The Leviathan roared—a deep, thunderous sound that trembled through the water and air alike. I felt it in my teeth, in my bones, in the marrow of my soul.
It wasn’t trying to kill me.
It was trying to reach me.
The knowledge sank into me like a stone: the Leviathan wanted the shell. It wanted the thing I carried—the thing that whispered with a song older than gods.
And it would drown the world to claim it.
A column behind me snapped, the sound sharp enough to slice through the roar. My heart hammered. More water poured through, flooding my ankles, my calves.
“Think, Rose. Think,” I breathed.
But thinking wasn’t going to save me. Not here. Not now.
The dome shuddered again.
I staggered. The shell pulsed violently—then went still, like it had made its decision and accepted its fate.
“Don’t you dare give up,” I growled. “Not when my family is out there.”
Seas, I was losing my damn mind talking to mystical shells and grumpy crustaceans.
The next impact was the death blow.
Cracks spidered so fast they sang. The dome split with a sound like a heartbeat tearing open. Light fractured. Air rushed upward. Then—
The ocean fell.
Water slammed into me with the force of a collapsing world. It stole my breath, crushed my ribs, but I wouldn’t let it tear the shell from my hands. I gasped instinctively—salt burned my throat. I tried to swim, but the current spun me like driftwood.
Then the dome shattered fully, and everything collapsed.
The city filled in seconds. Darkness swallowed me whole as the weight of the sea pressed down, cold and merciless. I kicked—once, twice—but the water had no mercy, and my lungs already screamed for air.
I can’t die. Not here. Bash. Oscar. Val. Dilly…
I couldn’t die when there was finally a chance that Bash would choose to live.
The current slammed me into stone. Pain exploded down my side. My fingers scraped desperately for something—anything—to hold on to. But the city was disintegrating. Everything was falling apart like it had been waiting for the opportunity. Exhausted and ready to rest.
I tried to swim upward, but the water was too thick, too violent.
My chest burned. My vision dimmed.
And I knew it like I knew my own name.
I was going to die here.
The last thing I saw before the world darkened was a massive shadow sweeping overhead, the Leviathan racing downward toward the shattered dome—toward me.
As if the moment the dome died, the world it had protected was suddenly his to claim.
And I was the only thing in it still alive.
On the edge of consciousness, I let regret wash over me. Regret for the wrongs I’d done, the rights I hadn’t made yet, and everything that never would be.
Something slammed into me, and because I was exhausted and ready for the rest, I held onto it.
