My eyes adjusted in the briny water as I scuttled underneath the structure, inching my way. Bubbles and pressure filled my ears, then an audible splash rushed through the water. I knew he was after me.
I kicked harder, swimming with all my weary strength, trying to flee. But then a hand clasped my ankle.
I turned to face the fiend, and his entire body was glowing a deep, bright red, like fresh blood. His eyes brimmed with the color. I screamed,sending bubbles streaming through the water. Kicking and fighting, I struggled against him. But he wassostrong.
He pulled me through the water with ease, despite my kicking and fighting. When we breached the surface, he scooped me up into his large arms.
The pink-haired woman came closer to us. “I know my words mean little,” she said, “but I promise you. You are safe.”
Exhaustion settled into me rapidly. I was far too weary to fight anymore. My eyelids were heavy. I struggled to fight sleep, let alone the monsters.
“This is why we don’t take women off ships, they’re relentless,” the man said, his dark-brown curls already drying. Water was wicking off his skin.
“Why was she on that ship? Calypstra’s intel said it was only for cargo.”
I gawked at the glass dome above us as more creatures like this pair swam by, glowing. I realized then: they were the lights surrounding the ship. The song that had called the men to jump into the sea.
The pink-haired woman must have noted my fear, because her face melted into another worried smile.“Do not fear, friend. Nymphaea saved you.” She nodded to my wrist resting in my lap. “We will take her to my room.”
“Nixie, we do not know her.”
My vision faded in and out under heavy eyelids, exhaustion settling into my bones.
“The Holy Mother sent her to us. We must welcome her, Raylik,” she answered.
We walked and walked before turning down another smaller hall, lined in colorful silks that passed by in vibrant smears. Until a dooropened, and in dim glowing light, Raylik placed me down carefully on a comfortable couch. My body liquefied.
“I shall help you change and then you must rest,” she, Nixie, said. “You endured much today.”
“Guess I get to tell Hylos of yourguest,then?” he grumbled.
“Thank you,” she chirped.
Chapter 9
The room I awoke in was fantastical, as if crafted from pure magic. There was a bed at the center of the room, untouched. Its layers of pearlescent pinks and yellows gleamed in the morning light. Towering white columns encircled the room and reached up toward the soaring glass ceiling. Light filtered through from the dark sky.
No.That was not sky. Hundreds of fish swam by, shimmering in silvers and golds.
I jolted upright, a surge of adrenaline slamming into my sternum. Memories of the ship, the crash, and the strange beings flooded back to me.
That was water outside ¼outsea… that shone hazy blue-green. Because somehow, I was beneath the ocean.
“Good, you’re awake,” the pink-haired woman, Nixie, said as she peeked in from the entrance. My skin prickled as she breezed through the room and I kept a wary eye on her.
The longest end of her mauve dress kissed the marble floor, while the shortest end exposed her muscular thighs sparkling with opalescent scales.Scales. Like a fish. They twinkled past her calves in the light and blended into those long pink fins that she used to propel her in the water just outside these walls, as she did when she saved me.
She disappeared through an archway, a bolt of blush-colored fabric hanging from it. A rush of water. “I’ll draw you a hot bath and leave you some clothes,” she called over the sound, her voice crystalline, like a note from the treble. “I asked around and found something modest. I know your people dress more than we do.” She returned through the archway. “Hylos, our ruler, requests you join him for breakfast.”
Her ruler …? Did sea-dwelling monsters have such things?
She entered the main room and stood before me. Completely and utterly mythical.
“He is kind. So please, don’t … I know it’s hard not to but …” She looked down at her finned feet. “But ¼ please don’t be afraid.”
I couldn’t help but stare at her.
A wave of embarrassment washed over her features, which she flattened with a smile.
