Page 58 of The Eighth Isle

Hansil was already dead.

The sisters said something to Syra, but I couldn’t hear it, wouldn’t have heard anything even if I’d had ears or if I was on that beach with them.

I was just as paralyzed as Syra had been to see the blood coming out of her, from between her legs. I was just as paralyzed as she had been when the sisters got back in the water, leaving her alone with Hansil’s remains, bleeding all over the rocks.

She sat up, Syra, both hands over her stomach, looking at the blood staining her thighs, then at Hansil, then her stomach once more.

That’s when she screamed again, and this time I heard it all as if I was standing right next to her. I heard it all and I felt her pain and I blacked out wherever I was, in whichever state she’d put me in, because the next thing I saw was her kneeling near Hansil’s body.

Reaching for that piece of his heart trapped in his ribcage.

Touching his face.

Then swallowing.

The next image in front of my eyes was of how her rage boiled the ocean, and her fists slammed onto the rocks.

Ennaris will fall.

The words were in my ears, even though I couldn’t hear her voice nor see her face. But those words were stuck in my head anyway, and only days later, Ennaris was no more.

Fourteen

I tried to breathe,but it was so difficult to do when I had a nose now. I had a throat and lungs and a heart that was beating everywhere, and a body that was shaking so badly.

I had a body to feel with and eyes full of tears and a voice—and I could hardly recognize it. I could hardly recognize my sharp intakes of breath and the small screams I let out involuntarily in between.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re okay,” Grey kept saying, his arm under me, his hand on my cheek, his lips right over me. “You’re okay. It’s okay…”

But it wasn’t.Nothingwas okay, nothing at all. The images played in my head, and I wanted to throw up but couldn’t and I wanted to pass out but couldn’t and I wanted to forget—but instead I remembered every single detail.

The siren sisters and their blue magic slipping inside Syra’s body.

The blood coming out of her.

The way she screamed.

“That’sthe real story for you, lovely,” said Syra now, and she was close, too close. Even Grey was surprised, which was why hetook me in his arms and stood up to back away, wings spread, fangs extended.

“Stay the fuck away from us!” he shouted at her, but Syra couldn’t care less. She ignored him and looked at me, at my wide eyes and open mouth, smiling because she knew. She knew exactly what I’d seen, what she’d showed me.

“They took everything from me because they were jealous. Because I found a way to live without eating human flesh, and they didn’t dare to try to do the same.”

“Oh, God,” I choked because it couldn’t be. The story she told me, the one I’d heard before—all of it was starting to come together, to make a little bit of sense, and I couldn’t take it.

“Fall, are you okay?” Grey whispered, backing away toward Storm slowly, but it didn’t matter, did it?

“I am,” I told him and touched his cheek. “Put me down.”

“No, we?—”

“It’s okay, Grey. Put me down.” Because even if he tried to fly us away, we wouldn’t make it. She would never let us leave.

My feet touched the ground, but he held me by the waist still, and I was thankful for it. My legs couldn’t carry me just yet.

“You were…you were…” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t fucking say the word out loud.

“Pregnant, yes,” Syra said, and it was like I was seeing the entire scene all over again. That beach—that fucking beach. And those sirens. All that blood…

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