Page 111 of Tethered In Blood

I didn’twantto go toward the sound. I couldn’t explain why, but Ihadto.

Each step felt heavier. The fog pulled me back, whispering that I didn’t belong here. That this place, this moment, wasn’t meant for me. Still, I followed the voice, legs stiff with dread, until I reached the furthest dock that disappeared into the thickest part of the fog. The pier’s edge was indiscernible, swallowed whole by the pale gray curtain that rolled in from the sea. Everything beyond it felt muted, like I had stepped into a world half-asleep, half-submerged.

They might have found something. Maybe that was why they were here. Perhaps they followed a trail I missed.

The mist became denser. It slithered around my legs like fingers in thin, damp tendrils that crept up my heavy and cold skin. My breath fogged the air, and the familiar smell of salt and wet wood filled my lungs, but beneath the comfort of the sea was rot.

It wasn’t the sour tang of spoiled fish or stagnant tidewater. It was more profound, denser, and more elduven. It was like something had died beneath the waves and continued to rot there, hidden just below the surface. A sickness tainted the air, faint but persistent, threading through the fog like poison. It settled on my skin, soaked into the fabric of my clothes, and seeped down into the marrow of my bones.

Decay filled my mouth with each new breath I took. The silence was broken by the brittle creaks of my boots on the old planks as the water below lapped against the pylons. It should have been a comforting, familiar sound. Steady and reassuring. Predictable. Yet the hairs on my arms prickled, and my fingers tightened on the leather of my journal.

A figure, half-formed in the mist, stood farther out than it should have been possible.

My heart lurched.

“Oberon?”

I squinted and leaned forward, but he wasn’t on the dock, perched on one of the fishing boats, or leaning against a piling. He stood on the water.

Or… did he?

My breath slowed, my heartbeat loud in my ears. Maybe there was a rock beneath the surface. A sandbar I was unaware of. Perhaps it was Fae magic that Oberon hadn’t mentioned—anything to explain why he appeared so impossibly poised above the shifting tides.

The fog swirled and thickened around his form with a deliberate, slow rhythm. The weight of the air pressed down as it breathed. The way he stood was so still, too rigid. His posture was unnatural. He waited.But for what?

My stomach churned as the first tremor of genuine fear slipped into my chest.

“Sinclaire!”

His name tore from my throat with desperation. It shattered the silence in the way only true terror can. The waves continued to lap against the pylons. A single gull cried out in the distance, the sound thin and far away.

But the figure didn’t move.

The air shifted again. Thicker now. Denser. Like it had heard me and was listening.

I swallowed, trying to overcome the dryness in my throat. My boots creaked on the damp dock as I took another cautious step forward.

“Oberon!”

His head jerked back, snapping too far, too fast. A puppet’s head yanked by invisible strings and without the grace of muscle or control. A cold jolt slammed through me, and I stilled. My breath became trapped in my throat, locked behind my ribs. My body refused to move, function, or breathe.

Slowly, the figure tipped its head to the side. Not like Oberon, but like something that mimicked him, playing at being him and chilled my bones.

Blue eyes flickered with an ethereal glow in the dim light. Their light seared through the fog. A pulse slithered through my nerves like a knife dragged across my skin. It wasn’t just the horror of the sight, but the wrongness that bypassed logic and language, going straight to instinct.

The wind shifted, carrying the sharp smell of salt and decay. The figure stood there, waiting, with the stillness of a predator’s patience. Its gaze clung to me as if it could see inside of my soul.

The world had gone silent. The sea had stilled, and the birds had vanished. The dock beneath my feet felt suspended between life and death.

My stomach lurched.

Run.

RUN!

My breath was ragged and shuddered through my lips, body locked in place, frozen by fear. Every nerve screamed at me to move, but my limbs, rooted in place, refused to budge. Then the figure’s mouth opened with an unnatural, wrenching stretch. A scream erupted in a cacophony of drowning, gurgling, and wailing voices.

The scream echoed across the pier, tore through me, burrowed into my ribs, and crawled up my spine with icy, rotten fingers. It was suffering. Despair. It was death dragged from the throats of a thousand lost souls and forced into the air. It ripped the breath from my lungs and left me gasping. My chest constricted as if the air had been stolen from me.

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