Page 58 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

Screaming, Reva launched herself straight toward the kraken descending on them. Behind her, Jareth yelled, but she focused on her boots against the stone beneath her feet, on the monster born of her stepmother’s hatred and greed.

At the end of the battlement, she leaped onto the wide railing and launched herself into the open air, straight toward the kraken’s mouth.

Rain slicked over her body as Reva catapulted into the kraken’s mouth. She braced herself for pain as all light vanished. Darkness engulfed her. She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to watch as teeth tore her apart.

It was more likely she’d be swallowed whole and suffocate in the stomach of the monster.

For a horrific moment, Reva’s world became nothing but darkness, heat, and the stench of death. Nothing else remained. Only blackness and decay.

She waited for the end and prayed to the seas that Cassandra was right about this blood sacrifice.

Chapter Eighteen

Something screamed—not the guttural roar of a kraken, but something older. Tingles of pain shot up Reva’s arm from the pearl she still clutched in her fingers. Thoughts forced their way into her head, terrible, nightmarish thoughts.

From the kraken?

No! The new voice screamed in her head.

The pearl grew colder, so cold her fingers froze to the smooth surface, and she couldn’t drop it. Icy, burning pain leached into her skin. She flinched away from the horrific thoughts planted in her mind, not by the kraken but by the pearl—she saw people dying in the worst ways—fires burning, kingdoms crumbling, darkness simmering beneath the surface of Rhuin…and in the deep places of the sea.

She saw Etthan sinking beneath the frothing waves of the South Oloren. Her lips parted in a scream, but no sound escaped her. She couldn’t let this happen—this couldn’t be their fate. But the images continued to pummel her thoughts, and she wondered: Were these foretellings of the future? Or images from ages long ago? Or some strange, twisted combination of both past and future?

Then the nightmarish visions shifted. She saw herself suspended above the castle, body arched backward with pain, her arms strung to the side as if she were the sacrifice bound between two pillars.

For Etthan, she thought as a shaft of light cut through her body. For Jareth.

Hot white light replaced the darkness. The evil within the pearl emitted one final wail as a shockwave slammed into Reva’s body, flinging her backward. She screamed as rain and seawater exploded around her, pounding against her with agonizing force. When she opened her eyes, gray sky and writhing shadows swirled everywhere.

Then her body slammed into something firm that deflected her momentum and tumbled her against unyielding stone. Pain pummeled her body as she rolled against a stone pillar.

Biting back tears, knowing she had to get up and face the kraken again, Reva opened her eyes.

But the kraken looming over Etthan curled in on itself like smoke above a fire, only to fade into tendrils that blew away in the storm’s stiff wind.

And then, as if the storm itself had been born of vile magic, the rain dissipated, the clouds parted, and a shaft of light spilled across the battlement, shining on her face. Reva squinted into the brightness, unable to move or breathe or think.

Then a shadow came between her and the sunlight and a hand settled on her shoulder. “Your Highness! Are you alright?”

She blinked as a face came into focus. Rency leaned over her, grinning like a fool. She allowed him to pull her into a seated position.

“You slayed the beast, you darling girl!” He waved a hand toward the place the kraken had once been. “I’ve never seen anything like it—the way you—the way you—I can’t believe you did that for me. I would have been squished like a bug by that vile monster. I knew you cared.”

When he winked at her, Reva groaned. “Didn’t do—for you—” She waved him away and drew in a shuddering breath. “Go away—I need to catch—my breath.”

“Reva!” Jareth called her name, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, gulping in huge mouthfuls of air. Considering the fact she hurt pretty much everywhere, Reva knew she’d sustained injuries, but when she tested her arms and legs, everything moved like it should.

Reva stilled, however, when she noticed the black substance coating her skin and clothing. Kraken blood? She wiped at the front of her tunic with her free hand with no success.

“Here.” Crouching beside her, Rency fished a handkerchief from his pocket and grabbed her chin firmly. She squirmed as he roughly wiped her face.

“That better have been a clean handkerchief,” she muttered when he finally released her.

He smirked and reached for her hand, the one still clutching the death pearl. Reva growled his name.

The pirate’s gaze flew to hers, his fingers hovering just over hers.

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