Alone, he’d taken down more of them than seemed remotely possible, and now he was bleeding. I’d seen the wound open more when he dove back under.
Finn kept glancing behind us. I watched the flicker of his expression whenever he did, even while I kicked hard enough to keep myself from sinking like a stone.
Far ahead, the Elven Lords carved through the sea as if it were a gentle bathwater, leaving us entirely to whatever horrors chose to rise from the depths. I wanted to bristle at their indifference,to fear openly for Reagan, but the ocean brimmed with so many other creatures that I couldn’t afford a distraction.
Manta rays glided beneath. Turtles paddled lazily by. Colourful fish swam below us, and something long and sleek kept surfacing in the gloom, which I prayed with every stubborn breath was a dolphin and nothing else.
The island still felt impossibly far. I had no idea how long Reagan could hold off an entire swarm alone.
Finn cursed under his breath again.
"Is he in danger?" I asked, forcing the rhythm of my arms to remain steady.
Finn halted completely and pressed his lips together. "Not deadly, no. But he will bleed. He won’t ask for help. I can control some of the sea a bit." His eyes found mine. "Elven trait."
“So go,” I told him.
His head snapped back to me, then forward to the distant shapes of Maith and Arun forging toward the island. "Follow that path in their direction. Be fast. Try to reach them. If you hear a siren thrall, swim faster. Don’t look. Really don’t look.”
I nodded. “Just go.”
He was already turning, cutting through the water toward Reagan.
A mouthful of salt coated my tongue and the weight in my arms grew heavier with every stroke.
The sea life around me still drifted close, seemingly harmless, so I kept moving and tried to glance at the seabed whenever I could. A few of the spiders scrambled over the rocks, jumping between shadows.
They did something curious. They avoided the manta rays and turtles.
I angled toward a broad manta near me and swam just above its wide wings. At first it drifted away in alarm, then it let itself glide closer beneath me.
Staring into the deep water below, my mind wandered to what Reagan had done. Those four slits along his neck. He shifted himself in an instant, granting his body the means to breathe underwater. The ease of it, the raw instinct behind it.
He was extraordinary. A part of me ached to watch him command the sea, to follow the thrum of his magic. Another part wished I had managed to shift that cursed hourglass and slash the creatures myself. Though, admittedly, they were gross. I would have preferred not to touch them at all. But if I could conjure my own gills and breathe beneath this cold, numbing—
The current shuddered.
The manta slipped away into the darkness below, like all other animals, and the water around me fell abruptly still.
Finn and Reagan were nowhere. Only the distant shapes of the elven swimmers remained.
Water lapped at my ears. Beneath the surface, a sound reached me, like a low humming.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I stroked harder, muscles burning as I kicked, my breaths turning thin and fast.
The humming followed. Sometimes near, sometimes distant.
I didn’t look below. I fixed my gaze on the silhouettes of Maith and Arun as they vanished and reappeared beneath the shifting water. They were farther than I realised. The island farther still.
Fear pressed at the edges of my thoughts, but I aimed for the elves and kept swimming, my shoulders screaming until something scraped my calf.
A sound tore from my throat, my strokes turning panicked, uncontrolled. A moment later, something brushed my stomach, and I finally spun, water flooding my mouth.
It had been too fast but…it felt like a cold shape with sharp edges. Nails or maybe teeth.
My hands shook.
There had to be a predator nearby. Animals didn’t vanish without reason.
