“What about the siren?” a girl asks.
“I think we’ve drained the fun right out of her, kin. Leave her on the beach as a token of our affection to our dear and proper regent.”
Though mocking, his words spark an idea. Thebeach.
My beach,the Carrion King had said.
It’s a desperate gamble at best, but there’s no way I can fight off all twenty Strayed. Though they appear childlike and feeble, I’d be a fool to underestimate them—each one is armed with a variety of weapons, and they’d been capable enough to capture a siren without drowning. Each young face is more feral than the one before, their eyes glinting with excitement at the prospect of hunting me down.
The siren’s suffering had been a passing amusement. And I’m their next thrill.
My only hope is to stay alive long enough to get to the beach and pray that whatever had alerted Niko to my presence that first night, helps him find me now.
The children leap forward in a rush of bodies and blades, their shrieks of delight ringing through the forest. I roll beneath Dawson, slicing at the back of his ankles as I go. He lurches forward with a howl of rage, my blade only skimming skin as he whirls to counter with his own sword. But I’m already on my feet, tearing between the trees.
My heartbeat is frantic in my chest, leaping and lurching in turn, as I skid to halt and weave, narrowly avoiding the three Strayed who stand between me and the beach.
They lunge for me with a rush of vacuous cackles, one of them swinging what I realize distantly is a fuckingaxe. Leveling my breathing, I bring my sword around in a close arc, the blade slicing cleanly through the boy’s side. I don’t wait to see if he’s down, instead leaping over the underbrush and plowing a path through the thick flowers. Arrows sail past my head as the petals are trampled beneath my feet, and hot blood rushes past my ears as I force myself to move faster.
The small lights floating lazily in the canopy begin to descend in a swarm and a new terror grips me as they rush me in a glowing blur. I might be able to outrun the Strayed; I don’t stand a chance against magical beings.
When my feet finally find warm sand, I nearly cry out in relief. But I only pump my legs faster, the eerie cackling of the Strayed growing increasingly louder. Foliage crashes behind me, and my stomach flips as I race down the sand to where the surf washes over the shore.
Whirling with my weapon in hand, I ready myself as the Strayed fly down the beach with whoops of delight. The fire still burns a few feet up the sand, the siren beside it now silent. The carnage around her framed against the natural beauty of the lagoon settles like ice in my stomach, as I try not to imagine the same thing happening to me if my gamble doesn’t pay off.
What if the king doesn’t know I’m here? Or what if he does, and doesn’t believe I’m worth the trouble?
The cold water splashes up my calves as I duck low, narrowly avoiding three more arrows whistling toward my head. Though my heart hammers against the cage of my ribs, my breathing is calm, as I shove down every emotion behind the steel wall of rage. The wall that’s protected my heart and body from ever being hurt again. I don’t think, letting my instincts course through me, guiding my movements.
Stay alive until the king finds you. Survive.
I’ve done it for so long; surviving is as deeply ingrained as breathing. So, I lower my chin and charge.
The Strayed fall on me like a powerful gale. I take two down in quick succession, one with a slice to the throat, another with a kick to the stomach. But more come. Hands and feet, blades and arrows. A desperate breath shoots from me as a blade slices across my stomach. Shallow, but enough to bleed. I keep my sword swinging, whirling, ducking—falling into the dance of death I know so well.
But even as I fight, as I rage, I know there are too many. I've used my one chance at running to bet on the king, and I bet wrong. Now, there’s no escaping.
Five crowd at my back, and my eyes tear as I’m grabbed by the hair and jerked down to the sand. I try to leap upward, to swing out again, but another cackle of delight rings out over me as the blade is knocked from my hand.
Fear begins to pulse at the edges of my rage, fear that smells like a lab. That feels like the itchy agony of regrowing new skin after someone peeled mine from my body. I don’t even care about the wards or whatever is at risk for the kingdom—I can’t be captured again. Can’t be locked up and taken apart so fully, my body no longer feels like my own.
Desperation closes around my ribs as I’m yanked up the beach by my hair. My scalp burns, the pain only worsening as I thrash my head wildly from side to side in search of something,anything,I can use as a weapon.
Nothing is within reach.
No one heard the siren’s pleads. There will be no one to hear mine.
Hot tears prick at my eyes as I’m dragged toward the fire. I blink them away rapidly as more hands grab at my wrists, wrenching them above my head and binding them with rope. My legs are pried apart, even as I kick and thrash. The sound of abone snapping echoes through the chaos as I make contact, but there are no following screams of pain. Only more laughter.
It reverberates in my chest like a ballooning hollow. Empty. Hopeless.
For the thousandth time in my life, I wish I could disappear. Sink into the sand, dissipate into the air. Be incorporeal so that no one can ever touch me again, no one can take and take without ever caring that I’m already empty.
“What’s happening?” The tethers on my ankles loosen slightly as the Strayed begin to shout. “Where’d she go?!”
My eyes snap open to find the children running frantically around the sand. Some hurtle accusations at each other, while others feverishly slash their weapons into the empty air. I don’t bother wondering what’s suddenly stolen their attention, using the temporary distraction to wriggle out of the ropes binding my ankles.
Dawson stands only a few inches away, his face deathly calm as his eyes scan the beach. I’m working on the ropes around my wrists, when suddenly, his lethal gaze snaps back to me. His lip curls over his teeth without a hint of humor, and there’s an unnerving madness about him as he growls, “What are you playing at, love?”
