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The sound of shouting men filled the air, along with an acrid stench of burning wood and tar, as bodies leapt overboard from the burning ship. I reached for my spyglass, locating Thane as he maneuvered around the deck of his vessel. Through the smog, I spotted him, and I watched the gears turning in his head as he decided on his next move.
“Come on, you bastard,” I muttered beneath my breath. “That’s it. It’s about time you come to me for a fight.” I couldn’t help it when my lip curved into a small grin at the sight of him meeting my gaze and gritting his teeth at me in rage. He made a gesture indicating he would kill me and marched forward before dropping into a jolly boat below. If he thought I would try to keep sailing away, he was wrong. I wanted this. I wanted Thane to climb up the side of my ship so I could finish him once and for all.
But the siren song in my head, it grew louder all of a sudden. I clapped my palm over my ear, trying to escape the deafening sound ringing like a bell in my mind.
“Cap’n?” Clara’s voice barely cut through the sound of the chaos. “Cap’n! Are ya’ alright?”
I folded over, nearly knocked to my knees by the haunting melody echoing in my head. It was calling me, drawing me, demanding that I jump overboard. The Fountain was close. Right underneath me, it said.
Underneath?
But I fought the sound of her call long enough to focus on Thane approaching me in his skiff. Clara kept calling to me, asking if I wanted her to shoot him. Somewhere in that mangled mess of noise in my head, amidst the smoking cannons, shouting men and wailing of a creaking ship drifting against the cliffs, I managed to scrounge my thoughts together. “No.” I growled. “He’s mine.”
I gripped a sword in each hand, glad I’d spent some time sharpening them the day before. I held my gaze on Thane as he approached, and I walked forward to meet him as he neared the hull. When he came up, I planned to thoroughly show him why he should have never so much as looked at Katrina.
But then that damn song took over again, forcing me to look down…down into the water. In its strange language, it told me to jump. No. It made no sense. The Fountain couldn’t be underwater. My jaw ached from clenching it in attempt to resist the call. I couldn’t let this stupid song ruin my chance to end Thane here. The Fountain could wait just a few moments more.
But at the last minute, just as Thane was mere feet from me, the siren call became too strong to ignore. As if I was bewitched, it took hold of me, somehow infiltrating my mind so strongly that I had no strength left to fight it. And no choice but to obey it.
Jump.
Tucking my blades into their sheaths, I dove off the ship, leaving behind the distant sound of both Clara and Thane shouting curses. I swam under, cursing silently on my own as I followed the lead of the siren song. Perhaps it was leading me to my death. Perhaps this was all a trap of some sort from the sirens of old that lured men to the depths. Perhaps.
But I couldn’t stop myself from following her voice. There might have been a tether wrapped around me, pulling me by her invisible cord. She led me to a cavern. A chill swept down my spine as she compelled me to maneuver myself through the small, dark entrance. Seeing underwater was already difficult enough, given my limited sight. My scarred eye was even more useless down here than on land.
A light startled me, glowing just enough to light the space around me. A golden glow bringing warmth to this pitch-black space, growing from the sun marking from the island tribe.
I glanced down, realizing that Bastian’s mark was also changing. Not with light, but a shift in the pattern. The rest of the map formed before my eyes, completing itself on my skin with the stinging pain of sliced flesh. I’d found the Fountain. And now Bastian would, too.
By the faint light of my markings, I saw that the cavern ended, and at the beckoning of the siren call, I looked up, seeing the familiar ripples of those created by an underwater air pocket. I swam up, desperate and grateful, on my last few seconds of air. When I broke through the surface, the breath that hit my lungs tasted crisp and strangely cold. It was unusual. Normally these pockets were filled with old, musty air.
I glanced around. This was no ordinary air pocket. This was an entire grotto, with a stream of water flowing to a small pool meters from me, sourced from a heavy trickle of water toppling down the stony sides of the cave. My eyes followed the water’s path. It appeared to gush out of the rocks themselves. Like magic.
The siren song echoed clearly here, still in my head but somehow louder, as if she was hiding right in this very place. I paddled forward to the edge of the pool from which I’d surfaced. Just as I placed my hands on the cold stone to pull myself out, a firm and sharp grasp on my boot yanked me back. I slid down into the water, kicking out at the attacker I could not see. The heel of my boot collided with something hard and bony, and in the dimly lit cave, I could see the shape of a man underwater, reaching for me. I was glad to see Thane, but I was worried my chance to end him was dwindling.
I hoisted myself out of the water, and Thane emerged seconds later. The cave reverberated with his taunting voice as he shook the salt water from his eyes.
The voices in my head screamed, and I couldn’t decide which to follow. The siren said keep going and stop for nothing. But my own said turn around and destroy Thane.
I took a step toward the clear, glistening pool on the other side of the cave, each note of the siren guiding my feet. But Thane’s voice kept cutting through hers.
“You seem to like burning my ships almost as much as I enjoyed hearing that little bitch of yours scream,” he hissed. I clenched my jaw, feeling like it might shatter. “I was so hoping to find her aboard your ship all this time. What did you do with her? Traded her out for the loud-mouthed redhead?”
I heard him emerge from the water. I couldn’t stay like this—with my back to him. I gripped my weapons and turned to face him. “She’s gone. Some place and time where you’ll never find her. Safe from you.”
“Oh, she’ll never be safe from me, Harrington. Not after what I did to her.” Thane shook his head, his evil smile growing wide as water dripped down his hair and through his scraggly beard. “I left far too great of a scar on her memory. One that won’t fade quite as easily as the one on her pretty face.”
No.
“Come on…Didn’t she ever tell you all the things I did to her? All the fun we had together right before you found us in that alley? How my men held her while I stuffed myself down her throat until she cried?” He reached down and touched his belt with a sickening groan.
I stopped in my tracks, using every bit of my mental strength to shut out that damn song haunting my brain. The siren would wait. This man would die.
I lunged at him, screaming out my anger as I slashed my sword across his shoulder. Blood spattered across his face and he laughed, looking up at me through wild eyes as he licked away his own scarlet droplets from his chin.
“That’s right, Harrington. Just face me already. I know you’re dying to do what you should’ve done a long time ago.”
“You followed me here. You won’t be making it back out.” I growled. The hilt of my cutlass felt light in my hand, and I was itching to send it whipping across this man’s throat.
