“The S-Sol,” I stutter, unable to look up. Unable tolook. “Abysses is in the Sol.”
No one seems to hear me. They’re all looking at Amaya as she raises her arms and commands the wind faster still. Heavy gray clouds shudder with lightning and thunder. All around us now. We are surrounded. We are… we are headedsouth. I feel cold, pale, slick with sweat and rain, and I can’t breathe. “This is why you needed merrow.” Amaya turns to Arion. “You wanted help navigating the sea.”
“Yes,” he says. “And if you help us, you can have whatever treasure awaits within those ruins. You can excavate it all, take credit for it, bring glory to your kingdom and people and join your ancestors in greatness—so long as the heart ismine.”
Amaya smiles. The cunning and clever smile of a demigoddess. And I think I might be sick. “That’s all well and good, Warlock Stone,” she says evenly, “but the ruins are not in the Sol.”
My wrists ache with phantom burns. I reach out foranythingto steady myself because I know—I know what’s coming before shesays it. I’ve been dreading it all along. And once it’s said… it’s over. There will be no turning back. All this will come crashing down, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. I finally wrench my gaze upward, pleading silently for Amaya to stop speaking, but she ignores me.
“Queen Emilia sent Vasiliev on an expedition through the Syl,” Amaya explains. “If those are, indeed, the Abysses ruins, they lie within something he called the Sceleratus Trench.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ZEPHYRA
Once I’m safely on my own—cowering in a random room somewhere belowdecks—I retch into an empty bucket.
Amaya has agreed to help us. She has offered us passage. She isflying usto the Sceleratus Trench. I cling to the warped bucket, gripping the steel with pale knuckles and paler hands. I vomit again. Acid. Bile. Fear. I can’t hold it in any longer. My scars have reopened, and now they’re weeping.I’mweeping. For eight years, he imprisoned me. He abused me. He tortured me. Maybe in that time, I should’ve grown stronger. Thicker skin. A harder constitution. But I didn’t. And I feel weak because of it. Pathetic. I can’t see through the burn of tears. They trickle over my cheeks, drop into the bucket with my sickness, the salt water calling forth my tail. I don’t care about it. I don’t care about anything except that sharp vise around my heart. It punctures my chest in a ruthless grasp.
The scent of copper billows around us now, like freshly spilled blood, and ruffles my pink hair. But I do not tremble, and I do not swim away. “I will save your lover, but only for a price.”
The stories say this. They say powerful magic costs great sacrifice. I don’t care what it is—I’ll pay it. For Jacin, I’ll pay it. “What do you want?”
“Oh, that’s simple enough.” The High Sorcerer of the Four Seas smiles. “I want your soul, Zephyra of the Syl. I wantyou.”
No. Goddess,no.
I escaped. I escaped, and I was never—I was never supposed to go back.
The door behind me opens for a brief second before softly clicking shut. I don’t need to turn to see who it is. The silvered cord tightens around my throat, until I’m almost choking from the pressure. From the concern throttling the bond. Something shifts behind me. Something like heat and muscle and tension.
“What is it?” Arion sets a gentle hand on my back. It sounds as if he crouches. His wings brush my shoulders, tender caresses of their own volition. “What’s going on, Zephyra?”
I can’t bring myself to shove him or his wings away. I can’t bring myself to move at all. “N-nothing.”
“That’s a lie,” he says simply. Not an accusation; just a statement. But how am I meant to respond to that? Secrets swirl viciously in my stomach. He already hates me for being a merrow. Why should I give him more of a reason?
He sits now. He doesn’t remove his hand from my back. Instead, he begins tracing tender circles with his palm. Up my spine. Down it. I glance at him through my periphery, waiting for him to wince in disgust when his hand accidentally touches my scales.
He doesn’t.
He doesn’t speak either. He just… sits. Silence hangs heavy over us, interrupted only by rows and rows of hammocks that rustle and swing with each sharp turn of the ship. Neither of us moves. An hour passes. I count each second in my head. Hope and pray there will be another way. Another option. Of course, there isn’t.
We are headed to the trench.
We are headed straight for the sorcerer.
“Are you done being sick?” Arion murmurs, his voice rougher in the quiet. I nod tremulously, and Arion takes the bucket from my quivering hands. I’m desperate to hold something, to tear my nails through something, so I palm the floorboards. Curl my fingers into the wood. “One second,” Arion says—and, indeed, it takes a singlesecond for him to clean the bucket and me with his magic. The horrid taste of bile vanishes on my tongue. The smell of sickness suddenly weaves into the sweet scent of strawberries.
“You shouldn’t waste that,” I whisper. “Not on me.”
I can hear his jaw clench even without looking at him. His touch disappears, and for a moment, I think he might leave, but he only kneels in front of me and tips up my chin so I’m forced to meet his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say—plea. His wings span half the wall behind him. An oil lamp smolders above him, casting his shadow over me as his eyes rove my face. His touch travels to my neck, and he loosens our cord from my throat. Like a snake, it coils around his finger instead and slithers up his wrist.
“Do you know anything about the Warlock Trials?” he asks abruptly, and the question nearly throws me off my axis. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.
I blink at him. “You mentioned the cult and torture, but aside from that… no. I tried to avoid warlocks at all costs.”
His lips twitch with a half grin. “I’m sure you did.” He tucks a lock of pink behind my ear, and his knuckles skim my cheek. A casual touch. Ordinary. Still, something cracks open in my chest, something old and strange. It feels like…
