Page 47 of Of Song and Darkness

I smirked at her. “You don’t, but what other option do you have?”

She released my arm with a growl. “If you betray me, I will trap you and your precious Wraith inside one of my magic bubbles and take pleasure in each passing day as you wither away to nothing but bones.”

Maybe I was demented, but for some reason, that did not sound as bad as some of the death threats I’d received in the past.

“Then stop stalling and get me my ship.” I snarled in her face.

Her gaze angrily brushed down my body before she moved away from me. She held out her hand, and in a puff of purple smoke, a bubble appeared, the Wraith within it. My skin broke out in goosebumps with anticipation. I had waited my entire life for a ship like that and was finally about to receive it.

With an impressive arm, the sea witch threw the bubble into the swirling black sea. Knots of tension formed in my shoulders as I watched the bubble explode. Once the smoke cleared, there sat the Wraith in all its glory. It was massive and at least twice as big as my current ship. They had cut the bones of the leviathan into perfectly proportioned planks, which had an ivory color that contrasted starkly with the pitch-black water.

Dark Water slithered toward the ship, and I stepped near the railing to get a better view. It attempted to crawl up the side of the Wraith, but as soon as it touched the leviathan bones, it instantly disintegrated into powdery sea foam. Even with the sea witch scrutinizing me, I could not keep the victorious, hungry gleam from my eyes.

“I see that you are satisfied,” she mocked.

I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning against the railing. “Ecstatic.”

The sea witch slithered toward the edge of the ship, pulling her tangled mess of tentacles in her wake. “Good. Then get that locket and bring me that siren’s pretty little head.”

She jumped overboard, landing in the swirling Dark Water below.

I smiled to myself. “It will be my pleasure to go after that sea demon.” I turned toward the hull with a sense of anticipation and adventure drumming through me. “Look alive, men! Ready our supplies. We just commandeered a new rig!”

They scurried from below like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

The sun had already started its gradual descent into the ebony sea by the time we moved everything from one ship to the other, and it couldn’t have been a moment too soon. Dark Water quickly claimed my first ship, bending and snapping the wood until it sank beneath the deadly waves. A tiny thread of emotion wove its way through my body as I watched the mast slowly sink into oblivion. Where one chapter ended, a new one began.

“Our heading, Cap’n?” Cael’s deep voice interrupted the homage I was paying to my old ship.

I turned to face him. He smiled at the helm of our new vessel like the cat who had swallowed a canary.

The salt-laden wind picked up speed, whipping through our sails and dancing across my skin. “To the Mariana Trench.”

The home of the Dark Hydra.

Cael’s eyes glistened with mischief. “Which route are we taking?”

There were two options. We could go the long way, circling the entire continent of Africa, or take the shortcut through the treacherous passageway between Africa and Asia that would lead us straight into the Indian Ocean. That particular shortcut had claimed the lives of many sailors, and it lived up to its name.

My gaze flitted across the deck of the stunning Wraith, which hummed with power and superiority.

I ran my fingers through my unruly, wind-tousled hair, using a thin piece of leather to bind it out of my face. “Through Hades' Pass.”

Fatigue weighed heavily on all my extremities, the strain in my muscles surprisingly overriding the ache in my heart. I was nearing the Mariana Islands, which meant the waters were shallower and I could find a safe place to rest. I slowly made my way to the surface, pulling my tired body onto a dead coral reef that jutted above the water. Fragments of the once beautiful species crumbled beneath my fingers, falling to the ocean floor as I hoisted myself up. I hissed as my tail snared on a sharp, jagged piece, slicing through my delicate scales. I glanced down. It was only a minor scratch and nothing to worry about. I applied pressure to staunch the bleeding.

I inhaled a shaky breath. How much more of this could I handle? I had seen enough death and carnage the last few days to damage me for the rest of my life. Every time I closed my eyes for a moment’s rest, nightmares of Dark Water plagued my dreams.

The closer I got to the Dark Hydra, the worse the ocean became. This place was a wasteland. Any creature that was able to had fled Dark Water, and its evil devoured anything that couldn’t. The stench of death had permanently lodged itself in my nostrils, refusing to budge. I longed for a breath of fresh, salty air, especially if it was laced with masculine spices that smelled like a certain pirate captain.

Kai resurfaced in my thoughts, only enticing my anger. I shoved his tainted memory back into the recesses of my mind where he belonged. He and his crew were probably dead right now and no longer warranted my thoughts or concern.

I was also trying to ignore the fact that the closer I got to the Dark Hydra, the duller the necklace glowed. What had been a nearly blinding luminance was now nothing more than a flickering light that reminded me of a star about to burn out. If the evil here was too great for the small piece of Poseidon’s heart, we were all doomed.

A sizable form floating in the current a few feet away captured my attention, distracting me from my despair. What used to be a majestic great white shark was now a massive blob of bones and rotting flesh. I turned away from it, unable to stomach the horrid sight. Goosebumps prickled on my skin. The once notable predator of the sea was no match for the wickedness that seized the ocean.

A disturbance in the water snapped my attention back around, and fear flooded my entire body. The shark’s carcass bobbed up and down in the water like a fisherman’s cork. Something was trying to yank it underwater. I snatched my tail from the water, drawing it protectively around my body, making myself as small as possible. What horror could possibly survive in Dark Water?

With one last powerful tug, the shark’s corpse vanished entirely into the depths of the inky black waves. The only evidence that the body was ever there was a slight ripple in the water’s surface. The eerie silence that followed was unbearable. The chill of foreboding swept over me, like icy fingers tracing down my spine.

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