Page 61 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

Shay caught my wince. “What aren’t you telling us?”

The black horse took that moment to shift, his shadowy form becoming a man as if he was folding into existence from nothing. “What do you know?” Tor’s eyes blazed with anger. “Are there undine on this path? Does your uncle lay in wait of any that might pass through here?”

I untangled my hand from Rainn’s before holding up my hands, palms facing out, in a disarming gesture. “I don’t know anything about that.” My gaze darted over each of the men.

“But you know something,” Tor continued to advance.

“You’re scaring her,” Rainn snapped, putting himself between the Kelpie and me.

I snorted derisively, but it was an act. “As if I’m scared ofTormalugh.”

Tor’s typically expressionless face pulled into a smirk that I didn’t like. “Try it, little girl.”

I bared my teeth, but there was no heat in it.

Shay, ignoring our squabble, moved closer to the entrance. “What are we not seeing?” he whispered to himself.

I wanted to tell them so badly—the water was wrong here. It screamed that we should turn around and run away. Something nefarious lived in the Whispering Pass, and it washungry. I only hoped its hunger meant it hadn’t eaten Cormac and his guards.

My tongue felt like lead when I tried to swallow. The guilt was too heavy.

Cormac had saved me once; I couldn’t just leave him in there.

There would be no reason to believe me if I did explain my way with the water. I hadn’t reached my magical majority, and the only reason I knew that the feelings weren’t my imagination was because of my time on the High Throne—but I couldn’t say any of that.

Regardless of how much I despised my uncle and would never be allowed to return to Cruinn, it had been my home for many years. How many people would die if I started spilling the secrets of the undine?

Too many had already been killed because I had led the princelings to the Frosted Sands.

“We should go in.” I jutted my chin and met Tor’s eyes. “Perhaps the path is blocked.”

It wasn’t a lie exactly, but it wasn’t the truth.

Somewhat soothed by my willingness to join them on the Whispering Pass, Tor nodded, appeased.

Rainn reached for my hand again.

“Don’t trust me not to run?” I joked.

Rainn slanted a look my way. “I think there is something you aren’t telling us.”

“The things you don’t tell me could fill this lake.” I smiled bitterly. “I’m just a captive, remember.”

Shay snorted from further along the path. “Keep telling yourself that, and you might start believing it.”

The foreboding feeling did not get better as we swam further into the pass. It grew with every moment until I choked on it.

Though the princelings had not seemed bothered by any sort of negative energies, even they began to feel it as we traveled the whispering pass.

It wasn’t until we had been swimming for almost an hour that we saw evidence that Cormac had passed through with his guards. A ruby scale on the sand and blood smeared on a protruding rock as if a merman had gotten caught on the jagged edge of the chasm.

The lake bed was uneven, with several large gouges. I couldn’t tell if the patterns were because of the falling sand or because someone had been dragged away.

“Should we keep going?” I asked.

Shay bent down to retrieve the scale. He held it up, turning it over in his hands. “You were right.” Shay frowned as he studied the scale. “The group was accosted.”

“What do you think happened?” Tor frowned, deliberately not looking my way.

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