Ursula kicked upward, hard, breaking through the surface. The salty air burned her lungs as she gasped, whipping her head toward the sound of shouting.
Eric stood at the bow of his ship. His body was coiled with tension, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
On the docks, she saw the naval ships and its sailors shift into action. Anchors lifted. Men ran to their battle stations.
Beneath them all, the waters stirred. A ripple. A vibration. It wasn't either army.
The kraken's roar split through the ocean, a sound so deep it rattled Ursula’s bones. The sea trembled. Waves churned in a frenzy as the beast shifted from the depths. Its massive tentacles sliced through the water, reaching toward the surface.
She hadn't needed to call it. The sea monster had sensed the war brewing in its waters. Now it would destroy whatever it could find. The nearest thing to it was the ocean liner. From its decks, men armed harpoons that would be useless against the monster and would likely do more damage to the sea creatures who had decided to stand behind her.
Ursula had two choices.
She could sing to the men, twist their minds withher voice, force them to lower their weapons, to stand down, to trust her.
Or—
She could sing to the kraken, call to the ancient beast and lure it back into the abyss, soothing it, coaxing it into sleep once more, which would serve to give Triton an advantage.
The sea creatures held their breaths.
The sailors braced.
The mermen advanced.
The kraken’s eyes locked on to the ship.
Ursula opened her mouth?—
And sang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The houseboat pitched beneath Eric’s feet, a toy in the mouth of gods. The sea was chaos—pure, ancient chaos. The ocean liner loomed in the distance, crawling toward port like a wounded beast, and all around it was madness.
Triton’s army sliced through the surf, spears drawn, golden armor flashing like lightning beneath the waves. Sea monsters flanked them—creatures out of old sailors’ nightmares, their eyes glowing, their teeth bared. And from the deep, he felt it—a pulse, a shift, the roiling stir of something vast and ancient.
The kraken. Its tentacles breached the surface like mountain ridges rising from the sea. In the center of it all, caught between monstrous force and human fear, was his wife.
“Hold fire!” Eric shouted over the wind. But his voice was lost to the storm, to the panic, to the thunder of fins and harpoons.
A harpoon launched into the air from the liner. Eric's heart slammed into his ribs. Another one flew, this one angling—aimed low. Aimed at her.
“Cease fire!” he screamed again, voice raw, fists clenched.
But no one could hear the king's orders from the small houseboat in the middle of the sea.
The houseboat rocked again. Eric stumbled, bracing himself on the slick railing, spyglass slipping from his hand. His throat burned with the taste of bile. He couldn’t stop them. He wasn’t fast enough. The naval ships behind him were too far. The sea was too deep. And he—he was just one man.
Not a merman. Not a soldier. Not a god. Just a king who couldn’t swim fast enough to get to his queen.
He felt the helplessness rise like a wave inside him—thick, choking, the kind that could drown a man before he ever touched the sea. He couldn't save her himself. He had to trust that she could get herself out of this.
It went against every instinct in his body—to protect, to fix, to fight. But he couldn’t fight the ocean of waves, a gang of sea monsters, or an army of mermen.
Then his wife—his beautiful, brilliant, battle-tested wife—opened her mouth. And sang.
Her voice rolled out over the waves—not a cry, not a scream, not even a warning. A song. Low and haunting, threaded with power and sorrow and a fury that had been tempered into command. It wrapped around the chaos, wove through the storm. The sea seemed to pause. The wind held its breath.
