“We’re going to try and free a goddess,” I say with forced calm. As if it’s not an impossible thing to even think. “But you need to hide, for now. If a siren finds you, they’re likely to think you’re a wraith and could attack. Once things are settled, we’ll figure out how to get you back to your daughters. I promise. But it might take a day or two.”
“All right. You’ve never let me down.” Kevhan swims into the nest of roots. He pauses, then adds with a grin, “Except for that one time you got me killed.”
“You’re looking good for a dead man,” I retort with a chuckle.
Kevhan’s attention shifts to Ilryth. “Keep her safe.”
“I will. Though I’m sure it’ll be much the other way around.” Ilryth takes my hand. “We should go.”
I nod and lead the way. Rather than back to the castle where the chorus no doubt waits, I swim toward the Lifetree.
“Wait, Victoria, where—”
I glance over my shoulder. “Frankly, Ilryth, I don’t care what your chorus thinks or says. Krokan has tasked me with one job: to free Lady Lellia. I see no point in delaying.”
We round the roots and arrive at the beach. It isn’t until I’m halfway out of the water that I hear the song resonating over the island.
“Lucia was leading a prayer to the old goddess, begging for peace,” Ilryth explains. He hasn’t shed his tail. “There are worshipers there. Wemustgo through the chorus.”
“How many sirens?” I ask.
“What?”
“Could we handle them?”
“Victoria.” He swims back with a pump of his arms, gazing up at me in shock. “I won’t fight my kin.”
“The longer we delay, the closer we are to the whole world dying.” I gesture to the tunnel that leads to Lellia’s door. “We’reright here. We go. I grab one of the axes leaning against the roots, then I hack open the door while you hold the rest of them off. You’re the Duke of Spears, I’ve seen you fight.”
“You can’t just charge in like that.” He shakes his head slowly.
“Why not?”
“They will kill you.”
I gesture to myself. “I have already walked the deepest part of the Abyss and returned of my own volition. I am not afraid of any mortal.”
“Please, I do not wish to see you as the villain of this tale,” Ilryth says softly.
I wade into the water, kneeling before him. The waves lap against my chest. Ilryth’s arms frame me on either side. Our faces almost touch as I cup his cheeks.
“Ilryth…I spentyearswhere people saw me as the villain. Years where I believed their words—that I was a wretched, unlovable creature,” I say softly. His eyes widen with shock. I continue before he can object. “But I know now…I’m not. I never was. I kept telling myself that I knew, but my heart never believed.
“But now I know it in my soul. I hear my own song so clear and true that there is no doubt. Let them try to sing over me. They will not. I will scream, if I must, to make myself heard. My truth and you are all I need. So long as you know the design of my heart—you don’t see me as evil—then I don’t care about the rest of the world. They do not matter.”
“Victoria,” he murmurs softly, leaning up to kiss my lips gently, tasting of him and saltwater, but also sorrow. So much pain lives in him on my behalf. I caress his cheeks and try to smile—to reassure him that it’s all right. For the first time in my life, it will all be all right. I have not only the power to lead my destiny, but peace with the past.
“Let me go, if not to break down the door then to sing with Lellia. To ask her for the first time in thousands of years whatshewants. We will do as she directs before all others.”
“Very well.” Ilryth only gets out the first note of the song to shed his scales when a familiar voice interrupts us.
“Old gods above and below, the shift in song was true. The conspirators have returned to damn us all.” Ventris fumes at the opening of the tunnel.
I turn quickly, my hands dropping from Ilryth’s face. Fenny stands next to Ventris, at the lead of a host of warriors and sirens that must have been among the worshipers. On Fenny’s right arm and shoulder are markings identical to what I had always seen on Ilryth’s skin. She carries a familiar spear in her hand—Dawnpoint.
“Fenny?” Ilryth blinks, confusion seeped into the name.
“That is Duchess of Spears to you, traitor.”
