Chapter Thirty-Seven Arion
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ARION
Frigid water sears my nostrils, scorches through my bones, as a wave wrenches me under. As it mangles my wings, twisting them with relentless, bruising force. I ignore it. The pain. The panic.
I ignore it all to find her.
Zephyra was half unconscious when the wave collided with us, when the river flooded the chamber and swept us out.
She sank first. She didn’t transform. Her pale legs kicked; her nails clawed for purchase.
Clumsy, flailing movements. It’s as if, without her tail, she doesn’t know how to swim.
As if she’ll drown. And without our bond, without being able to see our silvered cord, I can’t find her.
I slice through the water. Count to a hundred, a thousand, two thousand in my head.
Nothing in the last few weeks—the last twenty years—has mattered as much as this.
Finding Zephyra. Saving Zephyra. I’m dying, but if our bond has vanished, she might still have a chance.
She might not have to die too. I catch a glimpse of pink in the undertow and react instantly.
Zephyra still flails, her blue eyes wide with horror as the water ripples around her body and seems to lure her deeper.
She claws at the water to release her, but it doesn’t.
She’s drowning.
With a snarl, I pull myself forward, muscles rippling and wings fighting the current.
There is no more pain. There is only Zephyra.
And if becoming a warlock brought me to this—gifted me the ability to ignore the agony inside—so I could fight for her, it was worth it.
Every moment. Every second. My pink-haired mermaid is drowning, but I’m close.
Close enough now to seize her fingers. Her gaze crashes into mine, and bubbles burst from her lips on a silenced scream.
She cannot speak in these waters. She cannot breathe in them.
Nor can I, but I am used to that.
I grab Zephyra around her waist, hauling her against me as my wings heave us toward the surface.
Opposing currents battle for claim. They wrap around my ankles, our throats.
The crystal blue overhead splashes harder, accelerating around us.
Zephyra spins in my arms, her pale legs kicking weakly beneath her.
Pink hair tangles in the waters, whipping me in the face as my wings finally break through the surface.
As they tear into the open air with ferocious brutality.
Thank the fucking gods. My shoulder blades shriek in agony from the torment of gnarled pressure, but I don’t care.
My wings flex wider, higher, until we’re pulled out of the waters. Up into the air. Flying. Free.
Zephyra clings to my neck, a whimper finally ripping from her throat, but I’m too weak. Too exhausted. Too pummeled. I’m dying. I can’t carry her. I can’t even carry myself. My wings strain, but they aren’t enough.
We fly for seconds before we fall.
Before we slam into a hard embankment.
Zephyra coughs, heaving water from her lungs as she palms the ground. Her hair clings to her cheeks, her neck. She wipes it away from her face. “What was that?” Her words burn with a hoarse gasp. “What happened? There was a door—Arion, I swear I opened a door.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about. I haven’t understood anything she’s said since she began telling us about those voices, murmuring to herself, whispering so quietly none of us could hear her. “There was a tidal wave. The river flooded the chamber—”
“I’m not talking about the wave.” She lurches onto her knees. “I’m talking about the darkness and the ghosts and the door.”
Ghosts.
She’s seeing ghosts now.
“Zephyra,” I say hesitantly, offering her a hand and helping her back onto her feet. “I don’t understand.”
Her brow furrows, and her eyes narrow with hurt.
She shakes her head. “I’m not crazy. I’m not…
I’m not fucking crazy!” She screams these words so loud, I imagine the entire trench could hear her.
She doesn’t direct them at me, however. She turns back, shouting at the castle in the distance.
Far, far in the distance. “You can’t make me fucking crazy!
” Then, to me, she breathes, “Arion, I’m not. I swear I saw what I saw.”
And the conviction in her gaze is too strong to ignore. She believes she saw ghosts and opened a door and heard voices, and I’m not going to argue against that. We’ve been through too much. She’s been through too fucking much. “I know. I believe you.”
She sinks into me at that, resting her head on my chest and twining her arms around me.
Her breaths rattle from her lips. And I hold her.
I hold her because soon, I won’t be able to do so anymore.
I hold her because my muscles are seizing, my bones turning leaden, and there is a part of me—a larger part than should be possible—that loves her.
I love Zephyra of the Syl.
I am dying.
“If you two wouldn’t mind reserving that simmering sexual tension for later,” Gavriall says, gasping for breath inches away, “we have shit to deal with right now.” He gestures toward the swirling pool of water, but when we all glance at it—Vesper and Amaya tangled in a heap just behind us—the water vanishes.
Between one blink and the next, it’s just… gone.
“What?” Zephyra breathes, just as Vesper whispers, “What is happening to us?”
I have no choice but to agree with both sentiments.
Whatever that room was for… it must not have wanted us there.
And I’m not sure we have any way to return.
I’m not sure anyone will want to return.
Vesper and Amaya struggle to separate, Vesper’s legs also remaining in human form, while Gavriall retrieves his sword.
He hisses when he touches it, and the blade shatters. It smokes not from flame, but from ice.
Zephyra stares at the broken blade. “No. No, it doesn’t make sense. We found that doorway. There was a river and ghosts and—and I opened another door.”
“Ghosts?” Amaya asks. “What are you talking about?”
Zephyra whips around to face the princess. “You didn’t see them?”
Amaya shakes her head slowly, just as confused as the rest of us.
I don’t want Zephyra to panic—to keep panicking—so I say, “Let’s just figure out what’s going on. Maybe we can regroup on the ship…” My words drift off as I turn to face the ship, and I realize suddenly, sharply—
We aren’t on an embankment at all.
We’re on a step.
My jaw hardens as I gaze out at the impossible.
The tidal wave must have unearthed the trench, exposed what had long since remained buried.
The seafloor has cleared, settled, and the ship, the castle—the waters have swept us so far away they appear as silhouettes in the distance. And now—there is a city.
Domed ruins of shimmering white granite and turquoise glass rise in a maelstrom spiral in the middle of the trench.
Tendrils of seaweed twine around lengthy, ribbed columns, the plants ancient but emerald.
Alive. Seafloor pathways carve between buildings, lined on either side by reflective geodes and pastel-pink lilies, while the roads run cobbled and deep through the center.
Everything is pristine.
Everything is perfect.
And I know, as certain as I know my own name, what city this is. I’ve spent long enough researching it. We’ve spent long enough searching for it. It should have been impossible, but it wasn’t. It’s not.
Abysses.
“We found it,” Zephyra whispers. “I can’t believe we found it.”
She moves up the steps, into the cylindrical building above us.
Amaya turns to her remaining soldiers and commands them to spread out, to search as many buildings for treasure as possible.
“No.” Zephyra shakes her head swiftly, pausing a few steps from the top, and turns back.
“There’s no time. The sorcerer won’t be far behind us—the guards already alerted him.
He knows we’re here. We can’t risk splitting up again—not when we might need to flee at a moment’s notice. ”
Amaya tilts her head in that feline way of hers, blinking slowly. “We make time.” A pause. “I am not afraid of your sorcerer.”
Zephyra frowns. “That,” she says, “is really fucking stupid. His castle already claimed some of your crew. Do you want him to claim the rest?”
Amaya’s eyes flash with lightning, and she speaks with unsettling confidence. “He won’t.” Without another word, she jerks her chin to her soldiers, who scatter and duck into the buildings nearest us. Zephyra frowns after them before rolling her eyes and continuing up the stairs.
“Shit.” Ignoring the others, Gavriall stares wide-eyed at the horizon. “Holy fucking shit.”
Together, we gaze up at the building before us, the city around us, until my eyes burn from not blinking. No matter how long I look, it isn’t long enough. Abysses. An ancient utopia never before discovered. We discovered it. Zephyra and I—we did it.
“You really ought to see this, warlock,” Zephyra calls down, unable to help herself. The irritation in her voice has faded, replaced by complete awe. Just for the moment. One single, blissful moment. Because we did it—we found fucking Abysses.
We must be close to Mortem’s heart.
I jog up the crystal staircase until I meet her on the landing.
My wings fit easily through a widened doorway, undoubtedly thanks to the statue on the far right of what appears to be an old temple of worship.
Mortem himself rises from a chiseled column, his winged form so large that great feathered shadows loom over seven tables for offerings.
Bronze coins scatter the surface. Incense sticks curl stale smoke into the air.
A skull stares out at us, this one—thankfully—completely silent.
“It’s like it was frozen in time,” I say.