“Your point?” Esmyra snapped, turning back to face her, crossing her arms.
“My point is, when does it stop? Atlas and I have done nothing to you. We would’ve saved you that day on the beach too when we found Draevyn.”
Esmyra stormed up to the bars and slammed her hands into them. Thetingsent a deafening rattle through the brig. “You know nothing.”
“I know quite a bit more than you believe,” Elowynne admitted. “Like how Draevyn feels?—”
“Don’t you dare even finish that sentence,” Esmyra growled, pointing her finger through the bars as a single talon slipped out. “Draevyn feels nothing for me. That’s why he left me there alone. He fled from Maerinys. He fled fromme. And the second I found a way out of that sunken kingdom for myself, a way out of my father’s curse, he took that away too.”
Her chest heaved as the words rushed out of her like a rapid river.
“And you,” Esmyra dragged out the words, her lip curling back. “You forced me to relive it all over again in that throne room.” She lifted her chin high. “So, remind me again howinnocentyou are?”
Elowynne’s face dropped, a bit of sorrow in her eyes that Esmyra didn’t quite understand. She licked her lips before saying, “Ihadto do something. You were going to kill Atlas. You might’ve killed Draevyn. Someone had to stop you before you did something you regretted. Something that changed the realm forever.”
Something you regretted.Esmyra almost scoffed at her assumption. There was a ringing in her ears as she clenched her teeth, trying to shove down the ache in her chest.
“Believe what you want about Draevyn,” Elowynne continued. “Just know it’s not the truth. Not all was what it seemed down there. I don’t know the full story, but?—”
“I saw what happened with my own eyes,” Esmyra cut heroff. She let out a lifeless laugh. “It would be a bit hard for him to lie his way out of that. Now, you asked me why I’m still doing this if I’ve already claimed my revenge. But you see, Elowynne, the revenge has only just begun, but it’s notmyvengeance that’s most dire.”
Elowynne’s spine straightened. “Then whose revenge are you after?”
Grief stabbed at Esmyra as visions of a blood-stained sea and velsinyte-tipped blades flashed across her mind. Her skin began to shift into her goddess form, her hair elongating into brilliant silver locks.
The elven’s eyes flared as she pressed her back into the wall, but there was nowhere to go.
“Kaelypso’s,” Esmyra answered.
The Night Wraith’smasts groaned, and the hull of the ship gave a low, tired creak as it glided into Maerinys’s harbor.
Esmyra stood at the bow, still wearing the appearance of Kaelypso. The more she got used to her newfound power, the more she was beginning to feel like that lonely little siren again. She didn’t feel like Kaelypso had taken over her, but it didn’t necessarily feel like the monster coiling around her spine all her life had remained strictly there either. She was in some strange limbo, no longer understanding her body or mind.
And now she had a goddess prying into her every thought.
“The sooner you accept us, the easier it will become.We could become so much more if we yielded to one another,” Kaelypso said, but she ignored her.
Because the truth was, she was tired. Esmyra was sick of the constant ache in her chest that nothing seemed to soothe. But mostly, she was tired of being so godsdamn alone.
Esmyra would give it all back—undo it all if she could just have one more day with her crew. There wasn’t a single ounceof her that wanted to become more, and it was why she dismissed Kaelypso as much as she could. She didn’t need yet another thing setting her apart from the rest of the world.
She was lost. So, so helpless and lost in her own mind that she didn’t know how to escape it. Esmyra sank deeper into her spiral, and she didn’t know how to stop it.
What am I even doing?Her fingers curled against the rail. She refused to speak the words aloud, because if she did, she might break. And this time, she knew there would be no one there to catch her if she fell.
Not Cyrus.
Not Jak.
Not even Draevyn fucking Rowe.
Esmyra thought revenge would feel like fire, like justice roaring through her veins in a blazing storm. Instead, it sat heavy on her shoulders, leaving her feeling somehow emptier than before.
She glanced down into the water and froze.
The woman staring back wasn’t her. Her glacial eyes were pale and far too cold. Her skin was void of any warmth, despite spending several lifetimes at sea. Her face was too composed to be anything but the mask it was. Esmyra’s reflection didn’t look like her, nor did it resemble a goddess.
It resembled nothing but a lifeless husk of what she once was.
