Page 29 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

Every sound was too loud. Every scent was enough to turn the stomach.

The coppery tang of blood. The salt of the lake and the burnt scent of magic as it warmed the air. There was no way back to the water.

Moira and I saw the trees that lined the edge of the Frosted Sands, but they were sparse. The area was unknown—the only knowledge of our sacred migration and mating lagoon came from nostalgic Sídhe that waxed poetic about the blue waters and the starry sky.

The water had been pitch black in the darkness, save for the watery reflection of the moon—but as I caught a glimpse of it, the lake ran red with the blood of my kin.

I prayed that some of the undine made it, but the migration had not been completed. We had been attacked before any magic had come.

Our enemies knew what they were doing. They had attacked the youth. The weak ones.

Some of the male fae had taken to the water, fighting with their bare hands on the shore. Liam was one of them.

Moira huddled in close. It was cold outside of the water, and our running slowed. My breath wheezed through my teeth. My endurance had been reduced to nothing—being on land was a different beast altogether. My limbs were made of wood, and my head swam.

We escaped the worst fighting, though Moira and I were not the only undine driven inland. Fallen bodies lined the path, with holes in their backs that matched the tridents the Merfolk liked to use. The crashing sound of weapons, grunts of pain, and weeping grew quieter. I tried not to look back. I tried to keep moving, but I stumbled. Moira hooked her arm under mine but was not strong enough to drag me further.

“Come on,” she murmured. “We have to keep moving.”

My ankle throbbed. “Give me a moment.”

“We don’t have a moment, Maeve,” Moira hissed. “They’re going to kill us both.”

Hanging my head, I heard the truth in her words, and I forced myself to stand with a pained grunt. I took several steps without complaining, doing my best not to lean on Moira too much so that I didn’t hurt her.

Moira looked over my shoulder, back to the beach. “No. No. No,” she whispered as she began to tremble.

“What?” I kept my voice so quiet that even I couldn’t hear it.

“I don’t see Liam.”

“We have to keep moving,” I repeated her words back to her.

She heard the truth in my words, so she didn’t argue.

We trudged from the Frosted Sands, a place that had been a safe haven for the undine for thousands of years. Sacred and enchanted so that no intruders could find the lagoon and the beach peppered with frozen snow.

The Twilight Lake, our home, used to be connected to the Dark Sea—but the rivers had long since dried up, leaving only a tiny estuary behind. The knowledge of the path belonged to the undine, and its difficulty to reach without aid was what had kept it hidden from our enemies.

Even in times of peace, the other fae species had not known about the Frosted Sands.

Every time I closed my eyes for more than a second, I saw the blood of my kin splayed on the snow. I heard their screams ringing in my ears.

My feet ached with every step as the trees grew thicker and the air froze. As we journeyed deeper into the Night Court, I thanked Belisama for every step we took away from the bloodshed.

Moira’s eyelashes looked like icicles, and my ankle had swollen to twice its usual size when we finally decided to stop.

The blood wine I had drunk hours before was a memory, and my throat was dry. My stomach was emptier than it had ever been. I wanted to sink to my knees and sob.

“Just a little bit longer,” I urged myself.

“It’s a steep drop.” Moira shivered. “The path looks overgrown. Do you think it’s safe?”

I couldn’t answer her. “I see a cave. There’s snow. There are only a few flakes now, but a storm might be coming. We need to get warm.”

“Weneedto find water.” Moira’s teeth clattered. “How many undine made it back to Cruinn, do you think?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to tell her the truth. That I suspected that we were the last left of our peers.

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