I knew. Knew there was a siren in the water with me. It was her keening curling along my skin beneath the surface, its vibration sliding over my legs like a breath. I shut my eyes and swam blindly, but the water tilted my balance. With my vision gone, I had no sense of direction. For all I knew, I was veering away from the island.
The siren only grazed me, yet the presence was all around, stilling the entire sea.
Something like hair coiled lightly around my arm. My skin pebbled.
Too close. It was so very close.
It was with no small amount of dread that I realised I wouldn’t make it to the island. Not like this. Above the water, I dared to squint through my lashes. The elves were still there, but so far ahead.
My heart pounded harder as, again, something brushed my ankles. I couldn’t swim blind forever. I scanned the surface, finding a jagged cluster of rocks rising ahead.
Slower than I should, I swam again, the burning in my muscles milder as I let myself think. I’d read about sirens once, in a book from the study. We had even talked about them over dinner.
I thought they were evil. Creatures who lured sailors to their deaths with their singing.
And with their eyes.
I see you started the book already.
Legs kicking, I headed for the cluster of rocks, hearing only my ragged breaths and my limbs parting the water.
The keening… It had stopped. I wanted to peer down, to confirm that the monster was gone. I had no more than aheartbeat to breathe before fingers closed around my ankle and yanked me under.
Salt burned my nostrils, and pressure crushed my chest as the sea swallowed me whole. I thrashed, but the grip was too strong, too cold.
I opened my eyes.
Sunset thinned above me, dwindling to a pale smear of colour. Long dark hair drifted through the water. A grey, bony hand held my ankle.
I wanted to scream, to tear free, but there was no breaking the monster’s hold like this.
It circled slowly, aligning its face with mine. I shut my eyes as my chest began to ache for air.
Like this, I would drown.
I couldn’t. Not here.
If I died here, Joy would be alone. Father would never forgive me for that. I would never forgive myself. This could not be how it ended. I refused to be bested by a monster.
The pressure increased as I was dragged deeper into the gloom. The creature moved slowly, as though it were waiting for me to drown.
It stirred something cold in my chest. Not the dread that had already lodged itself in me, but something else. Something better than fear.
Fear got me nowhere, but thoughts did. Focus did. I pushed past the burn in my lungs, the rising desperation, the pain. A strange calm settled over me. Everything narrowed down to the sensation of the grip in my skin and what I knew about the monster.
Not like this. Not in the bloody water.
Hair brushed my leg, a cold curtain marking where it hovered. The siren dragged us down.
The pendant of my location relic was gelid as I closed my hand around it and snapped the cord. My other hand curled inside my billowing skirt. I twisted my leg and angled the pendant toward where I assumed her eyes were, the round metal catching the light.
I had the faint awareness that the creature turned, her head levelling with what should have been her own reflection in the shining metal.
Yes. Look. Look at the pretty metal.
Cold, membranous fingers slid over mine and took the necklace from my hand.
She never noticed the other object clenched in my fist until I drove the hairpin between her gills. The creature wrenched open its tooth-filled maw and screamed.
