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“He wants to keep himself alive long enough to find you again,” Bellamy shuddered as the cold water lapped up against him. “What a clever bastard.”
“No,” Serena snapped. “Not clever at all. The Fountain of Youth is a place meant only for the souls of the dead. It’s where those souls collected at sea by Davy Jones are meant to be sent. It is not a source of eternal life as believed, but rather a passageway to eternity. And there is no clear way out. Those who have sought its power have all become lost in between here and there, trapped in a nothingness that will never end. I fear that will be his fate.”
My hair stood on end, and my heart dropped in my chest. “How close is he?” I turned to Serena, nearly grabbing her shoulders in desperation but thinking better of it. “We have to stop him.”
“We can’t get my crown back in time to stop him,” she said calmly.
“Then—then let’s get the Trident back. You can get it back, can’t you?” I no longer cared what I was saying, or if it made sense. My mind was racing in a desperate panic in search of solutions.
“That power is gone now, destroyed and hidden where it belongs, thanks to you.” Serena said.
“I only buried it. Maybe it could still be used.” I looked down, still tempted by the call of the siren to go find that buried, broken trident and unearth it from underneath the sea floor. But I knew it would no longer be Katrina who wielded its power if I did that, and my siren would have much different plans for its use than I.
“Yes, and it was the wisest thing you could’ve done,” Serena said. “A siren was never meant to harness power like that. Even I wouldn’t dare touch Poseidon’s Trident. It would destroy us all in the end.”
“Then what the hell do we do?” I nearly screamed the question, feeling time slipping away like the water whisking through my fingers and along the flares of my fluke. “If you can’t alter time, and you can’t use the Trident, and you can’t bring him back, what can you do?”
“I can help you meet him there.”
“What do you mean?” I begged, glancing at Bellamy as if there was something he could add to this.
“I mean I can take you to the Fountain, and you can find him in eternity, and hopefully, we can lead him out.”
Bellamy’s confused expression did little to reassure me, but trusting Serena’s plan was my only choice. I looked around at the desolate sea surrounding us on all sides, knowing our yacht was at the bottom of it
“Then let’s go,” I said, feeling the siren in me riling up. “We can’t waste any more time. We have to find a ship. Which way is land? If we can find a harbor nearby…”
Bellamy pointed north, and without hesitation, I summoned the water to carry us in that direction. As we rode the current, Serena neared me.
“Not many sirens ever realize their power,” she said. “You had to open your heart enough to allow it to be broken to learn to do this. Most are too stubborn to shed their tears.”
“I know. But most sirens also don’t have a human side.” I grumbled. “Why? Why did you create us this way? As selfish, evil creatures incapable of real love.”
“To protect you,” she said. “Love is what got me killed. In every lifetime. It will kill you if you’re not always looking out for yourself.”
“Is that why you didn’t give us a soul then? So, we can just live out these selfish, long lives without a conscience, just to die in the end and turn to sea foam?”
Serena lifted her chin haughtily in response. “Everything I did was to make you all strong.”
I sighed, keeping my gaze ahead. “I’m strongest when I’m willing to break for those I care about. Living with a broken heart is the only reason I can use my power.” Serena was quiet. It was strange to look at her, just a girl like me—not even twenty—and to think that she was the reincarnation of an ancient goddess.
Just then, a small wooden sailboat came into view as we approached the coasts of some landmass in the Mediterranean. I didn’t bother to ask Bellamy where we were, because it didn’t matter. All we needed was a boat, and as luck would have it, a small fishing harbor separated us from the rocky cliffs in the distance.
“Let’s take that one,” I said, swimming faster than the current toward the vessel in the distance. It looked empty, and being a simple sailboat, we wouldn’t need a key to work the engine.
“Katrina, wait.” Bellamy called, but I was already on the move. I dove in toward the handful of boats moored around the coastline and darted toward the single sailboat I’d made my target. It looked empty, but if there had been anyone on board, I’d have had no qualms with sending a wave to knock them overboard. It was nothing like our yacht, but it had a small enough cabin for sleeping and a bit of privacy if needed. It would do.
I waited for Bellamy and Serena to near, and then sent a swell to lift us up to the hull. I impatiently waited for myself to dry as Bellamy found a blanket to wrap around me. Bellamy and Serena checked the boat, working quickly to avoid being spotted stealing it in broad daylight. I noticed the way Bellamy’s eyes hardly left Serena, as if he was scared she’d be gone if he looked away too long. I couldn’t blame him. It’s not every day you find out the woman you loved and watched die is a reincarnated goddess and has been fated to you since the beginning of time.
But even with a goddess on our side, I couldn’t fathom how we were supposed to get out of here in time and make it to the Fountain before Milo in his timeline. But then I remembered the spyglass that brought us here.
“Bellamy, did you drop the spyglass when the ship sank?”
“Come on now, love.” He tilted his head with a condescending smirk, “You should know me better than that. This isn’t my first shipwreck.”
He pulled the spyglass from his jacket pocket and tossed it to me. I waited till we had caught the wind and drifted out far enough from the harbor. As I held the lens to my eye, I tried looking to see something I didn’t even know existed just a few moments ago. I concentrated, thinking only of that damn fountain, and slowly a vision began forming in the tube. A cavern with a glowing pool, water glistening and surreal…an undiscovered secret untouched by time. With my target locked, I twisted the spyglass and out rippled a force across the waves, summoning a rogue wave that would carry us to the Fountain of Youth.
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