The crew ofThe Night Wraithwere pirates, after all.
“Miss Esmyra?” The voice of Briar, her handmaiden, came from behind her. “Is there anything you need? You’ve been out here for hours and the sun is setting.”
Esmyra scanned the horizon as the sun cast it in hues of pink and gold. Her eyes narrowed toward the east as she asked, “Do you happen to know how far the cave’s isle is from here, Briar?”
The water rippled around Esmyra’s siren form as she glided through the sea, each flick of her tail slicing through the currents like a blade. Everything about her new form was significantly more powerful. Not just her magic, but her muscles and speed as well. And, by all the wretched fucking gods, she couldn’t even find the joy in it.
Schools of fish scattered as she passed, their shimmering bodies vanishing into the blue void. The weight of the ocean pressed against her, bringing a familiar comfort, but the storm raging inside her made it impossible to embrace the peace she normally found from the underwater world.
Esmyra searched and searched above for the underside ofThe Night Wraith, but to no avail. Her throat tightened with every passing second as dread cloaked her.
They really left me.Just like Draevyn had.
It didn’t take her long to reach the cave’s isle. When she breached the surface, the jagged cliffs loomed in the distance. The island always seemed unwelcoming, but now, as she surfaced near the cove, it felt empty.
She pulled herself onto the rocks, the saltwater running in rivulets down her skin as she shifted, legs replacing her tail while she climbed onto solid ground. Her feet met the cool, slick stone, the wind whipping her hair as she took in the eerily silent shoreline.
There was no sign of her crew.
No voices carried on the wind, no laughter or grumbling from her men, and no flicker of a campfire burning against the dark sky. The pinnace that brought them to shore was gone, and her ship was still nowhere in sight.
The pit in her stomach deepened.
Esmyra clenched her fists, her talons biting into her palms. After everything, after all they had survived together, had they truly just abandoned her? How long had they waited before they left? And had Jak, Ren, and Riven survived the cave in?
Her heart pounded as she strode deeper inland, her sharp gaze scanning the rocky shore. She wouldn’t believe it, not yet. She knewher crew was loyal, but they had been down there forweeks. Perhaps they assumed she was dead.
Esmyra was nearing the cave’s entrance when she noticed the dark smears that marked the stone.
Her brows furrowed, eyes narrowing on the markings that trailed out from inside the cave. She walked to it and bent down, swiping her hand across the nearly black stain before inspecting the red tint that now marked her fingertips.
Blood.
These were footprints left by bloody boots. But whose?
Esmyra whirled in all directions, and she realized the footprints weren’t the only remnants left of a struggle—a broken blade, a torn scrap of fabric tangled in the dried seaweed, and…
A glint in the moonlight caught her eye a few feet away. She ran to it, searching the ground. Her breath caught when her fingers brushed against the cold bite of a small piece of metal.
Esmyra lifted the piece of jewelry to her face, and her jaw fell open. Lying in the center of her palm, was a blood-crusted bronze hoop.
The golden eyes of an owl flashed across her mind.
Jak.
With his earring left here, that meant they must’ve survived the cave in. Her stare fell back to the bloody footprints leading out from the cave’s mouth. She realized then it could only mean one thing.
Her crew hadn’t left.
They wereambushed.
CHAPTER 4
Esmyra
The waves crashed against the rocks as she stood at the cliff’s edge, staring out at the endless expanse of water. The wind howled around her, tangling her hair that seemed to glow beneath the moonlight as the taste of salt clung to her lips.
Her crew had been either captured or killed. But by whom?
