Page 59 of Siren's Treasure

Screeching with rage, Scylla snatched him back with a massive tentacle ringing with her garish jewelry. And with a hateful cackle, she dunked Raggon beneath the surface of the water. She’d drown him like a rat! “Now look what I shall do, Circe! I have your pet… you will not win your little game, sister!” His struggles were weakening, bubbles breaking around him.

With a desperate cry, Thessa angled her wrist and drove Undine’s Blade into the fleshy underside of Circe’s tentacle where it gripped her waist. The blade sank into the appendage with a sickening squelch. The answering scream pierced her ears. Another crimson tentacle grabbed her, coiling around her, round and round.

Thessa’s heart hammered against her ribs, feeling these living bonds crush slowly inward, each labored breath sending shock waves of pain through her chest. She fought through her dizziness. “Tobias!” she whispered, not knowing where he was, just that he was the only one who could save them. “Tobias, please!” Everything was going black. “Find a way to save Raggon!”

A roar shook the very air. She sagged in agonized relief. That meant the muzzle was off! Raggon stood a chance. Tobias’s flight raised a wind that tossed her red hair as he dove past her. She watched in horrid fascination as his chest expanded to twice its size, throat glowing from within like a blacksmith’s forge before he unleashed a stream of blue fire at Scylla, searing through several of her tentacles at once.

The Sea Witch recoiled with a howl. Raggon broke the surface, coughing and sputtering.

Circe’s triumphant cackle rose above the chaos. Her sister didn’t stand a chance against her now. Her tentacles severed and burning, Scylla shrieked out her final resistance, fighting back like a harpooned whale, thrashing through the waves. The grip on Thessa slackened as Circe concentrated on her sister.

Scylla wouldn’t last long. And with her gone? Thessa would be released from their bargain—and father would still die!She had only moments before the sun disappeared completely. Already darkness stretched across the water, the final sliver of sun clinging desperately to the horizon.

Thessa’s gaze locked on the shell necklace at Circe’s throat. Just beneath it would be the witch’s heart—the true enemy of both her people and Raggon’s. Gathering the last bit of her strength, she threw her knees against Circe’s slack grip and wrenched herself free.

Father! Raggon! I do this for you!

She lunged forward, moving closer to danger, Undine’s Blade raised. The witch spun, sensing her movement. Her red eyes blazed as she sang out: “Are you still there? Poor dear…” Thessa’s stolen voice wrapped around her in the chains of its melody. “Did you think my sister’s death has liberated you? Worthless maid!” Circe’s face was inches from Thessa’s, her breath hot and fetid with malice. “Pierce thy vessel of mortal flesh, let crimson bloom where life once dwelled.” Her voice rose in its horrid pitch, each note a hook that embedded itself deeper into her will. “Turn that blade on yourself, sea daughter.”

Thessa’s arm began to move on its own, the blade turning slowly toward her own chest. She fought against the compulsion with all the strength left in her, screaming through clenched teeth. If she could resist until the sun set completely, she might at least have the power of the sylph. She could defeat this witch…

“Thessa! Fight her voice!” Raggon’s desperate shout cut through the siren’s spell. He was out there, so near, but not close enough. Her arm was a slave to Circe’s powers.

“I’m sorry!” she cried. The witch’s smug grin drifted over her.

And then he was there, materializing like seafoam given sudden form, his body solidifying from mist to man in the space between heartbeats, a shield between her and the blade. His back crashed against her with terrible finality, his weight driving her backward.

Instead of the agony from the blade’s sharp tip, she felt something else entirely sickening tear through her and shatterher heart as the blade found its mark between his ribs. Thessa’s grief-stricken scream mingled with Circe’s shriek of fury.

The metal sang at the taste of his royal blood.

Raggon gasped for breath, a strange halting sound that was half agony, half relief. His shaking hand lifted toward Circe’s shocked face. “You took everything…” he rasped. His pinky caught at the shell necklace, and with a fading growl, he tore it from her neck.

The shell shattered against the sand amidst Thessa’s scream, forcing a rush of power surging up her throat, transforming her ragged voice mid-cry into something richer, fuller—her true voice flooding through her like water returning to a dried-up seabed. Thessa caught him as he collapsed into her arms. “Raggon!”

His eyes closed. “You can’t have her, Circe,” he breathed.

The sun slipped below the horizon, darkness washing over the sea like spilled ink, seconds after the glittering mermaid hair had faded. The hilt had disappeared too. After finding the heart of the enemy and completing its dreadful fate, the blade had returned to her father’s trident.

Father’s health would see a miraculous recovery, the merfolk and all those who walked on land were saved, and she’d lost everything.

A hot tear slipped down her cheek. Her restored voice carried her grief and rage.

Chapter twenty-six

“Wake! Wake!”

Her angel voice was enchanting, like crystal chimes carried on a sea breeze. Wait! Was he dead? Thessa was singing to him, and he felt… good.

There’d been something wrong with his chest, like it had been torn open, the heat of his blood had escaped him—far too much to take back. His life had slipped through his fingers.

But… he was at peace. He was with her.

His eyes opened, and he saw it was dark, the full moon hanging like a silver medallion in the velvet sky, its light casting a glowing halo around the delicate curve of her nose, accentuating the soft fullness of her lips as they moved in the beauty of her song. The moonlight turned the damp strands of her hair to liquid copper. “Are we in paradise?”

“Shh,” she whispered, though somehow the gentle sound became a part of her song, and he felt a smile tug up his lips, even as a glow of warmth moved through him, starting firstat his heart and spreading through every part of his body like sunlight penetrating deep water.

“Huh…” he whispered. “You’re not death. You’re… beauty.” Wait… did he say that? Maybe, he hadn’t entered the afterlife yet. He always felt like he’d be more silver-tongued in the blessed isles of the upper realms.

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