It’s not a pretty song, like a puzzle missing too many pieces, my mouth and tongue not adept to shaping such a rolling, gut-dredging melody. But as I step farther into the water, singing the unfamiliar yet strangely familiar tune, something incredible happens.
Rayne stops singing her puddled song of sorrow, despair, and hollow love …
She stops singing, and shelistens.
Water rushes away with a blubbering heave, exposing the bony graveyard hidden beneath the lake—Rayne more than willing to retract from the carpet of remains.
I charge down the widening pathway, bones crumbling beneath my boots like starched twigs. Something that might disturb me were I not crushed beneath Rayne’s melody, trapped in a cave with hungry emotions desperate to munch my heart.
Tear my guts free.
Rip me limb from limb.
I wrestle them all with cold fists ofrage. Simple when Kaan’s so terrifyingly close to being snuffed from this world. But it doesn’t stop the tears. Doesn’t ease the raw ache cleaving my chest wide open as the water continues to part. Like a piece of parchment tearing down the middle.
The larger side scrunches into a frothing ball that gathers at the tunnel’s mouth. A plug, capturing the anthe in its bulbous churn, preventing her from reachinghim.
The anthe screams, her serrated pitch making the water bubble and spit. Making poor Raynehowl, a sound that impales me like a sword thrust between my ribs.
Creators, I can’t take this for long.
I risk a glance over my shoulder. See the others clinging to the steep shore that’s a lot taller now the water level has dropped ten feet.
Pyrok’s half on the pier. Kaan’s beneath, clinging to the frail prisoner by the scruff of his robe.
The prisoner slips, and Kaan’s entire body tenses with the effort to maintain his grip, heaving the male up toward the pier with an unmatched show of strength. Pyrok hauls him over the edge, relieving Kaan, who looks back over his shoulder.
Our stares clash.
A churn of ruddy fire swells to the surface of his panic-stricken eyes, reminding me of Rygun’s flame.
He startsdescending.
I convey to him exactly what I think of that. A wide-eyedwhat the fuck are you doing?
His only response is stubborn determination. Like a dragon set on busting through mountains to save his kin.
I groan.
“Móalarugh, lurin-ah dé arahná vah—ourlah!”I force out, each word a painful lump dislodged from my too-tight throat.
The water behind me pulses, like a hiccup, then gathers into a wave. It floods back toward the pier, heaving into a massive whitewash wall that cages Kaan against the exit and leaves him only one way to go.
Out.
Pretty sure I hear him roar, but I ignore that, turning in time for the anthe to lash a limb forward, slitting it free in much the same way I like to gut folk. Rayne whimpers as water spews like innards, splashing around my legs.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I attempt to patch her up with my equally patchy dialect.“Laúgh eit ooin duh lóun … moorithin—”I pause, muddling over her term forhold. Or something with a similar meaning.
The water cage loses some of its shape, bulging, threatening to gush back into place and drown me.
My heart plummets.
I backstep, wishing I’d held on to that stone for just alittlelonger … then I wouldn’t be quite so incompetent.
I awkwardly adjust my tune—something that feels a lot like further splitting my frayed heartstrings—requesting that Rayne take some of the water at my back and feed it into the sphere around the anthe. Andhopefullycreate a path for me to backstep toward the pier.
