He slammed into one of the posts as he fell, his body twisting in midair. Then he hit the water, and a heartbeat later, I was plummeting through the surface and into the deep black underneath.
I struck out frantically for two wild strokes—trying to drag myself to the surface—and then I slowed, trying to be deliberate, careful.
The water was so murky that I couldn’t see the massive sea snakes in the water. But then I saw Ensmeth. He was still, his arms spread, his hair floating around his face. I wasn’t sure if he was dead from that strike or still alive, but either way, hopefully he’d be the one the sea snakes ripped apart first.
But where was I even going to go? The arena was flooded all the way to the walls of the stands, which rose slick and smooth above the surface of the water; I couldn’t scale it. There were only a few ropes left dangling from the framework, and I already knew I couldn’t reach those.
There was another horn. Just like the first one that had started this terror.
Fear curdled in my stomach.
The insect nests on the posts were writhing, as if something inside were waking.
The seaheaved.
Some kind of monster—enormous, impossible to see—was loose. I couldn’t see it when I was down in the water, too, bobbing in the wake of something I couldn’t see; I kept losing sight of anything around me in the rocking water.
Then suddenly, it breached the water.
It was the largest fish I had ever seen—larger than our cottage—sleek and black.
And it threw itself over the edge of the stands. The wall collapsed under its weight, and screams rose, the audience scattering.
I felt a brief flash of satisfaction that the mortals had the far-away seats and that the asshole Fae nobles were the ones sitting close to watch us suffer.
“Snakes!” There came desperate, terrified screams.
The monster fish had knocked the barriers down, flooding the stands, and now the snakes were moving through the water amid the Fae and shifters. Were they working together?
The stands churned with fleeing Fae and blood.
I struck out, swimming as best as I could, for the wall. I didn’t wantto go toward the monsters, but that broken space in the wall was my only way to get my footing ahead. But I didn’t think I could outswim that great fish, which circled the arena.
And then it launched itself up again, knocking down another wall. With it came a net, crashing into the water as its base came unmoored. I hadn’t even noticed the fine, transparent mesh netting until it collapsed in a barely visible wrinkle through the air.
But the bird-sized insects that filled the air with their screaming buzz had another place to go now. They swarmed overhead, and I ducked, ready to go underwater, but they flew overhead in one massive wave.
As if all these monsters wanted to make a meal out of our spectators.
I shook my head at myself. I was imagining motives that probably weren’t real. There was more prey that way.
A familiar animal scream—a sound that was almost human, but deafening in size—filled the air.
The griffin.
The dragons were shifting, launching toward the monsters as the Fae tried to run.
The fish turned toward me, an enormous eye rolling my way, and I came to a stop in the water. There was nothing I could do to escape. It was a hundred times faster than I was in the water, with force that could destroy walls.
But just as it moved, two dragons struck it.
Fieran slammed into the water beside me, his wings spread to either side. He caught me in his arms and pulled me up as the sea went wild, the dragons and the fish fighting in a desperate, churning battle. I would’ve drowned in that wild wake.
“Finally,” he muttered, which raised questions. “I hated having to watch.”
The griffin was turning toward us.
Not one griffin.
