Zephyra must be thinking the same, because she asks, “Are you sure we can’t just slice off their head or stake them through the heart?”
Gavriall cowers behind his sword, his steps quicker than even our own. He hits the port first. Tumultuous waves batter the timber dock, splashing up and soaking his pants. “There would be nothing to cut. They’re more smoke than man. Made up of a million souls without one of their own.”
My voice thunders with rage, more so at the situation than at Gavriall himself. “So you came here to die with us?”
“There’s another option,” Zephyra murmurs. Too quiet for me to register at first, but the Death Lord herds us to the very edge of the port, and she stumbles into my side rather than allow a rogue wave to dampen her skin. To transform her and leave her powerless on the wooden dock. I wrap a protective arm around her, and she glances up, her gaze flaring with distress. “The ocean, Arion.”
I don’t understand. We’re inches from being slaughtered, tortured, and I can’t help us. I can’t fucking fix this. The Death Lord tilts its porcelain mask and licks her blood from its blade. The cult cackles again.Revolting monsters.They’re feeding off our terror. They’re already torturing us.
“The ocean,” she repeats. “We could—could jump.”
“If I get a vote in this, I would agree that I’d prefer to swim with sharks than be masticated.” Gavriall slashes out at a cultist. Snagging air. Pure air. We’re fucked. Unless we jump and hope they don’t follow. Jump and pray they really are afraid to drown. “Althoughflyingwould be great.”
Zephyra glances at me. She already knows—she can feel it herself. I can’t fly us. I’m too fucking weak. Shame rots alongside magic in my blackened veins.
I tighten my grip on Zephyra’s hand.
“Go ahead,” the Death Lord breathes. It pauses just before itreaches the dock. “Jump, littlest warlock. We will simply wait for you to surface. We know what you want, and we will not let you have it. We will hunt you. We will find you.”
“Then I guess we won’t surface,” Zephyra spits. “Mermaid, remember?”
“How could we forget?” Frost curls from the Death Lord’s leather gloves, tipping Zephyra’s chin up with magic. “You will taste delicious.”
Zephyra simply extends her middle finger and spins around with a dancer’s grace. Without thinking, without releasing my hand, she runs headfirst off the dock.
For the second time, I follow a pink-haired mermaid to my sea-salt demise.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ZEPHYRA
Salt water floods my nose and mouth, and it’s as if I can finally breathe again.
The transformation takes seconds. A burst of shimmering light. A flicker of scales. My turquoise tail skims through the water easily, and I haul Arion after me, pulling him deeper and deeper into the Sel. Aecorian magic courses through my veins, an addictive rush of oceanic power—of home, of my blood, ofthe Syl—but I refuse to unlock that door. To open it so the big, bad wolf can come prowling through.
We did not survive the isle, murderous trees, and those robed freaks just to succumb to the sorcerer.
A knife twists deep in my stomach. The destruction we left and the people who died—the people we abandoned to those monsters—will haunt me forever. Just like my past. But I—I can’t think about that. Not right now. Maybe not ever again. And perhaps that makes me horrible and wretched, but I can’t afford to be anything else. In order to survive, I have to keep going. Keep moving. Keepbreathing.
The silver cord coils around my arm, evidence that jumping into the sea wasn’t quite the rescue mission I assumed it would be. Still, we escaped. That has to be enough. It all has to be enough.
I don’t stop swimming. Slicing through the tumultuous current,waves crashing and rolling overhead, I clutch Arion’s hand. His fingers squeeze mine as the cord wraps around his arm too. Tethering us. Shackling us. For once, it doesn’t feel so much like a burden. I know he’s aching. I know he’s exhausted. I know he’s using what magic he has left to breathe and he’s beginning to panic as his wings become leaden in the salty depths. When I’m confident we’re far enough that those freaks—thedeath cult—aren’t near and haven’t leapt in after us, I turn.
Arion doesn’t drop my hand.
He stares at me beneath the sea. Dark brown hair, strong jaw, silver-gold eyes. Devastating as ever. His shirt has been rendered utterly useless by the Sel, so transparent that I can trace each abdominal with my eyes. He arches a brow as if to appear cool, calm, and collected, though he knows I can feel he is anything but. In this moment, for some foolish fucking reason, I can’t bring myself to hate him as much.
Maybe it’s because his earlier words echo in my ears.
Zephyra. You need to run.
And then when I didn’t, when I hesitated because what would be the point in running when Arion was captured too—
Torture me, then. Kill me. Leave the mermaid alone.
He tried to save me. Despite the fact that it was hopeless.
I move toward him, untangling my hand from his to cup his face. He winces at the touch, either startled or repulsed, but I don’t let it bother me.He tried to save me.
