But I no longer saw the cloaked shapes of the sirens or their god’s numerous eyes. A pale, decomposing face broke through the darkness instead.
“Going so soon?” The undead woman sneered, exposing her rotten teeth between her decaying lips.
I jerked away from her, kicking my feet harder. The weight of the pearls on my body seemed to drag me down. Yet the water felt lighter somehow. The darkness was no longer so absolute. It turned from pitch black to dark teal.
And then I finally surfaced, but not in the room with the black marble altar. Glass surrounded me instead. The large portrait of the royal family hung on one of the walls, with the long, shimmering string of magnificent pearls below it.
This was the great hall of Kye’s glass palace, and the only place I wanted to be right now. The usually stifling air in here didn’t feel even remotely as oppressing as the sinister waters of the dark Abyss. The dancing green and blue glow even felt welcoming to me now.
“Kye!” I called the only man I trusted in this entire fucking world.
His name reverberated under the high ceiling. At least, I had my voice again.
Moving my arms, heavy with loops of black pearls, I swam to the narrow ledge of the remaining floor in the hall. With my knees trembling, I climbed out of the water. My stomach spasmed. I gathered my hands and feet under me before vomiting a gush of black seawater.
Something long and dark slapped onto the glass next to me.
A tentacle! The monsters weren’t done with me yet.
“No!” I screamed in desperation, staggering to my feet.
Another tentacle slithered out of the water after me. It had no eyeballs, but a curved bone hook on its end. It lashed after me, aiming for my ankle and cutting off my way to the back of the palace with our old bedroom and the west tower.
My only way to Kye.
Chapter 18
Maren
“Help!” I screamed in panic.
With my back pressed against the glass wall behind me, I moved along the ledge in the only direction I still could, toward the exit from the palace.
Fear seized my heart in its icy grip. My skin crawled with horror as the tentacles splashed and slithered in the pool of the great hall, threatening to drag me under again, back to the cold darkness I’d just escaped.
A guard cracked open the heavy front door and tentatively peeked inside.
“Who’s in here?” he asked cautiously.
“Help me, please!” I rushed to him.
He reached out to give me a hand, then jerked it away, stepping behind the door.
“What happened to you?” He gave me a once-over, his features pinching in repulsion.
I glanced down at my naked, slime-covered body. Black pearls clung to my skin like a disease. If there was a way to explain this, I didn’t know it.
“I-I need Kye,” I stuttered.
That was all I could think of. I needed to see him. Only he knew how to make me feel safe in this wretched, weird, dangerous world. Only he could protect me.
“His Majesty isn’t here. He hasn’t returned from his walk last evening.”
“He hasn’t...”
The other guard opened the second half of the massive double doors, peeking in.
“What’s going on here?” he grumbled, before staring at me too.
