“Oh, my sweet sister.” Aarna sobbed as she unpierced Layla’s wrists, cradling the mermaid’s limp body in her arms.
Edward retched, and Skye began crying beside me.
Pisceon’s shoulder muscles rippled as he turned to us. His features all closed off, as if a shutter had fallen across his face. “Retch all you like, Drowned boy. Your people did this.”
Finn put his hand on Pisceon’s arm, but his eyes were also filled with something dark.
Aarna continued to wail, clutching Layla’s body to her chest. My throat was tight as I thought of Porphura.
“The others must have escaped through the tunnel.” Pisceon’s dark brows lowered. “It’s imbued with ancient magic. The Drowned won’t be able to enter once the door is sealed.”
I breast-stroked toward the remaining crossbars, gently touching Elias’s cheek. His eyes were shut within bruised hollows, skin pale as bone. Jagged holes marked his wrists where the blood-hungry Drowned had pierced and drained him. And there was something else—a mark on his cheek.
“I think you guys should come and see this,” I called.
Pisceon and Finn appeared at my side as I ran my finger across a spiraling imprint, slick and glistening like a wet burn, on the boy’s right cheek. The shape resembled a coiled tentacle wrapping inward.
“The Fisherman’s mark,” Pisceon growled, breathing out sharply.
“I’ve seen this before.” My insides knotted as I thought of the Captain.
Finn’s jaw clenched, muscles flexing beneath his tattooed skin as he folded his arms across his chest. “We cannot linger. We must reach the Tunnel of Herákleion before night falls on these waters.”
“I’m not leaving her!” Aarna choked back a sob as she brushed Layla’s dark hair from her forehead. The mermaid’s once coffee-colored skin had faded to a pale caramel in death.
“I might be able to help,” Skye said softly.
Silence fell over the group as every gaze shifted to her.
48
Skye
Iflushed under everybody’s stares.What the hell am I doing?
My mind slipped into images of Layla smiling as she chose jewels with Porphura and me at the Thálassian village... Layla offering me a goblet of wine in the fancy Mer boutique... Layla, her golden tail flicking through the piazza as she gazed at the purple-haired mermaid she loved.
Now, Layla was gone.
Aarna let out another gut-wrenching sob, awakening something in me. “Peisinoe told me that Sirens can grant the souls of those who have left us a blessed passage to the afterlife,” I said. “I thought perhaps... I could...”
Aarna glared up at me with bloodshot eyes. Her sleek curls were a mess, and the kohl that usually rimmed her lashes was smudged. “Peisinoe is one of the last ancient Sirens. You’re half-human. What can you possibly do?”
“Layla was kind to me. I’d like to try at least.” I pursed my lips to stop the tremble.
Glacies put her hand on Aarna’s back. “Let her try tohelp, my love.”
Aarna nodded slowly, and I glided over to them. She released Layla into my arms before throwing herself into Glacies’s embrace and sobbing furiously.
I couldn’t help but glance at Finn. His brow was furrowed, and his eyes were dark, but his face showed only pain for his wife-to-be and her lover, not jealousy.
“Let’s do this properly.” I blew out a breath. “Lay the Mer beside Layla—and someone gather coral and shells for Agápe.”
Aarna helped me ease Layla onto her back so she could float in the current. Her long, dark plaits, matted with blood, drifted sadly in the swell. Pisceon and Finn rested the Thálassian guards and Elias beside her, their lilac tails now faded to gray.
I motioned for Aarna to join me beside the floating Mer, and I began to arrange their clothes and hair with care, as one would before a funeral on land. Aarna understood. She moved to her sister, drawing fresh kohl from the satchel on her back to repaint Layla’s eyes. She removed her own jewelry and placed it on her sister, adorning her for her journey to the afterlife.
Morgana and Edward returned with corals and shells. Guided by instinct, I placed a shell over each of the floating Mer’s eyelids, then clasped their lifeless webbed hands around bundles of coral and seaweed, pressing them to their chests.
