupting my reflection entirely, and allow my magic to sing through my veins.
Into the sea. An addictive rush of power courses through me as I bend the waters to my will.
I spin my finger faster and faster, around and around, in silent command. The ocean hears me.
It obeys.