She nodded. “She says she’s owed a debt, and she means to collect.”
I slipped an arm around her waist, anchoring her to me.
“She won’t,” I growled and pulled her back onto the deck. “Not while I’m here.”
A massive wave slammed into the ship’s side, sloshing icy water across the boards. The sky went black. Wind screamed. From the deep, something rose.
A towering figure shimmered into being—half-kelp, half-woman, dressed in a gown of sea foam and fish scale. Her eyes glowed with old power, and her voice crashed louder than any storm.
“I am owed a debt, Knowledge Keeper! And you are in my domain. By blood and magic—she is mine!”
“Cliodhna,” I breathed—and then laughed. “Of course. I knew those wards couldn’t be taken down by a simple undyne!”
With a snap of my fingers, I swept us to the Dusk Roads—the veiled corridor between worlds, where old gods and immortals walked when the mortal realm grew too loud, winding paths we used to travel across worlds.
The air around me thrummed with recognition. The Renegade’s cursed wards had barred my entrance to this place, and it felt good to be back.
How I missed this silence, this perfectly still purple sky!
Seagulls hung suspended in the air like forgotten ornaments, wings frozen mid-beat. The wind carried no salt, only a faint metallic tang—like blood in water. The waves peeled back from the shore in unnatural silence.
I stepped onto silver-tinged sand, boots sinking slightly. Behind me, the emerald plains shimmered under a hazy, dreamlike light. Flowers bloomed and withered in the same breath. Time did not exist here.
“You cannot have her,” I repeated.
My fingers twitched in anticipation. Too long since I’d been idle. Too much time spent without a proper challenge.
Her smile turned blade-sharp. Here, she stood in her full power—the goddess who made rivers flow and storms tear the skies, who commanded the rain and the sea. Now older. Forgotten, like most of us.
“Oh? Let’s see if you can still bend the magic in the Dusk Roads, Emrys Ravenborn.”
Anticipation shimmered in her stormy eyes. I suppose she was pleased to see me.
My name echoed across the shore like a bell struck in a city of glass. The Roads remembered me. The sand rippled beneath my feet. Light surged in my chest.
She hurled a clumsy ice spell at me. I shifted into ravens—sleek bolts of raw magic—that pierced her chest in a dozen flashes.
The holes sealed quickly, but she gasped. Her anger was taking control.
“Too long have you sat around, dragging fishermen to their watery graves. Too long tormenting this woman. Tell me, Clio—how did a simple girl capture a goddess?”
I shifted, wings outstretched above the still clouds that smelled faintly of violets.
She hissed and summoned a pillar of muddy water, but again she was too slow. Shards of coral, fish bones, and long-forgotten anchor chains rose like a tower of drowned vengeance. The mass missed me and crashed into the glowing grass with a thundering splash.
“I’ll tell you how this ends, old friend. The ferry is under my protection until we reach land. You cannot have Daphne—or any of the mortals aboard.”
Another spell. I dodged.
Careful now. I reminded myself, reining in my desire to destroy.
It was too easy to lose myself in battle. Power surged through me like a tide, every cell thrumming with bloodlust. It would be easy to let go.
But Daphne was waiting—alone and afraid on that ship, shaken by the waves.
I couldn’t lose myself. Not now.
“I was… promised!” Clio snarled, and silver blades of ice whistled through the air. One grazed my calf.
