Page 1 of The Eighth Isle

One

Somethingabout the voice of a siren. It slipped into my ears like a living thing and invaded my mind, the echo of it the only thing I could think of for a little while.

Or maybe it was that word she said—that name. Hansil, and she was looking at Grey.

Still looking at Grey.

Stillsmilingat Grey, my Grey.

A feeling worse than any I’d ever had before settled under my skin, taking the shape of me. Molding with me as if it was there to stay. As if it didn’t plan to leave me anytime soon.

Then Sedelis laughed.

Such a shock to hear a sound other than the voice of Syra echoing in my head. Such a shock to realize the three of us weren’t alone in this cave, but the people who’d awakened her were here with us, too.

Genevieve, Grey’s own mother, who had been plotting her revenge for her stolen life for decades.

Sedelis, the siren sister who’d been walking on the water of that glowing pool as she chanted for Syra’s awakening.

The Great White, the enormous dragon with white scales and turquoise eyes, frozen in place with his jaws wide open and his claws spread as he was about to squash Sedelis. He looked more like a statue than real. I’d summoned him myself from his sleep in hopes of stopping Sedelis in time, but I’d been too late. Too fucking late.

And Valentine.

He was there still, terrified as he looked at Syra, who was distracted by the laughter of her sister, too, and was now looking atherinstead. Not Grey. NotmyGrey, who was by my side, never even blinking his eyes for fear he’d miss something.

I wrapped my shaking hand around his arm. He turned to me, and…I saw it.

My God, I saw the resemblance, just as I had the first time. He looked so much like Hansil Knight, especially with the longer hair that I hadn’t wanted to cut off.

Now, I wished I’d carved him a new face somehow because that awful—awfulfeeling inside me made it so hard to breathe.

Grey nodded his head back, to our left, toward the nearest exit of the cave, and I understood. We needed to get the hell out of here. We needed to leave the Eighth Isle right now.

So we started to retreat slowly…

“I’ve waited for this moment for hundreds of years, sister dearest,” Sedelis said, and Syra flinched at the sight of her smile on that ugly, distorted face. Actually flinched.

“What happened to you?” she whispered and looked down at herself, like she was suddenly surprised that she had a voice to speak with, a body of her own. She curiously looked at her hands, then touched her face to make sure that she didn’t look like Sedelis, too—and she didn’t. Far from it.

She might be the most beautiful thing to have ever existed in the world.

Sedelis’s laughter turned bitter. “Youhappened to me, Syra,” she spit, stepping onto the water’s surface again, and just like before. She didn’t sink—she just walked on water like it was concrete. “Do you see me? Do you see what I’ve been reduced to?Thisis what I look like now.” And she waved her hand at her face.

Syra rose on her knees atop that rock, shaking her head, her eyes moving to Grey again and again, and she ignored me completely. She ignored everyone else, but at least she wasn’t smiling anymore.

No—with every passing second, she looked more and more…afraid.

“You…y-y-you…” But she couldn’t even finish speaking.

“You ruined everything,” Sedelis said, her voice filled with so much hatred it coated the air like magic. “You ruinedus!”

My God, the look on Syra’s face as she shook her head. She slowly raised her hands up, took her hair in her fists and pulled.Hard.

“No, no, no, no…”

I could almost see the memories coming back to her, the story, just like I’d seen in the Storyteller at the Faerie Bazaar, making sense to her little by little.

“Yes, you did. You ruined everything, Syra. You ruined Ennaris and its people,” Sedelis continued, going closer and closer.

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