Page 76 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

“Cormac already did.”

“Good.” Tor nodded staunchly. Stepping back and leaving me cold.

Tormalugh’s eyes caught on the blanket in my hands. A myriad of emotions crossed his face before settling on a sort of understanding that both frightened and intrigued me. I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but I knew we didn’t have that sort of relationship. Every time I opened my mouth, it seemed to make at least one of the princelings mad.

I blinked and rested my head on the stone as I waited for the guard to arrive and for whatever punishment would come when they found Tormalugh in my cell, but when I opened my eyes. I was alone, save for the warmth that clung to Rainn’s blanket.

I woke up to someone banging against the bars of my cell, the sound harsh enough and loud enough to make my head ache and remind my body that I was exhausted and hungry.

I squinted through tired eyes at the guard in front of my cell. I hoped it was the grizzled and scarred older guard, but no such luck.

Eldun.

“Good morning.” The younger merman tapped his trident against the bars. “Rise and shine. Don’t sleep the day away.”

I blinked. “Don’t have anything better to do with your time?” I drawled, brushing my hands against the blanket around my legs.

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at my hands. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

My fists clenched the fabric as if I could use it as a shield. I did not answer the guard.

“Maybe I should check your cell for contraband,” Eldun continued, swimming closer to the bars and laying his trident in the spaces between them. “Prisoners don’t get blankets.”

“I’m a prisoner?” I replied dumbly, cocking my head to the side. “I thought I was on vacation. Is this not a lodge in the mountains?” Despite my sarcasm, my voice dripped with sweetness and confusion.

The guard bared his teeth and reached for his hip, pulling the keys free from their chain. His fingers fumbled with anger as he opened the door and swam inside, somehow looking bigger than I had expected him to in the small space.

A lump rose in my throat, and I could feel my heartbeat through my gills as my body realized how scared I was before my mind caught up. I was not a stranger to pain, and I wasn’t a stranger to males that believed that force was the best way to get respect from someone smaller than them.

Eldun’s trident was as tall as he was and made of a dark metal that matched the bars of my cell. It was not iron, which was the only thing I could think to be thankful for in that moment, but that didn’t mean it would be any less painful if he decided to swing the weapon and hit me with it.

I did not move; there was nowhere to go in the cell as the merman took up most of the space. Eldun had no hair on his head, and when his nostrils flared and his lips pulled back, the skin on his forehead wrinkled enough that I could only study him with detached curiosity.

“I’m going to make you pay for those smart comments,” Eldun snarled.

“Oh?” I cocked my head to the side, affecting Tormalugh’s patented dispassionate stare. “So, you think I’m smart?”

The guard roared as he swung the trident, and it glanced off the stones, causing a shower of sparks that dissolved in the water.

I rolled to the side, enthused with energy that I wasn’t aware I had, and bundled the blanket to my middle as I made myself as small as possible.

The trident slammed into the wall where my head had been a moment before, and the stone crumbled. I quickly glanced at the guard as I scrambled on all fours away from the corner. My feet slipped on the rock as I struggled to gain enough momentum to swim away.

I was going to die. I was sure of it.

Eldun adjusted his grip to swing the trident, and I could only pray to Belisama that I made it past the merman and to the open doorway. I made it to the corridor with Eldun on my heels.

I didn’t think twice as I swam for it, my webbed feet slicing through the water fast enough that my exhausted muscles began to burn. I swam for the only exit I had seen, the iron bars that guarded the dungeon.

The closer I got to the iron, the sicker I felt until my vision swam in front of me.

With one arm tucking the blanket to my middle, I grabbed the bars and hissed when my hand blistered when I made contact with the iron.

The guard was on my heels, his trident heavy enough that it took him a moment to reach me. Eldun laughed when I turned to face him, the bars poisoning the water around me until my gills spluttered, and I struggled to breathe in such close proximity to the iron.

The merman seemed unaffected as he smirked, transferring his trident from one hand to the other. “Give me the blanket,” Eldun said, flashing his fanged teeth. “And I may let you live.”

Too much iron was in the water, and my lungs wouldn’t inflate properly. Some baser part of my mind reached out and connected with the lake. Begging and pleading with the water for help. I didn’t know if the lake would answer, but I had to try.

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