Swallowing down the hesitation, the next part of the deal took hold.
“Do it fast,” I said, attempting to hide the waver in my words, but they came out uneven anyway.
I shoved a tatter of my tunic under the chain-link breastplate I wore between my teeth and placed my hands flat against the stone wall.
Evelyn. Zahara. Jun. Calvin. Noctis. Raven.Neryssa. Laziel.
I recited their names over and over. It would save them all. My eyes slammed shut, the water moving around me at theapproaching monster. The whimper that left my lips was so frail… weak.
The beast’s claws wrapped around the first fingernail, closing in slow and certain. My scream tore through the silence, and the water split with it as the nail tore leisurely from the bed.
After the fourth extraction, my throat bellowed back, aching just as much as my hands that poured blood. After the seventh, my head spun with a ferocious dizziness I never felt before. After the tenth, I no longer knew pain. My breaths became labored, tears threatening to spill from my eyes, and rage replacing the agony.
“Give me the trident piece,” I seethed through a snarl.
“Happily,” the creature chided. It cradled my bloody fingernails in its palm, and threw them into its blade-toothed jaws. They crunched against its teeth as I squirmed, trying to grasp a sense of reality and my breath. I refused to look down at the mutilation.
If I don’t look, it won’t hurt. It didn’t happen.
The creature raised its hand, shimmering enclosing its palm, and the trident piece appeared, drawn together by the water’s particles. The instant my fingers closed around the rounded end, a white-hot bolt of pain shot through, as if the exposed nail beds ripped from the bone.
“And Lady of the Blood?” the creature smoothly drawled.
I looked up to meet my father’s snarling glare.
“You could never grant me freedom that I couldn’t take for myself.”
I shoved the final trident piece into my satchel and rushed out the unlocked door, back through the prison chambers.
Soldiers scattered along the stone floor, rubbing their faces groggily as they began to awaken from the poison.Incoherency would follow for three minutes preceding their unconsciousness, but I needed every second I could afford.
I wasn’t leaving him.
Darting around a laid-out guard, I snatched the key ring from the loop along his mer trousers of rugged burlap material. Hundreds of keys jingled in my hand, all of the same tarnished silver. I fumbled through them as I approached the cell holding the young boy.
Seconds left, Caelyn.I needed to be quick, but I would fight every mer guard to ensure the child escaped. Even the darkest realm commits a sin when it chains a child. Iron shackles were forged for monsters, not the tiny hands that have yet to learn the world.
I reached the cell, hands still flipping through the keys as I assessed the lock.
“I’ve come back for you as promised,” I whispered into the darkness, but no response followed. The imprisoned child felt like a reflection I hadn’t expected to find, one I recognized too well. I would save him, I knew, without thought or hesitation, as if his freedom might stitch something back together in me.
The chamber lay empty, though, no child in sight, only mildewed hay and the tattered remains of cloth he had used to cover his face from the poison. I searched, sure it was the correct cell, but the boy was gone, and each of the corresponding rooms imprisoned unconscious, nearly dead prisoners.
I couldn’t have imagined him. He spoke to me, helped me, knew who I was…
The corridor stirred—slowly at first, then all at once. The guards were waking up. I darted for the exit, south bound, and dropped the keys on my way out.
Stalking through the shadows, I leaned closely against the walls of the thin hallway, trailing the spiral stairs that led me back above ground. I found it strange to see stairs in a prison wherethe occupants did not have feet below the waters but continued on. The kingdom’s central castle had stairs as well from originally being a drowned city, but I was certain the prison was mer artisan created.
Alarms sounded, cutting through the depths like a weapon through butter. Metal armor clanged as I swam upward, signaling an approaching guard, volcanic stone torch lights illuminating the path faintly. I inched the dagger from the sheath under my chain-link breastplate and awaited the rushing mer. The trident piece dug into my hip as I plastered myself to the wall.
The plated guard sliced through the water with reckless urgency. I poised my tail perfectly, gashing into the mer soldier’s torso as he raced by. He fell instantly to the laceration, lifeless eyes cast outward, looking at no one.
I surged on, the alarms gaining volume as I elevated the Abyssal Hold. The commotion increased as guards responded to the call for help.
I was so close to the top of the staircase from the dungeons when a silent guard rounded the corner. His hand immediately clasped around my throat, his other so quick, ripping forward my arm and shoving me backward.
“Who––” his voice croaked, then he froze. His eyes widened in realization and flashed to disbelief. “Where’s the colonel?”
