The thing flashed her a grin bloated with wicked intentions and the jaws and layered teeth of a shark. Its mouth split open, cutting its face in half. The thing reared forward and left only a fraction of space between their faces. And it screeched an otherworldly sound.
Emmery hadn’t been sure before, but now she couldn’t be more certain as it began to sing.
This was a siren.
She recognized the song’s first few notes. The melody wrapped around her heart like a fist, a rope around her wrists, a force like no other that sapped the agency from her bones.
It was the same lullaby Vesper always hummed, the one etched into her subconscious, though she couldn’t place it. The song saturated her with memories, engorged her mind until it choked, flooded her with betrayal and heartache and so much rage she saw red.
She struck. Her sluggish, yet effective, fist met the creature’s jaw and knocked it hard enough to kill its song.
Emmery sank her fingers into the slimy flesh of its cheek. Dug her nails in. Hot black blood rose to meet her fingertips.
And Emmery erupted.
In a golden plume, she released herkhaosflame, urging it to consume the creature. To light it up like a star in an endless night sky. Her body ignited into a living torch, and she fed allthat fire into the creature. Its body bowed under the sheer force. It shrieked and writhed as the water boiled around them.
How her flame could exist beneath water, she did not know.
All she knew was rage.
A slow smile crept onto Emmery’s lips as the creature’s life fled its body.
And again, like it had the day she’d saved Destonne from the Hollowhounds, that shadow edged her peripherals, and crept across her vision.
Emmery tried to blink it away, but it blinded her and shoved her back like she no longer owned her body.
What the fuck?
She withdrew her magic, staunched herkhaosflame like it had burned her, and her anger retreated. The shadow disappeared with it.
The creature's shriveled flesh sloughed off its body in charcoaled sheets. Emmery released the siren, and it sank into the depths. Disoriented, she searched the blackness for direction, some light or indication of where she needed to go.
But there was nothing. No guide or pull, and panic gripped her as she spun, unsure which way to turn, her lungs empty of air and the burn of them swelled, engulfing her. Her chest convulsed, and, utterly desperate, she raked her nails down her throat.
It was a feeling she knew well—the one that meant the end loomed near. How could she have come so far only to fail?
The edges of her vision blurred, and though she fought for consciousness, her mind became waterlogged. She drifted in the dark, letting it take her away.
A hand caught her wrist and she jerked away in fear another creature came to seek revenge. But it tugged her through the water. Her heart leapt, and she kicked with her little remaining strength.
Until she realized who held her and she calmed.
Destonne barely looked at her as he yanked her downward.
Though she couldn’t see further than an arm’s reach away, a pinch of worry tightened her chest when she didn’t see Brennen.
Destonne guided her further down, and relief sang through her when their glorious exit appeared. The misshapen oval cave stretched only a little taller than Destonne, but at least three times as wide. A faint light emitted from its shadowy entrance. It drew them like a moth to a flame.
When they finally reached the cave, he spun, gripped her arms, and slung them over his shoulders in an unspoken,hold onto me.
Emmery locked her arms around his neck and he gripped her around the waist, moulded her body to his, and kicked off the ledge.
She didn’t have time to think or feel or do anything before they fell, leaving her stomach behind at the cave mouth.
They sailed through the air for what felt like an eternity and gravity seemed to fail as they floated through the shadows. Emmery held him like a lifeline, like maybe, if she didn’t let go of him, whatever waited at the bottom of this cavern couldn’t possibly harm her. Because he wouldn’t allow it to.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face into his neck to smother the scream climbing her throat.