Perhaps that’s where she’s taking me.
Sliding my foot along the stone, I tighten my grip on the cloth wrapped around my waist, protecting what modesty I have left but doing nothing to alleviate this bone-deep chill rattling through me. “Is that it, Vicious? Are you taking me to the sea?”
Every word feels thick and syrupy; every step heavy and forced. My lids droop, neck struggles to hold my head straight.
I look back, right into her all-consuming stare.
She doesn’t nod. Doesn’t blink. Certainly doesn’t speak. Simply stares at me with an intensity that makes me feel seen in a way that rips my heart in two and fills my chest with a desperate, possessive warmth that almost knocks my feet out from under me.
On an island of the most precious stone in all five seas, I’d leave with empty hands if I could have her.
I would have kept her. Brought her back to my trove and shown her my treasures. The melancholy thought wrestles inside me, frantically snatching my heartstrings, tugging them so taut it feels like I might spew.
Another gentle shove, and my head lolls forward again, making something twang inside my chest. Like I just stretched the threads of something lethal. Blood breaks the seal of the scale stuck over my wound, and I feel it weave a warm, wet path down my middle, the smell too sour to be healthy.
I’m urged around a sharp bend one gentle shove at a time, and the ocean dawns before me.
Almost breaks me.
It’s so beautiful and smooth andso far down.
‘Zykanth, look at that …’
No answer.
Heaving shuddered breaths, I drop the cloth, reaching up to pat my fist against my chest in an effort to wake him up.
‘Wake up!’
Eyes cast on the glassy ocean, my steps become faster. More determined.
Vicious threads her arm around my middle, halting me.
I cast a wobbly stare to the left, down a set of stairs that look steep and unforgiving. They lead to the shallow mouth of a ravine and a rippled pool of red water that feeds into a tiny waterfall tumbling off the sheer cliff.
It all clicks into place, and I crumble, caught under the arms by a small pair of hands that help lower me to the ground until I’m sat on the top stair.
It’s the same soothing liquid that pours into the ocean. The same soothing liquid I’ve bathed in many times.
Years ago.
So far away.
I lose grip on the walking stick. Watch it clatter down the steps.
Vicious hisses, darting after it, her oversized shirt swimming around her scrambling form, her hair a trail of spindrift that leaves me breathless.
“Beautiful,” I whisper, my heavy lids easing down, the racket of my tumbling stick becoming a muffled, distant sound …
My vision of Vicious splits.
Another deep blink, and then the world is tipping sideways—toward the steep slope that falls into a clifftop overlooking the ocean I yearn to pull through my gills …
My shoulder smacks against the stone, punching a gnarled sound from my blazing lungs as I slide, plummeting toward the cliff so fast the world blurs.
My mind gives out.
Shuts off.
