But with a massive roil, Léviathan regained his equilibrium, smashing floes of seawater from the harbor straight into Reginald and Fury. All around, Sirens cocooned themselves into the walls like barnacles, or swirled up into their beasts to dive off into the deeps as Léviathan showed why he’d been the strongest of them for generations. Lances of roaring blackwater heaved at Reginald and Fury now, suddenly on the defensive as they fought back with lashing braids of power and watery harpoons, washing crest after crest of white-caps through the coral and pearl hall.
As if made for such gales, the vast dome weathered their storm, even as the Siren King and the twins slammed together now, biting and hammering each other with sea-waves, mind-strikes, and raking talons as they fought. Injured, Reginald leaked white-gold blood as Fury leaked moon-silver now – but Léviathan oozed tarry black blood from his wounds as if sickly under the harbor’s night. Though the battle was fierce, it was clear the old warlord was no match for both of the twins at once. Pulling back, Layla saw the cold devastation of thefinal strikefill Léviathan’s eyes as he drew up tall. With a roar, madness possessed Léviathan as he exhaled like a demon, spitting a tremendous wave of diseased black sea-spears from his gaping maw at the twins. But swirling together fast, Reginald and Fury braided their coils as one.
Hammering that shockwave of diseased spears straight back into Léviathan.
He choked; the Siren King roared as a thick, black, diseased seawater spilled like oil from his throat just the same as Layla earlier but a hundred times worse. Surging out over the floor, that watery tar ate the corals like acid. Léviathan vomited, he gasped with that dark magic devouring him – whatever attack he’d tried on Layla and the twins now choking him to death. Flailing, the Siren King coiled in and in upon himself in agony as his rheumatic talons spasmed and his head heaved into the dome. Thrice he crashed his massive head into the dome’s coral walls, but he could not crack them and escape to the harbor above. With a choking gasp, he roiled to the watery inlet – splashing his head in so far it covered his corkscrewing horns, his ribs heaving as he worked to take in lungful after lungful of seawater.
To abate the black acid now eating him alive.
Even as Layla stared in horror, Reginald and Fury’s Sirens hesitated. One of them had to kill Léviathan to topple him, but in the shock of what they had just done, both Sirens paused, stricken. As one, they swirled down fast to human as Léviathan’s Siren still churned in pain over the edge of the inlet. Their wall of water around Layla and Rhennic dropped as Léviathan’s shudders became weaker, though he still wasn’t dead. But Atlantos and Typhos were released from their restraints, Vindaris at the unconscious Leni’s side as he breathed healing waves into her.
Stepping to Reginald and Fury, Rhennic and Layla stared at the enduring coils of Léviathan, just as the tall Siren with sleek silver hair stepped from the crowd. Moving in, he stared at Léviathan also, his silver Siren masque weeping tears. As he turned his dawn-bright eyes to Layla, she shuddered at his vast power, before his gaze moved to Reginald and Fury. Both shivered as if death itself had stalked their graves. As they all turned to the unknown Silver Siren, he spoke – a sonorous voice of the heavens and blackest waters drowning every mind in the room.
“It is not done until it is done, my sons.”
As Layla snapped up in shock, realizing who it was before them, she felt a power as big as the world roll through the hall. It was madness, it was pure ecstasy as Hunter’s power called them with all the tones of the sea – whispering at what they had to do. To Atlantos, Typhos, Vindaris, and Rhennic, it told them to step back, and they did. To Layla, it called for her to arrive at his side, and leaving her Bound men without a moment’s hesitation, she came to him. But as Hunter turned that enormous wave of mesmeric might to Reginald and Fury, it told them to kill.
To kill Léviathan – and take the Siren throne.
Neither moved. Layla saw their agony as that enormous mind-talent called them, drowning out every other sound in the world. But even as Layla quailed from the vast power of Hunter’s mind, she felt Reginald and Fury flow back along the Bind like a golden lifeline in the deeps. They found Layla, and together their resolve strengthened as Layla’s fire-bright passion surged to them. Far away, they found Adrian, who whirled up with sharp attention, roaring a furious wave of red-turquoise heat so hard through their Bind that it staggered them all. As they found Dusk, he slammed up diamond-sapphire shields around them all, hurling back Hunter’s cruel whispering.
But last of all, they found Rhennic.
Joy flooded from Rhennic. A vast brightness beamed through every part of Layla as it blitzed into Fury and Reginald, brightening their eyes with lightning storms as a nimbus of combined sea and storm power flared all around them. As one, they joined hands, the silver-dark of Fury twisting into the golden rage of Reginald until their power shone like the sun. And with that sun, they cast Hunter out of the Bind entirely.
Leaving him to break upon his own bitter shoals.
“We will never acquiesce to you,” Fury snarled, his eyes gone entirely silver with the wrath of his Siren now.
“For you are not our father either, and never have been.” Reginald finished, his irises blazing entirely gold in a way Layla had never seen.
But before either could move, Hunter drew up tall in his terrible masque, staring them down with a true-dawn fire in his eyes. “So be it.” He whispered, almost sadly. Extending a hand towards the yet-shuddering Léviathan, Hunter snapped his fingers.
Breaking the massive Siren King’s neck with a shocking crunch that reverberated through the entire hall.
CHAPTER 27 – MIDNIGHT
The Siren King’s body fell slack as life left him. All around, a shocked silence filled the hall as that terrible bone-crunching sound reverberated from the highest vaults. Horrified, Layla couldn’t move; she couldn’t even believe how easily Hunter had finished the Siren King. One snap of his fingers – that was all it had taken Hunter to kill Léviathan. If the Siren’s Beltane revelry had been ended before by Fury’s entrance and the twins’ battle with their King, there was utter silence now – only the sound of the harbor’s water as it lapped up against the retaining wall. As Hunter turned from Léviathan’s corpse in his weeping silver mask, his blazing eyes found Reginald and Fury.
Staring them down like a dawn bonfire.
“It is finished.” Hunter spoke quietly, though his voice echoed from every vault like Léviathan’s death-knell. “I am not truly a Siren, so one of you must take Léviathan’s place as King – as the last of your Lineage to battle him. Fear not; either of you will do for my aims. Decide, as per Siren law. And I will return your beloved when the decision has been made.”
Waving a hand, Hunter roared a tremendous dome of seawater up around himself and Layla, sequestering her to his side. As he blasted some kind of strange bright-dark energy through that dome, a whine roared in Layla’s ears as her vision flared white – as she was taken from the Twilight Realm into another Realm entirely. Returned from the dysphoria of passing through Realms, Layla saw that she and Hunter were alone beneath his watery dome, strangely tinged with that luminous bright-dark energy as it swirled all around them. Beyond, she could see Rhennic, Reginald, and the others blasting after Hunter with their magics.
But with an outstretched hand, Fury stopped them. Walking to Hunter’s strange barrier, he raised his hands, closing his eyes and feeling out with dark tendrils of shimmering oceanic energy unlike anything Layla had ever seen – but which were similar to the barrier Hunter had manifested. Fury was right at the edge of the dome, so close Layla could have reached out and touched his beautiful face. But as he scowled and lowered his hands, Layla heard through her Bind-link to Fury what he told the others.
Hunter has pulled her into a nexus-realm. They’re here, but they’re not; I can feel the hole through the weaves where they are but I can’t penetrate it.
“Fury might break his way through my barrier, eventually,” Hunter spoke in his sonorous baritone where he stood at Layla’s side. “He cannot see us, none of them can, but he can feel where we are. He is a wrathful child like the elder Dragons; like those who walked in my time. They could be anything they wanted to be, and wield the power of any element before they formed clans and began to identify with only one power. Alas, I was born into an elemental clan just as Fury was; he’ll have to study far longer to realize he could be so much more than just a water-worker. As I once did.”
“Are you saying all Dragons can work fire, air, water, and earth?” Layla turned to Hunter slowly, her heart racing a thousand miles a minute with frightened adrenaline to be beside him, though he had not moved to harm her yet – just like all the other times they had come into contact.
“And they can also work ether, the element of the heavens which creates gateways between the stars; between the Realms as heavenly Ascendants do.” Hunter glanced at her. Still wearing his full face masque, his eyes were luminous as he looked upon her, though his weeping masque was beautifully grotesque as he gestured to his watery dome. “I have worked ether through the water to create this dome, moving us between Realms to a nexus-space just as Fury surmised. He has been close to madness and death so many times, he can feel ether now, just like I discovered I could do thousands of years ago. Like myself, Fury’s magic has become a malleable thing from his power and despair.”
“Like father like son.” Layla growled bitterly, hating Hunter to her very marrow.
“Yes.” He spoke simply, watching her. “Reginald is vastly accomplished, but he did not break into the etheric state from the things I challenged him with in life. He is not chaotic enough. But Fury’s wildness is just elemental enough to break boundaries. All boundaries.”
