Page 90 of The Song of the Void

We were quiet for one moment of peace. Just one moment…before Shaddan brandished his spear at us.

“This temporary truce is over,” he declared. “I’m claiming the Voidtome for the Druinns, so you three can just back away.”

Reiven snarled and finally drew his own weapon. “Try to take it.”

“Men are all the same,” Calinia muttered, weaving silver threads of light between her fingers to form a spiderweb-like sphere which expanded. Both Reiven and Shaddan froze in their battle stances, comically still within her time magic, though she left me able to move. “We won’t allow this artifact to fall into the hands of any who might use it for their own devices. So, Zephra. Don’t you think it is time that the Voidtome is returned to its rightful home, with its underwater protectors?”

We had come a long way from that apothecary where we first met, when I had been heartlessly plotting to use the Voidtome to destroy Arvensis, not unlike Shaddan. And while I had long left that silly revenge plan behind me, now Ashkade had entrusted his dream of a peaceful future to Reiven and I. That dream started with the return of the Voidtome.

“Take it. Run.” Calinia wiped away the blood that slipped from her nose, and her sphere of frozen time disappeared.

Reiven and Shaddan’s weapons met in a clang of metal, but the moment the Druinn realized I held the Tome, he stretched a hand towards me. It didn’t matter what Calinia yelled at him, how many times Rei struck at him, or how fast I ran, I wasn’t a match for his power. A second spear manifested out of the earth beside Shaddan, glowing and golden, almost phantasmal.

Without Shaddan even uttering a word, it sang through the air to press the sharp edge against my throat, jerking me to a halt to keep from being run through. “Really now, just hand it over. You’re all free agents in this challenge of ours. Give it to me. Let me bring ruin to our foul Human neighbors, and my people will undoubtedly be willing to forge a truce with Sirens and Mourners⁠—”

A rumbling rocked the chamber, interrupting Shaddan and showering us with pebbles and dust from the ceiling. The blade against my neck wavered as Shaddan struggled to remain standing, but it stayed close enough to draw a thin line of blood across my throat. The disturbance went far, far below us, maybe deeper than my home. Perhaps all the way to our world’s core. A massive slab of stone crashed into the ground to block the way we came, leaving us well and truly caged.

The chamber, maybe the entirety of Hell, groaned with effort as something burrowed its way towards us with the speed of a killer whale on the hunt—and a hundred times the power.

“What in the Mourner Hell?”

Shaddan just had to say something.

A silver tentacle larger than any octopus or giant squid I had seen slammed the stone beside the pool of water—no, it stabbed into the stone, as if the end of the tendril was as sharp as Shaddan’s spear. Water dripped from the barnacles and corals that covered its body like a shell of armor as the serpentine creature rose out of the pool, and all we could do was stare. A mane of spiked tendrils writhed around its dragon-like head, long and deadly.

A metal sea monster. If it lurked in the water in that pool and only surfaced once the Voidtome had been disturbed…

“Is that…a Sirensteel machine?” Calinia breathed.

The thing was pure malice, but I had to agree with her. The corals, the giant pearls that made up its eyes, the silver sheen of Sirensteel beneath its armor—this being was created with the sole purpose of killing anyone who dared come after the Voidtome. But it wasn’t created by Sirens, that was for certain. None of our machines were built for violence. It must be the Sirensteel abomination created by the Water Spirit that had burrowed its way from the Abyssal Deep, all the way through the earth and Hell itself to guard the Tome.

Despite the twinge of kinship I felt with the Sirensteel creature, it fixed its pearl eyes on me and the Voidtome in my hand. It unhinged its jaw, giving us a perfect view of line after line of shark-like teeth. A metallic, otherworldly screech echoed within the chamber, prompting us all to cover our ears.

“Right,” Shaddan growled. The spear blade pressed against my neck snapped away to join his silver one, floating at his side. “The truce is back on, yes? Temporarily, that is.”

He flourished his weapons, standing tall beside Reiven, who did the same with his sword. The two of them looked as natural standing beside each other as any brothers-in-arms would, facing off against a Sirensteel monstrosity.

Calinia nocked an arrow to her bow. “I think if we all live through this, the truce shouldn’t be temporary anymore, Shaddan.”

The thing snarled, staring us down, as if it was sizing up who to attack first.

“This battle would be significantly easier if you conjured up a bit of flame, Mourner,” Shaddan said.

“All I’ve got are some sparks,” Rei snapped.

“Useless.”

The Sirensteel creature was done waiting for us, and unfortunately, it had homed in on me—the one with the tiniest weapon and the important artifact it wanted to protect. It dove over the others’ heads, crashing jaws-first into the ground where I had been standing.

Gravel bit into my elbows as I caught myself in a haphazard dodge, clinging to the Voidtome and my dagger for dear life. It lifted its head to lash a sharp Sirensteel tendril at me—but my companions moved as one.

Calinia’s arrow found a gap in its coral armor, shoving itself deep enough to shatter a piece off before removing itself and finding another. She hardly even furrowed her brow as she let a second arrow fly, manipulating the metal of the arrowhead to another weak point.

Both Shaddan and Reiven leaped at the creature, the Druinn general aiming high with his floating spears, and the Mourner prince hacking at the corals within his reach. Chunks of coral armor fell like rain.

“Zephra, is there any way to use the Voidtome here?” Reiven yelled breathlessly.

I stared at the Tome in my hand, its fabric effortlessly cool and comforting against my skin. Such an innocent-looking thing that had the power to rip apart reality. Maybe it could tear a hole into the wall to give us an escape…but then again, we hadn't found a way around Reiven's curse, so he'd only die the moment he stepped outside.