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Tentacles thrashed, but I bounced between them, landing back down on the platform. Panicked, I scrambled to get upright. Magic shimmered through the dark haze of blood as the shell landed between me and the Rook’s writhing mass of tentacles.
I reached for the shell before thinking, snatching it up like I hadn’t just seen it shred through flesh. My hand closed around it, but nothing about it felt sharp.
Astonished, I turned it around in my hand, and dark lines of magic glimmered, but my amazement was short-lived. A tentacle hooked under the end of my tail, and suddenly I was upside down, pulled back into the bloody haze.
Deep rumbles crackled up his throat, and I knew his face had to be just on the other side of the thickened water. He must have been too upset to attempt magic, because the pointed tips of King Eamon’s trident broke through the cloud, spearing at me blindly, slashing and hacking. I writhed and wiggled in the tentacle’s grip, rocking out of the way as the tips rushed past me like a trio of arrows.
Then his strategy changed, and the trident sank further, narrowly missing my side but giving me a clear shot at the tentacle wound around it.
I knew Poseidon had reinforced mer-tails with magic, so it was only logical to think that he would construct cecaelia tentacles similarly. Butdamn,did my shell make quick work of it, hacking through the thick appendage with little resistance. I was feeling pretty pleased with my weapon until the shell struck the trident on its way down and sparks of magic lit up the throne room.
The cecaelia and I shrieked, blinded by the burst, and the pressure around my tail let go, sending me falling to the seafloor.
Underneath me, the disembodied tentacle I’d hacked off writhed, flexing and curling around the trident, but even that wasn’t enough to satisfy my rage.
Clutching the shell, I drew an arm over my eyes and lashed out at the trident, striking it over and over, hoping to inflict more pain, to cut more of his disgusting tentacle away, to sear him with even more light.
“Claira.”A voice forced into my head, and my whole body seized up.
“Barren?” I whispered, my lips trembling as the Rook wailed somewhere behind me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to believe he could really be nearby.
“Keep going. It’s the only way we can see you.”
My fingers tremored as I struck the trident with the shell again and again, feeling the tingle of magic sparks warming my palms.
We can see you,he’d said. We.
My heart swelled to bursting, the comfort of that one thought simultaneously unraveling me and winding me back together, making me whole.
Kai. He was alive.
Apopburst against my back, and then another, and suddenly two bodies were wrapped around my shoulders.
I drew the shell up to strike the trident again, but a hand came over my arm, easing it back down. “You did so well,” a rough voice praised, sounding nearly breathless in my ear.Leander. His firm jaw nuzzled against my neck. “Let us take it from here.”
Leander’s body strained, every inch of him shaking against my back, and I knew he was reaching for his father’s trident.
Barren’s grip on my shoulder tightened as Leander pulled the weapon upright.
Dropping my elbow from over my eyes, I looked around. Everything was still so blurry. “Wh-where’s Kai?” My voice was shaking so much. “Barren, is he…?”
“Safe,” Barren said with an air of unshakable certainty. I eased out a salty breath but somehow didn’t feel much better.
Safe? I couldn’t believe it. Not until I saw him for myself.
A thick gush of blood mixed with the water in my mouth, and the taste was so heavy on my tongue that I shuddered. The water was eerily still, and it suddenly seemed like an eternity since the Rook’s last wail. Lee and Barren hadn’t even attempted to attack him after they’d transformed. “Is the cecaelia…?”
“Dead?” Barren offered, and I felt his massive shoulders shrug behind me.
Leander leaned away, stretching closer to where I’d last heard the Rook’s moans, careful to keep a hand anchored on me. “Well, he’s not moving.Fuck. It looks like something tried to eat his face. What exactly did you do to him, Claira?”
Was what I did really enough tokillhim?
“I…” My fingers curled around the shell, and I brought it close, unsure of what to say. That I answered a sea wizard’s riddle, and he gave me a magic shell capable of slicing cecaelia into sashimi? None of it made any sense.
“Wait—how did you guys make it into the throne room? You can’t see in the dark.”
“It’s all so hazy,” Leander muttered, and he shifted uneasily against my back. “Last thing I remember is trying to get the bag of pearls to light. I got dizzy, and then the next thing I know, Barren was beside me. It was too fucking dark to see much of anything, but we heard your voice, and when everything lit up, we were here. In the throne room somehow. It was almost like…”
