But I know we’re running straight toward another noose.
Shutting my eyes, I try to force myself into my body from days ago. When I was standing over the table and explaining the castle with such confidence. When I felt as if maybe this would all be okay. It doesn’t work, however, and I am still trembling. “I don’t know—”
Amaya’s sword nudging my spine cuts off the last of my sentence. “We are not backing out of this, Zephyra.” When the sword lowers, away from my back, I turn to look at her. “We are here now, and we have prepared for every circumstance. We are equipped with every weapon and strength known to mankind. We have sirens and warlocks and storm magic on our side. So we aregoingto see thisthrough.”
Theor elsepart of that was clearly silent.
Right.
With a hissed curse, I knock her sword away and step forward, pulse thundering beneath my rib cage as the edge of the plank groans under my boots. I glance down. Can’t stop glancing down. The trench waits below. Dark. Twisted.Evil.I lower myself onto my knees, and my hand shakes violently as I extend it toward the water. I know what has to be done; I just really don’t want to do it. I look up at Arion for help, but he only gives an encouraging grin. Gavriall shoos me on with both hands. And Vesper—well, she wants me to die, so of course she flashes me two thumbs-up.
“Must you dawdle forever to die?” the cursed skull chitters from Felix’s outstretched hands.
I snarl. “If I transform and use my magic, it will alert the sorcerer as to my current whereabouts. If the sorcerer is alerted while he isinsidehis castle, we’re fucked. Okay?”
“He won’t be in the castle,” Vesper says. “He will be in one of the other three seas looking for you. Following your trail of blood.”
“Trust me,” Arion echoes, imploring me with that beautiful silver-gold gaze to do this. My eyes flick to his chest, where armor conceals his decaying heart.
Fine.
The salt air prickles across my skin. My breath catches as my fingertips break the surface of the Syl.
This transformation isn’t like the other times. The ocean doesn’t welcome me now. Itdevoursme. As if some part of him is here, already wrenching me home.
Magic erupts white light beneath my flesh, beneath my loose white skirt. My legs fuse and stretch, bones reshaping as scales bloom iridescent turquoise below my navel. My tail slams against the plank with a wet crack, nearly upending everyone on it, but Amaya saves them at the last minute with a forceful gust.
“Are you okay?” Arion asks, crouching low behind me. One hand on my back as I lean over the ship and stare at my rippling reflection.
“Not at all.” I drag my finger in a lazy circle, disrupting my reflection entirely, and allow my magic to sing through my veins. Into the sea. An addictive rush of power courses through me as I bendthe waters to my will. I spin my finger faster and faster, around and around, in silent command. The ocean hears me.
Itobeys.
The sea doesn’t drain all at once, in some peaceful evaporation; I have tofold it. Using more magic than I ever have before, I create a spiral at the very center of the trench. A maelstrom. Deep, deep below. It should be harder than this, a small and distant part of my brain notes, yet the sea responds as if part of my body, as if it’s just been waiting for me to ask all along. The surrounding waters fold in on themselves, contracting and compacting over and over and over again, and then—
Then everything breaks.
The ship lurches with a violent, earsplitting creak, and my stomach pitches with it. Wood splinters. Riggings snap. People scream.
The deck tilts beneath us as the stern lifts and the bow drops—plunging us straight into the vortex below.
“Hold on!” Amaya bellows, attempting to ease our fall with her winds. But we’re moving too fast. The ship is falling apart. And I—I’m on the fuckingplank. I’m hardly on the ship at all. Arion reaches out, grabbing me again and hauling me against him as his wings flare out to shield us. To anchor us. He snatches a loose rope, using our momentum to swing back to the deck, even as the others flail.
Gavriall vanishes behind a wall of foam-white seawater. Vesper tumbles down the stairwell, shrieking. Amaya stands at the helm, desperate to control this, but the mast splits down the center. It ruptures. Half begins to keel over her, and her first mate—Felix—throws her out of the way a split second before the mast crashes on top of him instead. I hear the brutal collision of wood against bone. Smell a faint hint of copper as blood spills.
“Is he…is he…” I can’t get the question out between my breaths. I can’t even move. Arion has hauled me onto the deck, pinning me down with his body and cradling me beneath him. Protecting me, even as the sea continues to swirl at my command.
“Felix!” Amaya screams.
“Shit!” Gavriall’s voice comes out ragged, breathless. “He’s bleeding. He’s notwaking up—”
Arion doesn’t stand. He doesn’t try to help them. In this moment, there is only us. In his eyes, we are the only ones who matter. I should fault him for it. If I were a better person, I’d shove him off me and crawl toward the others, try to salvage what’s left of Felix after he sacrificed himself for Amaya. My stomach contracts, clenches, as I remain exactly where I am beneath Arion. Because I am not a better person. That’s why we’re here. That’s why all this is happening.
The sea spins faster,tighter, collapsing inward, and with a thunderousbang, it yanks the ship downward in one final lurch before we land in a semi-obliterated heap at the base of the trench.
And finally—silence.
The waters have vanished, imploded on themselves, and the rest of the trench sits still and lifeless—eerily empty—around us.
